The meaning of Harm
March 23, 2007
All character and community resources which can be expended to perform an action in the game, can sustain Harm (i.e. Magic, which cannot be expended, cannot be Harmed). Harm reduces the ability for a player to utilize the affected resource, effectively lowering the value of the resource until the Harm is removed.
Harm can arise from a Conflict (as part of negotiated Conditions) or by player choice to continue to utilize a resource after it has already been exhausted.
Harm can be negotiated like any other outcome from a conflict. Usually Harm should be restricted to 1 point to a single trait, but this is a suggestion and not a hard and fast rule. So long as the outcome it acceptable and the conflict is played, Harm occurs if that condition (win or loss) comes to pass.
Resources by definition have limited use. If a character has an Insight Trait of 3, they may normally only invoke (expend a point of Insight to perform an Insight action) 3 times during the course of play. Expended points of Insight are refreshed after a council meeting (or by certain other actions) and then can be used again.
If a character chooses, once they have used all 3 points of Insight, they may still perform an Insight action by Harming a point of Insight. This Harmed point will not be refreshed, not matter what is done, until the Harm is removed. This applies equally to Covenant Resources, where they continue to be utilized after all normally available points are used up. A character may never Harm a resource which normally has no value (e.g. 0).
During a conflict where a player wishes to perform an action for which they have no remaining unexpended Trait points, there is one other alternative. They may opt to take Harm in the Trait their opponent is using against them (e.g. their opponent plays a Club, so the player opts to take Vigor Harm) in order to get a single free use of the Trait matching the suit of the card they played (e.g. an Influence action for Hearts). Expended points in the affected Trait are Harmed first. If there are no expended points in the affected Trait, the highest Trait point is Harmed and the unexpended point is lost. Note that if the opponent is using the same suit as the player, this amounts to normal Harming of the Trait.
A resource can sustain an amount of Harm equal to its normal value – a Covenant Wealth Resource of 6 can be used 6 times and take 6 additional Harm. If a resource point is Harmed twice (e.g. once all 6 Harm “slots” are used, there is no choice but to harm one of the “slots” a second time) then it is destroyed. A destroyed point permanently reduces the value of that resource and, unlike Harm, this destruction cannot be repaired. However, the resource may be improved as normal during a council meeting, effectively replacing the destroyed point from scratch.
As this post is getting long, I’ll talk about repairing Harm in the post about council meetings.
