I have a question about Trauma. When a character takes trauma they drop from the action and/or are left for dead.
How is this roleplayed? Are they out for the rest of the session? Do they take level 3 harm “Traumatised”? Are they out of the action for just this scene and return conveniently later with a new trait? Can they defend themselves?
Let’s take an example just for reference. Frost and his crew are infiltrating an enemy factions base he has 7 stress filled. They get ambushed and a fight breaks out, he gets slashed and opts to resist harm. He rolls are gets a 3, maxing out his stress (and overflowing it by one). What happens to Frost? And what happens to that excess stress point?
He is out for the rest of that score, and when he comes back he has 0 stress and one more trauma. There is nothing to defend themselves from, they’re effectively out of the action. As to how he gets out alive? Well you could ask your player what they think, but if it’s not entirely obvious that might not work out. Basically you need to think of some sequence of events (no matter how unlikely) that result in Frost surviving. Frost appears to be dead and the enemy faction throws his body into the canals to float away. He is fished out of the canals barely alive by a member of the Unseen, and nursed back to relative health. What ulterior motive could the Unseen have for this? Perhaps he now feels he owes them a debt of gratitude, or perhaps not?
The Trauma section says they’re out for the “current conflict.” I don’t think they need to be out for the whole score, although it’s up to the group to arrive at an answer that makes sense for the circumstance.
I’ve had that basic situation happen twice, and both times the PCs were out until the next scene and the crew had a chance to regroup.
The moment a PC takes their 9th stress, they either resisted, pushed themselves, or used stress they didn’t have to use an ability. Narrate this as usual, and then use what happened to inform the moment of collapse which comes next. Role play this as a shutdown of the PC’s normal faculties (it is that for the player). They are out for the rest of the action, which is typically until their next chance for downtime. They must clear their stress and then select a descriptor for the PCs trauma, but not harm (unless that was already happening). In other words, there is no defense to the 9th stress box and the trauma which follows (other than not opting to risk the stress in the first place).
In your example, Frost resists (this happens when the declaration does, regardless of the result of the resistance roll), and then his stress fills. This leads to the trauma and clearing of stress, and the extra point becomes moot. Frost is “taken out” in a narratively fitting way for what the PC did that caused this over stressing; in this case, it was resisting physical injury. So perhaps the character fled to their lair after resisting the minor injury due to the pressures of being a scoundrel, or just passed out from the same.
Suggestions: if it was Insight resist that caused it, then they were probably overtaxed mentally (and hopelessly misled, or muddled perhaps?); if it was Resolve, then they were probably overtaxed socially or spiritually (emotional breakdown?). In other words, I typically tie this directly to the cause for the narrative’s sake, and to keep players aware this was because their choice (not a completely random event). You don’t have to tie it this way (whatever strains your disbelief the least will do). Basically, the GM should guide the player to a fitting sequence which separates the PC from the action, and which puts the player on standby until the action is complete.