I want to open up the topic about resisting twice.
I GM Blades with a halfway approach on the gritty-freewheeling resistance spectrum. If you narrate how you completely avoid a consequence, you resist it completely. If you narrate how you reduce a consequence, then you do that. When it only reduces in steps, I’m going to allow my players to resist multiple times, but only so long as it falls in line with the “Don’t Roll Twice for the Same Thing” rule.
For example, the consequence is Level 2 Harm “Slashed”. You can’t “parry away his blade” and resist multiple times with Prowess. But you could, “Push Him Backward when he Lunges” and resist with prowess down to Level 1 “Pierced”, and “I catch on to his fighting tempo” and resist the rest of the way with insight.
Fair warning, I probably won’t respond to any comments, because presumably this will open a gateway to some sort of splintery, garbled, endless-rebuttal, people-talking-around-each-other rules debate.
It’s just something I’m writing for people to go “Hm!!” to.
Hm… Interesting. I might allow it on my table, but probably only with a different trait for each roll (insight to catch up to where he’s going, prowess to run and get there before him, for example) for aesthetic and wiselproofing.
Adam Sexton​ I know you said you won’t respond, but maybe because it’s early in the post’s life, you might.
I just wondered what effect this double resistance has in your game with regards to OOC game flow? I don’t have a major opinion on whether your way of doing it is right or wrong (I think that is more of a choice for individual groups, but personally I think my group would like it and I do too). My question was more around whether you find that it shifts the focus of playing time in favour of characters who are in the middle of problems, rather than encouraging other players to jump in? I’d imagine the answer is no but I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.
I think this is a fine idea. As long as the PC still has stress to burn and it makes sense in the fiction, I don’t see why a reduced consequence couldn’t be resisted again to reduce it further. I guess I view “you can resist ANYTHING” as a pretty strong cornerstone of the system.
I am not so much going “hm” as “what? no..” I mean it could be fine, but potentially one consequence could take a character out, and it doesn’t add much for the trouble if that doesn’t happen.
Several things I don’t like: it seems you are saying that you allow a severe consequence (like harm, which has multiple levels) to be resisted in multiple ways. if it’s two consequences, then sure: two resists makes sense (one each), but I think you made it clear that is not what you are talking about.
Resist the harm with Prowess to first reduce it, then reduce it again with Insight? I wouldn’t. Maybe, resist being outsmarted with Insight so you get hit less. Full stop. OR Resist the damage you take with Prowess by shoving aside the blade.
What you described sounds though, that like rolling twice for the same thing to me. This is almost exactly like saying “roll Prowl to hit, and Study to crit.” Besides, I think “roll using one of the PC’s attributes” (p.11) and the fact that the result in binding is pretty clear.
The other thing I don’t like is that you’ve expressed could be mistaken to be saying its fine to let players resist however they want just because they declared resistance, even if this subverts the GM’s role in the consequence’s description. I don’t think it is. You might not be doing that, (and you might actually just have two consequences going but didn’t realize it), but it worth noting this is potentially bad advice. I think resistance is a special action (a reaction) which is tightly tied to a poor roll or decision, and it’s the GM’s job to tell players which Attribute to roll to resist what happens since the GM fiction’ed the consequence. Then the player then tells us how that looks within that guideline.