Ending conflict without Taken Out or Conceding

[Ard3]

Hello

Can conflict end in other ways than one side taken out or conceding?

In my upcoming game there is following situation:
NPC who is good socially but not much physical conflict ability. She'll want to talk PC around. She has Inhuman Speed and Glamours. If PC decide to physically attack, she most likely goes first, because no PC has speed power. Can she just Glamour herself invisible and move 1 zone free thanks to power and unless PCs manage to find and stop her just sprint away in the next exchange?

No one is taken out, no one concedes but conflict cant really continue if only one side remains.
I'd think this is possible but I got the impression from books that conflict should end with either taken out or conceding.

[Cadd]

That "running away" would be a completely valid Concession, in my eyes.
The NPC did not get what she wanted (thus she didn't "win" the conflict), but she ended the conflict on her terms - sounds like Conceding to me.

Also, of course - what will the in-story consequences (not he mechanical ones ) be from attacking the NPC? It's possible there might not be any adverse effects to the PC's from escalating it but if there logically could be, that's grounds for a compel to stick to a social conflict.

[Taran]

Honestly, she ran away.  If the PC's can't find her or catch her, then she escapes.   Just because you run, doesn't mean you LOSE.  If her goal is to NOT FIGHT, then she hasn't lost.  To me, though, this isn't a very satisfying end to a "conflict".  What was the end result?  Did she get what she came for?

A concession would be, "ok, she's going to escape but she leaves some kind of important info behind" etc..

This is where the goals of both parties are very important.

Why does she want to talk?  Is she trying to get info?  Maybe it's a social conflict where the PC concedes and part of that concession is the NPC gets info and escapes.

Once the goals are decided, you can decide the terms of the conflict and the concessions.

Maybe it's just an extended test instead of full out conflict. 

[Ard3]

The way I am planning it is that she has something PCs probably want. She'll want to negotiate and make a bargain, her wanting players to do something for her before negotiationg for the big thing. Thing she'll ask first is simple for PCs but somewhat ethically dubious.
Later when talking about the big thing she either wants to keep it or hand it over and have PCs owe her one favour, to be collected later.
She is a fae so negotiating with her could get tricky. If players try to attack her at the first time she'll either not arrive at all the next time or bring some backup to discourage violence. In all cases if social goes to physical her primary goal is to get away from the fight.

I think it would be reasonable for her to run away, but is it not satisfying way to end conflict.

[Taran]

Where's Haru when you need him...he always has good ideas for these kinds of things...

I'd have the first meeting be a social conflict.  Her goal is to get them to do her a favour despite the morale issues...as well as leave it open for her to get a favour from them while their goals would be whatever compensation.

So they can use concessions or be taken out if they lose and she'd dictate the outcome of the loss.

If they win, they can try to attack her and use any of her social consequences in combat.  She can run away.  In fact, her running away can be a concession from the loss of the social conflict.  She doesn't get what she wants but she gets away.

The other option is they might have aspects that she can invoke to compel them to do the quest.   If she's socially savvy, she might have discovered some of their aspects and will be better able to influence them when she talks to them.  It'd be a good way to give them Fate Points as well.

[Haru]

Suddenly my ears started to ring. Weird.

Well, a conflict sort of has to be agreed to by both parties within the confinement of the narrative. Damn, that's a mouth full. But what I basically mean is that if one side doesn't want to fight, and they have other options, they don't have to. It's all about how you frame the scene.

So if your NPC doesn't want to fight, you can tell your players that. I prefer to do that directly and out of character, so there are no misconceptions on either side. If you just let the NPC say "lets negotiate or I'm gone", and your players want to go for the fight, they'll be pretty pissed, if she suddenly runs and they can't do anything about it.

Setting the scene is key here. I would go a bit like this:
First, I would offer a social conflict, because the NPC is there to talk, not fight, and she's fast and can veil herself, so she's out before anyone can really do anything. That's the premise. If the players want to talk about what the NPC is offering, great, let's do that, we have a social conflict.
If not, and they want to fight, or they want to capture her, we can still do a social conflict, but with a different agenda.
In the first case, you have an honest negotiation (or as honest as it can be). The NPC wants something from the players, the players want something in return. Whoever gets to take out the other one socially gets their way.
In the second case, it gets a bit murkier. The NPC still has her agenda, that hasn't changed, but the players want to stall her, while part of the group sneaks around her to attack or capture her. All the talking is just a ruse for the real deal. If the NPC wins, she notices the trap and gets away with distrust and/or hatred against the players. If the players win, they can capture her or force her into a fight, whichever you prefer. The key ingredient here, though: because the NPC lost the fight, she is in no position to simply run. That's just not an option. Her superior speed will still help her in the conflict, of course, but running away would have to come at a price, namely a concession.

Then again, why would a physically weak Fae meet the players somewhere, where they can bring their physical superiority to bear against her? Especially, since she seems to want to make them work for her and humiliate them and all that, have them meet her at a location of her choosing. A health club, maybe even a nude spa, so she can bring her inhuman beauty as a nuclear weapon in a social conflict (as well as have them embarrassed by going to her in the nude). The balcony of an opera house, during a show. A museum. Anything that screams "social gathering", and that will cut down heavily on the players ability to bring weapons or even raise their hands against her. Simply remove a physical conflict as a viable option. Force the players hands, not that of your NPC, especially if the NPC has something the players want. Make them crawl. Crawl, I tell you!

