Plot Immunity

[C. Edwards]

I'm not really seeing the problem, Mike. In essence, we're not dealing with two different types of NPCs. We're dealing with a situation/task and an NPC. Perhaps I'm taking a fairly loose interpretation of the rules, but for me it comes down to a matter of perception.

Regardless of whether death is on the line, I view a "generic" roll (for lack of a better term) as just a simple conflict resolution roll. If it's so unimportant that you're not playing it out scene by scene (and you quite likely don't even have the NPC participants statted out) then it's certainly not important enough for it to fall under the killing rules.

It doesn't explicitly state that such a situation can be handled that way, but it doesn't say it shouldn't either. There's lots of room between those lines which is, I think, what constitutes the main difference between rpgs and many other types of game.

-Chris

[Mike Holmes]

It doesn't explicitly state that such a situation can be handled that way, but it doesn't say it shouldn't either. There's lots of room between those lines which is, I think, what constitutes the main difference between rpgs and many other types of game.

Hmm. Re-reading the core rules, I'm seeing some things in a new light. First, I can't seem to find the statement that says that any victory level means that you get your goal. I just can't. I assume that I've been assuming this as a holdover from HW? What is indicated, actually, is that all contests results must match the suggestions on page 62 for the appropriate level.

This is interesting, because it says some strange things there. Marginal victory says that the character gets small benefits other than "the immediate effects of winning." All of them say stuff like this. Basically it's a victory (or defeat) of some level, and some have more lasting effects than others.

Well, what does this mean? It seems pretty clear that a "win" at a mortal contest means that you come out on top, somehow, but that there can be no lasting effects such as death.

Basically, it's starting to dawn on me where the line is. If you jump a wall, you can succeed in doing so with a marginal victory, because there's no real lasting mechanical effect. You're on the other side permenantly, but the wall doesn't take a very large penalty in resisting you next time. Wheras the only way to get something as permenant as death is to get complete success. Not because of plot immunity, but because the effect is a permenant and complete change to the target.

The only potential loophole that I see here is the definition of a permenant change. But this potentially brings up more problems than it solves. For instance, I can claim that jumping over the wall is a permenant change to the wall in terms of my location regarding that. Why would you argue such a thing? To say then that only certain permenant things are "targeted" by the complication. After all, in a contest to jump a wall, we aren't attempting to weaken it, so we're not changing the wall's strength. So the argument would go that we're only competing against the wall's height, and the other effects simply follow from the success (per automatic success if someone wants to be really rigorous).

This is an odd thought process, it seems to me, however. I mean, to kill a thug NPC, then, the idea is that you're going up against it's fighting ability, and death is only a side effect, right? But then against a PC in a fight, then wouldn't the same logic apply? I mean, unless the character states that they're targeting the "aliveness" of the PC, he's vulnerable. Because only in attacking something directly is it then safe (ironically).

Sorry for the odd peregrination of thought here. But I'm just trying to find a way to restate the principles in simple terms that allow the GM to both follow the rules, and not fall into one of two traps:

A) the assumption that you can't kill anyone with other than a Complete Victory because that's only indicated as appropriate by that result, or

B) the idea that you can frame the contest such that any permenant changes are valid as "side effects" of the main conflict.

What it seems like we want is for us to be able to sometimes allow what is a permenant change in something in certain cases, but not in others.


Another entire interpretation exists, which is that, since death isn't an ability to be penalized, that it doesn't fall under the purview of a lasting effect of a contest. By this odd reasoning, you'd have to say that all PCs were valid targets for death at any time. I don't think that this is intended, given the descriptipons of the consequences of contests, but it's indicative of the slippery slope in the other direction.

Am I making this harder to understand? It's not a simple problem, and one that I've been struggling to find a solution to for a while now. Note that it doesn't paralyze play at all - there are easy aesthetic choices that allow us around the conundrum. But I'd just like to find an interpretation that makes everything understandable by following a straightforward precept of some sort.  

Mike[/i]

[lightcastle]

Mike, I think in someway you are making this harder to understand, just because there are aesthetic choices that make it playable.  I understand your desire to find a way to grapple with it that makes it smooth and all integrated in your head. (I usually am like that, for whatever reason this particular problem isn't triggering that in me.)

If you ever have an epiphany that suddenly clarifies this you, please do come and shout "Eureaka!" at us.  :-)

(I for one, would love to hear it.)

[soru]

I don't see this case as any different from the use of any other skill.

