So how do you handle resistance when the way the character wants to resist is itself inherently risky? For example:
The PCs have infiltrated a fancy party using fake identities, but after some amount of hijinks the party are recognized by an old enemy who happens to be at the party. One of the PCs would like to resist being recognized, and he resists by saying he knew this enemy was likely to attend the party so they day before they jump him and injure him badly enough that he wouldn’t attend. Now this NPC isn’t somebody to fuck with, and on a good day a fight with him would still leave the PC injured. So do you tell your player this isn’t an option? Does this resistance roll require a flashback scene? Would you say it costs more stress, like 9 stress minus their roll? Would you let it go with the normal rules?
Okay, my first thought is if the enemy’s PRESENCE was a consequence, then the player could resist, I’d suggest with insight. Then I would charge 2 stress for the flashback, OR the cost to resist, whichever was higher, and manage the flashback to take him out through combat, guile, or appeasement.
If the enemy’s presence was established, then the enemy recognized the PC as a consequence, then nope! Too bad, the enemy is HERE. That “rewind bubble” has popped. So, we can deal with a resist action to pretend to be someone else or have the enemy critically interrupted by a well-timed distraction, or flashback to disguise the character, or go back and negotiate a brief truce with the enemy, or do a flashback to drug the enemy’s drink, or do a flashback to set up an ambush, and this is part of the plan to get the enemy to chase you; but it’s too late to get rid of him.
The resist is a reactive tool, not a proactive tool. Players can get rid of unwanted consequences, but not resist other elements in the fiction because they’re inconvenient. That’s what flashbacks are for. =)
That’s my point of view. In my games I restrict resist actions to conditions inflicted on characters, rather than opening it to all consequences, but that’s not RAW. I like the balance of “take a condition or stress” instead of “deal with a consequence of any sort or take stress.” It’s a preference.
Yep, Andrew has it exactly right, imo. When you resist a consequence it’s because something bad as happened and you’re resisting that event.
If you want to rewind and say this NPC isn’t even at the party, that’s definitely a flashback, and a pretty hefty one at my table. I prefer not to “undo” things with flashbacks at all. But YMMV and you can set stress costs accordingly.
The time I like to use rewinds that undo stuff is when we’ve made a mistake. “Wait, he can’t be here. That guy is in prison.” “Oh yeah! Nevermind then.”
John Harper the other part of the question is really about what to do when the action used to resist a consequence is a flashback? Is that allowed? What does it cost? What if the flashback fails, can they no longer resist?
I guess what I was saying is, it’s either resistance (in the present) or a flashback to an action roll. There aren’t any flashback resistances.
they aren’t? I always thought that dangerous flashbacks might require their own resistance rolls (like a flashback for assasination, a dual, of demon summoning).
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. You can roll to resist a consequence you suffer during a flashback.
But you don’t have a flashback to resist in the past a consequence that’s happening now.