89. Confessions of My Own Ignorance – Harm Clock Edition

Okay, I really should be working on video edits, but I had a revelation about my own stupidity and wanted/needed to confess.

I’ve remarked once or twice in past posts that I loved the stylistic decision to have the harm clock and the countdown clocks in Apocalypse World look the same, as though it were a question of aesthetics and thematic continuity. But as I was driving today, something in my head shook loose and I realized that harm clocks and countdown clocks weren’t just similar—they’re the same damn thing. A harm clock is just a countdown clock for the character’s life and functionality. Period.

I’m sure this is nothing new to a lot of people, but it’s pretty revelatory to me. A shotgun might as well say “advance the harm clock on the shot individual by three segments” as “3-harm.” In this way, harm is not just 6 hit points but a constant tracking of a character’s viability.

I’ve been reading through Vincent’s theory posts on anyway and came across this post from 2006 a month or so ago, which should have told me everything I needed to know, but for some reason it took weeks to sink through my skull:

Hit points don’t do what you think they do . . . . That’s why you think they’re broken.

Hit points tell you how long a conflict can last. They’re a pacing mechanism. They’re a perfectly good one, right there alongside Trollbabe’s “a conflict lasts 3 exchanges,” Dogs’ “a conflict lasts until somebody runs out of dice,” and Primetime Adventures’ “a conflict lasts one roll.” You need some way to know when the conflict end, that’s all.

(http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/175 )

So, yeah, the harm clock, like every other countdown clock in Apocalypse World, is a pacing mechanism helping us pace the setbacks and progress of a character’s hold on their life.