The Harm Move - EVERY time?

  • 5 Replies
  • 4882 Views
The Harm Move - EVERY time?
« on: August 09, 2010, 05:11:44 PM »
Should be having players make the Harm Move every single time anyone "harms" them regardless of how much actual harm they take?  There is, I believe, an example in the book of a player making the Harm Move even when her armor negated all the damage, so thus far in my game, I've been having the players make it every single time they are hit by a weapon or fist or bullet, even if they don't actually suffer Harm.  But last time it occurred to me that even if you're only adding 0 to the move, that's still a better than 50% chance of having something bad happen, which seems a bit harsh.

And what have more armor than the harm rating of the weapon?  Should they make the harm move and subtract from the roll?

Re: The Harm Move - EVERY time?
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2010, 05:43:45 PM »
Someone wearing heavy armor get's punched in the stomach?  probably not.  Shot in the same place where it doesn't actually get through but it rings her like a bell?  yeah, I'd have them do the harm move.  Basically, depends on if what happened to them really

But that's just an instinctive reaction.  Since the final ruleset came out, I only played one session and the only fight that took part was an NPC taking a serious, one sided beat down.  So.
My real name is Timo

Re: The Harm Move - EVERY time?
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2010, 05:55:46 PM »
To quote the book: "By default, the harm & healing moves are in play. The MC might
decide to forego them, case by case."

Re: The Harm Move - EVERY time?
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2010, 06:07:06 PM »
The metric I used in play was "do I care if the character loses their footing, loses track of something important, or whatever else might result from the harm move?" a lot of the time those things weren't really at stake in the fight, so it didn't matter, and the harm move would just be deciding between 1 extra harm or 1 less harm.

*

Bret

  • 285
Re: The Harm Move - EVERY time?
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2010, 06:45:32 PM »
I almost always forget to use the Harm move. I don't think my game has been ruined by that.

But I should try harder to remember.
Tupacalypse World

Re: The Harm Move - EVERY time?
« Reply #5 on: August 09, 2010, 07:56:23 PM »
In my game we always use the Harm move, and if it's Harm-0 or less we sometimes use it, dictated by if the situation seems to call for it (primarily as judged by me as MC).