Barf Forth Apocalyptica
barf forth apocalyptica => Apocalypse World => Topic started by: Paul T. on December 03, 2012, 03:59:55 PM
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In the Angel's rules, you are sometimes offered a choice:
"Spend [some time] blissed out on chillstabs, or do your time like everyone else."
What does it mean to "do your time"? Does that just mean: wait for it to heal naturally?
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I think it means: suffer.
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And what does that mean?
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It means not having painkillers after surgery.
It doesn't do anything fancy mechanically, but it can be a kind of important thing to establish where the Angel falls on the "Let me adjust your IV, Mr. Balls" to "Bite on this here leather strap" continuum.
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Mechanics-wise? It means a lot more rolls to act under fire. Or other bad stuff.
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Hmmmm. When you MC, do you make people act under fire and similar bad stuff after they've taken 1-harm (or 2-harm)? Under what circumstances?
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It means you're in serious pain as your body deals with whatever the Angel just did to keep you from dying/fix you up, presumably. (Sorry, I knew that response was going to be sort of unclear, but it was just too fun to leave it short.)
What that looks like in the fiction is going to depend on the sort of wound, type of treatment, etc. -- and what that looks like should help determine if moves start kicking in.
But also, in some situations it's kind of a specialized example of 'tell them the consequences and ask'. Like if you tell them it's gonna be a week of blissed-out bedrest, and the PC is like 'hell no I got shit to deal with I can't just lie here high as a kite for seven whole days' -- then as the MC you probably want to make sure there are consequences for that decision.
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Like if you tell them it's gonna be a week of blissed-out bedrest
This is what i thought Chillstabs would do to you.
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Yes, the outcome of "spend a week blissed out on chillstabs" is pretty clear.
I'm curious what you do when players choose the other option. ("Do your time...")
It sounds like you start introducing medical complications if they choose the other option.
So my follow-up question was:
Do you also introduce medical complications (or whatever) if they just take 1-harm in a fight somewhere but do NOT visit the Angel?
I have trouble seeing that in play, so I'm curious to hear how you handle it.
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What was the injury?
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Most of the time in AW you pretty much suspend disbelief where the health of the PCs is concerned.
You could not do that and have various medical complications play a bigger choice, which is probably a good idea if you have an Angel in play (same as how it's a good idea to scale up threats when there's a Hardholder in play and involve more complicated social arrangements with a Skinner).
That doesn't involve anything anyone already knows about AW, though.
What do you want to get out of this question, Paul?
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Most of the time in AW you pretty much suspend disbelief where the health of the PCs is concerned.
Quite right. AW PCs are presumed to have a sort of limited "plot immunity", where they can take (for example) a bullet and just keep on going. It's only if things get really serious that their health and survival is really an issue.
Similarly, the book suggests that you might often (but not always) have a PC "clear a segment of harm" at the start of each session.
Unless each of your sessions spans more than a week of time, why would you ever choose to "spend a week blissed out on chillstabs" (the price for healing one or two segments of harm)?
I'm still waiting to hear how this plays out in your games. No one's really answered that question yet.
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Most of the time in AW you pretty much suspend disbelief where the health of the PCs is concerned.
Yeah, this is my practical experience as well, though a lot depends on whether you have an Angel PC and how interested their player is in actual medicine.
But the idea of a wound getting infected, or something like that, seems beyond the usual scope of the game. This is why I said 'suffer', rather than, I dunno, 'waste away' -- I think the consequences are usually framed in terms of pain and suffering (and having to Act Under Fire, yes), rather than more serious medical consequences.
I have never seen medical complications resulting from untreated 1-harm -- though I have certainly seen PCs having to Act Under Fire after taking larger amounts of harm. (Again, it depends a lot on the character.)
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I also wonder if the week recuperation is intended for NPCs. Since the MC can opt to let PCs recover 1-harm at the beginning of a session, I wonder if that implies the PCs are not really going to benefit much from that 1-week recovery.
