New GM, question on being Taken Out by a big attack and avoiding consequences.

[GamingInSeattle]

Evening folks.  Running my first game of DFRPG here and we had our first combat.  A player was attacked by a biker wielding a chain.  The biker rolled a 2, +2 for Weapon skill for a total of 4 to attack vs my friends Athletics dodge of -2.  This is an attack of 6 now and the chain is a Weapon:2 so that bring the total physical stress to 8.

Now, I explained that he only had 2 physical stress boxes and that he would have to take either a mild and moderate consequence or a severe consequence to bring his physical stress down to 2 (8 incoming stress - 6 for mild+moderate or severe consequence).  He asked what happened if he just didn't take the consequence and I said he'd be taken out.  So he went along with it.  Now, he was in a group of people so he figured he would survive the encounter but asked if the attack did any lasting damage or if he would wake up 100% ok.

The rules seem to support him waking up more or less ok. So even after taking a 8 stress attack and being taken out, when revived after the scene he would be back up with no stress and no consequences correct?  This seems odd but he did get taken out and in other more dangerous situations this could be deadly, but if you have faith in your group vs some minions, this seems like a no brainer.

I thought about at least adding a temporary aspect on him to account for having his head hit/bruised/wrung pretty hard.

Thoughts?

~ GIS

[Jreafman]

It all depends. Going through the rules, if you were playing the biker (I'm assuming he was an NPC) you would be the one determining the manner in which he lost (YS203 Dictating Outcomes). How badly did the biker beat him? 8 stress on a 2 stress bar means he was kinda messed up. As you pointed out It would take a mild and a moderate JUST to get him back to having a full stress bar. It would take a severe and a mild to put him back to being just fine.

So the answer comes down to story. Yeah, he'll be fine when he wakes up, missing a couple of teeth, and his head feels a little loose if he turns it too fast, but he's fine. Oh, and it's two days later and he's in a hospital room.

Applying a temporary aspect for him would be the same as him taking a consequence, but without the payoff of having taken it so he could then cashout for fate points.

Personally, as you read through the rules, it talks about stress being the glancing blows that slide off you, things you can take without being really hurt. They only hurt when they add up. (From YS201: "The best way to look at stress is that it's the closest of close calls. That left hook might not take your character out of the fight, but his knees wobble a bit." It goes on to give a couple more examples. The point is, 8 stress on a 2 stress track isn't a glancing blow. It didn't make his knees wobble. It borked him up but good. Consequences would have been more appropriate. A temporary aspect would be appropriate, even if he's getting robbed of cashing out like I mentioned.

Then there's the question of... what did the biker do? Did he kick him once he was down? Did he get a few more good lashes in with the chain? It's all about flavor and story telling. One big question I have is... is there anything going on in the near future that the rest of the people in your group could REALLY use his help on? Something that would be a bit more difficult and tricky and dramatic if he was still unconscious when it happened (but that is also happening soon enough that it's reasonable that he was out for the entire duration)?

[Taran]

Waking up in the hospital a few days later would have been a good idea, although not so much fun for the player.

The biker dictates the take-out so, as far as I'm concerned, he could dictate an aspect change to represent a lasting effect on the character. Maybe something social, even so that the next time he meets a biker he's not too cockey.

Remember that the biker could have Killed the PC, so the sky's the limit for what you're allowed to do as long as the table is ok with it.  By being taken out, the player chooses to give up any say he or she has in the matter. 

[Mr. Death]

Another thing to consider is that even in physical combat, the amount of stress does not necessarily directly relate to physical damage done, and Taken Out just means you cannot participate in that type of conflict for the duration of the scene. Him being taken out might mean the biker bashed his head in, or it might mean that he took a glancing blow, but in trying to get away from it he stumbles and ends up tangled in something from which he can't free himself until after the fight's over.

That said, getting knocked out and waking up fine an hour later is a long-standing adventure and pulp trope, so I see no problem with it showing up occasionally in DFRPG.

[wyvern]

An important note: If the player is choosing to lose, it's not a take-out, it's a concession.

In this case, the player is saying "I don't think this fight is important enough to be worth spending consequences on; can I avoid that by just losing now?"  And negotiations continue from there.  Admittedly, the player is negotiating from a fairly bad starting point... but it's still a negotiation, because if you started with "Okay, so you wake up in a hospital two days later missing your left eye," the player could still go "Woah, no deal, I'll take those consequences after all."

And in this case, killing the PC should be entirely off the table - even if the biker was going for a kill, the terms of the concession would have to include something like "But the cops show up before he can finish you off; you're battered, bruised, and have acquired a level of police attention that's going to cause problems for you if you have to do anything at all suspicious in the next few weeks, but hey, you're not dead - and from your character's point of view, that's a good deal."

In this case, I'd probably insist that the terms of the concession include a minor physical consequence, and some significant loss that will impact more than just this game session; it doesn't need to be phrased as a moderate consequence, but a temporary aspect like "Important Witness In A Police Case" could be highly inconvenient, for just one example.

[Mr. Death]

An important note: If the player is choosing to lose, it's not a take-out, it's a concession.

