Newbie Rules Questions

I have a few situations coming up consistently and I hoped folks could check me on these.

Tagging:
I assume when a Brainer wants to tag someone with his implant injectors during a firefight, that I am simply having him "act under fire" to get it done? Or is that a "seize by force" moment? Or is that a "he wants to do what?" moment?

Angels:
I am ruling that they can use their Angel kits on themselves, but I didn't get an idea of how messed up they can get before self-treatment is no longer an option. In the book, an NPC limps over for help at 9 on his countdown clock. I'm not sure if I should allow that at 10 or 11, though.

I also opted to allow the other PCs to "Help" him give himself first aid - alright, or way too generous?

Also, can an Angel accelerate his own healing if he is at 6? Or should he just rely on the benefit that PCs at 6 or under can erase a step on the clock every session or so, MC's generosity willing.

Healing Touch: it probably goes without saying that you can't heal yourself. However, if an Angel using Healing Touch rolls 7-9 (at which time he heals the step, but is said to be doing so under fire), what do I do if he fails the "acting under fire" roll? Just make things really bad for him? Or does that make the Healing Touch fail as well?

Infirmary: if an Angel is grievously wounded, can the PCs take the Angel back to his assistants to be patched up?

Reload: can a PC just drop a machine gun after he empties a clip into some raiders, then draw and fire another weapon? It looks awesome on screen, of course, and it makes sense, but is that milking the system? Should I reserve the option to say his shit breaks?

I don't have my book, so ignore me if any move contradicts me:

Tagging: moves are generally under the purview of the MC. It may be not a move at all. It may be acting under fire. It may be seizing with force. Generally, go with the fiction and decide.

Angels: I believe whether they can heal themselves and if others can help is totally up to you and the fiction.

Acting under fire generally tells you what to do. On a 7-9 I think you offer a hard bargain or a worse result, no?

Can you drop your gun and pull another? Sure. Can you take way there stuff? Sure. Are they making a move? Did they miss? That's a golden opportunity right?

Remember though, be a fan of the characters, make their lives interesting.

Brainer:
If he can just slide right up to a dude, no problem, right?

If people are shooting at him, or dude is running around and the Brainer has to chase him down, that sounds like acting under fire to get it done, to me.

If the dude punches him in the face when he goes to tag him with the injector, he might have to seize by force, or just act under fire, depending on the fiction, I think.

Angels:
Assuming the Angel can use his kit on himself in the fiction, it's all good. If he can do any of the things it says he can do, like narcostab himself and zone out for a week, if he still has hands to use the kit after getting injured, of course he can treat himself. If other PCs know what they are doing, of course they can help him.

Healing Touch:
Yeah, on a hit, healing happens. If you take that away, somebody's not getting the full benefit of their moves. If the Angel fails to act under fire, though, all sorts of stuff could happen:
-- Take away their stuff: Now he can't use Healing Touch anymore! What happened? Maybe he must extract his energy from the patient and put it back in his own body.
-- Announce future badness: He could have visions about all the bad stuff the patient is carrying around. Maybe the patient has done a lot of people wrong, and the Angel can't help but see that it's going to come back in a big bad way.
-- Put them in a spot: Give the player a choice: "You're about to pass out from the strain but if you hold on, you're going to fuck up the healing and your patient wil be permanently marked because of it. Is that cool or do you finish your work, no matter what?" Then let the player choose. Does he really want to be unconscious for the rest of the firefight? What does it mean for a patient to be "marked"?

Infirmary:
Sounds cool to me, that's one reason to have assistants! If the hardholder gets to roll+hard to have her gang go and seize a fortress by force when she's not there, it seems to me the Angel could heal people by getting his assistants to do it, without being there -- or as the patient.

Reload:
Key words here: "It looks awesome on screen, of course, and it makes sense." If it makes sense, that's the important part. Do it the way that makes sense and is awesome. There's no "rounds" or anything, and a "turn" is just somebody's turn to say stuff. If you ask a player what they do and they say "I drop the empty machinegun, whip out my pistol and shoot Wisher right in the face," cool beans! Roll dice for it and let the dice tell you if Wisher is quick or dead.

Does that make sense?

Acting under fire generally tells you what to do. On a 7-9 I think you offer a hard bargain or a worse result, no?

