Riffing on the question about Harm asked by Aaron Dalton, I have a corollary question.
Bear in mind that MotW is virtually my only experience of PbtA (well, I played a good amount of Monsterhearts but it never ever came to blows beyond 1 Harm at a time) so my observation is probably candid and uninformed ; but that’s why i’m asking the question 😀
I only played two games for now, and they were light on Harm received. Even like that, it felt like reaching a total of 4-Harm (or more) would be quite easy when you’re battling, for example, a pack of demon wolves and for some reason two of them are against you because you leapt in the middle to allow the others hunters to evacuate the civilians.
So, in practice, with your experience of the game, how easy is it, really, to reach high levels of Harm in a single battle ? Are there ways not to take too much damage ? Armor ? Powers ? Am I missing a reason why, through the rules, not THAT much damage is actually inflicted ?
Because from a purely theorical point of view based on the reading of the rules, it looks stupid easy to receive a lot of harm, and healing it one by one seems extremely slow for a game based on killing monsters, and even worse when it’s become unstable.
Yes, it’s easy to take a lot of harm fighting a tough monster. I designed it to be that way, so that your hunters are putting their lives on the line when they mix it up.
And note that the “heal 1 harm with a rest” if just during mysteries – before the next mystery, your hunters will normally be fresh again.
Think of it as how it works in Supernatural. Sam and Dean are always fine at the start of an episode. They might take some hard knocks early on, but they keep going (healing their 1-harm for a rest). In the final act, they might get pretty close to death (perhaps even “spending Luck” to survive?).
Then, next episode, they’re fine again.
That’s my intention with the design anyhow. Hopefully it’s useful!
(I’ll leave others to say how they’ve found it in play without me there to chime in).
Ah, yes, I see what you mean (healing everything between episodes is, quite frankly, what I do for every RPG I ever GM, whatever the game, because come on, nobody likes to start a new scenario with leftover damage from a previous game !)
What I’m “concerned” about is the damage progression throughout an episode. As in, it looks like you can’t allow yourself to have too many violent encounters in the course of the episode ; as you say, you can have a little tumble that heals easily at the beginning, but it’s really all about the big final fight, and there’s no way around that, you can’t have significant “mid-fights”.
PbtA games are generally not power fantasies. You do not get bigger and harder to kill as you level. You start off pretty hard to kill compared to regular humans.
Luck and Armor will do a lot for you, but so will playing it safer and smarter. Remember: you can actually position yourself to deal harm without having to roll the attack move (who’s name escapes me at the moment).
Also, be aware that if you’re generating theory from D&D or similar game background – the monsters don’t roll, so the odds of actually taking harm are much different in play.
My advice: play the game as written and see how it goes. I’d be willing to bet it models this genre much better than if you were playing a game built in getting bigger and badder with each session.
Additional: what Aaron Griffin said.
And yes, if the hunters are smart they’ll avoid getting into fights with minions where they can, and even try and take out the big bad without a stand up fight.
Monsters are scary.
Oh, and of course the hunters can also get healed in other ways – that 1-harm recovery for a rest is just the standard. If they want to run to the emergency room, a friendly doctor, or cast some healing magic they can easily recover more.
I’ll echo what Aaron Griffin and Michael Sands have said. Monsters are scary, and the Hunters need to play smart. Constantly going toe-to-toe with monsters in a straight up slugfest is very likely going to result in seriously injured Hunters. The characters should be looking for ways to fight the monsters from a position of relative safety. Sniper rifles, holding spells, ambushes, that sort of thing. 💖
In my campaign I had two players each eventually running two hunters plus assorted allies.
One of those Hunters was an Immortal, Resilient, Invincible Chosen. He was very hard to hurt outside of when he stepped in to do magic things and power drain hit him.
There was also a medic and an exile with the move that prevents glitching. So fast healing was on easy tap as well.
My players ran cautiously and prepared very well. So when they got heavily hurt it was always a shock and nail biter. But it happened here and there.