Make Hard Moves: Interview with Aaron King

We talked to Aaron King, the creator of Make Hard Moves, about their new hard-hitting zine, the dynamic power of PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse)-inspired moves both at the table and in our lives, and their recent livestream conversation with Apocalypse World creators Meguey and Vincent Baker. 

Hi, Aaron! Tell us a little about yourself and about your new zine. 

Hello! I write games and do a podcast about them (RTFM, Read the F*cking Manual, at rtfmcast.com) and work in the publishing industry as a lowly accountant. Since 2011, I’ve lived in Minneapolis, MN, one of the homes of RPGs. 

Make Hard Moves is a confluence of a few things:

• another entry in the storied attempts to explain running a game using the Powered by the Apocalypse philosophy, as originally created by Vinceny & Meguey Baker in their seminal Apocalypse World RPG
• a paean to quick escalation and tough choices in general in RPGs, giving characters a chance to shine in difficult situations
• a messy extrapolation of those philosophies toward real life, now made all the more messy and real by the murder of Renee Nicole Good by ICE in my city the morning we recorded the interview the Bakers (which is why I probably seem like a zombie in that recording) 
  

Where did the idea come from? 

The idea was all Tony’s! He approached me with a great outline, and I was happy to add meat to those fine bones. 

I think that Tony approached me partially for my, I’m gonna say, weird devotion to the move form, such as in Patchwork World, Reading the Apocalypse, and more (mostly free on itch.io). 

But one big reason I wanted to write it was to show how most PbtA principles are just a codification or explanation of RPG tactics that are pretty universal, from old school gaming to modern lyric games. There are always so many rifts in the RPG hobby/industry! But I think we all have a lot to learn from each other, and I think most of us are trying to say similar things but with slightly different terms. I hope Make Hard Moves calls in some folks who have felt alienated by story games in the past. 

What are some of your best memories from PbtA tables? 

I ran a years-long campaign for two friends for years. We started on a doomed generation ship using Apocalypse World, which went for 26 sessions. Then we did interstitial games of Sagas of the Icelanders, Babes in the Wood, and Monster of the Week. And we finished it all with a new campaign of The Veil. It was intense, personal, funny, and imaginative, and there are moments I’ll never forget. 

One probably sounds pretty mundane, but I want to highlight it here because I see people often say that PbtA games aren’t very tactical. The two players confronted a small gang of aggressors with an item they needed to recover. The combat played out like a fight scene from a great Western movie, with people tackled through windows down into basements, items grabbed and left behind, tactical cowardice, and so much more. 

It all highlighted how a well-written move will present players with choices that are all interesting, even when they’re drawbacks. “Fictional positioning” does not have to be abstract—it can put you tumbling down stairs, tackled into the mud, and bereft of your only weapon. 

If you’re curious about this style of play, you should check out Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast that has played PbtA games in a lot of their seasons. Particularly, I’d recommend episodes 01 and 02 of their Twilight Mirage season to get a taste of things. 

You recently talked to Meguey and Vincent Baker, creators of Apocalypse World. Did that shift your thoughts on PbtA?

I’ve been following both of them pretty closely for a while now—I love their work on Under Hollow Hills and The King is Dead, for instance—so I wasn’t necessarily surprised by anything they said. But it was very refreshing and affirming to hear how devoted they were to community and human interaction. It’s there in all their games and blog posts, but it was amazing to see them recall specific discussions going back fifteen and twenty years. They never hesitated to thank people who had helped them, and their kids were literally downstairs playtesting the new edition of Apocalypse World as we talked.

It truly feels like RPGs are a community and artistic practice for them, something they do every day in order to hone their voices and build spaces for people to experiment, grow, and have fun, and I always want to see more of that in the hobby and industry.

What are you hoping to see from PbtA (and adjacent) designers and play communities in the future? 

I hope game designers go buck wild. One criticism leveled at PbtA “communities” is that they’re too devoted to the rules as written or too willing to tell people that they’re playing PbtA games wrong. I don’t know if that’s true, but I hope no new designers feel shackled by earlier games. 

I want to see tactical PbtA games. I want to see PbtA as poetry and as technical writing. I want to see PbtA games advanced, and I want to see them dropped and abandoned and moved past. The world proves every day that we can’t completely predict the future, so I hope someone 10 years from now is reading this and laughing at my short-sightedness. 

What do you like to do when you’re not throwing down the hard-move gauntlet? 

Unfortunately, the hard move gauntlet has been thrown at my feet! People are being assaulted, kidnapped, and killed in my streets. So I show up to work and do my little hobbies, and outside of that I’m showing up at protests and vigils and bringing groceries to churches, barbers, pizza places, and sex toy shops who are redistributing them to families in need. 

I also like dogs and cooking and going for long walks. 

Make Hard Moves is available now and you can claim a digital copy for free throughout 2026. Want more Aaron King? Give Aaron a follow on Bluesky, listen to the RtFM Podcast, and check out their work on itch.