Make Your Move, but Misdirect

When you make a move—a specific thing you say happens—don’t say its name. Say what happens, say how it feels, say what the characters see or hear or experience—but don’t say exactly what move you just made.

Don’t say, “I just put innocents in danger!” Sometimes you still need to bring up the mechanical eﬀect of a move you made, like pointing out that you just took or gave Inﬂuence or inﬂicted a condition—but couch those changes in the fiction.

Say, “Oh man, you chuck that car at Rampage, but she just knocks it away. The car hits the fire truck dealing with the conﬂagration in the back and knocks it over. Without any more water on it, it’s like the fire comes alive—and you know there are still people inside!”

Don’t say, “Nano inﬂicts a condition on you.”

Say, “Nano taunts you, running through an almost itemized list of all your failures, and you can feel your blood boil—mark Angry.”