Does anyone actually use moves like 7-9: rip off a limb?

Does anyone actually use moves like 7-9: rip off a limb?

Does anyone actually use moves like 7-9: rip off a limb?

Doesn’t that feel like it’s a bit much? If some gets a limb shorn off, narratively, aren’t they just like dead? I feel stuff like that alienates the audience. Also, short of magical healing, how is that limb really coming back on there?

Rather, I like something like

7-9: Cripples limb/gear into useless ribbons or something of the like blah blah

Am I thinking it’s worse than it is?

21 thoughts on “Does anyone actually use moves like 7-9: rip off a limb?”

  1. Well, if the move is about directly attacking a necrodragon, then sure, I guess getting off with a soft move like losing a limb feels appropriate. Otherwise, that feels narratively like a hard move. Seems like it’s about the fiction and the tone determined with players.

  2. Tim B​, I mean more like does it ever really anything to the story? It just feels like something I’d never want to do to a player nor would I want the DM do to me. It feels almost as arbitrary as like : 7-9, your dog dies.

    Im being hyperbolic, but has anyone ever taken a players limb other than in the end boss fight?

  3. Monsters can do whatever you want! I GM’d a scene where a Ranger and a Wizard fought a giant, spider-like monster; they removed multiple limbs (crippling it) during combat.

    I’ve also had baddies bleed out after losing a limb (also becoming unable to use a weapon), so sometimes it is realistic.

  4. I have taken the thief’s hand. It was well telegraphed that the foe was capable of removing body parts and just before the player attacked I reminded them of the razor sharp blades and the swiftness of the foe so when the 6- came up the player was disappointed but accepted the consequences of the fiction. She now has a magical stone hand that she may or may not have complete control over.

  5. Ah, I see he meant the Player?

    I’ve taken weapons, and injured them almost beyond (non-magical) repair. Usually it is awesome, but you have to be careful.

  6. I agree with Tim B here. Ripping off a PC’s limb, whether on a 7-9 or as a GM move, is going to depend on the tone of the game and the situation at hand. You don’t want to do that when it’s going to piss your players off. You also don’t want to do it if it feels wrong to you, for whatever reason.

    The character who lost the limb dying or getting it back is again going to depend on the tone and setting of your game.

  7. I took a character’s hand off during a 1 shot. He played a gun toting pilot in Grim World. I told them during character creation that limb loss was possible. He fired his gun recklessly, and the backfire obliterated most of his hand.

    He later killed someone to take their prosthetic hand.

  8. Had a player loose an arm early in our adventure (2 yrs deep lol). Serveral bad rolls. Made for great story and jokes like “how do you hold your torch? You have your sword drawn” lol. He didn’t have an arm for another year before he had a steam punkish arm implanted.

    Tone is important. Some players don’t want that extreme. Some players love to remember its a deadly world

  11. The original 16hp dragon story talks about how losing a limb added quite a lot to the story. Questing to get her limb back lead the Fighter to some interesting choices that developed her character: one option was to do a Ritual, but it required living flesh to complete, and she didn’t want to do that.

    What she ended up doing was pledging her service to a deity and taking the Paladin’s Quest move; she could grow a new, glowing arm as a ‘mark of divine authority,’ making herself whole but only so long as she served her deity. Super cool stuff.

    So yeah. Tone is important and it’s not for every game or every table, but it can definitely add something to the game.

  12. James Etheridge​ great stuff. So do other type moves have such lasting effects like that? There seems to be a disparity between dealing 1d10, poisoning a person, or losing a limb.

    That being said, DW never claimed all moves to be equal.

  13. Of course you don’t dive right in to ripping off a limb, but if you have the ogre chief rip an NPC apart, and then tear off the leg of a hireling, all the sudden they have warning that this can happen. You say “that thing appears able to rip arms and legs off, you sure you want to get in close?” and let them decide. Make them aware of the risk. Then it MAY be a fine 7-9 move depending on the current fiction.

    If they just turn the corner, come across the ogre and the fighter says “I attack, rolled an 8”, you don’t generally respond with “he rips off your arm.” That’s just incoherent story telling.

  14. Aaron Griffin I think you’re right. Just like the 16 dragon, it seems that building up moves through foreshadowing or letting them understand it’s key. At least at that point it’s more like ‘dude, you just saw the monster eat 4 other guards and you still ran in there guns a blazing.’

  15. I had a warg to rip of the arm during Funnel scenario. I think that the trick is to do epic stuff but in a way that doesn’t cripple (pun intended) the ongoing campaign. The character fashioned a permanent weapon to her stub and we haven’t had any problem with it.

  17. My PC once lost hand. The monster had messy tag on its weapon and I was unable to dodge the attack. To be onest it was a real hit to my pride. My character was a witcher and I did not know what to do. Then a nacromancer sawed my hand back. Now i have undead hand 😀

  18. I always like to embrace the move: Offer a difficult choice. It throws the decision back on the player, that squirmy, awful place where you can get what you want but it will cost you one of two very undesirable outcomes.

    So sure, 7-9 rip off a limb, or you can keep you limb but the love of your life (who literally carries your magical heart in their chest) dies horribly in front of you.

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