I’m working on a fantasy hack and have come up with an alternative way to handle injuries. Comments welcome.
Harm
When you take harm, roll+hard -harm.
On a 10+, it’s a minor wound with no long term consequences. The referee chooses one of:
* Suffer -1 forward.
* You drop something.
* You are momentarily stunned or distracted.
On a 7-9, you are wounded. If already wounded, you are incapacitated per 6- instead. The referee chooses one of:
* Suffer -1 ongoing.
* You are staggered or knocked over.
* You are disarmed
* You are driven back
On a 6-, you are incapacitated, bleeding and dying. You may instead choose to be wounded with effects as above and also take a disability:
* Disfigured, -1Charm.
* Disabled, -1Grace.
* Impaired, -1Wits.
* Enfeebled, -1Might.
So instead of a harm clock or boxes, you just have check boxes to indicate of you are wounded or incapacitated, and what effects you’re suffering. Harm is after armour of course. It’s a little different from most character moves because you have an additional modifier as well as a characteristic. On the other hand it looks much more like a regular move than the regular Apocalypse World harm move which is ‘upside down’.
It’s a little confusing because if you’re already Wounded and take another wound, you bounce down to Incapacitated, but then could choose to take a Disability and bounce back up to Wounded again. I’m not sure how to make that cleaner though.
Thoughts?
I think it shows promise, but definitely needs work
Cleaner:
Change roll to +Harm and invert the table.
On a hit also choose one:
– Mark wounded
– Mark incapacitated
– Mark a disability
It sounds pretty promising for me. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Think hard about how often you want your players to be incapacitated or dying as a result of a die roll. Would it change how the game flows if players avoid doing things that risk harm? How often will a minor event (a fistfight) wind up with your PC nearly dead? Also, the pain train of Wounded>Incapacitated>Disability>Wounded>Incapacitated can be pretty grinding. How many wounds and disabilities can a PC take and still recover to unharmed?
Thanks for all the comments. The suggestion by 1of3 looks promising. Meguey Baker is quite right, this would mean even a small wound could have much greater consequences. But then a greater would could have more minor consequences. I come from a RueQuest background where a (very lucky) hit from a dagger can kill an armoured and uninjured PC. In most Apocalypse based systems that’s impossible even with ‘cause terrible harm’ and ‘worse than it looks’. So I do want more swingey-ness, but it needs to be balanced carefully. I think making the precise consequences optional keeps the risk – Death is always on the table – while keeping injury escalation manageable in practice.
The other factor is that the setting (Glorantha) allows for some powerful healing magic. Even disabilities can be restored, at a cost. I’ll mull it over and work on a revision, but was really wondering if anyone has tried an approach like this before.
Ok, here’s a revised version. This seems to me to be close to the ‘natural’ way this should work. I am concerned that it may betoo harsh, but I can still do a fair bit of tuning with weapon harm and armour ratings. Weapon stats that make sense in straight AW might need adjusting for this.
Harm
When you take harm, roll+harm.
On a 12+, Mark Incapacitated.
On a 10+, choose one of:
* Mark Wounded
* Mark Incapacitated
* Take a Disability
If wounded or incapacitated are already marked, you may not do so again.
On a 7-9, the referee may choose one of:
* Suffer -1 forward.
* You drop something.
* You are momentarily stunned or distracted.
When you mark Wounded, the referee chooses one of:
* Suffer -1 ongoing.
* You are staggered or knocked over.
* You are disarmed
* You are driven back
* You are unconscious
When you mark Incapacitated your character is dying. The character needs urgent care in order to survive and any further injury will be fatal
When you take a Disability, choose one of:
* Disfigured, -1Charm.
* Disabled, -1Grace.
* Impaired, -1Wits.
* Enfeebled, -1Might.
harm +armor +hard is a lot of numbers. When you have a lot of numbers, you can wind up with “swinginess” –unpredictability. PbtA typically has a seven point range (2 to +4) on the die roll. Adding three numbers together gives you a potential 13 or greater point range, including situations where the player can’t fail or can’t succeed. 0 Armor, -1 Hard and 2-harm guarantees they get wounded (0% chance of 10+), but statistically, they’re almost certainly incapacitated. And getting hit twice means you’re incapacitated, unless you’re lucky. Compare to Apocalypse World: Getting hit twice usually means you’re at 9 or 10 o’clock, but you’re not bleeding out on the ground. And AW combat is pretty dangerous.If the main goal is to invert the harm move, there are less complex and punishing ways to do it.I like Uncharted Worlds’ harm move, “Brace for Impact.” It turns the harm move back “right side up” and handles armor better than a clunky mechanical reduction does.The official moves sheet is here:uncharted-worlds.com – uncharted-worlds.com/downloads/files/CampaignSheet_GMCheatSheet.pdfThe basic idea is you roll +armor and the results modify your harm. 13+ means 2 less harm, 10+ means 1 less harm, 7-9 means suffer the harm given, 6you can get costs/trouble, debilities, or more harm than given. As it’s a Traveller homage, there are ways to get really heavy armor, hence the 13+. Getting knocked back or stunned is actually a weapon tag, so there’s no way to avoid it in Brace for Impact, though you might get to “Face Adversity” (UW’s Act Under Fire) to avoid it depending on how nice the GM is feeling.minus harm +armor +hard is a lot of numbers. When you have a lot of numbers, you can wind up with “swinginess” — unpredictability. PbtA typically has a seven point range (minus 2 to +4) on the die roll. Adding three numbers together gives you a potential 13 or greater point range, including situations where the player can’t fail or can’t succeed. 0 Armor, minus 1 Hard and 2-harm guarantees they get wounded (0% chance of 10+), but statistically, they’re almost certainly incapacitated. And getting hit twice means you’re incapacitated, unless you’re lucky. Compare to Apocalypse World: Getting hit twice usually means you’re at 9 or 10 o’clock, but you’re not bleeding out on the ground. And AW combat is pretty dangerous.
-If the main goal is to invert the harm move, there are less complex and punishing ways to do it.I like Uncharted Worlds’ harm move, “Brace for Impact.” It turns the harm move back “right side up” and handles armor better than a clunky mechanical reduction does.-
The official moves sheet is here: –uncharted-worlds.com – uncharted-worlds.com/downloads/files/CampaignSheet_GMCheatSheet.pdf
-The basic idea is you roll +armor and the results modify your harm. 13+ means 2 less harm, 10+ means 1 less harm, 7-9 means suffer the harm given, 6 minus, you can get costs/trouble, debilities, or more harm than given. As it’s a Traveller homage, there are ways to get really heavy armor, hence the 13+. Getting knocked back or stunned is actually a weapon tag, so there’s no way to avoid it in Brace for Impact, though you might get to “Face Adversity” (UW’s Act Under Fire) to avoid it depending on how nice the GM is feeling.
Aside: Let me just say, Google Plus is the ~worst~ for a PBTA forum, with – , *, and + having formatting and tagging functions. Is there a PBTA forum on Facebook or… like… Ello? or something, where we don’t have to edit posts full of accidental tags and strikethroughs?!?!?!
Jon Lemich there are forums but there seems to be a problem with account management. I have an account, but I can’t log on and the account reset system doesn’t seem to work. It’s at apocalypse-world.com – Barf Forth Apocalyptica – Index