kinda having trouble wrapping my head around the “Lash out” move. specifically, what is meant by “The MC decides how bad the harm turns out.”
kinda feels like I (The MC) just choose how much harm the victim takes, but is there some other meaning behind it I’ve missed, because there’s a guide to how much harm things should do.
Could be more, could be less — think of it as something like “I accidentally put more strength into punching him than I meant to, and instead of being intimidated enough to run, he’s unconscious,” or “it was a glancing blow and the werewolf isn’t nearly as dead as I was hoping.” It’s an invitation to change up the harm based on what would be dramatic, as you judge it in the moment.
“I punch the guy, trying to knock him out… Shit a 3” / “Oh you hit him. Hard. He goes down and three teeth scatter across the floor” or maybe “You hit him fully, and the force doesn’t even budge his head”
Indeed. It’s not necessarily all that controlled.
Adding to what Benjamin Davis said, there is no control here. None. Whatsoever. Going off of the themes of MH in general, and looking at the move title, what else could you expect? The aggressor isn’t in control, the victim isn’t in control. If anything, the only thing with any agency is the violence itself. I myself usually alternate between randomly determining it (if that makes sense) or just going with, “what’s the worst thing that could happen here?”. I don’t differentiate between the person who did it and the target it, just the worst overall.