That said, yes, I imagine it is a good opportunity for acting under fire.
In answer to the question "what about when they are at 1-harm or 2-harm and don't have an Angel? Do they act under fire then?" I would observe the following:
If a PC *got* to 9 o'clock (doomed to die without help) and then were surgically treated until they got back to 6 o' clock (going to get better), that feels different to me than if they just got miscellaneous wounds adding up to 6 o'clock (going to get better).
In that case, acting under fire may mean trying to do things without UNdoing the surgical interventions (stitches, meat mesh, whatever), depending on the narrative.
But I, too, would feel more confident with clarification on hot to adjudicate.
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I think the chillstabs are mostly a character beat for the Angel. Do they have their pacients take painkillers after pain, or are the "bite on this" kind?
As for the player suffering the harm being healed, well, it depends on how much you make the pain matter in the game - in default AW, that's not much, but then AW is very customizable.
In a game I ran once, I trust the players would not have minded getting some chillstabs. The city was full of jerks, the characters kept getting in trouble and hurt, and the only local medic-type-guy charged an arm and a leg to basically brutalize them with weird machinery. One of the guys got shotgun shrapnel ripped out of him with an electromagnet, another one failed to make full payment and covered the rest by granting the guy rights to experiment on him, a third one had a kidney cut out during trauma surgery, again as part of payment.
When the default healing process is basically a kind of mutilation, I would think spending a week blissed out on chillstabs becomes far more attractive.
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D,
That's really cool.
But if they had access to an Angel and those options... why wouldn't they choose the "do your time" option? How would it be meaningfully different?
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'cause that's painful, and this particular game has already established that the healing process is messy and horrible. Do you want messy and horrible, or do you want a pain-free week? It's not likely to be much of a plot point, but it's still a kind of choice.
There's really no point to not doing it if the established default is that you can always walk around with 5 harm on you no problem.
But, like, it's not like chillstabs are especially mechanically or fictionally interesting, though they can be at times, or more constantly if you make the effort.
I once told Vincent that a well-armed gang (+1 harm) option is far inferior to an increase in gang size (de facto +1 harm and +1 armour) option. I was, like, why would anyone choose the well-armed gang option? How would it be meaningfully different?
The answer was that he doesn't care about mechanics balance, to which other people added that you can totally *make* the difference matter. Which is true.
So, basically, if you make the difference between a week of bedrest on painkillers and who knows what time in pain meaningful, then it's meaningful. If not, not.
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I once told Vincent that a well-armed gang (+1 harm) option is far inferior to an increase in gang size (de facto +1 harm and +1 armour) option. I was, like, why would anyone choose the well-armed gang option? How would it be meaningfully different?
Tangential, but, as they say - mo' soldiers, mo' problems.
- Alex
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We may want to take a page from FATE and treat some of these conditions (well-armed, blissed out on chillstabs, fighting through the pain) as Aspects that we can more or less tag for free, depending on the narrative.
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I think it's less the ability to use a thing and more what the fictional baseline is.
If you have "Swamp lore", you don't really get to tag it much unless there's a swamp or swamp-related stuff in your game.
Same in AW - you don't "tag" "well armed" or "too many fighters" unless there are situations in which those things matter. Now, AW is fictionally seeded right out of the box in a way that makes "tagging" those things easy...
But it's exactly the same for 'blissed out on chillstabs' or 'doing your time' - with the added caveat that it's the group that needs to implant the fiction seed of pain and the gritty details of coping with injuries mattering.
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What I did when one of the players (the savvyhead) had the choice of chillin' out or doin' their time, I made sure to highlight the resource of time in the fiction. There is no status quo and everyone needs something they don't have, right?
So it was like 'So Boo can heal your busted head up (right Boo?), but the week you spend chillin' out on narcs and blowjobs from Jessie's Girl is a week you need to work on your promise of customising the hold's transmission array in time to increase the range beyond the eel spawning pits.... If you do your time, you can still get it done but its gonna be a crap version, weak and unreliable, but I'm sure Snake Eyes and his violent bastards are counting on you to fill your end of the deal and being able to update folks on their recon of Chuckanucka and his valley of flesheaters. (right Snake Eyes?)'
