The Basics

The most important thing to keep in mind about moves is this: to do it, you do it. Every move has both a mechanical element—rolling the dice and charting the results as a full hit, partial hit, or miss, and then determining what happens based on the move—and a fictional element—you charge forward and punch someone, or you say something mean and provocative, or what have you. You can’t get one without the other! To do it, you do it.

No move ever triggers without the associated fictional action. Want to unleash your powers? You have to try something crazy with your abilities! Want to directly engage a threat? You have to throw yourself into thick of it and start tussling with the enemy! Want to pierce someone’s mask? You’ve got to be watching them for signs of what’s hidden beneath! Want to comfort or support someone? You’ve got to actually say something comforting or supporting to them!

Sometimes you’ll look at a move and say, “I want to do that thing.” You realize that what you really want to happen, right now, are the mechanical results of directly engage a threat, so you want to trigger that move. That’s awesome! But you don’t get to roll because you want to roll. You have to take some action in the fiction that triggers the move.

The GM, at the same time, is watching for moments when a move triggers. Sometimes you describe yourself doing something, and the GM tells you that it sounds like you’re triggering a move—and that’s awesome, too! If you like, you can focus on just saying what your character says or does, and rely on the GM to help call it out when you trigger a move. The final thing to keep in mind is that just because there’s no move for it doesn’t mean you can’t do it! Using moves is triggering these specific combinations of fiction and rules, but you can still do things in the fiction without a move behind it.

Rolling
Anything that instructs you to roll always refers to 2d6.

Any time you roll, a result of 7+ is a hit. 7-9 is called a  weak hit, and a 10+ is called a  strong hit. Any result of a 6 or less is a  miss.

Rolls will often be made with a modifier - no matter how many bonuses or penalties you have, your modifier for a roll can never be higher than +4 or less than -3.

Hold
Some moves describe your character getting "hold" as a result of the move, such as "hold 1" or "hold 3". These are temporary points that you can spend according to the move. Usually it must be spent within a given time frame such as a conversation or scene. If there is ambiguity, ask the GM for clarification.

Ongoing
Ongoing bonuses apply to all rolls you make to a certain situation. "Kid Zoom has +1 ongoing while using rollerblades to escape a villain."

Forward
A forward bonus is applied to only the applicable next roll you make, but not any further rolls. "Coldwave gains the upper hand in a fight and takes +1 forward to fight his opponent."