27 thoughts on “Question;”

  1. as fiction: “you catch fire, roll d4 damages. What do you do?”

    “My hatred is too strong! I ignore the flames and keep attacking!”

    “Awesome! Tell me how you attack, roll for it… and then take more damage. You know, ’cause you’re still literally on fire”.

  3. if you think at it like that, someone would say “I do absolutely nothing” and not take damage. And that’s kinda dumb, isn’t it? (Of course, no one who’s engaged in the game would do that)

  6. that’s why “follow the fiction”, although it does seem general, is probably a better giudeline than “whenever someone makes a move, deal damage”. Catching fire is also the most straightforward example: bleeding may be dealt with in different ways, but if you want to treat it like continous damage, D&D style, you could reason it deals damage only when you physically exert yourself. So, damage on an Hack & Slash, but no damage on a Spout Lore. It’s not about the moves per se, that’s my point.

  9. If you’re on fire, bleeding, drowning, etc and DO NOTHING, the GM has a golden opportunity, and MUST make a move. He can skip the roll roll damage part, and make those drops of blood resonate stronger and stronger on the ground, until their sound seems like the Gates of Death cranking open.

    “So, what do you do?”

  11. Very good answers so far, how about when something the player characters do inflicts the DoT, what is a fair way to “track” the HP loss on the monster. 

    I realize that’s a bit “game-y” but I know my players would prefer some transparency about what is happening.

  14. Here is what I do: 

    There is no “ongoing damage”. 

    When you set a monster on fire, it is ON FIRE. You deal your damage and you can probably ignore armor, that is it. After that the monster reacts to being set on fire.

    A Golbin? Panics, drops and rolls.

    A knight? Drops and rolls a bit more trained.

    A giant Stone-Ogre? Doesn’t care at all. 

    I mean look at how stuff works in movies/stories. Did you ever see someone going? Well I could continue being on fire for a few more seconds – it’s really not that bad. 

    No. It drastically changes the situation the character is in and they will react to that. Sometimes though it is just to show that something is way more awesome and then it just doesn’t care. It only looks cooler. 

    Also any way to somehow handle being on fire and taking periodic damage doesn’t work for me. You can’t just stand in a zone of magical fire and take it for a bit. That happens in videogames and some RPGs, that doesn’t happen in stories. 

  16. Severe bleeding isn’t about you losing a bit of life over time. It’s a timer. You get hit very hard/precise and start bleeding bad. You probably need to Defy Danger because you suffered a calamity. 10+ it’s not so bad at least for this scene. 7-9 you are dizzy and you miss something important happening or are a bit too slow to react to that. 

    6- You take a debility now and you need immediate attention. Basically you take some stun damage as well and doing anything but tending to your wounds (maybe even that depending on the fiction) requires you to Defy Danger.

    When the situation is over you need to get bandaged. Does anyone of you have bandages? Does the Bard want to rip some of his fabolous clothes for you?

  17. What about “when you catch on fire roll+Dex. On a 10: You manage the fire with great dexterity, gain one fire attack. On 7-9: You choose one: You loose one equipment to fire. You loose use of one arm or leg until healed properly. You are disfigured in a minor but obvious way. On a 6- Your body is used as channel by a fire elemental, pain and destruction. Enjoy!”

  20. Someone on fire can’t just ‘be on fire’, take a few damage dice, and then continuing acting like it ain’t no problem. First, as the GM you should be making it obvious to the player how much of  threat this fire is – Is it just a little spark on their sleeve or are they engulfed in flames and will die quickly if they don’t do something?  End your description of the fire with “What do you do?” – which will likely trigger a move and move the story along. If someone says “I stand in the inferno and let the fire consume me” – well, no need to get out the damage dice, they just triggered the Last Breath move.

     If someone says “I think my armor will stand up for a while, I charge the goblin” – Ok, give them a hack and slash and the result will determine whether they were right about their armor holding up. If they succeed – maybe they were safe….for now, but they’re still on fire. Move onto another player, (maybe the druid will make it rain), but if the fire is still there – that’s your move again. “Ok, fighter, you successfully killed that goblin, and while your armor was holding up, it’s starting to feel pretty toasty, What do you do?”

     If someone gives you a vague response that doesn’t account for the fact they are on fire – push them to describe more. So, if you say “ok, the fire is burning through the skin of your arm” and they say “Ok, I charge the goblin” – ask “So, you do nothing about the fire?” – If they insist on completely ignoring the threat, you might interpret that to be a Golden Opportunity and go ahead and make a Hard Move. Show your PCs that if a threat is presented, that threat will act upon them if they ignore it. 

     For really long-term stuff (curses, disease), you can use the reduced stat, or give them a physical disability that you describe, and then exploit that stuff whenever any PC fails. – “Oh no, looks like the druid’s Filth Disease is acting up again.”

  21. I was thinking of this, and thought of a much more elegant and simple way to think of this as opposed to the novel I wrote.

    Treat the fire/curse/disease like a monster or a danger. That’s essentially what you’re doing anyway.

  23. Traditional RPGs created the idea that Damage Over Time kills someone at a known and predictable rate. – How weird is that?

    If you stop thinking about Damage Over Time in terms of predictable HP/sec it gets a lot easier to GM and a lot more interesting. 

    You’re burning, it hurts = If you ignore it, it’s going to hurt you more.  

    “How much?” you ask.

    Let’s leave the flames burning and find out!

    When dealing with D-o-T situations (burning, poision, bleeding, etc.) I simply rule that the character suffers more Harm when it makes sense in the fiction.  

    None of these things are predictable, and who’s to say every HP the character has means the same thing in terms of their body anyway (e.g. the the last couple of HP are the ones closest to the heart).

  24. When fir is a monster, how much HP does it have? How do you damage it? Why does a fighter deal better with fire then a wizard since the deal more da,age to the “monster”?

    The system doesn’t treacle support that.

  25. You don’t have to give a monster stats. It would be under the ‘statless monster’ category. You kill it by depriving it of oxygen, not slashing it with a sword.

  26. But how does that help you? That basically says “treat it as something that is there”/”don’t forget the fire is happening”. I don’t think that is the problem for people. 

  27. Well, you might as well say that’s what’s all monsters are, then. Monsters aren’t useful because you assigned them Hp or armor, they’re useful because you now have a set of pre-defined moves they can make and some tags to describe them. If you think a threat is simple enough (and maybe fire is) that you can just play-by-ear, great. I did think the original question was basically a question about how to treat an ongoing threat/remember that it’s still there. 

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