# GM moves
## When to use GM moves?
Though Charge may be an improvisational game based on the players’ action, it doesn’t mean that, as a GM, you should be completely reactive. You have ways to act whenever it makes sense, depending heavily on the fiction and the tone of the game. To borrow from Powered by the Apocalypse, there are soft GM moves and hard GM moves you may do when they are necessary. Either :
- As a `Consequence` from your players' bad rolls (since a GM move can correlate with one of the already existing consequences)
>_Alice rolled badly to try and force the door open. As a consequence, the GM decides to **reveal an unwelcome truth** : someone is quickly approaching._
- Whenever it makes narrative sense. Maybe your players are being too slow, maybe they're trying the wrong thing.
>_The players have spent too long deciding what to do and walking around aimlessly, so the GM decides to **create a new problem** and encourage the players to investigate or react to it. In fact, the GM could even **give the enemies the opportunity to strike first**._
## What are GM moves ?
Soft GM moves are basically a way to **set up your players’ actions**, either through questions or through situations, they encourage, or even force, your players to react. They don’t usually lead to determination rolls. A soft GM move might be revealing an unwelcome truth about the world at large, or it might be telegraphing a Hard GM move. A plot hook may be a soft GM move.
>_Bob had just learned of the bad guy's nefarious plan: he wants to cancel the village fair by kidnapping the mayor's daughter! Now, what will he do?_
>
>_Charlene is currently running away from the cops, and she can hear sirens in the distance. If she doesn't start running right now, she will definitely get caught!_
On the other hand, Hard GM moves are `Consequences` inflicted outside of any rolls, and maybe outside of any player input. They are usually set up beforehand or telegraphed through soft GM moves or narrative truths.
> _Davis is caught up in the middle of a bar brawl where chairs and glasses are flying, and he decides to ignore it by going up to the barman and asking for a drink. It would only make sense that he would be risking a hit in the face._
>
>_Instead of saving the mayor's daughter, Bob's friend Emily has gone on a sidequest to save a kitten stuck in a tree. Though she may have succeeded in that sidequest, this has led to the bad guy's plan advancing to the next step._
The way these specific moves are handled are very tone-dependent : in the same setting, a move might be a soft move, a hard move, and if it is a hard move, it might be able to be resisted or not.
Grim settings are full of moments where things are outside of the character's control : these are perfect moments to use GM moves.