I’m reading Blades for the second time, in preparation for potentially running a campaign. I’ve noticed what looks to be a contradiction. Is it a contradiction, or am I missing something subtle?
P32 Resistance and Armor
“The GM also has the option to rule that your character completely avoids the consequence.”
P199 GM Bad Habits (Don’t roll for the same thing twice)
“Arlyn is forced over the edge and falls off the roof.
But she can roll to resist, right? Yes. She can resist the harm that results from
the fall. But she can’t “undo” being forced over the edge. That’s already been
determined by her action roll. Her resistance reduces the impact of the fall.
Instead of breaking her leg, she suffers lesser harm (maybe a sprained ankle) or
maybe the GM rules that she’s able to avoid the harm entirely by rolling into a
rough crash-landing. Either way, she’s still fallen off the roof.”
So… what’s going on here? Can Resistance nix a Consequence or not?
That’s one of my unsolved questions, too. 😉
There has been a G+ thread on this before, but it was quite some time ago, couldn’t find it on quick inspection.
Thing is: “Don’t roll for the same thing twice” does not mean “You cannot avoid a consequence.” It really just means “Do not roll for the same thing twice.” In the example, they were rolling for avoiding being pushed over the edge. (Which is a bit of an odd thing for a Blades action roll, which is why I think the example isn’t such a great one). Since the success on this roll is “You don’t get pushed over the edge”, a failure means that Arlyn gets pushed, and that’s it.
A better example (also from said thread) that makes the situation much clearer is opening a lock that’s also trapped. If you fail that roll, you’re not opening the lock. You cannot resist the fact that you’re not opening the lock. You can resist the poison needle that shoots out (but recall that “avoiding the poison needle” is not what we were rolling for!); to what extent is the resistance is partial or complete depends on the manner of resistance and most importantly the GM’s judgement call.
Sometimes it will be a reduction of the consequence. Sometimes you can avoid completely. Sometimes it still happens, but you avoid some or all of the bad fallout. It all depends on the fiction. (Note that there’s at least one ability, namely Shadow, that says that you completely avoid a consequence when you use it to resist).
The thing that the example tells you to avoid (as far as resistance rolls go) is for a resistance roll to negate the result of the action roll that triggered the consequence. The result of the action stays true, even if you resist the consequences.
Jakob Oesinghaus that is super-helpful! So if I roll to get X and fail, I can’t resist the fact that I didn’t get X, only additional consequences Y and Z (which might in principle then be avoided outright).
I note also that a roll of 1-3 doesn’t automatically mean you fail, so maybe I do get X after all, but if I don’t then I can’t resist not getting it.
Your understanding is exactly right, Joshua, although an action should really only have a (partial, minor) success on 1-3 if it really fits the fiction, I think. Like doing something you really can’t fail at but that can still screw you if you don’t do a good enough job. I actually had forgotten that you could succeed on a 1-3 at all, but I just looked it up (on page 22) and indeed the text says you can, if the GM says so (though it does say usually you just fail completely). Thanks for the reminder!
But anyhow, you’re dead on, you can’t resist not accomplishing what your roll was meant to accomplish if you roll a 1-3 and the GM says “you fail at what you were trying to accomplish”. I think the last time this came up (I believe I remember the same thread Jakob does) there was a lot of consternation caused by the use of the English word consequence vs. the in-game mechanical term ‘Consequence’, but you got the message right off the bat. 🙂
It makes for great story for a character who’s just rolled a 3 to technically get what they want, but in the worst way possible.
“You wanted the Inspector out of the way for a while, but you’ve conked him on the head a little too hard, and instead of knocking him out, you’ve killed him. Well, he’s out of the way.”
I read it as, the GM may rule that you avoid all the harm completely from reisting a consequence rather than only resisting one level of it.
You’re still rolling once to resist the consequence, just avoiding more than one level of harm from the consequence.
You can resist all consequences be they harm, being caught, falling, tripping, etc. How much is resisted is a matter of the fiction as well as table preference. As an aside, I cannot stress how wonderful the special “armors” are.