An Analysis of PbtA Harm Systems

by Sully5443

A guest post by Sully5543, in response to Harm Systems in PbtA Games.

The core concept of this blog is (pretty much) spot on, and I wanted to echo and add some additional points. But before I do that, I wanted to touch on some “High Concepts” and a sort of “Thesis” before getting into the nitty gritty of what makes Harm truly sing in PbtA (and adjacent) games.

High Concepts

• Concept 1: PbtA games are not necessarily about Success or Failure. That is not the question they ask. Rather, these games care a lot about Costs and Consequences. The question asked by these games comes down to: “What will it Cost you to get what you want?”
• Concept 2: Costs and Consequences are critical to building drama. If PbtA (and adjacent) games care about Costs and Consequences, it’s because these games want there to be drama.
• Concept 3: Drama is a core component for a compelling narrative. Since PbtA games often provide the mandate of “Play to Find Out,” we do not craft these narratives ahead of time. Instead, the narratives form as the product of the GM’s prepared problems and players’ responses to those problems. The Costs accrued as part of this problem solving process is, ultimately, what allows that narrative product to form.
• Concept 4: Given that Harm is a common Cost/Consequence, it should stand to reason that—if done well—it can lead to excellent moments of drama to spawn compelling emergent narratives!

Thesis

Harm Systems are at their best when they—

First: Create a change in character (both PCs and NPCs). If we really want to stay true to “ending in the fiction,” then the Harm mechanic that a PC/NPC takes has to translate right back into new fiction. How are they different? What about them has changed? Two common changes include:

• A change in fictional positioning/permission
• A mechanical penalty.

These, ideally, lead to a change in approach to avoid the impact of those changes and/or a reliance on mechanics to mitigate or nullify the impact of Harm.

Second: Create interesting opportunities to recover from that Harm. This is where a lot of games fall short. This is unfortunate as this may very well be the most important part of the design process when thinking about Harm. While Harm ought to result in changing character circumstances, the real proof in the pudding as to whether or not they lead to good drama is how recovery works.

So that’s why I want to add in a few points to consider for the games mentioned. I’ll speak to the ones I’m the most familiar with, and add a few others for consideration.

Dungeon World and Stonetop

Getting Hurt in Dungeon World and Stonetop

As noted in the inciting blog post, Dungeon World (DW) and Stonetop (ST) all use two means of tracking Harm to characters: Hit Points (HP) and Debilities. In both games, Harm falls short in both departments: the Harm metrics rarely lead to interesting outcomes, and Recovery sits in a similar spot. Let’s talk about HP first and then we’ll look at Debilities, and then—lastly—look at Recovery for both of these games.

HP is not a tremendously helpful metric for Harm because it is rather challenging to translate back into the fiction. Remember that in PbtA games the goal is to “begin and end in the fiction.” The start of the fiction leads us to a supporting mechanic and that same mechanic assists the table in creating new and actionable fiction. While you absolutely can translate HP loss into gameable fiction, it’s a lot of mental gymnastics, hurt even more so by the inconsistency at which damage is accrued (via dice rolls): what makes 3 HP lost different from 4 or 5 or 8 lost?

While utilizing static Harm can help to overcome this, it also leads to the good question as to whether a game needs two ways to demonstrate Harm (HP and Debilities). At what point do you get more value out of adding in more character-tracking metrics? Generally speaking, I find little value is gained until those extra character metrics provide really firm foundations to drive home drama.

Speaking of Debilities, these are a mild improvement over HP as they hit on all the above points—

• They impact fictional positioning/permissions: if you have the Debility marked, then that says something about your character. If you are “Weak” or “Stunned” in Dungeon World, you may lack the fictional positioning or permission to lift heavy loads or react to changing circumstances in a quick fashion.
• Mechanical penalties are associated with them. In Dungeon World, this means a -1 Ongoing penalty whenever rolling with the affected Stat and in Stonetop it means rolling with Disadvantage (3d6 and sum the lowest two) for the two affected stats. (Stonetop collapses Dungeon World’s six debilities, one per stat, to three debilities.)
• These penalties, in turn, encourage players into seeking other fictional approaches which would not trigger their affected Stats and/or otherwise encourage players to seek bonuses to their rolls (such as Help/Aid from other characters).

Recovering in Dungeon World

However, while Debilities are a vast improvement over HP, DW falls very short when it comes to Recovery. Let’s look at DW first by reviewing its major Recovery Moves:

• “Make Camp: When you settle in to rest consume a ration. If you’re somewhere dangerous decide the watch order as well. If you have enough XP you may level up. When you wake from at least a few uninterrupted hours of sleep heal damage equal to half your max HP.” (p. 76)
• “Recover: When you do nothing but rest in comfort and safety after a day of rest you recover all your HP. After three days of rest you remove one debility of your choice. If you’re under the care of a healer (magical or otherwise) you heal a debility for every two days of rest instead.” (p. 79)
• “Debilities are harder to heal than HP. Some high level magic can do it, sure, but your best bet is getting somewhere safe and spending a few days in a soft, warm bed. Of course, debilities are both descriptive and prescriptive: if something happens that would remove a debility, that debility is gone.” (p. 28, emphasis mine)

These aren’t necessarily bad Recovery procedures, but they aren’t terribly interesting either. Making Camp involves Taking Watch and/or Defying Danger and even holds the potential to play around with advancements, and there are certainly costs to be had there, although I find these costs usually don’t lead to tremendously interesting bits of drama as they usually only serve as distractions from the main objective of the adventuring party.

Likewise, the Recover Move has no (disclaimed) Cost whatsoever: sit around for long enough and you’re all better and in some cases a Debility may just no longer be relevant and just go away.

Similar logic holds true when it comes to Items such as Healing Potions and Bandages and the like.