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So, the weird I'm trying to get at here is:
If the Savvyhead had just taken some minor 1-harm or 2-harm (getting into a fight, or taking incidental fire), and NOT gone to see the Angel, would you have told him that his work on his project would suffer (only accomplish a weak and unreliable version)?
Because if that's the case, over time people are not going to go see the Angel anymore for minor injuries, since a) they heal on their own over time (a suggested guideline of up two one segment per session), and b) when they do see the Angel, it becomes a case of "lie down for a week, or I'm going to make up some new complications related to your injuries which haven't come up just yet".
I wonder if there's a better way to handle this. (That said, of course it works just fine if your sessions each span more than a week of time, which I sometimes get the feeling Vincent does a fair bit.)
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So, the weird I'm trying to get at here is:
If the Savvyhead had just taken some minor 1-harm or 2-harm (getting into a fight, or taking incidental fire), and NOT gone to see the Angel, would you have told him that his work on his project would suffer (only accomplish a weak and unreliable version)?
I'd probably not penalize the work itself, no, but probably tell'm outright (consequences and ask): "You'll be busy, non-stop and midnight oil, trying to build y'r thing, right? Well, you'll sure have no time to sit and rest and heal. And pray - pray! - the wound don't worsen.". Something like that.
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Because if that's the case, over time people are not going to go see the Angel anymore for minor injuries, since a) they heal on their own over time (a suggested guideline of up two one segment per session), and b) when they do see the Angel, it becomes a case of "lie down for a week, or I'm going to make up some new complications related to your injuries which haven't come up just yet".
Thankfully, this is a moot point.
To use it to stabilize and heal someone at 9:00 or past: roll+stock
spent. On a hit, they will stabilize and heal to 6:00...
An Angel Kit can *only* heal you back to 6 o'clock (2-harm) so you only seek out an Angel if you are at 9 o'clock or worse. If you are only at 3 o'clock or 6 o'clock (1- or 2-harm), an Angel Kit *cannot* help you, so that situation wouldn't come up.
That said, an Angel with Healing Touch *can* take away additional harm and leave the patient at 3 o'clock or even 0 o'clock, but there aren't recuperation penalties associated with that. Just potential mindfuckery from the Maelstrom.
I'd still like more info on how they must "do their time", but the question of going to the Angel when you are only suffering 1- or 2-harm is not an issue in this case.
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devonapple,
I don't follow what you wrote at all. Here's the move I'm referring to:
"To use it to speed the recovery of someone at 3:00 or 6:00: don’t roll. They
choose: spend 4 days (3:00) or 1 week (6:00) blissed out on chillstabs,
immobile but happy, or do their time like everyone else."
3:00 or 6:00 is 1-harm or 2-harm.
However, now that I reread the rules, the placement of the text suggests that maybe this rule only comes into play for someone who been stabilized. Well, that still doesn't entirely solve the problem.
Antisinecurist,
That's really how you would handle it? Even though the rulebook is pretty clear where it says: "Before 6:00, harm will go away by itself with time", and "harm at 9:00 won't get better or worse on its own"?
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However, now that I reread the rules, the placement of the text suggests that maybe this rule only comes into play for someone who been stabilized. Well, that still doesn't entirely solve the problem.
That's right... you got what I was saying. :)
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Antisinecurist,
That's really how you would handle it? Even though the rulebook is pretty clear where it says: "Before 6:00, harm will go away by itself with time", and "harm at 9:00 won't get better or worse on its own"?
I think everything is relative, but I take "go away by itself with time" to require some level of rest and taking-care-of-yourself. No?
- Alex
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That sounds very different from "And pray - pray! - the wound don't worsen" to me!
