Hello again all, hoping for some enlightenment on something. Is there anything in the system for enemy NPCs to have hit points like Dungeon World?
Hello again all, hoping for some enlightenment on something.
Hello again all, hoping for some enlightenment on something.
Use a countdown clock.
From the Harm section on page 178:
—-
In general:
» 1 harm will take out a civilian unused to personal violence
» 2 harm will take out most security guards
» 3 harm will take out highly trained guards
» 4 harm will take out elite non-cybered warriors
Elite, cybered antagonists probably have names, full Harm Clocks, and may even be a fully developed Threat with their own set of MC moves.
—-
So NPCs do sort of have hit points.
Generally, no. I mean, yes, you could use a PC-style clock, as Jim suggests. But the game doesn’t really care much about that kind of thing. Dungeon World is a game about killing monsters – striking blow after blow until they’re dead – and in such a game, you need something like hit points.
By contrast, The Sprawl is not a game about killing everything in your path. This forum has seen a few discussions on the subject lately, and you’ll notice that there’s no basic move that involves directly harming an opponent – no equivalent to the Hack and Slash move. The move that comes closest (Mix it Up) instead talks about “when you use violence to seize an objective”. Violence is just a tool, and the game mechanics don’t much care whether that violence involved throwing a grenade into a crowded room, or if it just meant shooting someone in the leg.
So mostly, it comes down to fiction. Is it possible for the PCs to seize the objective, when you consider how they’re armed, and how any defenders are armored? If so, let them roll with it, and see what happens… if the defenders are well protected, they may simply be forced to withdraw rather than actually harmed (conversely, if the defenders are unarmored and the PCs are leading with frag grenades, it’s gonna get messy). If seizing the object isn’t plausible – because the PCs are shooting fletchette pistols at armored drones – well, sucks to be them… they’ve just given you good justification for making hard moves…
I completely agree with you Simon Geard, but it is still useful to know the harm capacity of NPCs. Play Hardball can result in NPCs taking harm if they choose to “suffer the established consequences”.
Chris Stone-Bush True, I’m overlooking Play Hardball. But I think that’s because in most cases where I’ve seen that come up, the harm capacity of an NPC has been irrelevant, because it’s either an obviously-fatal bullet in the head, or something relatively non-lethal like pinning their hand to the table with a knife. The question of “how much harm can they take?” hasn’t been needed.
Good point though, since not everyone is happy with playing things by ear to the same degree…
Again, I’m right there with you Simon Geard. The threat of violence from Play Hardball is probably either going to be something lethal regardless of who the target is, or something that won’t care about harm.
It’s one thing I like about this game, compared to more traditional cyberpunk systems. There’s no combat subsystem, where you spend half the session engaged in a round-by-round battle.
Violence simply becomes a tool to help achieve a goal – so instead of moves for killing someone, we have moves for bullying someone into doing what you want, and moves for forcefully removing obstacles… and they’re not inherently different from other choices like bargaining or stealth. We simply act, roll for it, then move on to what happens as a consequence.
Need to capture a guard post? Chuck a couple of grenades (stun or frag, your choice) through the vent, and Mix It Up to see what happens. Need to convince someone to talk? Threaten to knee-cap him, and Play Hardball to see if you have to follow through on it. Lots of action, but little fuss.
Simon Geard I disagree that the game doesn’t care about harm clocks.
If you choose to hand wave and fiat your way through violent encounters by ignoring proportional harm, that’s your choice but there is fictional justification for it to be present and honored.
Whether or not an NPC/PC is harmed changes the fiction. Just because you have a goal beyond “cold-blooded murder” doesn’t change the fact that choosing violence as an action has logical consequences/benefits.
A players choice to shoot someone in the leg to make them complaint blowing up in their face because their weapon is too powerful (fatally wounding the NPC instead) is supported by the mechanics of harm clocks for NPCs. It’s not necessarily up to the GM to magically hand wave the damage for the player at that point; let them deal with the consequences. Also let them find out they brought a “knife to a gun” through trial an error if they aren’t explicitly assessing the situation.
I didn’t get the impression that Simon Geard was saying the game didn’t care about harm clocks, Omari Brooks.
Omari Brooks
My point is that harm clocks are a feature for PCs – not for NPCs. That’s not to say that it’s unreasonable to use them for important NPCs, but doing so isn’t something discussed within the book.
Apart from the guidelines which Chris Stone-Bush quoted, the result of NPCs taking harm is almost entirely left to the fiction, not to mechanics… they don’t make Harm moves, don’t tick off boxes until forced to Acquire Agricultural Property.
It’s hard to use a hit point type system outside of the countdown clocks players get for NPCs. It took me a while to grasp that for PBTA stuff, but the idea is, if there’s a NPC with a vested interest in causing harm to the PC, it will happen as the fiction demands. “Combat” is dangerous in PBTA games and it should feel dangerous. If the guns come out, something went wrong.
Simon Geard I think I misinterpreted then. If you are referring to the specific 6 slot harm clock being used for most NPCs then I think we are on the same page that it’s unnecessary for most.
I still believe that NPCs should have different amounts of harm/armor ratings (similar to the guidelines outline in the book) so that PCs choosing violent resolutions can have the fiction react logically; or rather I’m not a fan of fiction were every challenge has the same chance of success. Sometimes things end up being more of a challenge than they appear on the surface. And sometimes player underestimating how much harm an NPC can take has interesting fictional consequences.
But I’m more into the sandbox style of play where no NPC/PC is sacred.
Omari Brooks
Just saying that by the book, NPCs don’t have rules for harm at all – just the guidelines quoted earlier, that 1 harm will take out the average person, and 4 harm will take out almost anyone.
So if you wanted to express it mechanically, you could say that a common NPC might have 1 “harm point”, and that an elite soldier might have 4 hp (plus armor to make them last longer). But the book doesn’t really talk in those terms.