Recovering in Stonetop

Stonetop*, on the other hand, goes the extra mile:

• “Make Camp: When you settle in to rest in an unsafe area, answer the GM’s questions about your campsite. Each member of the party must consume 1 use of supplies or provisions; if you use a mess kit (requires fire & water), then 1 use can provide for up to four people. If you eat and drink your fill, and get at least a few hours of sleep, pick 1: Regain HP equal to 1⁄2 your max; or Clear a debility. If your rest was particularly peaceful, comfortable, or enjoyable, you also gain advantage on your next roll.” (p. 266)
• “Recover: When you take time to catch your breath and tend to what ails you, expend 1 use of supplies and recover HP equal to 4+Prosperity. You can’t gain this benefit again until you take more damage. When you tend to a debility or a problematic wound, say how. The GM will either say that it’s taken care of or tell you what’s required to do so (Defying Danger, expending supplies or some other resource, finding ____, Making Camp, etc.).” (p. 76)
• “Keep Company: When you spend a stretch of time together, ask the others if they want to Keep Company. If they do, take turns asking a PC or NPC one of the following.
  • “What do you do that’s annoying/endearing?
  • “What do I do that you find annoying/endearing?
  • “Who or what seems to be on your mind?
  • “What do we find ourselves talking about?
  • “How do you/we pass the time?
  • “What new thing do you reveal about yourself?” (p. 264)
• “Debilities last until a move like Recover (p. 260) or Make Camp (p. 266) tells you to clear them, or until the GM tells you to.” (p. 50)

*Kickstarter Backer Playkit, updated June 26, 2025

Make Camp and Recovery, on their own, are fine. Definitely an improvement over vanilla DW. However, neither really shine unless the table is willing to Keep Company: which is great, if—at least—a little repetitive if done over and over again. The Costs could be a bit more interesting than Supplies, but they certainly do a better job of prompting character dynamics more so than vanilla DW.

Masks

Getting Hurt in Masks

Here is a game that really gets how Harm works. 

First off, it makes a smart call that a lot of other “Static-Emotional-Condition-using-games” don’t seem to grasp: Static Emotional Conditions work brilliantly for Masks because it needs that metric. In a game about superheroes, you’ve got people who could be out of the action because of a sprained wrist and people who can survive world-ending explosions. This means you’ve got to find the lowest common denominator for all characters, and it turns out no matter who you are: it sucks to get punched in the feels.

In the case of Masks, we don’t give too much credence to the source of the Condition. Whether or not you’re Angry because someone hit you or because it was a near miss or because someone just was plain rude to you “doesn’t matter” (it’s a good thing to consider, but it’s not critical for the Condition itself). All that matters is your Anger is making you less effective and forces you to behave differently.

These Conditions do a pretty good job on changing characters. 

• While they don’t necessarily provide hindrances in fictional positioning/permissions, the -2 Ongoing penalty is a solid enough negative that pairs nicely with the Basic Moves they impact. (Like of course being Angry means you wouldn’t be as good at comforting and supporting someone or piercing someone’s mask!)
• It encourages players to seek opportunities which trigger Moves that aren’t impacted by their Conditions.
• It encourages players to seek out opportunities to engage with mechanics to offset or otherwise neutralize these Conditions, such as allowing their Labels (stats) to be shifted around so they can better weather that -2 penalty or engaging with Moves that generate Team points which other players can spend to increase a roll result to compensate for that -2.

They are even more helpful when it comes to NPCs! In a game like DW or ST, I struggle to figure out how to translate 4 HP worth of Harm to an NPC. But when I’m asked to inflict a Condition on an NPC, Masks tells me exactly what to do: Make a Condition Move!

Condition Moves are a subset of GM Moves which NPCs make immediately after taking a Condition. For example, here are the Condition Moves for the “Afraid” Condition (p. 191):

• Hide out of harm’s way
• Flee from danger or difficulty
• Lash out without thought at a threat
• Plead for mercy
• Throw up blocks and walls.

Recall that in PbtA games, the GM makes their Moves as Soft (“telegraphed”) or as Hard (“permanent”) as they want. This means these Condition Moves serve as an excellent way to advance the fiction in dramatic ways, often changing the “arena” of conflict. For any table that finds itself in awkward loops of repeatedly triggering “Directly Engage a Threat” during a fight, the culprit is almost always not making strong enough uses of the Condition Moves. These GM Moves should create situations that change the entire context of the fight: stalling it, escalating it, stopping it, or anything in between and beyond!

Now, if there’s one area where Conditions are a little inelegant, it’s in the form of taking them (or at least the clarity in taking them). Inflicting Conditions on a PC is usually as a result of a Player Facing Move or a GM Move. However, there’s also the Basic Move “Take a Powerful Blow” (TaPB)—

When you take a powerful blow, roll + conditions marked. On a 10+, choose one:

• you must remove yourself from the situation: flee, pass out, etc.
• you lose control of yourself or your powers in a terrible way
• two options from the 7-9 list

On a 7-9, choose one:

• you lash out verbally: provoke a teammate to foolhardy action or take advantage of your Influence to inflict a condition
• you give ground; your opposition gets an opportunity
• you struggle past the pain; mark two conditions

On a miss, you stand strong. Mark potential as normal, and say how you weather the blow. (p. 71)

This is, on the whole, a really solid Move. I like it much more than the Harm Move in Apocalypse World which is made any time a character suffers Harm and (in my experience), tends to slow down the process. The only issue with TaPB is simply its nebulous trigger: what does and does not count as a “powerful blow”? I find many tables overuse this Move, sucking a lot of the drama out of the moment purely from the repetitive harsh consequences each time it is rolled. It would be in a far better place if there was a greater level of clarity as to when to roll this Move so it has the biggest impact.

Recovering in Masks

As for Recovery, Masks also does a really great job here too. Recovery is usually through—

• Giving into self-destructive behaviors to clear a Condition (such as taking foolhardy action without talking to the team in order to clear Insecure).
• Receiving Comfort and Support (C&S) from another PC, and, as a side note, since NPCs always want to clear Conditions—if given the chance—the game is explicit that an NPC will always open up when it comes to Comfort and Support.

