Just picked up my copy of 7.1 and I have to say this is a great read (and hopefully a great play once I have my first session!). I have a question about consequences however. Say it’s a risky position and my player rolls a 4 so he succeeds with some complication. Who decides the type of complication? Me as the GM? Or the player, but I say how it goes down? From the examples in the book for ability uses it seems as though I choose, however when I read Survey, it seemed as though the player was deciding. This had me confused. So which is it meant to be??
Just picked up my copy of 7.1 and I have to say this is a great read (and hopefully a great play once I have my…
Just picked up my copy of 7.1 and I have to say this is a great read (and hopefully a great play once I have my…
Both, but it’s up to the group. Players are welcome to make suggestions and the GM has the final say.
In my group the players feel a bit uncomfortably with a too active role in that. So, I (=GM) say what is happening but if one of the players has an idea (like “how about not a Blue Coat comes around the corner but my old enemy X?”) I tend to go along without.
For my BitD comes down to “What makes an interestring story?”, decided by the group.
^^^ Solid advice for any game. ^^^
The game is designed to be very conversational and have lots of back and forth, lots of ways for players to contribute and shape narrative.
My recommendation is to have the GM be very open to player ideas and incorporate them constantly, and quietly in the background retain the right to be the final word. That “veto power” only need come out when a player gets the scale totally wrong, or contradicts essentials of the setting or what’s established; it’s a protection of everyone’s game experience and a balance to keep consistency.
Every game table will find its rhythm and feel, the level of narrative control all the players are happy with (including the GM). If everyone doesn’t start with the same “vision” of what’s appropriate in the fiction and the setting, hopefully a few sessions will be enough to find that approximate common ground.
My two cents. =)
My group has gotten into the habit of stating their intent very specifically and asking “What’s my position, and what are the possible consequences?” before rolling. I will tell them something like “Well, the guards are already suspicious, so it’s Risky. Consequences are that they try to capture you and take you to Baszo for questioning.” Or “Well, you’re already backed into a corner, so it’s definitely Desperate. Consequences are simple: Level 3 Harm coming right at your face in the form of a sharp blade.” Then they roll, and if they don’t get a 6 they Resist to avoid or mitigate the consequence.
I love it when my players come up with interesting consequences, because they’re often a lot meaner than I am. However most of the time it’s the GM doing it in our group. I often like to give them choices though, to get them involved. My personal favorite is to offer then a harm, or something that’s way worse but happens later.
“Either the beetle crawls down your throat and releases its spines (level 3 harm), or you accidentally absorb a shard of the demons consciousness and I’ll start a clock for when that manifests.”
They take the worse result every time.
Have any of you guys gotten frustrated with consequences getting avoided? The consequence is how I keep the story interesting, so if he keeps Resisting I have to keep trying again. Do you resolve that by using two or more consequences and making the player pick one to Resist?
Kyle Wende One way to do that is to let a resist roll lessen a consequence, but not remove it altogether. Like, if someone is hurled from a balcony, they can resist to catch on, but they’ll still be dangling by one arm. If they don’t resist, they’re hurled all the way down.
They can resist to change a level 3 injury to a level 1 injury. That sort of thing.
Kyle Wende Even if you give them 2 consequences, they’re allowed to avoid both. I agree with Andrew that sometimes resisting only reduces but doesn’t avoid consequences. Sometimes you just need to accept that they’re using a limited resource to have agency over their characters, and that’s okay. Eventually they’ll run out of stress and then the chips fall where they may.
Yeah that makes sense. Maybe I’ve just accidentally been making up consequences that can’t really be reduced like that. This game definitely has a learning curve, but so far it’s been fun hashing out “what really happened” with my brother. I’ll be debuting the game with a full crew soon.
Mark Griffin I’m pretty sure the rules I have say a PC can Resist one consequence to an action. I don’t have the book with me, but that’s distinctly how I remember reading it.
Kyle Wende On the contrary, page 11 specifically states “If you suffer more than one consequence at once, you make separate resistance rolls against each one, if you wish.”