Grapple Houserule/possible clarification

[sinker]

1) it means that attack actions are special cookies that interact with blocks in very nonstandard ways - which is unfortunate, given that all of the obvious examples of blocks in the book are based off of attacks.

I think this is a bit of a simplification that is actually sort of inverted. Think about it this way.

An attack is a contest (an opposed action) where the margin of success is important. Blocks reduce their effectiveness.

A maneuver is also a contest, however the margin of success is less important. The only time when blocks reduce their effectiveness is when the block strength and the shift value of the maneuver are both dead even. A rare event, but technically still an instance of the block reducing the effectiveness of a maneuver.

A block is a simple action (in other words an unopposed roll) with no difficulty. Even a grapple is unopposed despite being directly conflicting. Having no difficulty means that there are no margins of success or failure. A block does not reduce it's effectiveness, because the block has no margin of success, it succeeds or does not.

So to be technical it is actually the block that interacts differently with a block. The attack works the same way as any other contest.

Personally though I think I would apply the block strength as a penalty to the margin of success in some things but not others (attack, maneuver, move, spell control but not blocks, or non-conflict actions). I'm thinking it would primarily have to do with whether the margin of success was important, not whether the action is opposed. But that's because it's the game I want to play, not cause the rule book says so.

[Mr. Death]

Weak attacks can rack up stress that slowly whittles away an attacker - this is something I did recently, where I eventually just ran my opponent out of stress boxes entirely - we both had strong defenses, but I didn't have strong attacks.  Weak spells can set up maneuvers (eventually leading to strong spells) or whittle away at opponents with attacks.  Weak blocks just do nothing.  And personally, I'd really prefer a game system where you aren't limited to just the tactic you're best at, and where non-combat characters can still make small but useful contributions if they do end up in a fight.  Maneuvers are one option for this sort of thing.  I would prefer for blocks to be another.

Apologies, I meant a weak attack roll. As in, if you can't reliably get past a defense to cause those shifts in the first place.

And I agree with Sinker, I think: A block would set a difficulty of something that normally wouldn't, and affect the outcome.

My question is, does this count for defenses? Like, if you've grappled a speedster (Let's say, Athletics at 5 with Supernatural Speed) specifically so that an ally can gank him while he's pinned down. Now, in my mind, if you've got, say, a 4 strength grapple on him, should he really get the full benefit of his 7 dodge roll? It makes more sense to me to apply the block as a penalty to that as well--he'd still get the dodge roll, it'd just be reduced because of the block. (Thinking of, say, Goku and Piccolo vs. Raditz here).

[Orladdin]

My personal interpretation of blocks is that they establish an alternate defense against some action.  All actions can, at most, have a single defense against them (for simplicity's sake) and therefore, you only take the higher defense into account.  The weaker "defense" provided by a block is ignored.  In situations where a defense is not normally allowed, the block becomes the only defense (but a defense nonetheless).

... (Thinking of, say, Goku and Piccolo vs. Raditz here).

In this case, I would say that Goku allowed Piccolo to tag a series of Aspects he placed on Raditz with maneuvers.  The grapple is only the thematic and visual explanation of what happened.

[sinker]

A block can not ever influence a defense roll. If you want to prevent someone from defending you have to create an appropriate aspect and then compel them, and even then it may not happen because depending on the situation or the aspect the GM may determine that to be a "weak" compel.

[Tedronai]

A block can not ever influence a defense roll. If you want to prevent someone from defending you have to create an appropriate aspect and then compel them, and even then it may not happen because depending on the situation or the aspect the GM may determine that to be a "weak" compel.

Or the player may negotiate with the GM for some other effect, or refuse the compel entirely (and pay a FP to the GM in the process).

[sinker]

Agreed. More than anything I suppose that I was trying to say that, circumstances notwithstanding, I find "He doesn't get to defend" to be a very weak compel.

[Tedronai]

'automatically fails anything that would require movement (most forms of attack or maneuver, defense against the same, actual game-mechanic movement, etc) for the duration of one exchange' might be less so, though

[sinker]

In general I would compare it to the declaration/compel that is mentioned in the book. "Dr so-and-so drops dead of a heart attack." Under most circumstances it's going to take more away from the game than it adds.

[Sanctaphrax]

I agree with sinker and Vargo Teras here.

Not sure how Judo Master is meant to work. If I break a 4-strength grapple with a 7-shift Might maneuver aimed at producing a KNOCKED FLAT aspect, what happens?

[Mr. Death]

I didn't say they wouldn't get to roll defense, or that the defense would automatically fail, just that the grapple would reduce the defense (someone rolling at 7 to defend while under a 4 strength grapple would effectively be rolling from 3 instead).

Or maybe treat it like an Ambush with an aspect tagged or invoked? As he's attacked, the grapplee gets one last chance to break the grapple block (similar to that last chance to avoid the ambush)--if it fails, he's rolling from 0, if he succeeds, roll defense normally?

@Sanctaphrax: I meant if you're just using Might to break out of the grapple--as in, that's the action itself. If you break the grapple with a maneuver aimed at producing KNOCKED FLAT, then you produce that maneuver, and can probably tag that in a subsequent turn to establish a grapple, but not turn it directly into a grapple that turn. Though I suppose it'd be kosher if the player with that stunt can replace the maneuver with the grapple, if the GM says so.

[Becq]

Just as a note for those who'd like grapple to affect the victim's defense: the rules as written allow you to do this via the 'free maneuver' option, which allows you to place an unopposed maneuver aspect each exchange.  Letting your buddy tag this aspect for his attack is almost the same thing as a -2 to defense (though only one buddy per exchange gets to use this for free; the others would have to pay Fate).

If you wanted to grapple someone and let your friends pummel him, the best way to represent this is probably to have all but one of them maneuver aspects each exchange, with the last one tagging them all (plus yours from the grapple) to represent the group pummeling.

[Mr. Death]

Hm...Would it make sense to, instead of offering up an aspect tag on that freebie the grapple offers for the +2 to hit, let someone tag it for the effect of not letting the target defend with one particular skill? Going back to the speedster example, if you've grappled him in the hopes of holding him down long enough to hit him, could you have the grappler put a temporary aspect like ARM LOCK or HEADLOCK and have the punch-thrower tag it to say that he couldn't use his Athletics to dodge that one attack, but instead had to use Fists or some other applicable skill, rationalizing it with, "Well, I'm holding him down, so he can't sprint or backflip out of the way"?

Because that +2 on the temp aspect can be done a lot easier and quicker without grappling in the first place--why A. create a temp aspect, B. tag it for the grapple, and C. put on another temp aspect to tag--and risk the target breaking the grapple anyway--when you can just go A. create a temp aspect, B. have your buddy tag that to punch?

[sinker]

The grapple has other obvious advantages. It all depends on your strategy.

Personally I like the can't defend with athletics compel better than the can't defend at all compel.

I'm wondering if the choice of the "Grapple" term might not have been a great idea. The thing that comes to mind immediately is one guy wrapped around the other guy on the floor, but I don't think that image is really appropriate to the mechanic.

[GryMor]

The way I see it, outside of stunts, the main advantage of a grapple is that it lets you oppose nearly everything the target can do while still eventually taking them out. For the most part, it's one more enemy your friends don't need to worry about.

[Mr. Death]

Well, yeah, that's the main advantage. I'm just trying to figure out the game mechanics for what should also be a logical advantage.