Questions about how some things work

[Jancarius]

I like that idea as well, but unfortunately, I think he just wants to shoot everything with it.  Since his 'resources' don't decrease with use, I'm guessing he'll just try and buy a huge quantity of the heaviest grade ammo he can.

[UmbraLux]

Remind him indiscriminate fire with armor piercing (or even normal) rounds is a Very Bad Thing (TM).  Even brick or concrete walls won't stop a .50 caliber.  Smaller normal rounds aren't harmless either, just watch the news.  Senseless tragedies like that occur far to often.

Rules to remember:
 - Treat every gun as armed.  Don't point it at anything you're not willing to shoot. 
 - Treat every gun as deadly.  Don't shoot anything you're not wanting to kill. 
 - Always know what is beyond your target. 

The down side of those are things for GMs to keep in mind...

[mostlyawake]

What I'm trying to figure out is how to handle this lower level hexing.  I don't want them to have their cars break down everytime they get in them, for example.  And the shaman, at least, has a 'beat up old chevy' of some unspecified year that he drives specifically for that purpose.  And clearly, they must still be able to at least use computers some of the time.  But I'm trying to figure out how to model a highly increased chance of hardware and software problems resulting from their magic in a story telling way.  I don't intend it to be something that really screws up their lives, more of a "you've noticed that lately, your computer crashes.  A lot."  and only really treat it as a compel if it's something like "Sheridan, your gun jams on the second shot" as a side effect of the evoker sorcereress throwing around blasts of power.

If you just want it for story effect, then whenever they roll badly on a roll - say, like, failing a contacts roll - just blame it on a hex. "You knew just the guy to call, but when you went to call him your entire phone list in your cell phone appeared to be missing." miss a drive roll by one? "For a moment, the car just completely stalls, you lose power steering, the lights go out.  You realize your heart is racing and that your emotions may be causing your magic to make the car go wonky".

Basically, you aren't imposing ANY penalty mechanically... you're just blaming the players' bad rolls on a story aspect.

This can be really cool because the driver could say, "Ok, I want to take a deep breathe and really focus" as a discipline manuever to assist the next drive roll. 

[Jancarius]

If you just want it for story effect, then whenever they roll badly on a roll - say, like, failing a contacts roll - just blame it on a hex. "You knew just the guy to call, but when you went to call him your entire phone list in your cell phone appeared to be missing." miss a drive roll by one? "For a moment, the car just completely stalls, you lose power steering, the lights go out.  You realize your heart is racing and that your emotions may be causing your magic to make the car go wonky".

Basically, you aren't imposing ANY penalty mechanically... you're just blaming the players' bad rolls on a story aspect.

This can be really cool because the driver could say, "Ok, I want to take a deep breathe and really focus" as a discipline manuever to assist the next drive roll. 

I really like this idea.

[Jancarius]

Okay, so today's session included our Kincaid expy engaging two other trained mercanries and ended with him getting taken out in a gun fight.  I had it end with him having a belly wound, which 'didn't rupture anything vital'.  Now, I have his Tarsiel-shadow trying to get him to trade a favor for a favor in 'patching him up', but he's steadily refusing it so far. 

So, it may be a bit heavy handed, but I'm considering having the two mercs who dropped him (or one of their 7 remaining active team members) try and eliminate him in the hospital (giving him a "Take Tarsiel's deal or die" situation).  Otherwise, I can't see how I could get him back into play in time for the big conflict with the main bad (a White Court). 

The White Court doesn't really care much about the Kincaid-expy, he was just targeting him as eliminating support for his main 2 targets, the changeling sorceress and the paintomancer, but I was somewhat counting on him being there to help take out the White Court.  What do you guys advise as ways to bring him back in?

[noclue]

He has a consequence, right? That doesn't put him out of play.

[Jancarius]

He thinks (and I dunno if correctly, but it sounds right), that if he has a gunshot wound in his stomach, he won't be getting out of bed for any kind of strenuous activity unless forced to.

[UmbraLux]

Okay, so today's session included our Kincaid expy engaging two other trained mercanries and ended with him getting taken out in a gun fight.  I had it end with him having a belly wound, which 'didn't rupture anything vital'.  Now, I have his Tarsiel-shadow trying to get him to trade a favor for a favor in 'patching him up', but he's steadily refusing it so far. 

So, it may be a bit heavy handed, but I'm considering having the two mercs who dropped him (or one of their 7 remaining active team members) try and eliminate him in the hospital (giving him a "Take Tarsiel's deal or die" situation).  Otherwise, I can't see how I could get him back into play in time for the big conflict with the main bad (a White Court). 

I recommend against making it a binary choice unless the player has already agreed to one of the two options (death or Denarion).  That said, the shadow could simply decide to heal him without the favor in order to gain more time.  This is particularly effective if the shadow acts in a way that leaves questions...

The White Court doesn't really care much about the Kincaid-expy, he was just targeting him as eliminating support for his main 2 targets, the changeling sorceress and the paintomancer, but I was somewhat counting on him being there to help take out the White Court.  What do you guys advise as ways to bring him back in?

If they don't care about the spy, I'd skip the attack scenario.  What I would do is 1) have the Denarion heal him at least partially and do not tell him it was a freeby (leave that for speculation) and 2) have the healing leave an obvious and hellish mark.  A mark in the form of satan's name written in Hebrew or equivalent.  Something he'll have to hide.  Then the favor trading can be about removing this mark.   

Also, next time he just misses, have the shadow offer just enough help to turn that into a hit...

[Tedronai]

He thinks (and I dunno if correctly, but it sounds right), that if he has a gunshot wound in his stomach, he won't be getting out of bed for any kind of strenuous activity unless forced to.

I hope you're giving him a Fate Point for that obvious self-compel

[noclue]

He thinks (and I dunno if correctly, but it sounds right), that if he has a gunshot wound in his stomach, he won't be getting out of bed for any kind of strenuous activity unless forced to.

Okay, force him out of bed. Have the mercs go for him. Have the mercs go for his friends and let him know about it. He still doesn't have to take the deal though. He can fight wounded. Or maybe he can figure out some other way to shrug off the wounds for a bit longer.

And, yeah he does seem to be earning some fate points in there.

[sinker]

You can always actually talk to the player and be straight with him. Tell him that you can give him a fate point for self-compelling himself out of a major scene, or that he can join them. Also make sure he has more options than simply accepting Tarsiel's help. It's not a great idea to force something like that on a player if it's really not what they want. Hell, is he playing the character well by his choices? If it fits the character that he's resisting the Denarian, and toughing it through a major scene with a sort-of patched up belly wound then you could even give him fate for that (compel him to help his friends even though he's hurting). For that matter that totally fits the setting. Sounds like a great ending to a dresden files novel.