Not if it's after the attacking roll that would take him out. The situation described is not a Concession.

[wyvern]

Not if it's after the attacking roll that would take him out. The situation described is not a Concession.

The situation described is a concession, because the attacking roll was not enough to take him out.  Now, if he'd had his extreme, severe, and moderate consequence slots already used up, then that attack would be a take-out, and PC death (or whatever other horrible fate the GM can come up with) would be a plausible option.

Edit: A take-out only occurs when the target being attacked no longer has a choice.  When you literally cannot absorb the incoming stress, period, even if you spent all your remaining consequences, then it's a take-out.  Until then, it's a concession, and subject to negotiation.

[Mr. Death]

The situation described is exactly a concession, because the attacking roll was not enough to take him out.  Now, if he'd had his extreme, severe, and moderate consequence slots already used up, then that attack would be a take-out, and PC death would be a plausible option.

"Enough to take him out" just means that it goes beyond the character's stress track. Whether or not you take a consequence is not a concession, it's the player deciding whether or not he wants to avoid being taken out.

Consequences are not mandatory to be taken. The game book explicitly says you can take a consequence to avoid being taken out, otherwise you are taken out.

You can only do a concession before the dice roll that would have taken you out. The way you're saying it, Taken Out would almost never happen.

[wyvern]

"Enough to take him out" just means that it goes beyond the character's stress track. Whether or not you take a consequence is not a concession, it's the player deciding whether or not he wants to avoid being taken out.

Consequences are not mandatory to be taken. The game book explicitly says you can take a consequence to avoid being taken out, otherwise you are taken out.

You can only do a concession before the dice roll that would have taken you out. The way you're saying it, Taken Out would almost never happen.

And a take-out result almost never happens to a player character.  NPCs, with much more limited consequences available, are much more likely to be taken out.

The point is that, when the player is choosing to lose, there is always room for negotiation - you can't use that to take narrative control completely away from the player, because they do still have the option to say no.  If someone said "Nah, this conflict isn't worth spending consequences on," and the GM responded by laughing maniacally and telling them to roll a new character because now they're dead... No, that's not how the game works.

Take-outs are complete loss of narrative control.
Concessions are negotiation of bad things happening to your character in order to avoid further game-mechanical conflict.

[Mr. Death]

YS203:
If the damage exceeds the character’s stress track,
or occupied boxes “push” the stress off the right
side of the stress track, the character is taken
out, meaning the character has decisively lost
the conflict.

That is the definition of Taken Out. It does not say anything about consequences. It does not say that you are only Taken Out if you have exhausted all your consequences and can't take any more. Consequences are always an option to avoid being Taken Out:

Given that a character has a maximum of
4 stress boxes, it’s pretty obvious that taking
someone out isn’t all that difficult. There are a
couple of ways to mitigate this pain, though:
consequences and concessions.

If you're ending the fight because you got hit too hard by an enemy's attack roll, that's a Taken Out.

Besides, the situation just does not fit with the book's guidelines and criteria for Concession, specifically:

YS206
Here are some guidelines for determining
what constitutes a “clear and decisive disadvantage.”
These may also be used to represent defeat
conditions if the character is taken out:
* The character has at least one moderate
or worse consequence as a result of the
conflict.
...
Finally, a character cannot be saved from a
roll that takes him out by offering a concession.
You have to offer the concession before the roll
that takes out your character. Otherwise, it’s
cheating the opponent out of victory.

A concession is pointedly not any time you finish a fight without taking every single lick of punishment you can endure. It has specific criteria and guidelines that should be met before it's an option.

If someone said "Nah, this conflict isn't worth spending consequences on," and the GM responded by laughing maniacally and telling them to roll a new character because now they're dead... No, that's not how the game works.

Take-outs are complete loss of narrative control.
Concessions are negotiation of bad things happening to your character in order to avoid further game-mechanical conflict.

The first is already covered, by the gamebook directly saying that GMs should make it clear beforehand that death is even an option in a given conflict.

Take-outs are not a complete loss of narrative control because the game outright says that if you're Taken Out you get to decide the details.

YS203
While the player of the attacker that takes
out an opponent gets to decide the manner
in which his victim loses, this does not mean
that the attacker has the authority to dictate
specifics that are completely out of character
for the loser. The loser still controls his own
character in an essential way and is allowed
to modify whatever the winner states to
make sure that whatever happens stays true
to form.

[wyvern]

I don't have the book with me, so you'll have to pardon me for not quoting rules at you.  However, I strongly disagree with your interpretation; even the quotes you've chosen don't entirely support your case.

That said, it's equally clear that you're not listening to what I'm actually saying.  So here, I'll concede this conflict: you can call the situation a "take-out" instead of a "concession", and I won't care.  Because that's not actually important.  What is important is:
1: that the player in this example should have some say in what happens as a result of this "take-out".  If the player's okay with waking up two days later in a hospital, sure, go for it.  If he's not, re-negotiate, or - if no negotiated resolution can be agreed on - let him take the consequences instead.
2: that the "take-out" result should not be significantly worse than a severe consequence (or a medium plus a minor), because that's what's on the table as the cost to stay in the fight.
3: that the "take-out" result should not be significantly less severe than the above consequence(s), because that would be, as the quote you used put it, "cheating the opponent out of victory".