Ahem. Well, you get what I'm saying. You can also have her hint at the fact that "if you do this thing for me, you will get the MacGuffin", but as long as you make sure to not actually say that, you can make them do something where they will think they will get the prize, when in fact the NPC can grin and say "I never actually said that, did I?" Granted, it will only work once, but it's a good one.

[Ard3]

Hmmm, I seem to have missed that agreement within narrative confinement thing.
I will tell them ICly beforehand that she will run the instant it goes physical.

Here is the situation in a nutshell:
What has happened:
Aaron Cohen, sculptor with More Ambition Than Skill or Sense has found in his old family houses attic the Tome of MaHaRaL, item of power that grants Thaumaturgy and a stunt to use craftmanship instead of lore for thaumaturgy. At first not believing what was written there but still curious started reading and in the end managed to summon Merida, a lesser fae and a muse. He bargained and agreed to give "year and a day of his life" in exchange for being famous.
I gave her Incite Emotion(Lasting):Inspiration to represent her ability affect peoples minds. Consequences like "Fevered inspiration", "Compulsive painting/sculpting/whatever" and the like. She creates those, manouvers to gain more tags and gives some to him and uses some to comple him to do more. Quality and crafmanship of his works improved vastly over short time and people started to take notice.
Then he found out that what she meant to do was to compel him to make couple masterpieces and just as he was going big take him away to Nevernever. Artist that previously was moderate at best suddenly makes, in a short amount of time, lots and lots of very high quality stuff and then vanishes without a traces after completing masterpieces? Sure he will be known and famous. But "year and a day of his life" in Nevernever is going to be much longer in our world. He wont be able to enjoy being famous. After all she has "Beware what you wish for".

He panics and uses the tome and one of his sculptures to create golem, to try to stop from taking him away. He has no fighting skills at all so he cant really do that himself. He refuses to let her in and basically locks himself in his, now warded, house. Him and her are in a stalemate. Unfortunately his control of golem is not that good and he mumbles in his sleep. Nonsentient golem takes scared mumblings as order and leaves house to beat whoever it comes accross.

What the PCs know: Someone has been beating apparently random people, including their allies, friends and contacts and they have been asked to help.

IfWhen they talk to Aaron they will hear that she does not fight and will flee at the first sign of violence. She will always negotiate and is true to her word, exacly her word, no more and no less.
The first time they'll meet her is probably just outside his house. He'll do the name and little will summoning. I understand it is basically like sending a "come here please" textmessage which doesnt force her but gets her attention. He'll then retreat to house and refuse to speak to her.
So she will be unprepared for PCs at the first meeting only. After that it will probably be in a park(she is summer), midday/afternoon with a lot people having picknic, walking dog etc. To discourage fighting.

She'll at first ask them to steal a specific letter that is protected by strong threshold and very little else. No monetary value but huge emotional value to its owners. Stealing from elderly widow that one of the PCs know, a precious love letter from her deceaced husband? That should make them at least hesitate a bit. Of cource they might not know about this beforehand, depending on the negotiations
In exchange for even to consider negotiations for fine tuning Aarons time spent away. In exchange for that she want a favour from them, to be collected later.

Ways they could solve it that I can think of:
*Do as she wants, have Aaron be gone for year and a day and not much more, owe her one favour. Gain possible ally and I can use that favour for plot later.
*Manouver smartly and corner her in a fight. Force her to keep him only that year and a day. Gain possible ally and enemy.
*As above but force her to end the deal with Aaron completely. As he is not famous yet neither has fulfilled their end so it might be possible to break it. He looses his skills and interest wanes. He still has the tome and might try something else later. She might hold a grudge for a while.
*Do nothing. When Aaron eventually returns he will be somewhat pissed about that. Gain enemy at much later point. Maybe only a small complication by them, but at suitable point that can be enough to make things interesting.
*They think of something of complete different and I will roll with it. Will be interesting.

PCs are strong in physical conflicts and she is strong in social conflicts. Unless she bring a lot of backup she will loose straight fight and probably win negotations unless players seriously outmanouver her and use those fate points. She will be at 3 vs 1 in social so it is possible for players to manouver around her even though their social skills are much lower than hers.
About that is there way to balance different numbers per side other than lesser side having much higher skills?

This will be the first scenarion of the campaing and only I am familiar with DF world. Point is to intruduce the world and the system. Physical conflict(golem fight), conceding(golem will concede), social combat(first negotation), freedom of choice and I will roll with it(what ever comes after first meeting her). Also supernaturals are individually almost always stronger than mortals, so play smart and know what you are up against. Sometimes there is no easy solution.

  That is way more text that I though it would be.

[Mr. Death]

As a note: If there is some kind of barrier to the zone, you have to roll for it, it's not part of the 'free action' zone change. In that case, she couldn't glamour up and leave all on one turn.

I say turn it into a chase scene.

[Mr. Death]

After thinking about it some more, it boils down to this: The end of a conflict should be interesting, which is why a conflict scene has to end in either a Taken Out or a Concession. A conflict that just ends when someone leaves and nothing is resolved is just boring filler. The result of a conflict should have a meaningful effect on the progress of the game--either the players win and gain something, or they lose and take on extra complications.

[Ard3]

Yes, just running away and solving nothing is not good way to end conflict from story point of view. But from the characters point of view running away when things get dicey is totally reasonable.
I dont know how do deal with it. It probably boils down to how do I keep the conflict purely social? Apart from her having strong, visible backup from the start. That doesnt seem to fit the situation too well.
Then again having Gruff or two with her could make the situation interesting. Either a hard fight or harder negotiations. She would have the upper hand, or at least think so, in either case. Would maybe fit a fae.