Getting ready to run the watch at Orccon in LA this weekend. I ran once last year with the playtest files. It went well but something I noticed was the references to characters dying and getting hurt. However, this did happen that much in the game I ran especially without there being an attack move. How do you handle harm outside of missions and where does most harm suppose to get generated?
/great question, reminding myself to comment when at a proper keyboard
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Mostly harm outside of missions comes from missed rolls – aka MC Moves – when appropriate. If the character is attempting something where injury could be the outcome and they flub the roll, one possible moves for the MC is to “Harm one or many”.
^ This!
But also, keep in mind that specifically mission Complications and failed Resist The Shadow rolls are great sources of harm. Some examples:
* For a mission Complication, Player X says that their PC got separated from the others. So as part of the narration, we establish that the fight happened in the evening in the pouring rain, and their character slipped off a ledge and into a ravine. That PC takes a harm for falling into a ravine.
* Player Y fails a roll to Resist The Shadow while they were trying to agitate a fellow squad mate against their commanding officer, played by Player Z. As MC, I narrate that they then go stab the commanding officer while she’s sleeping. Player Z’s PC takes two harm.
* Devastating Complications. It’s one I’d only use once or twice per campaign, but one option is ‘half of the party rolls Suffer Great Harm’.
Harm doesn’t fly fast or furious in this game. But if you play out a full campaign, it’s probable that you’ll have 2-4 instances where PCs roll to Suffer Great Harm, and if someone completely misses a roll they’ll usually choose character death.
Anna Kreider What if a PC wants to inflict harm on another character outside of a mission. How would you handle that?
Chris Czerniak I mean, ideally that should be an edge case scenario. There’s a reason why there’s no basic move for “do violence to a person” – because we didn’t want interpersonal violence to be a go-to solution.
However, if a player declares that their PC is going to inflict violence on another character (PC or NPC), that’s definitely toxic and first you need to have them roll to Resist The Shadow. On a hit, the violence doesn’t happen – although a partial hit might see them do or say something boneheaded or hurtful – because the PC understands that it was the Shadow’s influence that was impelling them toward violence. It’s only on a failure that that violence might still trigger, as a result of the Shadow taking over that PC.
That said! Just because the Shadow has taken over the PC doesn’t mean that the player’s original goal happens! Because honestly, as an MC I wouldn’t want to reward a missed roll with the thing that the player wanted in the first place. So my instinct would be to turn it a different way. Like “the Shadow takes you over and uses you to steal vital intelligence about troop placement and pass it on to the enemy” or “the Shadow takes you over and has you pass on bad intelligence setting up an ambush to the Watch Commander”.
However! Sometimes “be careful what you wish for” can be effective too – though I would add the caveat that this should be used sparingly because it gets boooorring if overused. Like, ‘you wanted to punch them because you’re mad but instead you get taken over and permanently maim them’. So IF they fail their Resist The Shadow roll and IF you decide that the best result is to have them inflict harm, and the targeted character is a PC or an NPC whom the other PCs want to protect, THEN the response would be Prevent Bloodshed and the situation would be resolved according to the results of the roll. And that would be that.
Under no circumstances should there ever be a situation where PCs resolve differences by trading harm for harm repeatedly. And if you find that PCs repeatedly reach for violence as a dispute resolution method, it’s best to step back and have a conversation about buy-in. If that player wants to explore giving into dark impulses, flaming out dramatically, and the consequences that it has for everyone around them – great (so long as the rest of the group is on the same page). But if they’re trying to solve problems with violence because they think that’s how problems should be solved in games, then The Watch probably isn’t a good fit for the player(s) in question.
Anna Kreider Thanks. That clears up harm for me.
Anna Kreider Hi, thanks for the commentary, which explains a lot to me. Although I fail to put it together with Unleash The Wolf. Does this PC roll Resist The Shadow regularly afterwards the move? For which circumstances is it meant for?
Lars Lo Depends on who it’s used on. If they use it to kill a sorceress in a non-mission scene (which is something I’ve seen), then no Resist the Shadow. But if they’re using it to settle personal vendettas, then hell yes you’d Resist The Shadow after.
Basically, it’s a trap for the players that also sometimes lets them be awesome.
“Basically, it’s a trap for the players that also sometimes lets them be awesome.”
Aka, a Move. 😉
Anna Kreider Andrew Medeiros I guess, I still try to understand how the Mission Moves and the other Moves work together. Before I thought it like this: As long as the PCs are not on a mission they try to keep the peace. And if it comes to combat it is run as mission scene.
Right now I am thinking of the situation when several PCs encounter a sorceress in a non-mission scene. That would be only the Wolf would act with force, while the others have to find other ways/moves to “fight” her. I guess, it is hard for me to understand, because they have no problems with fighting on missions. But maybe it should be read as a hint for the other Playbooks to be more creative?
I mean – missions are for adding lots of complication to the characters’ lives, but a lot of play will happen not in the field. There will be recovery and healing at camp, pursuing of personal agendas, political maneuvering, romance, blowing off steam – all kinds of stuff that happens when the characters aren’t in the field. If you’re playing a 3-4 session, expect to run 1 or 2 missions per session, and the rest will be free play.
For a good example of what a session ends up looking like in terms of that mission/free play divide, Neil Smith’s recent posts about his campaign are a GREAT example.
Chris Czerniak, if you have a player who’s wanting to hurt or use violence against another character (PC or NPC), I found that a powerful question to ask the initiator, “What do you want out of this? What are you trying to achieve?” Very often, it turns out that the reason for the violence is to Provoke Someone (or sometimes to Blow Off Steam) so you can roll that move, and just assign Harm as the fiction demands.
It gets interesting when a PC is using physical or verbal force to score points off another, or to put someone “in their place”. Then I tried to call Resist the Shadow before the action so the player knew what they were doing was toxic. It got very fun when the player successfully resisted the Shadow but did the action anyway! That’s an opportunity to give the initiator some Jaded as well as allowing some progression on the Shadow’s agenda.
Lars Lo, if you have Watch members trying to take down a sorceress outside a mission, that sounds like part of the Watch’s day job, so the PCs should be using the “Rely on Your Training” move for it. But there could also be other things going on.