C&S, like TaPB, has a few issues with it, but I’ll get to that when I talk about another Move which shares multiple similarities with it later down the road.

Fellowship 2e

Getting Hurt in Fellowship

In Fellowship, Harm to PCs is done by “Harming” one of the 5 Core Stats (Blood, Courage, Grace, Sense, Wisdom) and/or a Playbook’s unique 6th stat (if applicable, such as the Dwarf’s “Iron” or the Harbinger’s “Doom”). When a PC’s Stat is Harmed, the player rolls with Despair (Disadvantage, 3d6 and sum the lowest 2) Ongoing any time they are asked to roll with that stat.

NPCs (both Threats and Companions of the Fellowship) also have stats, but unlike the PCs, these stats serve to disclaim fictional permissions. For example, the Elven Archer has the following 2 stats: “Perfect Shot” and “Even More Perfect Shot.” So long as these stats remain intact, the GM is free to use them as part of their GM Moves, and the Players are free to willingly Harm these stats by crossing them off to allow the Companion NPC to use it in a particularly fantastic way “such as tripping up a charging enemy, or blocking an attack on you, or taking out an enemy sniper, etc.” (p. 36). When those stats are Harmed, the NPC is unable to make use of the permissions those stats provide.

In the case of PCs, Harm is a little underwhelming. It is here we can see a shadow of when “The Masks Approach” to PC Harm starts to stumble a little bit.

Harming PC stats absolutely leads to character change and hits most of the points the Conditions in Masks does: while carrying no exact change in fictional positioning or permissions, the penalty of Despair is a more than sufficient means of getting players to look into other approaches or offsetting Despair with Hope (Advantage, 3d6 and summing the highest 2), which is done most prominently by forging Bonds with other PCs. Not to mention, Players can negate Harm done to their character by offloading it to an NPC Companion and damaging one of their stats instead: and if there are no more stats to Harm; then the player begins erasing any Bonds they have with that Companion (and therefore encourages the forming of Bonds with NPCs!). 

However, given the touchstones of Fellowship, the source of the Harm matters a lot more than it does in Masks. Harming a PC’s “Blood” Stat could mean many things because of the nebulous concept of “Blood.” The PC could be hindered from a physical injury, poison, or perhaps a dwindling faith in their blood relations or their identity as a representative of their people. Without acknowledging the source, having Harmed “Blood” means very little as opposed to being Angry in Masks.

Going back to NPCs, though, Harm sits in an excellent place: similar to Masks and its NPCs. First off, “Taking Out” an NPC in Fellowship can be accomplished in a single dice roll via “Finish Them” (pp. 18-19):

When you attempt to defeat an enemy you hold an Advantage over, tell us what you want to do to them and roll the appropriate stat. If you do not have an Advantage over them, you cannot attempt to Finish Them. An Advantage is something you can use to get the upper hand, such as teamwork, the element of surprise, or a moment of hesitation.

If you Finish Them by…

• …trying to kill them, roll +Blood. On a 10+, they die by your hand.
• …forcing them to retreat, roll +Courage. On a 10+, they back off. They won’t be back any time soon.
• …outsmarting, terrifying, or overwhelming them, roll +Grace. On a 10+, they admit defeat, and will not willingly challenge you again.
• …disabling them or knocking them out, roll +Sense. On a 10+, they’re physically incapacitated and unable to continue.
• …showing them the error of their ways, roll +Wisdom. On a 10+, you Forge a Bond with them, and they cannot bring themselves to hurt you.

On a 7-9, you deal damage to them and lose your Advantage over them. If an ally was Keeping Them Busy, they aren’t anymore.

On a 6-, you lose the Advantage, and you must face retaliation.

If you Finish Them using a weapon with Ammo, use 1 Ammo. If you have no Ammo, you cannot Finish Them with that weapon. If you have the Clumsy tag, you take -1 to Finish Them.

I could fawn over this Move all day, but let’s just focus on Harm for now. If the player is unable to attain a 10+ and instead achieves a 7-9, then one of the NPC’s stats is Harmed, making them unable to use it going forward. Just like Masks, this changes the arena of conflict: stalling, escalating, or stopping the conflict (or anything in between and beyond!).

Recovering in Fellowship

Recovery in Fellowship is also really solid. Let’s take a look at the two main Recovery Moves in Fellowship—

• “Fill Your Belly: Food is important in Fellowship. When you are between scenes, you may Use Food to heal one damage. When you share a meal with friends, one person may heal an extra point of damage. A note on Filling Your Bellies: You don’t need to share with the fellowship to get the bonus healing, but you do need to spend 1 Food per person eating. No matter how many share a meal, there is only one extra point of healing.”
• “Recover: When you spend a week in a place of safety, you can Recover. Remove all damage from all of your stats, and reset all of your Gear to their starting values. A place you have Fellowship with is always a place of safety. If the Overlord has any damage, they heal one damage now. While you Recover, the Overlord marches on — they now Advance their Plans, and the fellowship can do nothing about it.”

Unlike Stonetop’s Make Camp and Keep Company, neither of these Moves necessarily spurs character moments as much as I would like, though I do like the elegance and simplicity of the Moves, if nothing else. 

What I do really like are two aspects of Recovery:

• The first is a sort of “hidden” aspect buried in the Move: “a place of safety.” This could mean many things in the game of Fellowship, but if the fellowship itself wants to guarantee a place of safety: they need to gain fellowship with communities they encounter. If you want to really get entirely patched up, start helping the communities around you affected by the Overlord.
• The second comes from a wonderful disclaimed Cost: the Overlord (a character run by the GM) also gets to recovery from any Harm they’ve accrued, which itself works a little differently than other NPCs- but shares enough similarities that I won’t go into excruciating detail on Overlord Harm, and the Overlord’s Plans are advanced irrevocably.

