How do you all handle Resistance? I’m thinking especially of consequences that are not internal to the PC. Like, it makes perfect sense how you resist a punch to the gut, but it’s less clear how you resist the person your threatening deciding to shout for help. Do you demand fictional justification for Resistance or just gloss over it?
Also, do you remind your players that they can resist? I’ve been doing that for pretty much every consequence, but it’s becoming tiresome. I think I’m gonna just remind them at the beginning of the session that they can also resist a consequence and then let them pipe up if they want to.
I’m guessing that as consequences (especially things like harm) pile up, they’ll start to have to.
I may be misunderstanding, but I think you always threaten harm, but the player resists and the fiction is rewritten.
So if someone screams for help, possible resistance is that you slap your hand over their mouth, or they hesitate for a second, or they try but they’re winded so it isn’t loud enough to be heard, or no one is around and anyone who is is pretending not to hear… There’s loads of options.
Resistance is not just how tough they are. It’s better to think of it as resistance to the slings and arrows of the fiction being against the player characters
Do they know that they are going to try to scream, so they cover the other person’s mouth before they can scream? Perhaps an Insight resistance. Do they glare into their eyes and impress upon them that shouting for help would be a very foolish force of action? Perhaps a Resolve resistance. Do they punch them in the gut to knock the breath out of them so they can shout? Maybe a Prowess resistance.
I remind my players they can resist every once in a while when it seems like they’ve forgotten. Reminding them they can resist is a kindness, not a responsibility. Do it when you feel like it.
I definitely require fictional justification. The whole game is fiction first. I occasionally have to remind player they can resist, but we haven’t played that many sessions yet so I don’t mind
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I do remind the players that they can resist. Usually something like:
“OK, you failed, so they’re going to scream for help. Do you want to resist that?”
As for how we describe it? That’s up to the players. If the players can’t think of how they’d resist it, then we agree that they have no way to resist it, and move on with the game.
My players are pretty good at accepting consequences and rolling with what happens. So it’s no big deal if they can’t think of a way to resist.
I don’t say they can roll whatever they want – that’s not really how fiction first works. If I am the GM, I decide the nature of what’s just happened – and it’s probably established with the risk-setting.
This is supported by us being instructed to tell players “you were surprised” when they are surprised. This lets them resist that. However, a moment later when they get punched in the face, resisting the injury (with Prowess) is the only thing that reduces the harm. There are exceptions too, of course – I rewind sometimes to let them resist being surprised with Insight, perhaps giving them an action before the punch is thrown.
I will typically only tell my players they can’t resist when the nature of the consequence isn’t any of those listed for an attributes (p.32), and no option to protect exists in the fiction. Granted, this is almost never, but occasionally something undesirable I described was truly out of their control and cannot be resisted (ie: entanglements, bad engagement rolls, bad resistance rolls).
RE: “do you want to resist?” since I don’t require fiction to do it so much as give it to them – the players are typically ready to volunteer their resistance without my constant prodding. Though I will mention it if I sense a good time to taunt them (it’s more of “resist if you want to, but is it that important to you?” An occasional reminder without taunt is also good too (newer players definitely will forget this mechanic exists, at least at first).
A bit of a clarification since it seems you are having trouble with weaving into the fiction as well: resisting doesn’t necessarily invalidate anything narrated in the fiction (unless it does, as is the case for avoiding a thing completely). It typically adds an element of resistance, but leaves all that fiction in place, only now the consequence doesn’t suck so bad.