The concept of conceding

[Papa Gruff]

Hello everybody...

... today I'd like to ask you about your experiences with concedes. During the year (almost) of playing FATE and DFRPG there have been multiple occasions where concedes led to somewhat awkward situations. The problem is, that players usually tend to feel cheated if you let a NPC concede at the end of a lengthy conflict, to life and fight an other day. Most of the time they don't see the benefits of just winning the conflict and reaching their goal. Usually they seem to feel the need to kill or at least capture the bad guy or the monster to gain accomplishment.

This especially seems to hold true with seasoned RPG veterans that have played other systems before, where there aren't similar concepts... While me and my usual group have reached some kind of understanding on the matter, it becomes difficult when you play with people unfamiliar to FATE. I have run a convention game where the notion of conceding led to raised eyebrows and I faltered for the sake of everbody having fun (which was a good choice after all)... But sometimes you just don't want your high roller bad guy to get killed on the outskirts of a campaign but the PC manage to corner them badly.

So? How to avoid player frustration when declaring that the bad guy concedes / runs away? ... By the way: I know that it all comes down to the narration of the concede. Yet sometimes that seems not to be enough.

I'm interested in how my fellow GM handle this.

[luminos]

Well, for starters, the people you concede to have to agree that the concession is appropriate.  If the players have cornered a bad guy and are completely focused on killing him, conceding probably shouldn't happen.  Making the concession "the bad guy gets away, but you get the mcguffin" is certainly inappropriate when the PC's goal isn't to get the mcguffin.  Conceding that the bad guy dies, but that he gets off a nasty death curse, on the other hand, is more possible.

[toturi]

Perhaps it is not so much that the players being unused to the concept of conceding or that they do not see the benefits of just winning the conflict and reaching their goal. It is that their goal includes not allowing the bad guy to concede. Their end game dictates that the bad guy has no way out, no retaliation possible. Any less than total and unconditional victory on their terms is unacceptable.

It is simply a difference in expectations, I feel. Sometimes you just have to accept that the bad guy gets run over 5 minutes into your campaign is in the interest of everybody else having fun; this is what I prepare myself to accept if and when it occurs.

[MyNinjaH8sU]

My players had a necromancer almost dead and cornered. He caved in the street beneath him and beat a retreat through the sewers, the tremors causing a water tower by the road to come down, leaving the players to save themselves and the bystandards nearby.

Now, I didn't call this a concession, because I get those same raised eyebrows, but it totally was. Maybe that's a good trick, just couching it in different, dramatic terminology.

[Papa Gruff]

Ok. I get what luminos said but the rules are pretty strait forward about under what circumstances concessions are allowed. Technically they have nothing to do with the goals of the PC that manage to force the concession. They are all about the character that concedes. To me that is the fundamental difference between the simple takeout and the concession. The conceding character looses but gets to have a strong word to say how this loss takes shape.

Example: During our last game session I let a red court nobel (a face of the campaign) concede and take flight into the deeps of the mine that she and her minions had taken shelter in. The party had set out to free a distressed damsel out of her claws and therefor succeeded. The vamp had taken some consequences, pretty much lost the fight and her prise already, so the concession was solidly grounded in the rules. I saved a face and the opportunity to bring her up in future scenarios. We debated the concession and I made amendments yet I didn't get the feeling that everybody was satisfied...

... an other thing to consider is, that concessions aren't NPC only. A beaten PC may also concede to save his hide and proceed on an alternative path. Usually I don't like to draw on the novels too much during rule discussions, but Harry does this all the time! If the game table doesn't allow the reasonable concession of a NPC then - in my opinion - the hole concept has to be taken into question and a cornered PC shouldn't get to concede either...

[admiralducksauce]

I really haven't had any problems with villain concessions, actually.  I can think of a few potential reasons:

1.  The conflict in question wasn't about killing the villain.  An enemy ambush by mortal agents gets turned around on them and they flee, leaving their SUV with their arsenal behind.  The NPCs' goal was to capture or kill the PCs; the PCs were clearly simply acting in self-defense so I think running the bad guys off was enough for them.

2.  The villain is sufficiently outmatched before the concession, or to put it another way, the PCs have gotten a satisfying amount of licks in before the villain turns tail.  There's no question they've defeated the villain.

3.  The villain has flight, and therefore has an easy means of escape. 

4.  My group plays its fair share of superhero games and is tolerant of the fine tradition of recurring villains.  I think it also helps if you state this guy ain't coming back this session.

5.  Setting aspects such as "Monologues and Deathtraps" or personal aspects like "Driven By Redemption" that can be compelled to reinforce a concession without outright murder.