Now, it’s not like this latter aspect of Recovery is totally absent in DW, ST, or even with Masks with C&S; but I just love seeing stuff like this disclaimed in the Move as a demanded part of the procedure. I like it when the rules of the game act “as the bad guy” with its mechanics. It’s sensible, dramatic, and foreboding!

Avatar Legends

Getting Hurt in Avatar Legends

Avatar Legends (AL) is sort of all over the place when it comes to Harm and is a pretty good showcase of having too many metrics: Fatigue, Conditions, and Balance… way too much to leverage with too little benefits in doing so. 

Let’s start with Fatigue. Each PC has 5 Fatigue boxes and NPCs have anywhere between 3 to 15 Fatigue boxes. This metric serves as a fuel for the game’s Spells Exchange Techniques, which are the options the players and GM select during the Exchange (AL’s very involved “Fight” Move). However, in addition to being Fuel, it can also be targeted by those same Spells Techniques and can also be inflicted as a GM Move (or as a Consequence from certain Player Facing Moves)… which isn’t great. These kinds of Fuel Tracks are at their best when they can’t be attacked from all angles from both the player and the GM and at the end of the day, all Fatigue really does is lead to Conditions (for each Fatigue you cannot take, take an equal amount of Conditions).

Speaking of Conditions, AL’s Conditions serve as a great example of why you can’t just throw in Static Emotional Conditions and call it a day. While the touchstones of Masks (Young Justice, The Runaways, etc.) and those of AL (Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra) share many similarities; the characters of the Avatar-verse—while supernatural in many ways—aren’t exactly “superhuman.” They’re all on even-footed ground.

The rationale for Emotional Conditions in AL really came down to “Well, Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) and The Legend of Korra (TLoK) were kids shows and really didn’t focus on physical harm all that often.” While that’s understandable, that logic really isn’t all that sound when you really look into all of the touchstones. The Graphic Novels and especially the Young Adult Chronicle of the Avatar Novels do include a fair amount of physical Harm on a regular basis (not to mention TLoK was already pushing more physical Harm on a routine basis as well when it aired). Nothing is wrong with emotional harm being a limiting factor, but it shouldn’t be the only limiting factor that we look at. Representing the source of the Harm as the Harm itself would have been a far better call when examining how Harm is handled across the full breadth of the game’s touchstones. 

This is especially true when it comes to NPCs, who have Conditions, but no Condition Moves. This is likely secondary to the fact that NPCs are often taking multiple Conditions at once due to certain Spells Techniques that inflict multiple Conditions as well (not to mention any overflow Fatigue turning into Conditions), making it challenging to pick a Condition Move if they existed at all. However, not only does this make Conditions less meaningful when they occur, it makes it more challenging for the GM to adjudicate how to change the arena of conflict when NPCs take Conditions, making it difficult to really “end in the fiction.”

Lastly, you have Balance. From a high concept, this is a super interesting (and sensible) mechanic. The entire franchise is about people trying to bring balance to the world around them and to themselves, so adding in a scaffolding mechanic for this theme is a very sound idea!

For PCs, Balance acts as a pair of opposing “extra” stats. In addition to the core four stats of Creativity, Focus, Harmony, and Passion; each Playbook gets two Principles (such as Restraint vs Results or Role vs Freedom or Excellence vs Community). Similar to Labels in Masks: whenever one Principle increases, the other decreases by an equal amount: having +2 Results, means you have -2 Restraint. A character’s positive Principle can give them a handful of benefits, while also acting as a detriment if NPCs try to tug on that same Principle (making it harder to resist the call), whereas the negative Principle usually doesn’t come up as much as far as being a hindrance, which does limit the impact it can have on play. 

The Balance Track also has a “Center” point which serves as a place for Balance to “reset” to on certain occasions or otherwise serve as an indicator of where the Balance Track ought to shift (towards or away from Center). The Center point itself can shift over time, though with more effort required than a character’s current Balance.

Going too far to one side or the other results in a character Losing Their Balance, a Move carrying many similarities with Masks’ TaPB:

Lose Your Balance: If your balance shifts past the end of the track, you lose your balance. You obsess over that principle to a degree that’s not healthy for you or anyone around you. Choose one of the following:

• Give in or submit to your opposition
• Lose control of yourself in a destructive and harmful way
• Take an extreme action in line with the principle, then flee

Afterward, when you’ve had some time to recover and recenter yourself, shift your center one step towards the principle you exceeded and clear all your conditions and fatigue. Reset your balance to your new center. (p. 141)

Unfortunately, some Playbooks really lean into Balance while others toss it by the wayside, leaving the player and GM on their own to figure out how to make the most of the Playbook’s Principles. Even more unfortunate, there’s never really a point where a character can say they are “Balanced”! While a character’s Center serves as a decent indicator, and it is a requirement to be at one’s Center in order to utilize a Playbook’s “Moment of Balance” (similar to, albeit a little less interesting, the Moment of Truth from Masks), there’s no appreciable difference in the Moment of Balance one way or another: you perform the same grand feat regardless if your Center is +3 Results or +3 Restraint… somehow you are perfectly “balanced” in either extreme case.

NPCs also have a Balance Track with only 1 Principle with a vaguely defined Center as well. They, too, can Lose Their Balance (following the same Move as above). This is a somewhat odd choice given that AL is a game about bringing people and places to Balance (it is an End of Session XP Trigger!) and yet one of the lowest hanging means towards unseating an NPC is by making them Lose Their Balance. It is even more strange considering this doesn’t happen in any of the touchstones. While Aang’s victory over Admiral Zhao in ATLA S1E16 (“The Deserter”) and Azula’s downfall in the Series Finale resemble Losing One’s Balance, I would say these moments are more akin to Tricking an NPC more so than anything else. I don’t think Balance for NPCs is all that necessary—at least the way it is used in AL. Having an embodied Principle is brilliant for creating PC-NPC-PC Triangles (and NPC-PC-NPC Triangles!), but its mechanical use is a bit clumsy and thematically off-brand. 

