Your GM moves

When it's time to make a GM move and you're not sure what to say, pick one of these and do it. These are your basic GM moves:

• ▸ Announce trouble (future or offscreen)
• ▸ Reveal an unwelcome truth
• ▸ Ask a provocative question
• ▸ Put someone in a spot
• ▸ Use up their resources
• ▸ Turn their move back on them
• ▸ Demonstrate a downside
• ▸ Hurt someone
• ▸ Separate them
• ▸ Capture someone
• ▸ Offer an opportunity (with or without a cost)
• ▸ Tell them the consequences/ requirements (then ask)
• ▸ Advance towards impending doom

These aren't technical terms. When you reveal an unwelcome truth, you just do that. You establish something in the fiction that the characters wish wasn't true. When you hurt someone, you say how someone gets hurt.

Your GM moves should inspire and empower you; they shouldn't constrain you. Use them when you're unsure of what to do, or when you're in a rut and want to change things up. Don't stress yourself making sure that every move you make matches something from this list.