[Tedronai]

So, for clarity's sake, here's the relevant text:

A concession has to pass muster with the
group before it is accepted—the conditions of
the loss still have to represent a clear and decisive
disadvantage for your character. If the group
(note that your opponent is part of the group
for this!) feels like your character is getting off
easy, you’ll need to rework the concession until
it’s acceptable.

Bolding added



Beyond that, someone suggest a bit ago that 'the BBEG dies, but gets off a nasty death curse' might be an appropriate concession.

It's not.

While the victor in any conflict gets to dictate the general terms of a Taken Out result, much of the specifics are left to the defeated.  See YS203, the sidebar 'Dictating Outcomes', and the 'sticky note' between Harry and Will immediately below.

Basically, that BBEG gets to toss their death curse, if doing so would be reasonable (ie. probably not if they drop from a single bullet to the head at several hundred meters), even on a complete Taken Out result.

[ways and means]

I like the concession rules, but part of what I like about the consesssion rules is if a recurring villan wants to concede and run away leaving the maguffin or throwing a moral dilema such as the joker gambit (damsel in distress with time bomb in another building) the PC can just say no to the consession and carry on until they can have victory on there terms (takeout), I only really see concession as appropriate when both sides have reasons for wanting the combat to end as soon as possible.

[luminos]

... an other thing to consider is, that concessions aren't NPC only. A beaten PC may also concede to save his hide and proceed on an alternative path. Usually I don't like to draw on the novels too much during rule discussions, but Harry does this all the time! If the game table doesn't allow the reasonable concession of a NPC then - in my opinion - the hole concept has to be taken into question and a cornered PC shouldn't get to concede either...

This is a really good point.  By the nature of concessions, what is acceptable will vary by group.  But the kind of concessions the players insist on for NPC's will likely reflect on what kind of concessions are acceptable for the PC's themselves. 

If the players are uncomfortable with how concessions are being used, I'd first try to host a group discussion about the purpose and acceptable range of concessions.  If the players were still uncomfortable with how I was using them, it might just be better to shrug and let the players preferences determine in the abstract how concessions are to be treated.

[Sanctaphrax]

Concessions have worked very well for me so far. They provide a panic button for players and a way to resolve social combat amicably.

[devonapple]

I don't get a chance to use them very often, as it turns out. And the one time I really wanted to use one, I failed to declare it before the dice were rolled, so I would have had to cheat to keep that villain alive. My players manage to either extricate themselves before they'd need a concession, or catch me off guard and win so decisively that a concession just isn't available. Some "concessions" even get handled fully with RP. Maybe I've been too permissive? The few times we *do* use concessions, they seem a little forced and inadequate to the task, but I think that's more about lack of practice than a flaw in the method.

[mostlyawake]

I tend to push towards concessions on lesser enemies instead of pointing out that they have less consequences...also when time is of the essence...

"You've made some pretty good arguments as to why the guy should leave the enemy and join you.  If it's cool he's going to concede and tell you that maybe his boss isn't looking after him properly, and he'll consider what you said.  If you want to win him over completely, it's going to take a few more minutes of conversation, and the biker gang is going to get further away from you"

"You've taken down three of the eight gang members... the rest are going to try to run, leaving their fallen buddies behind.  Is it cool if we call that a concession and go ahead and move towards interrogating the one dude you left alive?"

On the BBEG, I tend to actually have valid escape plans (insta-spell back into the nevernever is popular) to use instead of trying to rely on concessions.  So I approach the concession by giving the players something extra, like this: "Ok. here's the deal; the dude has a pretty reliable escape potion that will get him out of here.  We can roleplay that out and he'll likely do so successfully without giving anything away, or we can just say that he concedes here, using the potion but accidentally dropping a piece of paper as he tries to scramble for the potion."

That said, because i was trying to teach my group how THEY could use concessions, I used concessions for bad guys consistently, even when it could have ended in death.  The only time I didnt offer a concession was when the enemy was something unintelligent like zombies or w/e.

[@BCrosswood]

The way I've always seen concessions run the concession has to be agreed upon unanimusly. If even one character wants to keep going round by round then you keep going round by round or figure out a concession that fits everyone.

[Papa Gruff]

The way I've always seen concessions run the concession has to be agreed upon unanimusly. If even one character wants to keep going round by round then you keep going round by round or figure out a concession that fits everyone.

That's not how I see it. If someone concedes he concedes. There isn't anything someone can do against it. The only thing that can be done at this point is to haggle about the conditions of the concede. If someone could just veto the concession, then the hole concept would be meaningless.

[Tedronai]

Of course, that 'haggling about conditions' might include, 'no, he's not getting away, I gonna run him down and pop a few shotgun slugs in his head'.