And while I wish I could say that was the last of the Harm metrics… I lied! There’s one more Harm Metric: Statuses! There are 4 Positive Statuses and 4 Negative Statuses, most often applied (and removed) over the course of The Exchange Move via the means of Spells Exchange Techniques. These Statuses are a curious mix of fictional truths and mechanical penalties which have an equally curious “gray area” in terms of when they become true during play and the means by which they can be cleared without the use of other Spells Exchange Techniques. If there is one area players tend to have the most questions about when it comes to The Exchange, it’s almost always to do with Statuses: applying them, removing them, and when they take effect (among many other questions). They add an extra layer to an already very involved Move which isn’t worth delving into for the scope of this breakdown of Harm Systems in PbtA games.

Recovering in Avatar Legends

Starting with Fatigue, recovery isn’t very exciting. Simply resting for a period of time recovers a commensurate amount of Fatigue. Again, returning to notions with DW and ST, this doesn’t mean the world stops moving, and it is absolutely an excuse for the GM to make some GM Moves (Golden Opportunities are about here), but it’s a shame the game doesn’t really bring up this notion to aid the GM in complicating periods of rest. Additionally, there aren’t many tools to aid the table in enhancing these rest scenes (like ST’s Keep Company). While Guide and Comfort is very likely to occur in these moments, more game-assisted Scene Setting would be a great tool.

Getting a character’s Balance back to Center is likely to occur from one of three sources: Losing Your Balance (more precisely, this means shifting one’s Center first and then setting their current Balance to that Center), the nebulous concept of “when time passes,” and whenever a character has a modicum of time to rest, relax, and meditate in a tranquil location. Obviously Losing One’s Balance is the most drama filled of the means towards getting Balance back to Center while the other two carry far less drama. 

Statuses, as mentioned earlier, remain in a gray area. Similar to Debilities from DW and ST, they go away when they no longer matter and might get cleared through other Exchange Techniques or, in the case of some negative statuses- simply paying some amount of Fatigue and/or Conditions. While I suppose there are some Costs in clearing Statuses, it’s an example where the Costs simply are not tremendously exciting to create dramatic moments. 

This leaves us with Conditions, cleared through similar self destructive pursuits in the fiction- like in Masks– or via Guide and Comfort. This provides an opportunity to look at both Comfort & Support from Masks and Guide and Comfort from Avatar Legends, as they are very similar Moves.

Comfort & Support: When you comfort or support someone, roll + Mundane. On a hit, they hear you: they mark potential, clear a condition, or shift Labels if they open up to you. On a 10+, you can also add a Team to the pool or clear a condition yourself. (p. 66, Masks Core Rulebook)

Guide & Comfort: When you try to honestly guide and comfort another person, roll with Harmony. On a hit, they choose one:

• They embrace your guidance and comfort. They may clear a condition or 2-fatigue, and you may ask one question; they must answer honestly.
• They shut you down. They inflict a condition on you, and you shift their balance in response.

On a 10+, if they embrace your guidance and comfort, you may also shift their balance. (p. 128, Avatar Legends Core Rule Book)

On the surface level, these are pretty darn good Moves. They get PCs to interact and they generate opportunities for drama, what more could you ask for? Well, unfortunately, these Moves do have a bit of a downside: they are rather “disruptive,” which is to say they can be a little inelegant during play.

Moves in PbtA games are, of course, triggered by the fiction: to do it, you do it. If you want to trigger these Moves, you need to meet the fictional triggers (“When you comfort or support someone” and “When you try to honestly guide and comfort another person”). If a PC does those things: these Moves have been triggered. There are two major ways this could occur:

• The first is by clear intent: the player announces their character is going to trigger these Moves, naming the PC they want to comfort and their approach in doing so: “I’m going to Comfort and Support Pantomime, the Protege, by going out and getting her favorite cupcakes from the Sweets Shop.”
• The second is when a player frames a scene with their PC and another PC having a sweet and tender moment without necessarily announcing their intent: “I arrive with Pantomime’s favorite cupcakes and hand them to her after that rough fight with Dr. Havoc…”

With the former, there’s no issue and these Moves work pretty darn well: before things go any further, roll the dice and use the roll result to play out the scene. In the latter case, however, these Moves start to become “disruptive” in one of two ways:

• The GM (or someone else at the table) quickly butts in before the scene could go too far: “Sorry to interrupt, but it sounds like this is Comfort and Support /Guide and Comfort? Let’s roll that first…”
• The scene concludes and then someone realizes C&S/G&C were triggered: “Oh hey, I guess that was C&S/G&C, right? We should probably roll the dice, right?”

In the former’s case, it just messes with the pacing slightly. In the latter’s case, these Moves are at their “worst”: the scene has concluded, the characters ought to benefit from the mechanical scaffold the game provides for such moments; but now we sort of need to “retcon” the scene in order to make it fit the dice roll result, and that sort of undercuts the sincerity and sweetness of the moment.

And regardless of how “disruptive” the Move is, I’m not a fan of the dice roll nor the fact that the other character can opt to just reject the roll altogether. Rolling the dice presents the opportunity of a Miss result, which is when the GM needs to advance the fiction in dramatic ways. It doesn’t necessarily need to cause danger, destruction, and heartbreak; but things go wrong with the roll and it feels weird trying to let a dice roll be the deciding factor as to whether or not someone’s fictional intents (or roleplay as a whole) is effective, the receiver of the comfort actually feels supported. Likewise, it feels odd that- after the roll has taken place- the other player can just say “Nope!” and we sort of wasted time with the roll in the first place. If the character was going to reject the support: the Move just flat out shouldn’t have been triggered!

