In our current Bootleggers game (adapted from World of Dungeons) we don't use HP. When you suffer harm, you roll+stamina. On a 10+, you take the least harm as established, and you can continue. On a 7-9, you suffer the full harm as established, but you're still up. On a 6-, you suffer the worst of it, and you're out of action.

This means, as gaigaia has been saying, that we need to look at the fiction when harm is in play to know what the roll means. If you get punched in the face, on a 10+, you roll with it, and you're fine, maybe you get a black eye later. If you get shot, on a 10+, it passes straight through, doesn't hit anything vital. But you're still shot. There's blood everywhere, you have a hole or two in you. Better get that taken care of.

Death depends on fictional positioning. It might come from a tire-iron to the back of the skull, or a burst from a tommy gun. The stamina roll doesn't even determine how deadly something is, just what you're able to do after the harm hits.

To give the PCs a little "PC glow" we also use Fate points. Everyone starts with one. You can spend a Fate point to avoid any terrible outcome. Including deadly attacks, but also something like getting sent to prison for life (you get off on a technicality). So we can play hard, with high stakes and "real" harm, but the PCs have an out if the player is really attached to that character and wants to avoid the end.

So.. yeah. Alternate harm systems are fun. :) Go for it. Try different things and you'll dial it in.

Thanks for elaborating, Michael. That interpretation of attack/damage never occurred to me. I'll see what I can do to make it clearer on the moves sheet.

Yep.

You could also think of tags as things that inspire you to say stuff, like, "you need to reload" instead of restrict what you can say. Same diff.

But, it's not, like, your *job* to bring the tags into play, in some kind of game-balance way. The way you might need to enforce a power disadvantage in HERO, say. They're there to help you say stuff, not homework for you to do.

"Make sure you track and enforce every tag," is nowhere on the list of GM jobs. In short:

Should I just have the gun break, in essence, shifting the consequences of the reload into a later complication?

No. Don't do that.

Playing In A Wicked Age is a good primer for stuff like this. You learn how to "push."

"The banshee wails; its screech shatters the stones of the corridor, splits your eardrums, turns your bowels to water. You foam at the mouth, your vision blurs, you collapse, screaming, the sound digging into your mind. You shit yourself. You go mad."

somewhere in there, they interrupt

"Whoa, whoa, wait. No. I get the fuck out of there."

"Oh yeah? What do you do?"

and then there's probably a move, as Adam says.

For terrifying, I like to push all the way into effects -- cross the line a bit and take control of them. Tell them they do stuff, like moaning in dread, shutting their eyes tight, hiding, running away, freezing in fear. If they don't like it (they won't like it) ask them what they want to do instead and defy danger.

Hi Michael! Thanks for playing. That was a fun session.

1. It is possible, I think, now that you've played it, but I don't think anyone has done that yet. So... good luck! :)

2. You can't pile them on, no. You blow off some steam, you roll, and you're done. You can't make the move again until you blow off some steam again... presumably after you accumulate some steam. In the AW text, this idea is called "to do it, do it," which you'll see in the PDF. It just means, "to roll a move, you have to satisfy the fictional trigger."

3. No. :)

4. I haven't tweaked the OP based on their plan, but that's an interesting idea. I could see giving a +/-1 there, maybe, depending on the situation.

5. You'll have to wait for the Kickstarter.

6. Yep.

7. Yeah. I ran out of room and cut the obvious ones.

8. That's right.

9. The Regiment and AW work the same way when it comes to GM moves, but I find that there are pernicious myths about how GM moves work in AW, so it's hard to know how to answer.

In both games, the GM can 'inflict harm as established' as a move, and you don't have to wait for a miss to make a move. It's a bit less fraught in TR, since harm is randomized.

Jason Morningstar's scenario is cool.

KOMMERSCHEIDT

Yeah, that was an oversight on my part. For OP, consider it to be +0 for a standard unit, +1 for a special unit, and an additional +1 for a veteran unit (so a veteran special unit would have +2). When you have especially effective support, or a significant tactical advantage, take +1 OP for the engagement roll (this is rare).