If someone starts a seduction contest wth the goal of 'I want to have that man fall truly madly deeply in love with me', would they succeed in their goal on a minor victory?

If they wanted to write a timeless classic play, that would change the way their culture thought about what it meant to be human forever, would they reach that goal on a minor victory?

It's pretty much the same issue as pompous abilities like 'instant-kill death glance 13', it's the skill rating, not the name, that determines effectiveness, similarly its the the result, not the statement of intent, that determines the outcome of a contest.

soru

[Christopher Weeks]

I want to preface this with: I'm totally ignorant of the system.  I've been reading the HQ forum for a while and my copy of the rules is due to arrive today, I think.  

So hopefully I won't just be stupid, but something occurred to me while reading this bit:

...we're only competing against the wall's height, and the other effects simply follow from the success (per automatic success if someone wants to be really rigorous).

This is an odd thought process, it seems to me, however. I mean, to kill a thug NPC, then, the idea is that you're going up against it's fighting ability, and death is only a side effect, right? But then against a PC in a fight, then wouldn't the same logic apply? I mean, unless the character states that they're targeting the "aliveness" of the PC, he's vulnerable. Because only in attacking something directly is it then safe (ironically).

It sounds like the way everyone wants this issue to be resolved is as if the character is 'targetting' the other character's player-investment.  Assuming that each player has one character, those characters are by definition as heavily invested as possible.  The important NPCs have less than any PCs, but maybe still quite a bit -- for purposes of plot immunity, enough.  Other NPCs have less and they're the mooks.  But I assume there's no mechanical way of tracking or simulating this kind of importance, right?

Chris

[Eero Tuovinen]

I don't see this case as any different from the use of any other skill.

To a degree it isn't, but see below:

If someone starts a seduction contest wth the goal of 'I want to have that man fall truly madly deeply in love with me', would they succeed in their goal on a minor victory?

Indeed they would, except that the target would presumably get somewhat better resistance from a bunch more stats than if the goal were just being sweet. Additionally the result would likely be lasting only on a complete victory, and any other result would bring it about to a lesser degree. Minor victory would probably only last for a scene, before the target shrugged of the effect.

If they wanted to write a timeless classic play, that would change the way their culture thought about what it meant to be human forever, would they reach that goal on a minor victory?

This is even clearer, because here the resistance would be determined solely by what the player tried to do. If he wants a classic, he better succeed against 10W5 or whatever. Even a minor success against that difficulty will mean that the work will, to a degree, fulfill his need.

That is the whole point of the system: any success is sufficient to fulfill the immediate goal, the degrees are only additional detail that will affect later happenings. If we want to make something harder we have to increase the resistance, not reinterpretate the success levels.

It's pretty much the same issue as pompous abilities like 'instant-kill death glance 13', it's the skill rating, not the name, that determines effectiveness, similarly its the the result, not the statement of intent, that determines the outcome of a contest.

But even the instant-kill skill will limit what it will do. I for one could quite well degree that it will do nothing on a lesser success if I were playing by the rule that demands complete victory to kill someone. No reason for the death-ray to injure anyone, is there?

This is not an issue of skill rules in general, but of the fact that rules insist on dealing differently with death than other results. Even that wouldn't be a problem if one could accept the idea that any act that results in any death will require a complete victory. If you can accept that most battles, for example, won't result in deaths, or alternatively can flawlessly judge which characters can be killed of purely for dramatic purposes, there is no problem. But afaIk the rules don't support the former in the examples (they kill people there) and don't give guidelines to the latter.

It should be noted that as far as I understand the definitions of the different degree results other "permanent" changes to character are indeed dealt in the same manner as death. So the "fall madly in love" result would be real, permanent love only on a complete victory, otherwise it'd be somehow limited. Same holds true for any result the play group would deem permanent, like losing limbs or losing honor. I for one deem this a problematic notion (too hard to do against inferior opponents and in abstract situations), and therefore suggest the override-mechanic presented earlier.

Another way of changing rules would certainly be added difficulty modifiers, like those used with difficult magic. Make killing someone simply +20 in resistance and skip the demand for a complete victory. This'd work better mechanically, IMO.

It sounds like the way everyone wants this issue to be resolved is as if the character is 'targetting' the other character's player-investment. Assuming that each player has one character, those characters are by definition as heavily invested as possible. The important NPCs have less than any PCs, but maybe still quite a bit -- for purposes of plot immunity, enough. Other NPCs have less and they're the mooks. But I assume there's no mechanical way of tracking or simulating this kind of importance, right?