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I don't get that interpretation at all Devonapple. Its a separate paragraph, its about speeding the recovery (taking less time than normal). No need to roll. It doesn't say that this is only possible after being healed from 12:00 - 9:00. (by the angel)
Healing times (without the Angel's Help)
*Fractures: A fractured bone generally takes at least 6 weeks to heal. The time any fracture takes to heal depends upon the type of fracture and where it's located.
*Sprains and Strains: Minor ankles sprains will heal in five days, while a more severe sprain can take from three to six weeks to heal.
A minor (grade 1) strain may heal in two weeks, while a severe (grade 3) strain may require up to three months or more to heal completely.
*Cuts, Abrasions and Lacerations: Cuts and abrasions take anywhere from a week to a month to heal, depending upon the depth and location of the injury and how it's treated.
*Guns shot wound: to shoulder with shattered humerus and clavicle...
Skin wound - 3-6 months depending on the skill of the surgeon when repairing bone trauma from bullet
bone healing - 3-6 months
Sling - 3 months....
Oh and with the savvyhead? She had taken a wound fighting for her life against a monstrous eel and spent the whole time trying to fix the array wounded (2 harm) instead of seeing the Angel and blissing out. She managed to make the array (though unreliable), and despite being instrumental in Snake Eyes [chopper] and his crew getting some valuable intel on the flesheaters, but she was still wounded 2 harm after a week or two, still being in the same session.
She had to do quite a few things under fire in the interim, the fire being the pain and septic, debilitating nature of her wounds. I played up to her ever increasing fear of the river (and the eels it contained) too, making as hard a move as I liked A LOT; re-incorporating her ulcerating wound, putting her in quite a few difficult spots on her all-to-frequent misses and soft hits.
The cliff hanger we ended on was the Flesheaters coming to assault their little holding a la Mad Max 2, and she would still be wounded, though I did agree to 1 harm healing for her (doing her time) between sessions.
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I recognise your problem, Paul. And the way I see it, the hard truth is this: the recovery times set for how long it takes to get better blissed out on chillstabs suppose that the recovery time on your own, "like everybody else", is way longer. It's like, the rules say "3:00 or 6:00 harm goes away by itself" and we immedately jump to the conslusion that it goes away by itself with no side effects and in a time that allows for PCs to keep "adventuring" at their leisure.
If you want to use the stated time intervals in the Angel playbook, you have to make ordinary healing very un-heroic and (sorry) taking characters out of the action action for looong stretches of in-game time. I have a friend wo damaged her arm somehow when lifting over her capacity. I can't imagine any MC would have set that to more than 1-harm. But she couldn't use her hand properly for a year, and was thus out of work. That's reality, and make it seem real, right?
I know the feeling, sitting with the Angel playbook, telling the player "great, you spend the stock and they're on their way. What does it say, more exactly?" They read aloud, and everyone goes "huh" because your ordinary "hey, why don't you all erase one harm from last session, it's been a couple of days" has been way more lenient.
I know that if I want to keep the rate of background healing I've been doing so far in AW, I'd have to buff up the Angel.
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How many folks are using real-world recovery times in their AW games?
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The book says to "make Apocalypse World feel real". But the example about healing from the book says, "I'll have him erase one segment of harm at the beginning of the next session, and the other one the session after."
Similarly, erasing up to three harm when you're resuscitated (or take a debility) all suggests that harm is an abstract quantity, not a "real thing".
Like any other hit points, why is it that a PC cannot be killed by a bullet? (Even if you take 3- or 4-harm, you can keep going like you're fine.) Harm is an abstract thing, measuring how far you are from death at any given point.
There's fairly little support for the idea that "healing 1-harm" should be considered on real-world terms (whatever that would mean).
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Oh hell's sake. Make non-angel-assisted healing take longer than a week, or else don't waste the angel's time on 1- or 2-harm. Either is just fine, choose the one you prefer and get on with it.
-Vincent
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Thanks, Vincent!
That clears it up as well as might be expected.