Aaaand I just realized I wrote this in the Maelstrom thread and not the 7-9 thread, where there’s also some confusion. Let me respond to this thread now.

Again, no formal ritual. But there’s a ritualistic quality.

Them: Okay! I open my brain about where Balls might be. (Rolls dice, gets an 11). Hey an 11, sweet.

Me: Let me look at the move again for a second. (I don’t need to, I’m just buying time and drawing out the moment.) New and interesting! I can do that. But first I have some questions for you.

Them: Okay, shoot.

Me: (I look at the relationship map, touch things I’m thinking about, which makes them think about it. Find the thing I want to push on and I’ll tap it a couple times for emphasis.) Okay, Big Mike. Why do you dream about the sea?

Them: (They sit there a bit and come up with a good answer. I wait super patiently.) Beeeecause that was the last time I was with my dad. We were at the sea.

Me: (ask a couple followups, setting emotional hooks for later.) Okay, cool, thanks. So you were asking about Balls….

I mean there’s nothing formal about the process at all, but there’s some theatricality to the whole thing. I refer to my OP on the topic, about how I treat the Maelstrom as a separate character and me, the fourth-wall-breaking facilitator, as its friendly face.

The r-map is a huge part of my GMing theater. It dominates the table. It demands everyone’s attention. I’ve talked at length about this stuff before. Anyway! When it’s time for the Maelstrom to go fucking around with the characters, there’s lots of very deliberate blurring of me and the maelstrom, and the players and their characters. I’ll confuse the names sometimes — Okay Spencer I MEAN BIG MIKE — or whatever.

It’s such a completely natural and normal thing it feels weird to write this out in such detail. The only thing I can say that might not be “natural and normal” is a heightened awareness I have, going into the Maelstrom stuff, that there’s a ritualism to it all. We’re not jumping from scene to scene. I’m not maintaining spotlight equity around the table. I’m not making moves. It’s a very specific and special moment between me and them, and it’s not one I just do because the rules of Apocalypse World are explicit about when these conversational topics may take place.