GM Help - Forcing Realistic consequences...

[VVolf]

Here's the general situation, We began our campaign at 10 refresh and have advanced to the point of having 13 refresh. After making some adjustments to his character a were-fox-hybrid has supernatural strength and claws.

When attacking some street thugs (normal humans) the player describes punching the thug in the face, between a good attack (no claws) and a poor defense roll the thug is taking 8 shifts of stress. I say "Ok, he's dead."  to which the player responds, "I'm not trying to kill him!"
"... Ok, so You've got supernatural strength, you're punching with about the force of a car going 20 miles per hour, and you're applying that directly to someone's face.... how is that not supposed to kill them?"
"If I take them out, then if just means I achieve my goal of knocking them out... I'm not trying to kill them."

At this point I gave the thug an extreme consequence: "Quadriplegic" and moved on... I guess what I'm asking is how's the best way to show that using that kind of firepower will have serious consequences ?

Any thoughts or examples of presenting consequences to players in response to their actions ? Or better phrasing, how do I effect a "You might not have trying to kill him, but..." scenario without necessarily railroading the players who've already spent all their fate chips? 

[The Mighty Buzzard]

It helps to remember that stress is not damage and consequences are not necessarily damage taken from an attack.  Mook #1 could be forced to take a consequence from an exchange of gunfire and decide that he broke his leg while completely dodging every bullet.  Let the players decide entirely how they directly take someone out.  You deal with take outs from other NPCs and the environment.

A compel on an appropriate aspect of the player could be used call for a fatal take out.  They can still avoid it but it will cost them a FP to do so.  If they don't have a definitively appropriate aspect though, do not go making stuff up to justify a compel.  And unless the aspect is an extreme one, do not go calling for a fatal take out every time.  It's not your job to be their moral or common sense compass.

Personally, I find mortal law enforcement to be the best deterrent against players using overwhelming force and making no attempt to stay under the radar.  Supernatural factions could also give them quite a bit of grief if the players' antics draw too much attention.

Also, eight stress isn't enough for an extreme consequence, much less instant death, unless all the NPC's stress boxes and other consequence slots were already full.  In that instance, the player was right and you were wrong.

[admiralducksauce]

Or better phrasing, how do I effect a "You might not have trying to kill him, but..." scenario without necessarily railroading the players who've already spent all their fate chips? 

They spent their FATE points already.  Their asses are yours, IF they have an Aspect you can compel that would result in a lethal attack result.  You shouldn't Compel simply based on the shifts of an attack roll.

However, as much as the above sentiment can come in handy sometimes, you gotta think about why you're trying to enforce a lethal result through a Compel.  Because 8 shifts of stress seems like it should be lethal?  Hell, you can deal with 8 stress with a mild, a moderate, and marking even the most sickly PC's 2nd stress box (because everyone has a stress track of at least 2).  You'll be healed up by next session.  At the same time, 3 stress can kill a dude if their stress track is 2 and the person running that character decides they're Taken Out.  As Buzzard says above, "stress is not damage".

FATE is not Phoenix Command.  It does not have detailed hit locations or overpenetration or bleeding rules.  8 stress does not equate to any real-world measurement, and even within the system itself what it means can vary wildly depending on the target.  If you said the thug was Taken Out, and the player says he's KO'd, then the thug is knocked out.  That's the rules.  Now, if you think that was lame and that the thug should have been horribly crippled or killed by the strike, call the player out on it.  It's your game, your group.  But there are no rules supporting your position.  You'll just have to figure it out.

[Vairelome]

I guess what I'm asking is how's the best way to show that using that kind of firepower will have serious consequences ?

Why should it?  It doesn't sound like the player was expecting a sharp left turn into "oh no, I caused death or permanent serious injury" from an alley brawl with some street thugs.  He wasn't even using his Claws!

Given that the party is pulling 13 refresh, and the antagonists are described as "street thugs (normal humans)," I'd have to assume this was an incidental conflict, not the climax of any sort of arc.  There is no way these guys should have an Extreme Consequence slot.  A Mild at best; maybe a Moderate if you're trying to provide a small challenge to your players.

