Like everyone else I'm going to have to talk about where I get my experience of Powered by the Apocalypse. Which comes from a friend's homebrew systems that have their own flare and oddities, but also seems to have side stepped some of the problems people have with the family of systems.

Anyways there are two things I would like to call out.

First, the system is pretty much always in narration mode. It stays in narration mode with people just saying what happens next until the MC decides to resolve something with a move. That is, there never is some larger turn structure (in any variant I've seen) in which players act, the story just keeps moving forward.

Second, have proactive characters. The setting is often at rest in a Powered by the Apocalypse system and so it falls to the PCs to decide what they want, go out and try to get it then get into trouble and there is the adventure.

To Tanarii: Wait, is there any philosophical issue here or is it just a language issue? Besides with GNS itself of course because... I think you know why. But with nearby works, like Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel, is it philosophy or language?