GM Help - Forcing Realistic consequences...

[Sanctaphrax]

Yes, accidentally killing someone with a punch is a compel.

Accidentally killing someone with a truck bomb isn't. At least, not at my table.

Silverblaze's crazy example is crazy, but if it works at someone's table then it's fine. It's not going to work in any situation where the table doesn't want it to, so I see no problem.

Most people lack consequence tracks partly because they aren't that invested in the fight and partly because they just don't matter much.

Bear in mind that a guy with a full consequence track and all Average skills can survive being ambushed by a professional soldier with an assault rifle three times in a row, assuming average rolls.

Basically, people with full consequence tracks cannot be taken out in one hit. There are exceptions, but not many.

I agree with ways and means about the effects of skill, more or less. Hitting with a threshold of 8 should make you less likely to accidentally kill someone, not more.

It isn't unrealistic to survive a Supernaturally Strong face-punch, but it is a bit unlikely.

Huh, that was a disordered post. Hope you guys can extract meaning from it somehow anyway.

[Tedronai]

It isn't unrealistic to survive a Supernaturally Strong face-punch, but it is a bit unlikely.

The above is misleading, however, because it isn't really a question of whether getting punched in the face by godzilla is survivable, but whether godzilla attempting to punch you in the face (and having that attempt successfully result in a take-out) is survivable.

Just because stress was inflicted doesn't mean the attack 'landed', let alone 'landed' in the most damaging manner possible.

[Vairelome]

The thread title alone should have been a sufficient clue that the OP was in the wrong.

[Tedronai]

Considering that a thread nearly identical to this one has been cropping up at least once every few weeks for the past...however long I've been a member, here...

[ways and means]

Considering that a thread nearly identical to this one has been cropping up at least once every few weeks for the past...however long I've been a member, here...

Mind you usual about magic and lawbreaking.

[Tedronai]

Mind you usual about magic and lawbreaking.

Which is really just incidental.  The key issue is the same: who controls the results of a 'take-out', and what does 'hitting' with an attack actually mean?

[VVolf]

I get where people are coming from, the point I'm trying to make is to drive home is what Harry says in the margin of Your Story.

Super-strength is no joke. In the comic books someone can get tossed around or battered by a guy who can bench press a car and not end up in traction. The truth is, if something supernaturally strong gets its hands on you — you’re dead.

Yes I realize this is very similar to the often asked question regarding magical use and law breaking, and I agree I should have compelled an aspect if the guy's death seemed the most "within the realm of reason" result. I'll also note that the fact that such questions come up a lot is a sign that it is something people often need help in...

As for "pulling one's punches" I understand completely, and if he had said before attacking that he wasn't intending to attack with something hard enough to kill then I would have asked him how much of his strength bonus he wanted to use. But when you punch as hard as hitting someone with a car and you are aiming for someone's face... there's a good chance there's gonna be grey matter to clean up. At the same time if you are trying to hold back then it's less likely you'll take them out. If you play with knives, someone's liable to end up cut... if you play with battlefield weaponry, someone's liable to end up dead.


Another aspect of this was the lack of any good story telling, if I said that the thug was taken out and he went on to give a narrative like sinker's example then everything's well and good, but when all I get is "I punch him in the face" and "No kill, just knocked out." then there's a disconnect between what's happening mechanically and a logical, reasonable conclusion to the exchange. If there's some explanation of how the stress is inflicted without the lethal attack landing I don't have a problem with it, but I need an explanation... I need to tell my players, "Help me tell our story in a way that makes sense."

That's an aspect I intend to tag at the start of our next session...

After all, to me it's not really a question of who's right and who's wrong, it's a question of "this is an area of our collective story-telling that is poor" and "how can we improve it?"

So, thanks for the suggestions for those that offered them, and meh to those just playing the blame game.

/.-, VV

[ways and means]

If you are going to play it logical then the person with mythic strength kills the pure mortal pc if they hit, logically the power of a truck in a single persons fist is very likely to kill someone if it lands at all, but if the PC has consequences it won't kill them in fact it could cause as little harm as a small Bruise (minor consequence). If cause and effect logic doesn't apply during the fight then I don't see why it has to apply at the end of the fight, why does logic work for the blow that takes someone out but none of the ones before it. Stress isn't damage it is a near miss its the stress of not being hit so you wouldn't have to lower your stress bonus to pull your punch because being attacked by something that can crush your head in one blow is more stressful than something that can't even if the face crushing never actually happens.

[toturi]

Does having a higher result on your attack roll than the target's defense roll mean that descriptively your attack actually connects with the target?

