New Harm Rules

I'm still doubtful about the revised harm rules (the ones not yet in the current draft). Monster harm is treated the same way as Hunter harm, with wounds and wound moves for the Keeper.

Basically, it means that the condition of the monster is entirely up to GM fiat. This is not bad in itself, and is not that different from AW, but it does make some of the players' choices meaningless.
For example, if raw harm does not determine when the monster dies, why should I ever prefer a high-damage weapon with constrictive tags over a reliable and non-conspicuous handgun? Why should I ever choose the "inflict terrible harm" option when kicking ass?

The amount of harm taken still matters, as different wound moves will be available based on the harm level.

I don't think that the fact that the Keeper gets to determine when things happen is a problem, although I suspect there needs to be some more guidance in there for how it works.

Probably something like "when the monster has taken a 4-harm wound or more, and it's hit by either an attack that targets its weakness or another 4-harm wound, then that's when it should die".

To be honest, I felt that "when the monster reaches 7 (or 10 or whatever) harm it dies" was always restrictive, too. It's easy for the hunters to hit a creature with that much harm early on, cutting a mystery anticlimactically short.

The way it should work (I'm not super sure how it does work) is that the rules require the Keeper to know (and therefore the players to say) exactly how the monster is injured. The harm done, what the character is doing, specifically, and the kind of monster they're fighting all inform what moves the Keeper chooses for the monster's wounds.

You keep doing 2-harm with your handgun, and the Keeper can keep saying "You blow another hole through the Vampire, but it doesn't seem to care" But if you describe your character swinging for the neck with your 4-harm axe, and you roll 10+, the Keeper, making the world seem real, needs to describe something quite different.

Simon, yes that's how I want it to work.

I'm still working on that section, trying to get it explained properly, but I think you got most of it there.

A detailed example of combat in that section will be very useful.

Yes, that's one of the bits that I'm trying to get down. It's hard, though, as I have to work out what I do when combats are the most fun.

In the meantime, I'd advise a good read of this thread on story games about running combat in Dungeon World. Almost all of it is applicable to Monster of the Week as well.

The two key things I have to try not to fall back on are:

- Let the fiction go first. Given what just happened, who has a chance to make a move next? What sort of move makes sense? This applies to Keepers thinking about their next move, and also about what the hunters might be able to try.

- It's not a my turn-your turn thing. Who gets the next move depends on what's happening right now.