So the first law can't be broken unless you WANT to break it, right?

[HumAnnoyd]

Killing with Magic or Otherwise: You opposition is going to be mostly mortals for my adventure which means there will be a risk of Law Breaker coming up.  While you do have narrative control over your attacks there are times when this seems unreasonable.  Every enemy will have a secret Stress Threshold which, if an attack brings them over that level they will die, this will only, however, apply to attacks of Weapon: 3 or greater.

This is the houserule our game's new GM has proposed as a way to deal with this issue.  I see how it would likely never be a concern otherwise but I am also feeling that my character is now limited quite a bit by it.  In fact with the skill point I just got from our last session I might have to up his Weapon Skill instead of his Lore just so I can be effective in the upcoming adventure.  Especially since it was made clear we would likely be facing some mortal opposition. 

[sinker]

Sounds like a talk to the GM sort of situation. Tell him that's not the kind of game you want to play and ask him to compromise. Find out if any of the other players feel hampered by this rule. If you can't come to an agreement I'd be tempted to smirkily outsmart the GM (by coming up with something that can only be non-lethal and then asking him how it could possibly kill), but that's cause I've got a mean streak.

Of course this brings up another point that really bothers me. Everyone seems to think that stress=damage. This is completely false. Consequences=damage. If someone doesn't take consequences then you haven't even hit them. The whole concept around stress is that a person is being worn down by the difficulty of the fight. If they don't have consequences then that speaks to their commitment to the fight. You could kill them when you take them out, but if they haven't taken any consequences you could just as easily narrate a result of "My fire blast flares in his face as he barely jumps back in time. He throws up his hands and says "Holy crap man I'm not paid enough for this.""

[HumAnnoyd]

You know I didn't have a problem with it at first.  In fact I thought it was a good idea.  And I might be able to be convinced back the other way.  It wasn't until I started considering all the implications due to this thread that I changed my mind a bit.  Hmm.  We will see what happens.  Maybe it will be fine.

[Drachasor]

Killing with Magic or Otherwise: You opposition is going to be mostly mortals for my adventure which means there will be a risk of Law Breaker coming up.  While you do have narrative control over your attacks there are times when this seems unreasonable.  Every enemy will have a secret Stress Threshold which, if an attack brings them over that level they will die, this will only, however, apply to attacks of Weapon: 3 or greater.

The problem with a rule like this is that it really doesn't make a lot of sense.  A broadsword is a weapon 2...but somehow something that can slice someone in two or pierce their heart can't kill them?  Yet if you grab a two-hander then boom, they could be dead?  There's a big level of inconsistency here.

I've sort of been advocating the narrativist side very heavily in this thread, since that seems the more right of it (and at first other people weren't doing it).  I CAN see how sometimes it doesn't make a lot of sense to declare the attack didn't kill.  Shooting people (weapon 2 with pistols) seems like a somewhat bizarre way to not kill them but still take them out.  Once or twice doing that...not bad.  Going into a building full of people and everyone shooting them with guns and no one dying...that could get so bizarre it is hard to take seriously, especially if it happened time and time again.  So that can hurt the game.

That said, it IS up to the player, technically, and I think it is important to maintain player input here.  Probably the best way would be with aspects.  "This is a Lethal Attack" is something a GM can compel and a player could only get out of it by spending a fate point makes more sense if the player is going around making a lot of attacks with lethal weapons and saying they never kill anyone.  That said, seems like magic is generally more flexible and some melee weapons are reasonably enough non-lethal (broad sword and the flat of the blade*).  It does seem like something that needs to be discussed a bit, but in all cases a GM shouldn't spring lawbreaker on someone.  I've been gaming for over 15 years and I know well the GM and a given player don't always see eye-to-eye.  It's important to be clear about big things like this before they happen so you don't end up with a big fight (which sucks).

Hmm, I am still not convinced Invoking for Effect is a great solution.  Taking people out (e.g. getting them to run or surrender) doing that is essentially using Invoke For Effect to produce a compel on multiple people if more than one is about...and that seems to be way too powerful for me.  I like more using an zone-wide attack and describing it as an explosion centered on a bad guy...the shifts people away from that take are concussive force, noise, and so forth (won't kill anyone, but will scare the jujubes out of them causing them to get taken out).  A properly narrated attack just seems like the better way to go here (though it poses still an interesting question for enchanted items...must they be created with lethality or non-lethality in mind?).  If a player is putting forth effort to not kill people...then that should be what matters.

*Yeah, I know clubbing someone in the head isn't nearly as friendly as TV makes it out to be...nonetheless.

[toturi]

Think about that for a moment, if your allowing the mechanics to work that way, the pc blaster who i assume is designed specifically to blow things up, walks into a hostage situation and just blows the entire room up. He doesn't have anything to fear hell just declare as his taken out condition that no damage was done to himself or his allies or any humans in the room.

He could say that the "Taken Out" result is that "No Harm Done", but the stresses and Consequences taken would still be there.

The mechanics would likely work more along the lines of monsters dead, humans badly injured. Perhaps even "Critically Wounded", "Severe Burns", "Life threatening Injuries", just not "Dead".

[Moriden]

He could say that the "Taken Out" result is that "No Harm Done", but the stresses and Consequences taken would still be there.

The problem is that there is absolutely nothing stopping the other party members who are likely all human, from taking the 15 stress hit, accepting his "taken out result" for them of "miraculously unharmed" and then wondering why the human npcs didn't do the same. Its absurd but no more so then the concept that conjured fire would be doing an unequal amount of physical damage based on the peoples presence or lack of a soul.

