Merciless

This has been turning around in my head for a day or so since it came up in a game:

First, consider a move like merciless:

Merciless: when you inflict harm, inflict +1harm.

Ok, so I deal +1harm whenever I deal harm, cause I'm merciless, right? But do I have to deal +1harm? To do it, do it right?  What if I'm not acting merciless at the moment:

"The kid doesn't know who I am, he doesn't deserve death so I'm going to let him live, with a little scar to tell the tale."

Sounds merciful... or at the very least not merciless. Which suggests I do not have to inflict +1harm when I deal harm.

On the other hand, if it's ruled that I must inflict +1harm on a hit (And this is usually the ruling I hear) then the opposite applies. If you do it, you do it which means simply having this move requires me to act merciless whenever I deal harm. My character may not choose to act in a non-merciless manner if one were to rule the move means I have no choice, If must deal +1harm every time I deal harm, then my character may not ever... choose to be merciful.

You can't separate the +1harm, a mechanic from the fictional behavior of the character. If I'm not acting merciless, I'm not merciless.

If I were MC in that situation, I'd have you Act Under Fire to go against your usual MO that way. The RAW don't provide any 'you have the option to' weasel-words, but I'm rarely going to let that get in the way of making the fiction more interesting.

-JC

I would probably say that if you want to be able to vary how much harm you're dealing, you'd need to change weapons, or get Disciplined Engagement. Because Disciplined Engagement exists, my inclination is that without it, when you deal harm, you deal full harm.

Being Merciless in battle might just be as simple as "When you shoot at someone, you shoot to kill. It's what you've been trained to do. It's what you do. Automatically." No mercy, as in, you don't shoot to wound or injure. So if you want to be merciful...well, maybe don't shoot them.

When I MC, you inflict full harm as established, with no wiggling about whether you're being merciless this time or not, and no wiggling about how you just want to shoot her, you don't want to shoot her. I don't expect everyone to be as strict about this as I am, but for me? I'm strict about it. I designed the rules that way on purpose.

If you AREN'T being strict like me, then Engaged Discipline is what Eppy calls a dick feat. Taking engaged discipline doesn't give you a new ability, it gives you the ability that you all assumed everybody always had anyway, and it takes it away from everybody else.

Do notice the boldfaced warning on the Quarantine playbook, too, though, before you commit yourself to "because Engaged Discipline exists..."

I especially like a merciless brainer inflicting 2-harm AP BY MISTAKE!

If the problem is that there's cognitive dissonance because you're inflicting +1harm even though you mean to be merciful, uh, well.  If you are not without mercy, why did you take the Merciless move?  Take some other move. *shrug* When you take Merciless or Bloodthirsty, you're committing to forever more inflict terrible harm.  Big decision.

So, I'd say that, by default, Merciless always applies if you have it. I say "by default" because I can imagine situations where the big, mean brute is acting with mercy.

But, let's take a look at how that situation should actually play out.

An example of mistake & correction, with Merciless:
Rolfball: Okay, so, I want to shoot out her kneecap.
MC: Yeah? Well, since she's barring the door and has a chainsaw out, that's probably Seize By Force.
Rolfball: Okay, cool. I'm hoping that this isn't going to kill her, it's just going to leave her wounded and helpless.
MC: Wait, wait. What? You have Merciless, dude. If you hit her, she's dead.
Rolfball: I don't want that.
MC: So, you're trying to not kill her? Because you want to get something from her?
Rolfball: Yeah.
MC: So, you're going aggro?
Rolfball: Hm, yeah. That makes more sense. Instead of shooting her, I'm just going to fire the gun into the air, and wave it around menacingly. I want her to step out of my way and let me through.
MC: Cool. Roll it.

There's already a move for when you want to show mercy on someone in a violent situation. It's called going aggro, and it's where you threaten people but give them an easy out. And if you want to avoid inflicting +1harm, just go aggro without inflicting any harm: wave a gun around like a motherfucker.

EDIT: Not saying either of these approaches is better, I think they're both interesting ways to interpret the rules.

Many moves, you need to DO, in order to benefit. If I want to open my brain, I need to open my brain. I'm not just walking around all day with my brain open.  But yeah, that move includes a roll.

Merciless. Does taking the merciless move imply that I am forever and irrevocably a merciless person in capable or moderating my cruelty in any situation, or does it mean I now have obtained a capability for obscene acts of merciless behavior when I choose to. Those are two very different things.

