HP, damage and the fiction

How do folks embed damage dealt, either to PCs or by them, in the fiction? That is, how do you describe the loss of HP, the effect on the world made by the damage?

Do you just wing it? Or do you have lists of injuries categorised in terms of injury-mechanism (weapon-type, falls, drowning, etc.) and intensity (2 damage vs 12 damage);  even if those lists are in your head?

Do you narrate HP loss solely as bodily injury and stress, or do you also include mental stress, loss of heart, failing skills, slowed movement?

How do you narrate in armour and being thrown about, without treading on the toes of specialised tag effects like +Messy, +Piercing, or +Forceful?

And do you differentiate descriptions of injuries from damage and from taking a debility? Like, when a debility makes your ears ring and vision blurry; do you keep those fictional elements only for debilities? Or are debilities somehow more severe--like deeper wounds or hits that have acupuncture-like precision--or more complicated--like infections and an accumulation of straws that break your back? Or do narrate debility effects the same as other standard HP damage, it's just this time the blow to head has more mechanical reinforcement?

Hi Watergoesred, I touched on it here:
http://apocalypse-world.com/forums/index.php?topic=2385.0

Effectively, its the hit that reduces the monster (or player) to death that causes 'actual' damage. Everything else is just 'mistake potential' pacing. Its a tension issue. I encourage the players to describe narratively how the damage they are suffering is expressed (since they are rolling damage for both their attacks and the damage metered to them by enemies). If that descriptive narration requires a prescriptive tag, then so be it, they authored it after all!

Ways in which this has been expressed in our games:
* bloody, 'heroic' wounds that have no mechanical effect other than the loss of HP but may re-incorporate descriptively for narrative weight.
* 'Near misses', where the 'signs of doom' is the death of the player due to damage
* Traditional HP scaling of la measured ifeforce (this is the least favourable)

We most definately play debilities to the full. They are markedly more serious than HP of damage and in our game mark a brush with death. You could have died. I have often encouraged a narrative 'hook' element to these wounds too, not unlike a bond with an injury that can not only drive the story, but earn the player XP too. Frodo and his Morgul-Blade injury are a good fictional example of what I mean.
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Thanks noofy. It took me a bit to get what you meant by the hit, but of course now it's obvious. And calling HP a measure of mistake potential is a nice approach.

I think I ask my players to narrate their damage dealt or felt. And I really like your use of counters for HPs. I'd been planning on using them anyway next game for tracking hold, XP, and hard moves as per AP - Dungeon World: The Goblin Hole 5/12/12. HPs just adds to the fun!