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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8417758" data-attributes="member: 6696971">There are two ways to unpack what "charged" means when Vincent Baker uses it:1)  The generic way which is shorthand for "charged with conflict."  You will find this in Dogs in the Vineyard.  This just mean that someone wants something out of this situation and some other one or some thing is out to deny them it.  What does a climber want?  They want to ascend.  What does the peak want?  It wants the climber to fail...and maybe to send a message to future climbers.  Same thing in any other matrix.  What does the addict really want?  To quit the habit.  What does the habit want?  To maintain the status quo (another drink/hit won't hurt!).2)  The Apocalypse World specific way:AW 97Oversee character creation. Answer questions. Open this book to the character creation chapter but put bookmarks in the characters’ movesand crap chapters.Go around for introductions, do the Hx thing, highlight stats.Then I’d just say it outright to your players: “your setup’s easy and now you’ve already done it. Mine’s harder so I’m going to take this wholesession to do it. So no high-tension kick off from me, let’s follow the characters around for a day and get to know them. Cool?”A couple of you groaned, I could hear you from way over here. Oh great, getting to know the characters, that’s a recipe for will anything everhappen? Following the characters around for a day and getting to know them, it could mean establishing a whole unwieldy mass of status quo, right?It could mean that but it doesn’t. Say it with me: there are no status quos in Apocalypse World.What it means instead: it’s your job to create a fractured, tilting landscape of inequalities, incompatible interests, PC-NPC-PC triangles, untenable arrangements. A dynamic opening situation, not a status quo you’re going to have to put your shoulder against and somehow shift, like pushing a futon up a ladder. No: an unstable mass, already charged with potential energy and ready to split and slide, not a mass at rest.What should your takeaway be from that?THE FIRST RULE OF APOCALYPSE WORLD IS THERE ARE NO STATUS QUOS IN APOCALYPSE WORLD.  If you're spending any real, consequential table time on a thing, it should be charged (with conflict); unstable, dynamic, not at rest.  Someone wants something and someone or some thing doesn't want to give that thing up.  So a PC wants something out of investigating this "crime" scene (maybe a PC came to a garage and its an important parley to resolve an evergrowing powderkeg...but its a bloody mess like in Reservoir Dogs).  What does the crime scene want?  It doesn't want to give up its secrets (that is what crime scenes want)!What does the possible causal agents of this mess want?  No witnesses?  Maybe they wanted everyone who was supposed to attend the meeting dead (oops...the PC showed up late)?What does the guy on the floor who is mostly dead want?  To live?  To pass on the secret of what happened to someone else before they breathe their last breath?What does the pool of gasoline on the floor want?  It wants to ignite by way of the precariously hanging, sparking light fixture that is ready to fall to the floor after the calamity.What does the picture on the dead girl's hand want?  It wants to be reunited with the family of this stranger so the ghost can rest.  And maybe the family has a relevant dark secret to tell...the picture wants that dark secret told.[HR][/HR]Fill the scene with charged conflict and awesome stuff.  People want stuff.  Other people/things don't want them to have the stuff.  Play to find out how this whole scene fits together and then wildly blows apart...as_you_play.</blockquote>

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