Any thoughts or examples of presenting consequences to players in response to their actions ? Or better phrasing, how do I effect a "You might not have trying to kill him, but..." scenario without necessarily railroading the players who've already spent all their fate chips? 

It's not possible.  You pull a "You might not have been trying to kill him, but..." scenario when your players are out of fate chips, and "railroading" is precisely what you are doing.

Bluntly, it sounds like you're trying to punish your shifter player for using his character's abilities (even when he's showing restraint while doing so!), and stealing his prerogative to "decide the manner in which his victim loses," to quote YS203, the Dictating Outcomes sidebar.

[Richard_Chilton]

Consequences, takeouts, etc have to be ones that are acceptable to the table - and one of the people at the table is the GM.

If someone is using supernatural strength in a fight then the thing to do is to talk them before the roll.  Ask if they doing anything except pound the guy with their supernatural strength.  Point out that Harry often had to aim spells around normals, pull his mystic punches, and otherwise avoid accidentally killing people.

If nothing else you should get better descriptions than "I punch him the face".  Things like "I jab his solar plexus to disable him".


As for railroading - one of the main themes of Dresden (the game and the books) is freewill resulting in consequences.  If you decide to punch someone with brick crushing strength then a consequence can be that you can get grey matter on your hand.  Your decision, your act - live with it.

Richard

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Nope, take outs don't have to be acceptable to the table.  They're explicitly up to the one doing the taking out.  Not the other players, not the GM, not Fred, not even Jim.  Besides which, they can always use Overflow rules and say they barely took the person out and either use the extra shifts on a supplemental, non-combat action or discard them.

Making people specify beforehand that they're going out of their way to inflict a non-fatal result is cumbersome and unnecessary.  There's no need to specify unless you're looking to waste everyone's time or you're trying to railroad your players.  If you don't have methods in place to bring consequences to their actions without rewriting the rules, that's your failure not theirs.

[Haru]

I agree with Buzzard. A kill should always be a deliberate action, either on someone who has already been taken out, or by inflicting is as the taken out result, if the player so chooses.

The better question is, what would an enforced kill at this point accomplish? Do you want to stop them from interrogating the thug? There are lots of non-lethal ways to do so. Throw him in a coma long enough to be of no value. Let them interrogate him and he doesn't know anything useful. Let him loose his memories from the blow and see how the players deal with that. A kill is not really necessary, if it doesn't help the story along, especially, if there are much more interesting ways to deal with the situation. Maybe he really has important information, and the wizard is now pondering, if he should look for the answers while the guy is in a coma.

And to enforce things like that, it is always within your rights as a GM to compel an appropriate aspect. But really, only do so, if it would be entertaining, just saying "Your superstrong, so the guy is dead" is pretty boring. Or maybe kill the guy, but let him haunt the PC now, so maybe they can still access the information, but they would have to help the ghost somehow, creating a new storyline. But again, the player(s) should be cool with this, it doesn't help anyone if you just shove things in their face to piss them off.

[Tedronai]

Nope, take outs don't have to be acceptable to the table.

The outcome must remain within the realm of
reason

The outcome must meet a 'reasonableness test', which obviously cannot be adjudicated solely by the one describing it.  And, since even the GM's proposed outcomes are subject to that same test, it must necessarily then be adjudicated by the table as a whole.

[Silverblaze]

I honestly see where the original poster is coming from.

To a certain extent, it teaches players to use their powers slightly more responsibly.  I understand this system puts a lot more power in the players hands as to how a narrative plays out.  Not a bad thing.  That said I think people should set their own table rules.  If shooting someone can cause people to bleed out, supernatural strength can crush skulls, and wizard spells can cause permanent scarring and death...players might not just go balls to the wall at every problem.

Perhaps the player should not have declared (flavored his attack with a head shot) a gut shot even from that strength could easily be decided as non fatal.

