Hi! I’ve been thinking about the ‘harm’ move in Apocalypse World. I like the extra randomness, but I’m not happy with having to roll again every time a PC suffers harm.
Here’s my idea:
When you exchange harm as a result of a battle move, take a look at the dice:
– For every die with a result of ‘6’, you inflict +1 harm or pick one extra option from the battle move.
– For every die with a result of ‘1’, the MC picks one option from the ‘harm’ move.
This practically does away with rolling the harm move in battle while keeping the same options in play, and gives ane extra randomness and a ‘crit’ feel to specific rolls.
Thoughts?
I think there’s some benefit to thinking along these lines, but I’m not sure the example implementation here is quite right. For starters, it messes with the economy of certain moves. But, also, harm isn’t always the result of a rolled move.
Paul Taliesin this was meant only for when harm is exchanged through a player’s move, as in the seize by force move. It should not affect other moves, and it wouldn’t apply when harm is inflicted through a MC move.
I like the idea of removing a roll (two rolls!) from that process.
How do you decide which results from the harm move to choose, though?
Also, your version of the rule is much more forgiving, as far as the harm move goes, than the standard rule. I don’t know if that’s intended.