Hard GM moves

Make a hard GM move when a PC...

• ... ignores a threat or trouble entirely; or
• ... triggers a move but rolls a 6- (and the move doesn't say otherwise).

Making a hard GM move means that you establish badness. Describe the consequences of the PC's actions. Say how things go wrong. Make the situation significantly worse. Pick a GM move from your lists Your GM moves or just say the obvious bad thing. "Ooh, a 5, huh? It's too fast! Before your knife clears the sheath, it's on you, WHOOMP, take a d6 damage and you're on your back, one of its claws is on your throat and the other is pinning your knife-hand by the wrist, what do you do?"

When they roll a 6-, your hard move will often involve the PC's action failing. Say (or ask) how it goes wrong and/or what the consequences are. But a 6- doesn't always mean that the PC's action fails. It means you establish badness. Maybe something bad happens before they can do their thing; maybe they do what they set out to do, but that causes (or reveals) something very bad indeed. The badness might not even be directly connected to the action they took—it could simply follow directly on its heels.

A hard move should always establish badness, but you decide just how bad it is. Use the situation, the fiction, the description of the player's actions, and so forth to inform your hard moves. Sometimes, a hard move isn't much worse than a soft one.