In the case of Masks, the game is about relatively volatile teenagers- so I don’t typically mind a roll that could undermine a sweet moment.

But Avatar Legends is not about volatile teenagers. Even in the touchstones where characters are unable to be comforted- it’s not an explosive moment. It’s a subtle rejection to be followed up on later.

Blades in the Dark

Getting Hurt in Blades in the Dark

It’s a common misconception to look at the Stress and Trauma Tracks as a form of Harm, but they aren’t.

This is a case where having more than one metric to measure “character status” is done really well. It’s a solid example of what mechanics such as Hit Points or Fatigue ought to look like: player driven!

Stress is not attacked by the GM in this game. Ever. Stress is never a consequence the GM can levy. The GM might indicate how much Stress something might cost (like a Flashback), but the buck stops at the player as to whether or not they go through with it. 

Stress is always a player decision and fuels many of the game’s mechanics, namely Resistance and Flashbacks. If a player wants to avoid a Consequence, it is their choice to spend Stress, not the GM’s. This is what Fatigue in AL should have looked like (IMO). 

For Blades (and most other Forged in the Dark games), Harm is accomplished through open-ended Condition Slots of varying levels—each with their own penalty. Now this is an excellent design for Harm and exactly what games like Fellowship and Avatar Legends require when the breadth of afflictions characters face are very broad. Whenever you get hurt (physically, emotionally, or otherwise), you record the Harm (and its severity) in the associated Harm box. Whenever that Harm would hold you back: you suffer its associated penalty. Simple, elegant, versatile, and effective. A great way to show how Harm changes a character.

Unfortunately, the penalties themselves are rather static and uninteresting. The three Levels of Harm and their penalties are as follows—

• Level 3 Harm – Severe, Lasting Harm. Penalty: Unable to act on your own without Pushing Yourself (spending 2 Stress) or receiving Aid from another character (they need to spend 1 Stress).
• Level 2 Harm – Moderate Harm. Penalty: -1d to Action Rolls.
• Level 1 Harm – Mild Harm. Penalty: Reduced Effect.

Of the batch, the only “interesting” penalty is Level 2: -1d. Accepting this penalty means there is an increased likelihood of rolling a Weak Hit or a Miss and at least makes for more interesting gameplay. Being unable to act with Level 3 and simply reducing a character’s Effectiveness (and therefore just extending a moment of conflict) doesn’t really result in dramatic outcomes all on their own if accepted.

The means by which a player can nullify these penalties are… okay, I suppose. It pretty much always comes down to a matter of Stress: pay Stress for Level 3, pay Stress to get a bonus die and offset Level 2, and pay Stress to increase your Effectiveness. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as Stress is a driving engine for so many other important mechanics in the game, but—even so—Stress itself has some downsides in the Recovery process which I’ll cover in a moment.

Of course, there’s other means of dealing with Level 2 and Level 1 Harm, such as taking a Devil’s Bargain (a guaranteed Consequence) for a Bonus die, or accepting an Assist for a Bonus die (which involves other characters in the scene) and to improve one’s Effect they could make the situation more dangerous for themselves, establish a Flashback to improve their Effectiveness, or perhaps utilize an Item at their disposal; and these are all generally interesting means of negating the penalties. 

Recovering in Blades in the Dark

Unfortunately, Blades stumbles with its Recovery process. Recovery in this game is very resource intensive without making that process interesting or dramatic. 

Nothing wrong with it being resource intensive: remember, we want drama and that comes from Costs—so that’s perfectly fine and it is “on brand” for the setting. However, this exemplifies the notion that not every Cost is necessarily an interesting one. Let’s take a look at the whole thing.

Recovery Downtime Action

When you recover, you seek treatment and heal your harm. You might visit a physicker who can stitch your wounds and soothe your mind with anatomical science or a witch who specializes in healing charms and restorative alchemy. If you don’t have a contact or fellow PC who can provide treatment, you can use the acquire asset activity to gain access to a healer, who can provide service for the whole crew.

Recovery is like a long-term project. Your healer rolls (Tinker for a PC with the Physicker special ability or the quality level of an NPC) and then you mark a number of segments on your healing clock. 1-3: one segment, 4/5: two segments, 6: three segments, critical: five segments.

When you fill your healing clock, reduce each instance of harm on your sheet by one level, then clear the clock. If you have more segments to mark, they “roll over.”

You may heal yourself if you have the Physicker special ability, but you take 2 stress when you do so. You can also choose to simply tough it out and attempt to heal without any treatment—in this case, take 1 stress and roll 0d. Note that it’s the recovering character that takes the recovery action. Healing someone else does not cost a downtime activity for the healer.

Whenever you suffer new harm, clear any ticks on your healing clock.

(Blades in the Dark Core Rules, Page 155)

… Wow. That’s a lot. To sum it up, in order to Recovery, a PC needs:

• To have access to someone who can patch them up. If they do not have ready access to such a person, they need to make the Acquire Asset Downtime Action, which will cost 1 Coin or 1 Rep, and likely more than that as low Tier Crews are usually out of luck with Acquire Asset, rolling 0d (2d6, choose the lowest) or 1d to determine the Quality of their Asset (a healer, in this case), often requiring additional Coin to increase the roll result level (turning a 1-3 into a 4/5, a 4/5 into a 6, or a 6 into a Critical Success).
• With a healer in hand, you roll their Quality to see how much progress you put into your 4-Segment Healing Clock. It isn’t until the Clock is full that you start to reduce Harm. Doing the math, this is going to be at least two or three dice rolls as rolling a 4/5 is the most common result and that provides only 2 Ticks on the Recovery Clock. So that’s another 1 to 3 Coin/Rep to cover.
• And even when the Healing Clock is complete: you only reduce Harm by one Level. If you have Level 2 or Level 3 Harm: it continues to stick around!

