I'm not saying the npc is dead. I'm asking them to tell me how he's alive. If you think saying I attempt to hit some one, succeed on the dice roll, means they can reskin what they were attempting to be something else as part of the success, they read the metaphor alot differently. Now maybe I'm missing a section as you keep saying that's RAW. Could you point to the passage that says, after deciding a course of action you can decide an outcome that is not the most likely result of succeeding on that attempt?
The RAW says that on a Taken Out, the player decides what happens. The player decides if the target lives or dies.
Rolling to shoot someone and taking them out doesn't at all have to mean you actually shot them. All it means is that they're no longer fighting. It could mean the player missed by a mile, but in his haste to dodge the target fell and knocked himself out.
It does not matter what the player said his intent was before he rolled the dice. If the player succeeds, and the target is Taken Out, the player decides how it plays out. It's an
abstract. The only thing set in stone is the outcome after the player and GM decide it.
What you seem to want to do is lock the player's initial action in stone, which really isn't what the game is setting out to do. You're only setting in stone whether the action is a Block, Maneuver, Sprint, or Attack.
All of the other details are decided in the
outcome of the attack.
I kind of think you are both on opposite sides of the same coin. Death, you are saying that a character who hasnt decided to do a specific action shouldnt be punished for it, while Addicted is saying that if you decide to do something you are rolling to see that you did it.
Kind of. What I'm saying is that the player's action isn't set in stone until the
outcome is decided.
Mr.Death's Player: I want to shoot him...blah blah blah he is taken out, I got him in the leg and he is now taken out, busted knee, whatever
Addicted's Player: I want to shoot him in the head, that may kill him, dont care blah blah blah he is taken out, you cant really change that to say it didnt kill him. Reasonably
Pretty much. What I'm saying is "I want to shoot him in the head" is narrating the
outcome of a Taken Out.
And even then, the player's only saying, "I want to shoot
at his head." There's still nothing in the rules that ever states that he has to actually
hit him in the head. You could very easily narrate a non-lethal headshot taken out as, "I shoot at his head, and miss by inches, demonstrating that I can put a bullet in his eye at any time, which leads him to surrender."