Most games choose the former which is perfectly cool, they must be used all the time, and that's probably how it's meant... but does that also imply: (Battlebabe moves just to keep them on one page)

Dangerous & Sexy: "When you enter into a charged situation..." You must roll+hot to engage someone in eye contact. You don't choose to be dangerous and sexy, you just are.

Visions of Death: "When you enter into battle..." You must roll+weird to choose who will live or die. You don't choose to do this, it happens. You have visions of death when you enter battle, you don't choose to have visions of death.

In the case of these two, I've always had it interpreted that you can choose to do things like this or not. Is that only because there's a roll involved?

But I wonder if these shouldn't be a choice. If you don't want to have visions of death, you'd better not go into battle. Does anyone play moves like this in this way?

Merciless. Does taking the merciless move imply that I am forever and irrevocably a merciless person incapable of moderating my cruelty in any situation?

Yup, that's how we've always played it. Of course your character is always merciless. It says right there on the character sheet that he's merciless. If you don't want to deal +1 harm every time you inflict harm, then don't take merciless. Because if you do, your idea of "mercy" should be 0-harm slap in the face, which causes 1-harm coming from you.

Incidentally, I have played a Brainer with Merciless. If we start playing that game again, I'll consider taking Bloodcrazed as well. 3-harm ap by accident, baby. Aw yeah...

And likewise with the Battlebabe moves: if you don't want Visions of Death, don't take the move, right? Taking the move means you have visions every time you go into battle. I mean, the Angel has a move where you can choose what stat to use, but pretty much every other says when this happens, do this. The basic moves say stuff like "when you seize by force" roll dice, and to roll dice you have to seize by force. But Visions of Death says "when you go into battle roll+weird" so if you go into battle, roll it.

That's how I always play it.

Octoscott,

I am seeing a problem. It is this: you're mistaking the trigger of Merciless with its title.

The trigger for Merciless is "when you inflict harm...".
When you do it (inflict harm), do it (inflict +1harm).
To do it (inflict +1harm), do it (inflict harm).

The trigger for Merciless is NOT "when you are merciless."
Likewise, it's NOT "when you inflict harm mercilessly."

To draw a parallel, the Operator has a move called Easy to Trust. Its trigger is "when you try to seduce or manipulate another player's character." It isn't "when you are acting in a way that's easy to trust."

If you (or one of your players) wants a move that triggers when you act mercilessly, here's one:

Spite
When you act mercilessly, add +1harm to harm you deal.

Note that it's more powerful than Merciless, because it's got a built-in toggle, which most moves don't. But, if that's the move you're looking for, feel free to use it.

As I said, I'm not really arguing either way is correct, just is an interesting intellectual debate of a move defining who you are versus what you can do.

It really seems to as the rules are written, which is exactly as you've described, you have the merciless move, therefore you've fundamentally and forever changed who you are but it's interesting to contrast with interpreting it as a choice.

I see where you are coming from Scott, It sorta bugs me too in the implied finality of that one choice to take Merciless. I can also see the reason for hardlining the encoded assumption that Vx and others are supporting.

After mulling it over, perhaps its more about the reasoning behind the player making that choice at the time of marking an advance. Instead of looking at it as the harshness of being a badmofo that continually shoots to kill, perhaps the iteration is of a tortured soul in a souless Apoc World.

Everything is scare in AW, and people die all the time to ensure someone gets what they want. The Merciless character may avoid Seizing by force (or any other harm inducing move) since it generally causes death not disability. They become pacifistic, because they are afraid of the inevitable result of them causing harm on people (especially if they are ones they care about or need alive).

This becomes great grist for the mill, especially when the MC marks Hard as their stat for experience!

Noofy: Here's a hack for you to solve the problem of the 'finality' of those choices:

Add the following to the set of advanced improvements: "You lose a move of your choice."

Now, the reason it works like that is because, as I can see it, the way moves mechanical works reflects the way characters fictional work. When you commit to a change about yourself, it makes sense to take a move that indicates that, but it doesn't necessarily make sense to take a move when you're not committed. If you're An Arresting Skinner, it means that you can't just mind your own business anymore. If you walk into a sludgecafe and take off your scarf, everyone looks even if you just want some freakin' crappuccino.

If you're not committed, then you just use seduce/manipulate when you want everyone to watch you buy your double iguana lattes no whip or chain.

Shreyas, that improvement already exists. It's called "switch to a new playbook."

Eh, I dunno. I can see you doing that, but it'd be awfully weird to say, hey, I'm moving my hold, so I'm dumping my old hardholder playbook and starting up a new hardholder playbook.

Not so weird that I'd say you can't do it, but it's weird.