A hypothetical situation occurred to me regarding Devil’s Bargains.
Usually the main person affected by them is the person who gets the extra die. But occasionally they allow something to happen that affects other PCs.
Devil’s Bargains can’t be resisted usually.
But if another character wanted to resist the consequence from landing on them is that ok?
Or should those kinds of Devil’s Bargains not be made?
Devils bargains create unresistable consequences. If it affects another player they cannot resist, otherwise the player just got a free dice for not consequence
I’ve allowed some Friendly Fire Devil’s Bargains like this is my game, when it makes sense. Typically I tailor the level of resistibility depending on what the bargain is.
For example the Whisper in my group was being swarmed by ghosts and the Hound decided to use sharpshooter to get them off using his electroplasm ammo. He took the bargain to hit the Whisper and I allowed the Whisper to resist.
In situations like this I don’t think Its “no consequence” as even if they take no damage there are resources spent. Furthermore I think it helps create conflict and produce good roleplay experiences.
Meanwhile if a Spider and a Slide were working together to make a rough and tumble Cutter fit in at a high class party though Disguise and teaching, as well as setting up a false identity, any roll could have “Good or bad, he will make a huge impression” as a good Devil’s Bargain that would not be resistible. Either as a result of hyping up his false identity too much or going a bit over the top with the newest trends.
Antimatter I would never allow a devils bargain that only affected another player. so there would still be consequences.
Also the fact that that the character did something to jeopordize another pc and forced them to use resources, is a consequence.
I’d be fine with DBs affecting other players, but unavoidably so. Otherwise, it’s not much of a cost.
Bloodletters had a player resist another player’s Bargain being accepted. It negated the badness but also the bonus dice.
It’s a way of handling it that I liked as a baseline. Like many rules it may change with context and a different table negotiation.
RPG Dante I think that’s really the best compromise. Leave it on the table to have the Bargain affect another person, because that adds some really fantastic narrative options, but the entire package is on the victim to accept or reject, just like if it were going to the actual player taking the action.
OTOH, this raises the question of how you/we feel about “other player’s choices affecting my PC” in general, in a game like this. Many sessions ago, our group’s Hound critically wounded my Lurk by shooting into my melee. I was absolutely fine with the outcome (and it created great story), but given how little control I would have reasonably had over that situation, I don’t know that it would have made sense for me to “refuse friendly fire.”
In traditional games like D&D, consent isn’t even an issue in this specific situation, but I wonder how important it is to this.