Only up to a point. If the AP loss had been trivial it wouldn't have made sense to say that Harstal had lost his spear, on the other hand a much greater AP loss would have mandated a more desperate outcome - the vampire grabbing the spear and using it to pull Harstall in range for a slashing bite to the neck perhaps.
The narative was chosen to match the scale of the AP loss. This is no different in principle to the critical tables in Rolemaster, to take a highly simulationist example. The scale of the critical indicats how bad the outcome is likely to be, and hence the seriousness of the consequences on that part of the critical table. The only difference is that in HW the narrator make up the narative consequences on the fly based on the precise narrative situation, rather than making up a set of standard outcomes in advance and putting them in a table.
We're then in the business of discussing whether rulings made up on the spot are intrinsicaly better or worse than rulings made in advance, and why anyone should care.
Simon Hibbs
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