"Acting under fire" doesn't actually tell me what happens when I Fail the roll:

When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire,
roll+cool. On a 10+, you do it. On a 7–9, you flinch, hesitate, or
stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or
an ugly choice.

I assume failure depends on the fiction, but as Johnstone notes, "Yeah, on a hit, healing happens. If you take that away, somebody's not getting the full benefit of their moves" so that is how I chose to proceed. Thank you for the ideas on how to snowball that failure!

On a miss its a golden opportunity. GM makes as hard a move as they like. Following the agenda and principals, of course.

Not much to add to what the others said, but with reload (or other equipment tags) remember that one of the GM moves is "activate their stuff's downside" and I think reload can be construed as a downside.

You can call for them to need to reload whenever appropriate.  Like when they miss a combat-related move or whatever.  Having their gun be out of bullets as well as whatever else trouble they're in after they miss a seize by force could be fun.

The reload tag (like all the tags) puts restrictions on what you can say.

"Dremmer and his goons think they're such hot shit. Whatever. I shoot them in their stupid faces."
"You just open up on the lot of them with your sawed-off? Don't you have to reload in there at some point?"
"Ah, yeah, shit."
"Yeah, so Balls and Tum Tum go down in a mist of blood and meat, and now you're hunkered down behind the car, fumbling out some fresh shells and the rest of them are shooting your cover to pieces. What do you do?"

The reload tag (like all the tags) puts restrictions on what you can say.

Of course, that makes sense.

What I am stuck on is: what in the rules or the spirit of the game would guide me to keep him from emptying that machine gun, dropping it on the dirt, and pulling another gun (presumably reloading the machine gun when not under attack).

And if that move is violating the spirit of the game, am I obligated to concoct an in-game reason why, or to narrate a thing that fulfills the "reload" drawback in another way?

Should I just have the gun break, in essence, shifting the consequences of the reload into a later complication?

Perhaps I should say "yeah, you are about to drop the machine gun, but one of the raiders makes a grab for it, so you wrestle with him for a few moments as gunfire erupts around you. Roll to act under fire to keep it away from him." Then next time focus is on him, say "alright, you got your machine gun away from the raider (if that indeed happened), and managed to work your sidearm free - what do you do?"

Nothing in the rules or spirit should be guiding you to fucking with his plan to drop the machine gun and whip out his pistol.  You should not force the gun to break.  That is a perfectly valid thing for the player to do.  The reload tag, in fact, steers the world in that direction.  There may or may not be consequences of having an unloaded machine gun at your feet, you'll have to play to find out.  All you have to do is remember that he can't use the machine gun again until there's been a chance to reload.

If he's got the brains to bring an extra sidearm to the fight, let him use it. Trying to force some arbitrary restriction just because his primary weapon has a reload tag would be a break from the "fiction first" mentality that should guide you.

Yep.

You could also think of tags as things that inspire you to say stuff, like, "you need to reload" instead of restrict what you can say. Same diff.

But, it's not, like, your *job* to bring the tags into play, in some kind of game-balance way. The way you might need to enforce a power disadvantage in HERO, say. They're there to help you say stuff, not homework for you to do.

"Make sure you track and enforce every tag," is nowhere on the list of GM jobs. In short:

Should I just have the gun break, in essence, shifting the consequences of the reload into a later complication?

No. Don't do that.

I am a fan of this player...er, character.

I've been a fan of the maneuver ever since Rick O'Connell ("The Mummy") and Il Duce ("Boondock Saints") demonstrated the "reload? just have more guns!" technique (both of which came out in 1999).

I've been a fan of the maneuver ever since Rick O'Connell ("The Mummy") and Il Duce ("Boondock Saints") demonstrated the "reload? just have more guns!" technique (both of which came out in 1999).

I think you have your answer then. More guns is awesome! More guns rock! Of course more guns means spending more jingle, trading more favors for more ammo, getting a rep as a badass that the Chopper has to take down a peg...I love more guns!

Dropping your gun to whip out another one is cool as shit, plus it gives the MC a chance to be like, "yeah, so you're ducking behind that car for cover and you see Knives running to grab the gun you dropped and take off with it. Pillcase's gang is keeping the gunfire steady on you, trying to make sure you can't leave your cover, what are you gonna do? Let her take the machine gun or what?" And stuff like that ruuuuules