Hey Paul, I’m loving these posts. Regarding the hiccup: i know you didnt ask for feedback, but it triggered some thoughts in me that I’m trying to work out.

In my experience, player plans get screwed pretty often in AW. Early on as a player I had my ideas thrown out the window many times, cause there just isn’t much room for narrative handwaving or fictional ambiguity. That is, in the rules as written.

The GM and the players have to work out the level of detail they want to establish and hold each other to, I think. AW doesn’t do much to explicitly change the traditional GM role there, other than letting them ask specific questions of the players. So it’s really a negotiation to change that assumption.

As a GM, my personal preference is to leave plenty of wiggle room for the players to take advantage of, narratively and mechanically. If it’s too unclear for them, or they don’t want to take the lead, it comes down to me. Sometimes I’ll just openly ask what their intentions are so I can avoid blocking them, but sometimes the game traps me, tough luck. (Maybe as a player, I should try announcing my intentions as soon as possible so the GM and I can negotiate the fiction appropriately. Or at least I can get set straight early before wasting time on unworkable ideas.)