Now, Blades in the Dark is a game about Scoundrels in a haunted industrial sprawl, and it ain’t a pleasant life, so being a rough process isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but despite all of these Costs: there’s so little drama involved. You could argue (rightly so) that the drama comes from getting the resources in the first place during a Score, but given the common complaint that Downtime feels too “gamey” or “too much  like a board game,” it isn’t exactly satisfying to cash in all of these stuff just to have a chance to recover in a timely fashion. Not to mention, if you want to really avoid the Costs: just willingly allow your character to get lost in their Vice for a few sessions and play a new character for a little while and your main character can just “come back” at a later time free of Stress or Harm. While it is true that Blades is a game more about the Crew as a whole as opposed to any individual character: I would like to spend time with a specific character for a good period of time, ya know?

It’s no wonder that a lot of folks usually choose Harm as the first thing to hack when running Blades!

Stress, while not technically Harm, is also a little clumsy to “recover” from. To clear Stress, characters engage in the Indulge Vice Downtime Activity, rolling their lowest Attribute and clearing Stress equal to 6 minus the highest dice rolled. If this would result in clearing more Stress than what is available to clear, the character also Overindulges on their Vice and the player selects an Overindulgence Penalty (and also marks at least 1 XP for the End of Session Question related to struggling from Vice or Trauma). On the surface level, you’ve got clear Costs to Recovering this character metric and unlike Harm: you can have a much “meatier” Vice Indulgence Scene as opposed to Recovery. It starts to stumble, however, from the dice roll. Getting a sub-par roll means feeling the pressure to take the Activity over and over again and trying to match it to the fiction. Similar to Hit Points, it’s hard to really figure out what makes a 4 Stress clearing Indulgence fictionally different than 2 or 3 or 5.

Getting Hurt in Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts

Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts, an official supplement for the game (also by John Harper), acts as a sort of expanding “Changing the Game” Chapter, providing many new modular rules on the game’s base systems: including sweeping adjustments to Harm and Recovery/Downtime Activities. 

Similar to its “vanilla” counterpart, Deep Cuts keeps open ended Harm Slots, with a few adjustments to the severity (most notably allowing for an “unlimited” amount of Level 1 Harm conditions as well as codifying a Level 4 Harm slot as well). The Harm Levels are no longer associated with a singular penalty, which is a great call. Instead, the GM or Player can opt to invoke any Harm entry they have to suffer one of the following:

• Reduced Position or Effect
• -1d penalty to an Action or Attribute Roll
• A fictional complication, wrinkle, or problem

If the player moves forward with that penalty, they mark 1 XP. If they don’t want to suffer the penalty: they mark Stress equal to the Invoked Level of Harm and they cross off the Harm. It still exists and is still a problem, but can no longer be mechanically invoked going forward. This is a much more flexible, rewarding, and simple mechanism to mechanically invoke Harm while also also retaining a straightforward means of nullifying its invocation. I especially appreciate that third option: adding in a fictional complication into the moment (such as failing to observe an intruder due to your concussion).

Recovering in Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts

In the Deep Cuts “Downtime Module,” Downtime is (mostly) a dice-less process, which is a great process as it removes unhelpful randomness from interfering with the flow of Downtime. Additionally, it better supports one of the central mandates of Blades: giving the players and their characters their dues (good and bad). The game already takes time to explain that the GM should never stiff the PCs during Payoff: they earned the Coin, they get the Coin. No surprises. No betrayals. So it only makes sense to prevent the dice /random chance from being an unintentional source of stiffing the PCs with their Coin during Downtime: you engage in the Action and spend the Coin/Rep and you get what the Action says. Plain and simple. We’ll look at the process for the Recovery of Harm first.

When you recover in a safe location, you gain ticks on your healing clock equal to your crew’s Tier+1. When your healing clock fills, reduce each instance of Harm you have by one level. When you remove all Harm, clear your healing clock. If you also engage the services of a Physicker, they remove an instance of Harm with a level equal to or less than their Quality. Physickers on the playbooks (like Sawtooth) are Quality 2. For each Coin you pay, increase the Physicker’s Quality by one, for more extensive care.

Instead of recovering on your own, use this activity to stay in a private hospital (there are no public hospitals in Doskvol). Remove all of your Harm and choose: Take 1 Heat and pay 2 Coin -or- pay 3 Coin.

When you recover, how are you vulnerable? Do you show the pain of your injuries, open up to someone emotionally, or something else? (Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts, p. 88).

While still not perfect, it’s a vast improvement from vanilla Blades (IMO). Not quoted here is the process for removing Level 1 Harm, which is an automatic process once a Score is complete. All that is left is the gradual recovery of Levels 4, 3, and 2 Harm via filling the Healing Clock through this Downtime Activity. It will still take a fair amount of times triggering this Downtime Activity and you will still need a healer (but since the Acquire Asset Downtime Activity is diceless: this is less of a concern), but—on the whole—you know what you’re getting every time you trigger this Activity.

Peculiar, then, that there is an even better form of Recovery: spend some more resources (and not a whole lot more) to just stay at a hospital and clear all Harm. This is a no-brainer to me from a “game-ist” perspective.

The prompt with the Downtime Activity is appreciated, though it could use a little more “oomph” in really setting the scene and making those mechanical costs carry a greater level of drama.

Stress Recovery is equally simple: spend 1 Coin and then clear all Stress. Done. If you clear more than 6: you Overindulge and pick from a slightly more comprehensive Overindulgence list. Simple and without any worry of trying to spell out the scene. Recovery from Harm ought to follow a similar suit: choose the Action, and recover from all Harm (hospital or not) and then, if you have Level 3 or 4 Harm- it results in a mild Entanglement Table (such as letting Danger Clocks increase or any other number of fictional wrinkles). It keeps Downtime nice and punchy without devolving into a board game of tapping the same Activities multiple times. 