My character attacks Jack's PC with a gun. I roll well and Jack does not, say I got upwards of 4 shifts. Does that mean that Jack's character takes a bullet between the eyes? Or can it mean that Jack's PC could have face planted himself on a metal lamp pole while diving behind cover to successfully avoid my PC's gun shots?

[Tedronai]

Jack's PC could have face planted himself on a metal lamp pole while diving behind cover to successfully avoid my PC's gun shots

This.  Problem solved.
/thread

[UmbraLux]

Does having a higher result on your attack roll than the target's defense roll mean that descriptively your attack actually connects with the target?

Not necessarily.  Stress and consequences are narrative pacing tools more than anything else.  The aspect gained from a consequence may well be damage...but it could be a twisted ankle from dodging as easily as a grazed calf from a close shot. 

[Sanctaphrax]

1. Tedronai is right about possible ways to narrate stuff. But the player here said he punched the guy in the face. Ergo, the guy's face probably got punched.

2. Weapon rating is a measure of weapon effectiveness, not physical force. Weapon 6 fists do not necessarily contain the same amount of force as a truck.

Let me demonstrate this with an example: a big sword with a stunt to boost stress can have a higher weapon rating than some cars. The car has more force, but the sword hurts more on account of being sharp, effectively wielded, and an actual weapon to boot.

3. I think that the right action in the example the OP provided was probably just to accept the action and move on. Here's why:

a) The player's narration may not have been terribly interesting, but it was at least vaguely plausible.
b) Him not using his Claws indicates that he's making concessions to avoid killing, so it'd be a touch churlish to make him kill someone anyway.
c) Slowing the game down by arguing a point like this is not likely to improve the story at all. It'll probably just make things less fun.

It sounds like the player attached no importance to the mook or the fight against him, and as such simply glossed over his defeat. Which is fine with me.

If it's not fine with you, I suggest you talk to him about it politely. Maybe say that you'd like to explore the humanity of mooks by treating them as people who matter or that you'd like to have more creative description of attacks and takeouts. Or something else, I dunno.

Point is, talking to the players is probably a better idea than talking to us. Chances are that the players would be glad to accommodate your desire to make the story better.

[Richard_Chilton]

Does having a higher result on your attack roll than the target's defense roll mean that descriptively your attack actually connects with the target?

"when you roll the dice, if you match or exceed the difficulty, your character succeeds; if you don’t, your character fails."

"If the effort matches the target difficulty, it’s a success—but it generates no shifts.:when you roll the
dice, if you match or exceed the difficulty, your character succeeds; if you don’t, your character fails."

"When your character’s turn comes up in the exchange, describe what your character is doing in terms of one of the basic conflict actions. The basic conflict actions are: Attack: Roll against an opponent to try to inflict stress or consequences on him directly"
-----


My action is to punch you in the nose.  If my result is at least a zero then I have succeeded in my action (i.e. punched you in the nose) inflicting 0 or more stress.

I don't see a lot of room for debate here.

Richard

[Tedronai]

My action is to punch you in the nose.  If my result is at least a zero then I have succeeded in my action (i.e. punched you in the nose) inflicting 0 or more stress.

I don't see a lot of room for debate here.

Richard

My turn comes up.  My character raises his rocket propelled grenade launcher, aims at your character's face, and fires.  My roll nets 0 shifts, 'hitting', but only barely.  Your character, a pure mortal, is as-yet uninjured (no consequences filled), and has 4 stress boxes, also as-yet unmarked.  The attack deals somewhere between 4 and 6 stress (battlefield weaponry being 4+).
By your logic, your character should die.  After all, they just took an RPG to the face.
Game mechanics, however, would seem to disagree, given that, at most, your character would be forced to take only a mild consequence, and possibly not even that.

But then, I think the problem comes in a fundamental misinterpretation of your third quote: '[...]describe what your character is doing in terms of one of the basic conflict actions. The basic conflict actions are:[...]'
You're describing what your character is doing as 'punching the target in the face', when you should be describing what your character is doing as merely 'attack' (plus whatever parameters are necessary to determine the rolls involved, ie. you're using fists, you're supernaturally strong) until after you know the results of the roll because: the defending player chooses their consequences so long as they pass a reasonableness test adjudicated by the table

[toturi]

My action is to punch you in the nose.  If my result is at least a zero then I have succeeded in my action (i.e. punched you in the nose) inflicting 0 or more stress.

I don't see a lot of room for debate here.

Richard

I see. But that is assuming my action is to "punch you in the nose". If my action is to attack you with my Fists skill which is actually what is happening, then there is a lot of room for debate.

I think the crux of the matter here is you declared what the successful result of your action would be before the action is resolved. If you wish to do so, then you have forfeited your ability to choose the result after the action has resolved.

(And Tedronai has already answered that.)