[Drachasor]

The problem is that there is absolutely nothing stopping the other party members who are likely all human, from taking the 15 stress hit, accepting his "taken out result" for them of "miraculously unharmed" and then wondering why the human npcs didn't do the same. Its absurd but no more so then the concept that conjured fire would be doing an unequal amount of physical damage based on the peoples presence or lack of a soul.

Well, if the PCs do that (from friendly fire), then they are not in the combat anymore for what it is worth.  Not really the best idea to incapacitate your fellow party members in the middle or even the end of a fight.  A taken out result that doesn't kill someone or even create a consequence isn't the same as nothing happening -- people taken out have been defeated.

[bibliophile20]

Well, if the PCs do that (from friendly fire), then they are not in the combat anymore for what it is worth.  Not really the best idea to incapacitate your fellow party members in the middle or even the end of a fight.  A taken out result that doesn't kill someone or even create a consequence isn't the same as nothing happening -- people taken out have been defeated.

You're missing the point.  The point that Mori is trying to make is that it is nonsensical to have such a finely targeted attack in the manner that has been argued; it is akin to dropping an anvil on an egg, and expecting it to have split into two even halves of eggshell, one with the yolk and one with the white.  Dresden is not the 90's era US Military, where it was believed that you could perform surgery with smart bombs. 

And it gets worse when you're arguing that you can kill the monsters in a zone, while leaving the humans unharmed; last I checked, most of the baddies in the Dresdenverse are structurally a great deal more resilient than your average human being, much less your average overweight American.  MUCH more resilient.  So, to return to the above metaphor, it's like dropping an anvil on a mix of eggs and walnuts... and expecting the eggs to survive--more or less--when the walnuts are utterly pulverized. 

/common sense.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled necroequestrisadism.   

[toturi]

The Taken Out Result is "Unharmed" but the humans may still suffer from the stresses and Consequences that they have taken. So while both the monsters and humans have "Badly Burnt", "Severely Wounded", etc as their Consequences, only the humans have "Unharmed" as their Taken Out effect, while the monsters are "Dead".

The point that seems to be missing is that the it would not nonsensical in the context of the DFRPG, however it may seem so in the "Real World". It is common sense.

[Sanctaphrax]

I don't think that stress has to be representative of physical damage. It's an abstraction, after all.

So an evocation could be described as an attempt to paralyze or restrain movement and still inflict stress.

So a seven-shift evoker can actually use those seven shifts when he isn't aiming to kill.

At least, that's how I see it.

[bitterpill]

For area of effect the taken out effect has to be the same in my opinion and stated in adavance, so you could say all the npc were unconsious (enemies and hostages) this would not stop the fact through concequences you had scarred them horribly forever but that is not the same thing as killing so outside of the first law.  

[Moriden]

@Toturi    No in that example the other party members take no consequences, they know there friend isnt going to harm them, so they choose not to take any, Nothing forces them to do so.

[toturi]

@Toturi    No in that example the other party members take no consequences, they know there friend isnt going to harm them, so they choose not to take any, Nothing forces them to do so.

Be that as it may, my point remains however. DFRPG is not the "Real World".

[Drachasor]

You're missing the point.  The point that Mori is trying to make is that it is nonsensical to have such a finely targeted attack in the manner that has been argued; it is akin to dropping an anvil on an egg, and expecting it to have split into two even halves of eggshell, one with the yolk and one with the white.  Dresden is not the 90's era US Military, where it was believed that you could perform surgery with smart bombs. 

And it gets worse when you're arguing that you can kill the monsters in a zone, while leaving the humans unharmed; last I checked, most of the baddies in the Dresdenverse are structurally a great deal more resilient than your average human being, much less your average overweight American.  MUCH more resilient.  So, to return to the above metaphor, it's like dropping an anvil on a mix of eggs and walnuts... and expecting the eggs to survive--more or less--when the walnuts are utterly pulverized. 

/common sense.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled necroequestrisadism.   

Well, I already gave an example of how this could work.  If there's a big bad in a zone and a bunch of people, a spell could feasibly do say 10 shifts of damage to all by being an explosion centered on the big bad, doing 10 shifts of fiery death while doing 10 shifts of heat, concussion, shock, and awe to everyone else in the zone (e.g. not lethal).  So it isn't inherently lacking on common sense.  Now, naturally, if you describe a spell as filling an entire area of an inferno, then saying people survive relatively unscathed who were hit probably doesn't make a lot of sense.  It really depends on the type of attack, how it is narrated, etc.

It would be nice, of course, if we could go to the books for examples of this sort of thing, but there are actually hardly any examples of area spells in them.  Even when Harry is facing off against multiple enemies who start farther away from him, he seldom uses spells that aren't single-target (same with most other wizards).

[sinker]

Again, a point to consider is that if someone doesn't take consequences then technically you haven't even hit them. Perhaps all of your allies dove to the ground at the appropriate moment. They're shellshocked or exhausted (because they're definitely taken out) but technically unharmed. By the rules this is a completely appropriate way of dealing with this.

A smart GM will however discourage it's abuse easily. "Oh look, your blast has alerted the people in the next room. They rush in. What? No it's not a new scene, everyone's still taken out. Well that sucks now doesn't it."

Another thing to consider as per the original post is that the players get to decide whether they take consequences. They do not get to decide whether bystanders take consequences.