So, hm.  Negotiated terms, that have to be reasonable to the circumstances, not too much, but not too little... gee, sounds like the definition for something, but I can't quite think what... Must be the definition of a "take-out", I guess?

[Mr. Death]

That said, it's equally clear that you're not listening to what I'm actually saying.  So here, I'll concede this conflict: you can call the situation a "take-out" instead of a "concession", and I won't care.  Because that's not actually important.  What is important is:
1: that the player in this example should have some say in what happens as a result of this "take-out".  If the player's okay with waking up two days later in a hospital, sure, go for it.  If he's not, re-negotiate, or - if no negotiated resolution can be agreed on - let him take the consequences instead.

Here's where the difference is important: Take-Out isn't a negotiation. The only negotiation involved is whether or not he wants to take a consequence to avoid it; certainly, the GM should indicate the stakes involved, which will inform his decision. But once he's decided not to take the consequences, then the GM decides what happens. If the GM is nice, sure, he can take suggestions and consider how badly the character should be hurt, but it's not a negotiation because in not taking the consequence and allowing himself to be taken out, the player has given up control over his fate.

2: that the "take-out" result should not be significantly worse than a severe consequence (or a medium plus a minor), because that's what's on the table as the cost to stay in the fight.

Generally speaking, I don't think the average non-lethal Take Out should carry a consequence at all, considering the player, by getting Taken Out, is implicitly saying that he doesn't think the conflict is worth using his consequences on.

3: that the "take-out" result should not be significantly less severe than the above consequence(s), because that would be, as the quote you used put it, "cheating the opponent out of victory".

Different definitions of severity -- the "cheating the opponent out of victory" isn't about consequences caused, it's about the opponent getting the narrative rights he earned by winning the fight.

And the severity isn't only measured in consequences. It could mean they're sidelined for a couple scenes and bad things happen while they're at. It could be they're completely fine, but the artifact they were after is taken. It could mean some of their equipment is wrecked (I've taken out one of my wizard PC's enchanted items -- a powerful block -- on a take out in lieu of causing consequences).

So, hm.  Negotiated terms, that have to be reasonable to the circumstances, not too much, but not too little... gee, sounds like the definition for something, but I can't quite think what... Must be the definition of a "take-out", I guess?

Nope. What you're describing is still a concession, which is not the situation presented in this thread.

[Radecliffe]

As Mr. Death has pretty thoroughly pointed out, this is a taken out situation.  The nature of the defeat is up to the winner of the fight with the only written guideline that the defeat as to be in character for the for the defeated. The only way the player could concede at this point would be to take the consequences to avoid being taken out then offer to concede.  Even then a concession has be to approved by the whole group including the opponent (the GM in this case) so it is not a sure thing even in that situation. 

[wyvern]

Here's where the difference is important: Take-Out isn't a negotiation.

Which is exactly why I say this situation isn't a take-out.  I mean, this whole thread is asking "Hey, how do I figure out what's a reasonable result for this situation?"  Do you have some better answer than "negotiate, talk to your table, and work out something that's fair to the situation"?  And are you really saying that, as GM, your response to a player suggesting an alternative "take-out" would be "Nope, this isn't open to negotiation, either spend your consequences or XYZ, no other options"?

And the severity isn't only measured in consequences. It could mean they're sidelined for a couple scenes and bad things happen while they're at. It could be they're completely fine, but the artifact they were after is taken. It could mean some of their equipment is wrecked (I've taken out one of my wizard PC's enchanted items -- a powerful block -- on a take out in lieu of causing consequences).

Well obviously.  I mean, that's why I used a fluffy term like severity, rather than saying it should come in the form of consequences.  Or why my initial post included an example of a plausible non-consequence result.  Sounds like we're in total agreement on this.

[Mr. Death]

Which is exactly why I say this situation isn't a take-out.  I mean, this whole thread is asking "Hey, how do I figure out what's a reasonable result for this situation?"

And you're mistaken -- on both points. The thread is not asking how to figure out a reasonable result, it's asking, "What is a reasonable result?" He's already decided how he's going to figure it out -- by asking the lot of us.

The book is clear and consistent in saying that if you take damage past your stress track, it's a Take Out, and that consequences are an option to avoid that. It's also pretty direct and explicit on what a Concession is and means, and, "deciding not to take a consequence that would have saved you" is not it.

And are you really saying that, as GM, your response to a player suggesting an alternative "take-out" would be "Nope, this isn't open to negotiation, either spend your consequences or XYZ, no other options"?

My response would be that, because he's been Taken Out, it's my decision what the result is. I'd listen, and if it sounds better than what I had in mind, I might go with it, but given the rules, it's my decision, not a negotiation. If he had wanted to have more say, he should have taken the consequences and stayed in the fight.

Concessions are for negotiating. If you're taken out, then the outcome is by definition no longer in your hands.

In any game -- even this one -- sometimes you just lose a fight and have to deal with the results.