FICTIONAL HARM SYSTEM
I’ve posted on the Story-Games forum a piece of a larger PbtA fantasy project I would like to have feedback about.
Here:
http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/21322/unplayable-fantasy-pbta-fictional-harm-system
In this post I offer a heavily fiction first harm system meant to completely substitute DW health points and even AW harm segments, for both PCs and NPCs.
It’s supposed to make damage feel threatening and meaningful without necessarily making the PCs die like flies, while still allowing the GM to make other characters as fragile or resilient as needed.
The rest of the game system leveraging this core mechanic (moves, classes, etc) will come in future posts 🙂
http://www.story-games.com/forums/discussion/21322/unplayable-fantasy-pbta-fictional-harm-system
So… overall I like this.
I played in several pbta games and we used to get a lot of questions thrown ur way that would affect the world’s fiction.
Doing this with damage also seems net.
I like how you found an elegant way to keep the HP by renaming it Hardiness Points… 😆
Overall some will probably love this and others dislike it completely.
It will all depends on which side of the rules fence they stand.
Number crunchers versus theater of the mind. This being a pbta game I’m guessing most will find this novel and fun.
My only question is:
Why choose one effect for each damage braket?
If a player suffers a severe damage do he get 3 tags?
If this is the case it seems like it will stop the game for a while each time someone gets hurts.
Hope all of this is clear. English is not my 1st language.
I like how you found an elegant way to keep the HP by renaming it Hardiness Points
Thanks! 😀
Each damage category serves a different purpose.
The Nasty effects are simply situational conditions: you fall down, you lose an object, you are being held, etc.
The Serious effects are described as functional… a limb is unusable, a sense is numbed, the pain is an obstacle to be defyed, etc
The Deadly effects tell you in how much time you will die if help does not come.
Fictionally it just makes sense.
If a not-so-dangerous Nasty blow has enough force to put your ass on the ground…
Then stands to reason that Serious blow capable of breaking your ribs will ALSO make you hit the ground…
Then being hit by a speeding truck is a Deadly experience that will kill you in X time, break your ribs (and more, but we don’t need to know in detail, we just know it’s bad enough that you’ll die in X time), and you are definitely not standing up on your feet by now!
If you start from the fiction, the status effects are nothing more than what you would (should) be describing anyway.
They just help you keep in mind what the current fictional situation is.
One thing that is not mentioned in the rules…
The whole list of damage effects is present in your character sheet, with check boxes and all.
From my current tests, no, the game does not halt nor it slows down considerably when damage is dished out.
It happened with previous experimental versions of this system.
And it kind of happens a bit the very first time Players try out these rules.
But after a single combat scene, everyone is proficient enough that the game flows smoothly thereafter.
In my experience so far, at least 🙂
PS:
English is also not my first language. And you are perfectly clear 🙂