Something about harm that i never understood

I need some clarification about harm since next session my PCs want to assault an enemy gang.

When two gangs fights, the bigger gang inflicts more damage and suffer less damage. And that's easy.
When a single person fights a gang, the gang inflicts a lot more damage and suffer far less damage. And that's easy too.
When a gunlugger with NTBFW fights a gang, it's the same as the first case. Ok.

Now the troubles:
1)When two or more PCs fights a gang with different weapons, how much damage they inflict to the gang?
2)When a gunlugger with NTBFW and some other PCs fights a gang, how much damage they inflict? Are they considered a medium gang?
3)When a chopper and his gang plus a gunlugger with NTBFW fights another gang, what happens?
4)When 2 npcs open fire on a single PC and they inflict harm as estabilished, how much is that harm? Is the sum of the two weapons? But if that's the case, isn't this damage BIGGER than the damage a gang would inflict? Or you should use the gang damage even if they aren't a gang?
5)When a gunlugger with NTBFW fights a gang, is always considered a battle if the conflict is open? (i.e.: not an aggro or something done by stealth but guns against guns) If not, when it's not a battle?

Curious to see what other people will say about this.

Here is my take:

1) Since I assume these two PCs are not a part of gang, they would apply their damage separately to it. so If one of them is using a shiv, he's probably not much help.
2) Here I'd probably treat them separately but I might lump them all into a small gang.
3) That's a good question. If the gunlugger is not working as part of the gang, its easy, treat him/her separately.  Otherwise I don't know. My gut feeling is treat the gunlugger as part of the gang, maybe bumping the size of the gang if it is near the next size increment or maybe just further downgrading damage done to the gunlugger specifically from the attack.
4) Another good question. I lean to the first scenario, especially if these NPCs are established in the fiction (i.e. two as yet nameless mooks might be a gang and less dangerous then getting stuck between Foster and Prim). On the other hand if I feel generous damage wise I might make them a gang (on the other hand it will be much easier for a PC to cut 2 opponents down to 1 than a small gang to a single opponent).
5) Well if weapons are out and killing is the order of the day, then yeah sounds like a battle. I can't think of case that isn't an ambush.

1) let's crunch some numbers: a 1-2 person gang with dmg 3 vs a small gang with arm 1 deals 1 damage or 2 if they choose to deal more damage on the roll. 2 separate people with a shotgun each, deals 3 dmg each, reduced to 1 because of gang size and armor. So 2 dmg, if they choose to deal more damage, that's 4 damage. Dead gang. That's a big difference, even more if you factor in AP bullets and some moves that gives +1 dmg.

My take on the subject is:
when some pcs fight a gang, they are acting like a gang. The size depends on how many are and the damage depend on the weapon average. If one of those pcs wishes to make a different move, they are not counting towards the gang numbers but if they end up inflicting damage, they do it only to a single person and not to the whole gang.

But what if the optional battle rules are in play? Those rules aren't good when gangs are involved it seems.



3) Same thing, even worse. 2 separates gangs deal a lot more damage than 1 bigger gang. Expecially with AP bullets.


p.s.: addendum, since 1 PCs is not a gang, when he deals dmg to a gang it only harm one member of this gang or he deals damage as a 1-2 person gang and thus spreading his damage to the whole enemy gang?

Here's what I'd do:

1) Resolve each action separately: one PC, then the other. Don't combine them into a gang.

2) Resolve each action separately: one PC, then the other. Don't combine them into a single gang.

3) Resolve each action separately. If the Chopper is fighting as part of his gang, have the Chopper roll to seize by force, but trade harm for harm using only the gang. The benefits of leadership!

4) Resolve each action separately. Yes, it probably means more harm for the victim, but that's cinema for you: two protagonists hell-bent on murder is always more dangerous than a gang of thugs.

5) A battle is kind of subjective, but remember to be a fan of the PC. If it feels like an epic fight, treat it as a battle. I would probably treat any knock-down, drag-out fight involving a gang as a battle.

If you resolve the damage separately it's a guy vs a gang or it's a guy vs a guy?
A pc inflicts harm to the whole gang or only to a single person?

Probably guy vs. gang, unless they are attacking just one guy and only that one guy is fighting back.

Like, if Cypress (PC) runs into The Jackals and they unload on each other, full auto, that's guy vs gang. If Cypress specifically targets only Richmond, it's still guy vs. gang if all the Jackals are firing back (but you should apply the consequences of Cypress' harm on the gang to Richmond first, because that follows from the fiction and is you being a fan). If they're not all fighting back, Cypress is probably going aggro, unless for some reason the Jackals are letting Richmond take on Cypress alone. Maybe this is the case, while the rest of the gang fights Chewy (another PC). If so, Cypress vs. Richmond is guy vs. guy, and Chewy vs. the Jackals is guy vs. gang.

If Cypress and Chewy wade right into the ranks of the Jackals waving machetes, have them both roll seize by force, guy vs. gang. However! If the gang is a medium-sized gang, and Cypress and Chewy have a good attack plan that splits the gang in two, have them each fight against a small gang, as a reward for good tactics.

Don't split up a small gang though, unless the PCs really do manage to separate a single guy from the gang. Two guys working together as a gang is still a small gang.

What Johnstone said. PCs act independently, in nearly all situations. Gang rules are for NPCs. PCs leading gangs roll on behalf of and with their gang as a resource. A PC helping another PC fight a gang is either taking specific actions to help, or is rolling to aid the other PC using +Hx.

I will add #6, together with answer I assume is right.
What when two PCs want to use move at the same time? We had this situation, when two groups with weapons and stuff, stumbled upon each other, one outside the building, the other coming from inside. The second was slightly disadvantaged, but only very slightly. Both groups (PC+gang) want to go aggro.
My assumption is - both of them get to use their move, and then we look how well they both succeeded, and determine how it ends from this.
Does this make sense?

Both groups (PC+gang) want to go aggro.

Are they going agro... against each other? If weapons are out on both sides, that's seizing by force, yeah? In which case it's totally fine for two PCs to roll the move at the same time, and pick the options from the list as they see fit, then you total up the harm. They can even both roll to interfere with each other, so four rolls total, the same on either side. Could go one of a hundred thousand ways depending on the rolls and the circumstances!

But if we have situation, in which they don't want to shoot, they want to aim at each other head, and tell them to back off, or it will start.
This way you can get nice standoff. In case of seizing by force, you can't.

Hmm, that is interesting. I think you may have to throw in an act under fire roll on each side to gain proper positioning. I guess it really depends: are both parties willing to cave? If not you're headed right into battle in which case the appropriate move is SBF. If neither party is looking to dive into battle, I suppose going aggro could be appropriate. Eager to hear other folks' take on this.

Sounds like zefir handled it perfectly.

Actually I didn't - we came to that conclusion after the session. We handled that differently, so whole affair ended with bloodbath.

But doing two parallel "Going Aggros" is pretty neat solution. You basically have three possible outcomes (well, 4 - but 2 of them are identical, but with sides switched).

A and B fail - bloodbath ensues, or something else that MC thinks about
One side succeeds, another fails - one side gets successful move, second can get some more "fun" from MC
A and B suceed - standoff, both sides retreat slowly or something like that (or mutual bloodbath ensues)

And some variations in case one side gets full success, and second partial.

Correction: Sounds like zefir handled it perfectly IN THE POST-GAME FORUM POST.

Also, if they both fail: So much fun to be the MC!