The Between and The Silt Verses RPG

Getting Hurt in The Between and The Silt Verses

In both of these games, you have the best balance of interesting Harm and interesting Recovery. Like Blades in the Dark, you have open-ended Condition slots in both of these games. This, as with Blades, permits a wide array of options by which to hinder a character. Calling them “Conditions,” likewise, provides even more flexibility. While you could record “Terrified” or “Anxious” or “Heartbroken” as Harm entries in any Forged in the Dark game, the term “Harm” does lead to the connotation that the entry must be physical in nature. The term “Conditions” makes it easier for the GM to recall that it’s not just bumps, bruises, and broken bones hindering a PC; but also any number of psychological, emotional, social, and “weird” Conditions.

There are no “severity levels,” but you can more or less ascertain severity by the name of the Condition and use it as your guiding light as to whether or not that Condition would prevent action altogether or would hinder what you are able to do (and how often it should be a hindrance). The Harm penalty (rolling with Disadvantage) is simple, if a little “boring,” but like with Fellowship 2e, it does encourage you to utilize various tools at your disposal which can create very rich moments in play, namely utilizing Items your character acquires throughout play. It’s a blast seeing players come up with really clever ways to utilize the Items they have on hand, no matter how impractical they may seem, to counteract their Disadvantage. 

A maximum of three Conditions can be taken at a time, any Condition added beyond that forces the player to mark one of their character’s resources: The Janus Mask (in the case of The Between) or the Verses (in the case of The Silt Verses). In both cases, these are non-renewable resources that involve providing expository backstory flashbacks or an interesting and dramatic change in the character’s status or story going forward (up to and including their demise in the most dramatic fashion possible). While Stress is a great mechanic in Blades for a variety of reasons and while these two mechanics only share some similarities with Stress, these two mechanics most certainly carry an abundance of weight when they are triggered.

Recovering in The Between and The Silt Verses

The real shining star here comes in the form of the Recovery Move each game utilizes. 

The Vulnerable Move: When you have an intimate moment with one or more hunters while one of you is engaged in your Vice, you may each clear an appropriate Condition: the Hunter whose Vice is in play can speak freely about their past. Then, as a group, define a Clue that is stumbled upon during the scene; the Clue cannot conclusively answer a Question by itself. Alternatively, you can engage in your Vice by yourself or with a Side Character to get the benefits of the Move, but doing so triggers the Day/Night Move. You can only participate in the Vulnerable Move once per Phase. (The Between backerkit text preview)

The Journey Move: While traveling to another Assignment, when you and at least one other Custodian share a scene where you discuss your personal history or relationship to divinity, you each clear a Condition. Then, stumble on a Clue; Custodians in the scene should tell the Keeper what the Clue is and how they came across it. The Clue cannot conclusively answer a Question by itself. Alternatively, while alone, you may engage in your Personal Ritual to clear an appropriate Condition. Custodians can only participate in the Journey Move once per Journey Phase. (The Silt Verses, p. 19)

These Moves are superb. Aside from a particular circumstance in The Between’s Vulnerable Move: there is no roll tied to the Move. In the case of The Between, the Day/Night Move is still perfectly fine as the Miss outcome is decided on (or at least based off of) the player’s input and read on the fiction: meaning they have full control on how that Move plays out and the Vulnerable Move still clears a Condition, it just comes at the Cost of falling into some other element of “danger” in that moment. Because you always clear a Condition and acquire a Clue (which means no forward progress in the Mystery is lost in pursuing these moments), it doesn’t matter when the table opts to call out these Moves: there is no interruption in the flow of play, no concerns about ret-conning or otherwise tailoring the positive outcomes of the scene to a dice roll. Both these Moves are brimming with fiction and drama, especially in The Silt Verses as the Journey Move is made after the “Journey Scene” in which the players work together to mosaically piece together the sights, sounds, and situations that unfold while traveling between Assignments (Mysteries). 

Now, to play devil’s advocate, it would be nice if these Moves called out how engaging in such fiction also results in an explicit passing of time, but it’s a very mild quibble easily overshadowed by the overall quality contained within these Moves.

Conclusion

Before I close things out, I want to make something very clear: just because these games have various negatives (big and small) tied to their Harm and Recovery Systems, this does not make them “bad games.” I am no “authority on game design.” I’m a guy on the internet who really likes TTRPGs, especially those in the Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark families. I speak as someone who has read, ran, and played a lot of games in these family trees with a wide variety of fellow players and GMs. These are my subjective opinions based on those experiences. Your own mileage may vary!

Nonetheless, I do think my subjective experiences are painted with some level of objective reality when it comes to the ups and downs baked into the Harm and Recovery Systems of these particular games (all of which I enjoy in one way or another). Additionally, it stands to reason that my general thesis on Harm and Recovery has a pretty firm objective footing. 

Therefore, when designing your game, it’s very important to understand what your Harm and Recovery System is doing for your game. Both should create drama-filled moments, which means they need to have Costs associated with them: but those Costs not only need to be sensible for the touchstones evoked during play, but also carry a level of interest and intrigue all on their own. 

When writing and testing your games, ask yourself whether or not the Harm the characters suffer (and the means by which they recover from it) feel “right” in play. Does it make sense in the touchstones? For instance, if you have a game about sci-fi dogfights, do your touchstones involve the protagonist’s vessel getting blown up on a regular basis? If not, it probably isn’t sensible to create any Harm metric for their starfighter, but it may be very wise to have a metric for the increasing stress or pressure the pilot is experiencing during their fight. Likewise, when they suffer Harm: are there any interesting Costs which create equally interesting drama? Does it get players to consider new approaches or utilize other dramatic game elements to counteract the penalties Harm levies against them? Likewise, how do characters recover from their Harm? What Costs must they pay? Does it feel overly interruptive or distracting? Or does it adequately create another layer of dramatic fiction by showing character vulnerability or an opportunity for characters to be around each other in a vulnerable way? 

Thank you for your time and patience! Hopefully you learned something! Happy gaming!

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