GRAPPLING! NOOOO!

Ok, not that interesting.

Really, I wanted to know how "unarmed" attacks work.  As it stands, an unarmed Fighter is just as dangerous as a Fighter with a dagger (but with less Weight).

So, should PCs be able to damage foes with their fists at all?

If so, is it like, "Hand, -1 Damage"?

Or perhaps this is served well enough by assuming that punching is damaging enough, but trying to punch a guy with a knife leaves you in danger of getting cut on the way in?

Anyway, just something that will probably come up and probably ought to be addressed.

The rule is you do your base damage when attacking armed. The one special case is a fighter who takes his fists as a signature weapon, he's armed when just using his fists.

What armed means is slightly up to the situation. Picking up a chair and smacking someone with it? Might be armed in a bar brawl, but probably not against a dragon.

Awesome.  I like it.  Thanks.

Sage, what happens when my Fighter's move is, "I put the goblin in a wrestling hold so it can't wriggle free." ?

Is that Hack and Slash, where my "damage" is "grappling hold, 0-harm, pinned"?

This is slightly complicated by the fact that there's a move for that in the advanced fighter moves. Let's ignore that for a moment.

It's a fictional thing that you do. The GM responds with a move, but not a hard one (this isn't a golden opportunity). Maybe consequences and ask? "You'll be able to hold him, sure, but you're not a great wrestler, he'll get an attack on you as you grab him. That cool?"

Or maybe deal and take damage: "You get him in a headlock and choke him out, dealing your normal damage as stun damage, but he's biting you with his vicious little goblin teeth, they're like needles in your arm. Take his damage."

Ok. Are you saying you can't Hack and Slash without a weapon? Maybe it should say that.

(P.S. I don't think it should work that way)

You can hack and slash without a weapon, sure. But is holding someone still hack and slashing?

Actually, this may be my mistake. I should have clarified the fiction. Are you holding him still to open him up for another attack, or trying to knock him out?

(I don't know much about fighting. My mental model is punching, kicking, and so on is an attack. Grabbing, holding, and wrestling is more about holding them still. I may be way off, you're the UFC fan. If you'd said "I smack the goblin right in the face with my fist" that'd be Hack and Slash.)

you can do as much, if not more damage to someone with holds as you can with striking. when i used to wrestle in high school we had to worry about a plethora of illegal holds that were illegal because they could easily do lasting and extremely painful damage. a lot of holding that happens in wrestling is because the joint wont bend any further by the person getting held's own volition or without putting yourself over his/her pain threshold.

in a fantasy setting i would see this as exaggerated, imagine grabbing a gobbling and snapping his arm or squeezing him out with a bear hug. i think of Beowulf ripping off Grendel's arm fits the motif of 'hack and slash with grapple' well.

it really comes down to how you want hack and slash to work, i guess. with the way grapple looks to me, i havent used it but i want to, it doesnt seem like the fighter would be doing much while grappling. im not sure if i could justify in the fiction taking most moves while trying to keep that minotaur in a headlock besides doing some sort of damage to it.

I want to grab hold of his weapon arm, keep control of it, wrestle him to the ground, and pin him there.

(Let's say my fighter knows some wrestling/jiu-jitsu. Most classical fighting styles -- even those focused on weapons -- taught an array of effective holds and takedowns.)

If I'm unarmed, and the goblin is armed, I'm in a world of trouble. That's defy danger for starters, at least (possibly just giving the goblin a free hit, depending on the situation. Trying to wrestle someone who's holding a sword or knife is stupidly dangerous. But hey, my fighter also fights dragons.)

But let's say I get a 10+ on the defy danger. Do I do it? Or do I also then roll a hack and slash, where my "damage" is wrestling? I sort of lean toward the latter, and I think that's a good catch-all case for attacks that aren't directly damaging (in the way the thrust of a blade is). AW allows for this, too, with some examples including attacks like "dragging away, 0-harm."

For cases where the skill discrepancy is large -- my fighter wants to disarm a peasant who is brandishing a kitchen knife -- then maybe it's simply one move to do it (defy danger or hack and slash) or possibly no move at all if the opponent isn't a credible threat.

Aside: evilben is totally right about damaging moves in grappling. I know lots more ways to inflict serious harm that way than by striking. I addition to jiu-jitsu, I once took combatives seminars called "UFC fouls" and "Illegal holds", both entirely focused on really dangerous stuff. :)

That's some good stuff to think on. I'm actually taking a lot of ideas from that. Hmmm...

That opens up all kinds of cool stuff for the fighter (and the potential Monk).

"When you attack using holds and grabs, instead of dealing damage you're now wrestling with the enemy." When I write it out, it doesn't look as cool as in my head. I need to mess with it more.

I think you could write up various methods as weapons (with tags) and it should work pretty well. That was part of my plan for the Monk playbook.

Grappling (hand, two-handed, stun, forceful, dangerous)

Killing Techniques
You know the secret ways to kill with your bare hands. You can choose to do lethal damage, rather than stun, when you fight without a weapon. Also, remove the dangerous tag from any hand-to-hand combat weapons you employ.

if we say grappling is it mean that the person will free to do whatever he wants as long his not using any deadly weapon?

movie knives

The dangerous tag! That's makes this really snap into focus for me.

Maybe a custom move that riffs off of Parley. For example:

Overpower (STR)
When you leverage someone and you try to get them to do what you want, roll+STR. If they’re an NPC on a 10+ they buckle and do what you what you want. On a 7-9, they do what you want but you both take harm.
If they’re a PC, on a 10+ both, on a 7-9 choose one:
-If they do it, they mark experience
-If they refuse, it’s defying danger
On a 6-, you both take harm in the struggle and you may make this move again if it means that much to you.

Mease, that is slick.  A nice re-skinning of the base rules.  I'd love to see that in action.