I like a nice halfway point of realism and fantasy...leaning towards fantasy. 

That said, by system...you virtually can't kill someone unless you mean to.  Even if you put a bomb on a train, cut out the bridge, and watch it fall down a cliff and explode.  Everyone is just miraculously knocked out.

So to answer the original post...you do not enforce realism, unless you made it clear at your table that is how stuff goes at the very start fo the game and enough players were okay with it to still play the game.

Actually the second I read were-fox and supernatural strength...I had an issue already. (granted just my opinion, but they don't seem the supernaturally strong type to me)

[Tedronai]

That said, by system...you virtually can't kill someone unless you mean to.  Even if you put a bomb on a train, cut out the bridge, and watch it fall down a cliff and explode.  Everyone is just miraculously knocked out.

Seems a perfect example a non-fatal Taken-out result that would fail the mandated reasonableness test by virtue of it being non-fatal.

[Silverblaze]

Seems a perfect example a non-fatal Taken-out result that would fail the mandated reasonableness test by virtue of it being non-fatal.

True enough, but...i don't think a column of flame, a shotgun, or someone with supernatural strength can reasonably not kill (normal) people in most situtations.

Hence, every single table needs it's own rules.

Problem is, the system relies on too much opinion and common sense.  Can't have every adjudication be a democracy, lest you have some long drawn out debates which lead to someone being unhappy anyhow.  Any player or players could dead lock/rail road the DM into physics allowing some or all to live due to strange Ripley Believe it or Not events in real life.

Ergo, my example, at some tables would stand.

[ways and means]

The way I see it unless you are doing a low fist/weapons or low discipline (magic) build most of the time you are in complete control of your actions so in the case of above superb/great to hit roll you can pretty much do as much harm as you want as you are in complete control of your blows (you can pull your punches without effecting stress because the fact that you could of hit with a fatal blow is enough to warrant the stress). The way I look at pulling your blows is also a weapons/fist/magic skill and a high skill should make you better at it not worse.

[sinker]

Additionally something to consider (along the same lines of stress being not equal to damage) is that consequences are a measure of someone's investment in the outcome of a conflict. If a mook has no consequences then does it mean that he is incapable of taking injury (consequences being injury rather than stress)? No, what it means is that he isn't willing to take injury in order to win. He gives up when it becomes obvious that he's losing and before he can get hurt. What makes this important is how it reflects on this particular conflict.

For example: The thug runs up with a pipe, ready to take this punk down, when suddenly the guy growls and throws a punch. It misses the thug narrowly (inflicting enough stress to take him out but dealing no consequence) smashing into a nearby dumpster and tearing a hole in the metal. The thug drops his pipe and goes "Screw this, I'm not paid enough to get hit by one of those."

See, the thug isn't invested enough to consider getting hurt. Does this mean that they can't be hurt or killed as part of the "take out"? Nope, just means that they didn't know the stakes when they decided to give up.

[Tedronai]

True enough, but...i don't think a column of flame, a shotgun, or someone with supernatural strength can reasonably not kill (normal) people in most situtations.

You can twist your ankle while dodging a column of flame, or a shotgun slug, or the blows of someone with supernatural strength.  You can't very well justify a twisted ankle from being a passenger on a train that fell of the side of a cliff and then exploded.

[computerking]

The way I see it unless you are doing a low fist/weapons or low discipline (magic) build most of the time you are in complete control of your actions so in the case of above superb/great to hit roll you can pretty much do as much harm as you want as you are in complete control of your blows (you can pull your punches without effecting stress because the fact that you could of hit with a fatal blow is enough to warrant the stress). The way I look at pulling your blows is also a weapons/fist/magic skill and a high skill should make you better at it not worse.

I agree with this. I was going to make a comparison with Superman still being able to knock out street thugs even though he could potentially punch a building-sized monster and score a takeout. With the power comes the ability to control it, Barring special deals made with the GM, or apropriate Aspects (like "Uncontrolled strength", or "Don't know my own strength").