Hang Up on the Fight Mechanics?

What FigureFour said. Amen to that.  You're playing your NPCs and getting them into position so you can make MC moves when 1) it's appropriate or 2) they fail a roll.

Thanks for all of this great feedback, it is really helping me to get at the core of my hang-up. I think it boils down to this...

I agree, an MC should not just inflict harm twice in a row.  But what if they choose to Inflict Harm As Established and what has been established is that there are three people with shotguns?

Make them a gang?  I think it takes away from the Gunlugger and the PC's w/ gangs.

Choose a harder/different move?  Totally a better choice,  but this doesn't address when you have to Inflict Harm because of a PC Seizing By Force. 

It boils down to wanting a way to inflict more harm when appropriate, The Harm scale on pg 162 seems to address that the best, a Shotgun = 3 harm, so maybe a Shotgun barrage = 4 harm.

So this is where I am at, I'm feeling pretty good about this but I would totally welcome more thoughts.

If I choose to inflict harm as established, and there are three people with shotguns, it still often makes sense that my move is for one of them to harm the player. Often only one has a clear shot.

But yeah, if it really made since that all three of them hit the player, I'd either do 3 harm or bump it up to 4 harm if it made since that the multiple shots would do more damage, as I think you've settled on.

What I'm confused by is why you say that you don't want to make them a gang, but then mechanically that's exactly what you do for this move. A small gang inflicts an extra point of damage due to numerical superiority. What it seems like here is that you are inflicting the extra point of damage for numerical superiority, but just not calling it a game. Why do you say that calling them a gang would step on the toes of the Gunlugger and PC gangs, but following the rules for gangs while not calling them that does not? I'm not seeing the distinction.

Choose a harder/different move?  Totally a better choice,  but this doesn't address when you have to Inflict Harm because of a PC Seizing By Force. 

Is the PC Seizing All three NPCs? Like in a hold? Or what? If not, then it only the harm coming from the one being seized. And read this.

Basically, screw the rules. Try not to think so much about them until you trigger a When. And when you do, resolve that little bit and move on.

Proceed both narratively and chronologically. It sounds obvious, but just have everyone, PCs and NPCs alike, do one thing at a time and only use the moves when the Whens are triggered. Otherwise, it's up to your principles, prep, all that.

A middle ground solution I´d go for if you´re still not satisfied would be sth like this:
-Bo, Roark and Mari are really good fighting as a team. When they do, and they´re the only opposition the PCs have, they inflict +1 harm as if they were a small gang, but they don´t get the harm reduction benefit.
That should work as an intermediate point between a few combatants and a small gang.

In a game, when I was a player, the MC made a mistake and had two choppers with guns hit me for double damage (6). I was like "OMG did a piano fall on my head!", but I didn´t say anything because I wasn´t sure if he had done the right thing or not. I should´ve complained, anyway, because three more moves and I was marking a debility...

@ Ctrall
You are right, for dealing harm it is mechanically the same. The difference is that gangs take harm with a different table, and PCs, do -1 harm to a small gang.

@Chris
Yes, that is the kind of situation we're discussing. A PC Seizing multiple NPCs by force, and therefore suffering harm from multiple sources.  

@Khimus
Cool, I'm glad I'm not the only one one who got tripped up by this. I like the idea of having that whole teamwork think counting as a custom move, though it might not be necessary to just add +1 harm. I think the MC just gets to do that when the Harm as Established warrants it.

So... the MC move "Inflict harm as established" and the harm that a PC gets when they choose to "Seize something by force" (a player move) are different things.  And in neither case does it matter if you're taking harm from multiple sources/directions or not. All that matters is if you're taking harm from one or two dudes, a small gang, a medium gang, or a larger gang. Those are your choices!

If you're using the MC move "inflict harm," then you inflict harm based on the weapons and size of the person/group doing the harm.

If the player is "seizing by force," then -- doing this from memory -- they inflict their harm (based on weapons + size of their gang, and +1 if the player chooses "inflict terrible harm") and take harm from their opponents (usually 2 harm + size of their gang, and -1 if the player chooses "suffer little harm"). That's it.

AW isn't gritty and representational, mechanically. All the grit comes in the fictional description of how it goes down. If you want to make custom moves to do it differently, you can, but that's how it works, by the book.

@ Ctrall
You are right, for dealing harm it is mechanically the same. The difference is that gangs take harm with a different table, and PCs, do -1 harm to a small gang.

If you are inflicting harm as established, the second difference doesn't come up. If you are trading harm or using the seize by force between an individual and a small group, then it makes sense to me that they would take less damage, and use the other table, for the exact same reasons you'd want to increase the damage the player takes. If getting by three shotgun blasts means you should get hurt worse, than spreading your gunfire over a group of three should mean you hurt each opponent less, right?

Just because they are inflicting harm as a gang for one move doesn't mean they need to be treated as a gang for the entire conflict, if that's what you are worried about. If three NPCs are all trying to kill me I can see why I'd take one more harm, but if I was only interested in killing one of them, it would make sense to make a move against that individual and not the group, right?

Pages 155 - 158 of AW explain exactly how to handle 3 NPCs in a fight against a PC. Including how to take turns, how much damage they do and receive, and all.

I'll ask again: Is anything in there unclear? Do you have any questions about how that went down? If you do, I'd be happy to help.

Thanks for replying to this John, the example in the book makes sense to me. I was unsure about how to handle Inflicting Harm as established when it was coming from multiple NPCs, but I feel resolved about it now.

It's also good to note that just because you're fighting multiple opponents doesn't mean you're fighting a gang. Five or six guys could all be on the field with different objectives, different ways of completing the same objective, on different 'sides', etc.

The size tags are a little misleading. They don't correspond with a concrete number--it depends on your game, the MC, and the situation. A single Gunlugger can be a small gang, as Ross said two or three well-trained guys could count as a small gang, and fifty people could be just a medium gang.

Think of it terms of force rather than population (this is hard to do with the 'a guy or two' line); this has helped me out. Like horsepower! One car can be 200 horsepower, and one badass dude can be a half-dozen guys of forcepower wooooo. =D