Apocalypse World Musings: the Harm Move

Originally published April 30, 2014

I've been involved in quite a few Apocalypse World games in the last couple years but there is one item I've rarely used: the harm move.

The harm move is one of the peripheral moves that can come up when a character suffers harm:

When you suffer harm, roll+harm suffered (after armor, if you’re wearing any). On a 10+, the MC can choose 1:

• You’re out of action: unconscious, trapped, ƒ ƒincoherent or panicked.
• It’s worse than it seemed. Take an additional ƒ ƒ1-harm.
• Choose 2 from the 7–9 list below. ƒ ƒ

On a 7–9, the MC can choose 1:

• You lose your footing. ƒ ƒ
• You lose your grip on whatever you’re holding. ƒ ƒ
• You lose track of someone or something you’re ƒ ƒattending to.
• You miss noticing something important. ƒ ƒ

On a miss, the MC can nevertheless choose something from the 7–9 list above. If she does, though, it’s instead of some of the harm you’re suffering, so you take -1 harm.

I really like this move but at the same time it can be hard to remember to use in play. I see two main downsides that contribute to this.

First the move adds a second roll to a conflict. This runs slightly counter to the idea of focusing on the fiction first. Instead of simply rolling to see if you succeed at going aggro or acting under fire, you now add this "damage" roll. This can interrupt the flow of the game as we reach for the dice again.

Second it is easy to forget. Since so much of Apocalypse World flows neatly from the fiction with only the occasional roll, I find myself and other MCs (and players for that matter) just wanting to race ahead to the description of what happened.

I do not think that this is necessarily a bad thing. The key strength of the move is that it allows you to zoom in on the action and parse out the effect that harm has in greater detail. If the game is flowing and everyone wants to get to the next big scene, then ignore it. That's fine. But if this scene has becomes something more important, something we need to explore in greater detail , then the question of how a character reacts to that damage matters. That is the time to invoke this move and dig into the specifics of the harm for more detail.

Despite its downsides, I really like the move. It "complicates" combat in a way that makes it more interesting, less dealing hit points worth of damage and more like a chaotic battle where someone could be taken out at any moment.

The other reason I like it is that it opens options besides bodily injury and death. On a miss, the MC can still bring in something like losing one's footing or missing something important in exchange for less harm. A strong hit might mean more damage but could also mean the character knocked out or otherwise out of the fight. This might be to their benefit if the alternative is a battle to the death. I've seen several characters get trapped in the where they would rather die than lose. This gives them an out.

One really good place to use the harm move is when you are Trading Harm for Harm. In white room combat or a place where neither side is taking significant steps to protect or maneuver around the other, you might not bother with a roll of seize by force. That is an excellent time to use the harm move to add some color to the conflict.

There are a few Player Character moves that interact with the harm move. Some straightforwardly modify the damage dealt: Merciless, Disciplined Engagement, or Battlefield Grace. more interesting are those that directly alter the move: Juggernaut from Faceless which inflicts a straight -2 penalty to the roll and Dashiell Hamman got nothing from the Marmot which almost inverts the harm move. Obviously in games with these playbooks or moves you should make a special effort to bring the harm move into play.

The harm move can also be really helpful in increasing the danger of an opponent or group of opponents without the downsides of just giving them bigger weapons or more damage. For example when I helped my wife work out the threat of the Reavers in our Space World game, we chose to give gangs of Reavers a bonus to harm moves to make them scarier. Instead of just taking 3-harm, you are now taking 3-harm and rolling harm taken +1 on the harm move. It makes a conflict with them more chaotic without necessarily making them deadlier in terms of damage. To me it is more interesting to set up the fear of something worse to come than to just pile on harm until the character dies.

Here are some other custom moves that use ideas within the harm move:

When you take harm in the vine choked mangroves, you can use the trees to defend yourself. Gain +2 armor but choose 1:

• you lose your footing
• you lose track of someone
• you miss something important

This is something of a desperation move. I put the choice in the player's hand rather make it a roll to offer them something of a hard bargain, take damage or suffer some other downside. It could work for any tangled environment that is as much a hindrance as a defense.

When Roach uses his hurtin club (3-harm hand messy) on you, choose one:

• you brace for it and take +1 harm
• you go flying and lose track where he is

Here the idea is that Roach, a guy who is both big and fast, can deal more damage than most men. The characters get a choice of just taking extra harm or being knocked away, most likely giving Roach a chance to escape or set up a future attack.