Willing/automatic success and failure?

[Belial666]

In most attempts, you are trying to do something that is opposed by something or someone else. But in some cases, you should be able to willingly fail or willingly succeed at something. Here's an example;

...a man can drop a grenade at his feet, just stand there until it goes off...

Dropping a grenade at your feet, I'd treat as automatic success for a normally thrown weapon-you can choose where the grenade lands and thus can get the best result possible. I'd treat it as a roll of +4.
Standing there until it goes off, I'd treat as a willing failure on your dodge, getting the worst result possible. That's a dodge of 0 rolling a -4 mechanically.

End result is, assuming you don't know how to place the grenade for extra damage, 16 shifts of stress.

Now, another example; shooting a bound man in the head with a gun. Following similar assumptions of perfect shot/can't dodge, that's 10 shifts of stress.
My problem here is consequences.

In the first case, if you are lucky or reflexively try to cover yourself, you could still potentially take consequences and not be killed by the blow. In the second case though, how can one justify taking consequences for not being killed?

[luminos]

well, either he is completely bound, and thus is probably already taken out, and you can just narrate killing him, or he tips over the chair he is in or something and only gets hit somewhere not in the head.  But yeah, there are situations where rolling for success/failure don't make sense, so don't.  If the outcome of the roll can't change the result, its better to skip the roll.

[Deadmanwalking]

Yeah, what he said.

[Belial666]

either he is completely bound, and thus is probably already taken out, and you can just narrate killing him

Against a human? Yeah. But say that you have a superghoul in chains. Or a black court vampire. They can both survive having sizable pieces of their heads blown off so narrating that they die in one shot is problematic. Or say that you can pull off something like that against a bulletproof demon or one of those guardian dogs made out of stone. It still doesn't make sense to instantly kill them.

[Kordeth]

In the first case, if you are lucky or reflexively try to cover yourself, you could still potentially take consequences and not be killed by the blow. In the second case though, how can one justify taking consequences for not being killed?

Ask The Bride from Kill Bill.

Also, this is why professionals double-tap.

[Wordmaker]

Most definitely there should be times when success or failure is decided without a roll.

There's advice in Spirit of the Century, I can't remember if it's also in the Dresden Files rpg, but it basically says that dice should only be rolled if both success and failure would be interesting. If you're killing someone, execution style, then don't use the conflict rules, or any rules. Unless that person has some kind of toughness or regeneration powers, they're not surviving. Working out how many consequences can be taken, or how much stress is inflicted by such an attack, isn't fun. It's boring and causes needless delays for the game.

[Falar]

You know. If my gaming group decided to execution-style kill one of my favorite NPC villians that I had worked a long arc with, I might be terribly tempted to give him a regeneration power of some sort and a secret past IN ADDITION to everything that he already came with.

Because nothing would beat the moment when he shows up for the very first time after the execution and one character turns to the other and just says, "@%*$."

[Deadmanwalking]

My players actually executed a major villain (a Hellfire wielding Sorcerer in the employ of the Order of the Blackened Denarius) this last session. After torturing him for information.

He Death Cursed them. The Curse? "Karma's A Bitch". He got about Complexity 30 on that thing. That should be loads of fun.

[TheMouse]

One of the guidelines that I find the most helpful in running games is, "Say yes, or roll the dice." This would seem to fall under the part where you say yes.

Player -- Can I kill the bound and helpless ghoul with my pistol?

GM -- Yup.

Even if it's not that straight forward, you can negotiate a little rather than relying on the conflict rules.

Player -- Can I shoot the bound ghoul king once in the head and kill him?

GM -- Well, he's a little tough for that. It will probably take three or four shots to be sure he's dead.

Player -- Okay. Just to be extra careful, I'll empty my six-shooter into his head.

All the stuff about damage modifiers, rolling to hit, and such is part of the conflict resolution system. If the people sitting around the table aren't in conflict about what should happen, there's no need for conflict resolution.

[Wordmaker]

Well yes, characters engaging in execution-style killings with any regularity deserve whatever retaliation comes to them.

But this can also apply in situations like where a player wants his character to swap out one enchanted/focus item for another (say he lost his blasting rod and decided to replace it with a gauntlet instead). Sure, the GM could insist in Lore roll or similar to craft the item, but it's not really important to the story how long it takes, only that the character now has a new item.

Similarly, if a character has his arch nemesis finally defeated after years of struggle, he shouldn't have to work out whether or not the stress of a given attack is enough to kill him. What's important is that the villain is at the character's mercy, and whether or not the character will cross that line and strike him down in cold blood.

[Deadmanwalking]

Well yes, characters engaging in execution-style killings with any regularity deserve whatever retaliation comes to them.

Actually, FTR, my game's thing was the players first time doing something like that, and it wasn't retaliation, it was a GREAT excuse to do something I had planned anyway. Two of the three people effected are leaving for a month or so, and I was already going to have them kidnapped and tortured for that period of time (with the players' enthusiastic support, BTW). It'll probably only be a week or so in-game. The third...well, he might get out of it (some Thaumaturgy is planning on being attempted...), or I'll come up with something.

The story was mostly just an amusing anecdote regarding executions. 

[Crion]

I think it is stated best on YS309.

Before you call for a die roll, it is critically important that you stop and do two things:
1. Imagine Success
2. Imagine Failure
It sounds simple, but it makes a difference. Success is usually the easy part; failure can be trickier. You want to make sure that both outcomes are interesting—though “interesting” isn’t the same as “good.”

Basically, if it's nigh-impossible to fail something, I'd say bollocks to the roll and just let it happen. That's what storytelling is for, after all.

Of course, it's still GM's call and choice, but just saying what I think, that's all.

--Crion