Rules vs Fiction Q:
do the tags messy and forceful have any effect other than to add flavour to the fiction?
Forceful i can understand, battling at the edge of a cliff or on a narrow bridge and with a decent roll your characters are learning that falling =/= flying. also useful to add flavour to those pesky 6- rolls.
i’m having a harder time deciphering how to use Messy. other than sam raimi-esque one-hit-one-kill blows.
Since this is a story game and not a simulation game, when a messy weapon or monster takes off a hand/foot/leg/arm, it doesn’t need to mean death. I mean, it can, but that’s determined by the HP. Hopefully, it will mean a new respect for whatever the hell that was. Then, it can lead to a quest to find what The Wizard/Mage/Cleric/Priest needs to get that magic hand and attach it to The Fighter’s stump.
Yeah. When a weapon or monster has Messy, never just subtract HP: cause damage.
They are tags, which are basically cues for the MC. Forceful means you are supposed to say that when it hits things they fall down, get pushed back, go flying, or maybe even get crushed. Messy means that blood goes everywhere, limbs go flying, it makes a mess. But you the MC are supposed to say these things. These things CAN happen without those tags, but with those tags, they are SUPPOSED to happen.
I just call it a miss, a partial success and a success. I think it’s pretty obvious which is which.
it also depends on the weapon. A messy giant sword is like the spouse vs. the crazy 88. A messy warhammer is clearly more about bones crushing than limbs cutting. And I think hokuto when speaking about messy fists. Same goes for monster damage.
Messy jaws. “You hear a wet crunch, when the dragon sinks it’s fangs into you arm. Or former arm.”
You can also imagine that if the monster’s range is greater than the hero’s, then forceful might be useful for them to push the hero back and force them to defy danger to attack again.