To Light A Man On Fire - Doing multiple things (damage and an Aspect) at once?

[WadeL]

I'm sure this has been talked about before... But what kind of support does the system give for trying to accomplish two mechanical effects at once? Like, let's say you want to light someone on fire - everyone goes "Yeah, that's easy, that's a manuever to add an 'On Fire' Aspect to someone!"  But shouldn't that also inflict damage?

There's tons of examples like this, many for magic, but plenty for mundane actions too - I've had players want to throw someone off of something of slam them hard to the ground, and it is like "Well, do you want to add an 'On the Floor' Aspect to him, or do you want to do damage?" and there is confusion when it becomes difficult to accomplish both in one action. I'm sure there are plenty of other types of examples, but "do damage and something else" tend to be the most common.

How do other folks handle it?

For myself, I'm mostly tempted to basically let someone use spin/leftover shift off a Manuever to do damage. The conservative in me says this isn't normally allowed by the system, so I'll treat that spin as a totally separate attack (which basically lets the target defend against it twice, generally making these relatively ineffective attacks but at least allows the possibility of doing damage along with placing an Aspect, especially if you got big shifts).

[Haru]

As such, "on fire" is a pretty bad aspect in the first place. Once you set someone on fire and they take damage from it, that's usually it for them, there's not much further you'll go from there. And that looks like a taken out result to me. Going for "singed robes", "burning jacket" or something more specific like that would probably be easier to work with. Especially since it also gives an indication how the aspect is best removed.

I tend to go either or in these cases, not both. This goes back to the idea that Fate is trying to emulate fiction rather than physics. The fact that someone is "on fire" and they don't get any stress doesn't mean they don't get any damage, it just means that at this time in the story, this specific damage doesn't matter. It makes more sense when you look at it through the lens of a movie or tv show rather than a way to emulate how real fire would work. Like when two people are fighting and suddenly someone gets his jacket singed and he might not even notice it until he gets attacked with a barrel of oil that breaks apart above him, drenching him in oil and because his jacket was still flickering, he is now completely on fire and taken out of the conflict. If he is still in, he might not be on fire, but jumped quick enough so the oil was still ignited in a large ball of fire, but he got away with just a scratch and some superficial burns.
It's basically all about how you phrase things. If you say "well, that might be a bit much", you might be doing a bit much for the action you are trying to do.


You could fractal aspects like that out, making them characters of sorts on their own. I'd actually started to create some sort of environmental characters like that a while ago, I'll have to see if I can still find it somewhere.

The idea basically boils down to this: You create the aspect "on fire", which in turn creates the "fire" character" with a single skill: burn. Depending on how severe the fire is, the higher its skill. It can attack after that, but it could also just spread around the room.

However, this can drain the spotlight away from the characters and give you a game that's pretty focused on such environmental hazards.

[WadeL]

The "on fire" one is probably a bad example, but it really doesn't too much work to come up with plenty of examples where having multiple effects with one action follows both fiction logic and most player's intuitive understanding. Shooting down individual examples can keep one occupied for a long time, but one circles back to it eventually.

[PirateJack]

Think of it in terms of the narrative. In a film you'll often see characters get knocked to the floor, where they're in a disadvantaged situation for a while. Other times they'll bounce straight back to their feet and be ready for round two. That's the difference between the two and the way it works mechanically has a lot to do with how you and the players want the attack to go: Does he want to put the character on the ground so that he can take advantage of his Luchador heritage and put him in an arm lock or does he want to put that guy down so hard that he's knocked senseless and put out of the fight? If the former, it's a manoeuvre, if the latter, it's an attack.

This isn't a system that emphasises mechanics; it emphasises building a story with each roll of the dice, not about simulating the fight in a realistic way.

[Mr. Death]

The rulebook as I recall advises that this is something you should, in fact, keep in mind when using magic -- that using different elements can and at times ought to have certain side effects. I personally leave it up to the GM's discretion (me usually being the GM, this is easy), and work it in where and if it makes sense. If you're a player and you want to take advantage of it, declare that when you hit someone with a fire spell, it added the aspect 'on fire', or use a fate point.

[Taran]

I like using compels. 

You're on fire?  Ok, resist environmental damage at difficulty 'x' until you remove the aspect. Wave shiny fate point

You got blown back by a wind maneuver 'buffeted'. That throws you back into the next zone. It's going to hurt when you hi the wall.  Resist an attack.  Wave(waive?) shiney fate point.

As a player you can do this with your free tag as an invoke for effect.

[Sanctaphrax]

There are some special effect attack rules on page 326 of Your Story, but I've never seen them used. And I've deliberately never used them myself, because I'm fine with a taser being just stress or just an Aspect. But since you're apparently not fine with that, you might find them useful.

Alternately, you could import some rules from Fate Core. IIRC people who succeed with style on attacks in Fate Core can trade a shift of stress for an Aspect. Don't take my word for it, though; it's been a while since I read that book.