You are exactly correct. This is indeed the issue as I see it. There's not much to say about the rules, as they do not address the situation in a straightforward manner, so I fear mr. Holmes must be content with a non-canonical answer. Hope we can think up something good enough.

The reason I prefer the suggestion I made earlier about using hero points to counter permanent changes is exactly that hero points are our mechanic for investment. Only important characters have hero points and all player characters have them. Thus it's simplest to differentiate between characters death immunity -wise with hero points. Other possibilities, like the standard one of allowing "mooks" to die in abstract fights and the like are lacking in that they do not tell us how to decide who is a mook and who is not.

[Mike Holmes]

I don't see this case as any different from the use of any other skill.

Nor, do I think, does anyone else. That's not the issue. The issue is precisely that we're discussing what is appropriate for a particular mechanical outcome. The argument is that, for certain contests, that it is allowable to kill with a marginal victory, to have someone fall in love with you, to write an entire play whatever. Yes, a "timeless" play that changes a culture would probably not fall into this category, but that's not what's under discussion. The question is, are there cases where a marginal victory will do to kill someone, write a play, or have someone fall in love with you on a marginal victory?

If not, then for you, the problem is solved, and you'll have to deal with the "hunting" phenomenon from the previous thread. If you agree that there are cases where this is suitable, then the question is, where is the line drawn? How can a conflict be framed such that it's sensible for the Marginal Success outcome to be a similar effect to what is would be a Complete Success in another case? Or from another POV, can a Conflict be framed such that Complete Success in this case is something beyond what is a Complete Success in other cases.

For instance, you could say that for one contest the player's goal is "Kill Count Rolf in the square." In another you could say that the contest is "Kill Count Rolf in such a way that the entire community fears me." In the first case, the marginal success could be seen as not completely accomplishing the stated goal, resulting in Rolf injured. With the second, the marginal success could be seen as killing Rolf, and the community being mostly unimpressed (only a -1 effect).

I think this could do it, except for certain questions. First, this has to be a GM call, I think, otherwise players might tend to declare goals that "overshoot" all the time to ensure certain levels of success. "I want to write a culture changing play and make Marisa fall in love with me, thereby." Adding the falling in love part just to ensure succeeding at writing the play with a marginal success. Traditionally the declaration of goal is the player's prerogative, so what's needed here is a bit of GM control to alter the context. In the example, the GM would step in and say that this was really two separate contests or something.

Second, this relates to the idea of the automatic partial success method that's been bandied about. That is, if there's a character with information, you can state the conflict as, "I want to get the info from Rolf" or, "I want to get the info from Rolf without him hating me." In the first case, you need at least a marginal victory to get the information. In the second, you always get the information, but failure means that you get a penalty based on Rolf's ire. So, basically, you have a full spectrum of possibilities here where anything can be successful at any level. Again the question is whether just allowing this to happen based solely on GM peference is alright, or if there are some sort of guidelines in terms of the mechanics that make some statement as to when to use a particular framing, and when to use another.


Chris, no, there's no way to track "investment," per se. I think that, perhaps the number of contests that an element has been in, or is expected to be in, is a sort of measure, but I think it's all pretty subjective. Meaning the real question is when will the players start to sense this as somehow arbitrary on the Narrator's part? Will that be problematic? Or is this just another one of those GM skills that one needs to develop? It's very much the arbitrariness that I want to avoid.

Another indicator is Hero Points (whether you allow an NPC to have some), I think, but this is somewhat controversial itself, and HP in any case have their own effects. That is, if you're allowing HP to be the guideline, then you're doubly protecting these characters.

Mike

[C. Edwards]

I tend to look at this completely from a PC-centric perspective. Meaning that NPCs just don't carry a lot of weight with me as a GM. They have no immunity to anything.

So, as far as I can tell if we boiled it down to its base essence, this issue is about "did you roll high enough?"

For instance, you could say that for one contest the player's goal is "Kill Count Rolf in the square." In another you could say that the contest is "Kill Count Rolf in such a way that the entire community fears me." In the first case, the marginal success could be seen as not completely accomplishing the stated goal, resulting in Rolf injured. With the second, the marginal success could be seen as killing Rolf, and the community being mostly unimpressed (only a -1 effect).

Why not just require that an HP be spent to account for the permanent change without a Complete Success? The roll would then determine the degree of success for the second part of the goal. Essentially, the second half (for the example above - "in such a way that the entire community fears me.") is where the conflict lies for the players. The first part ("Kill Count Rolf") probably being more or less Color.

This sort of turns HP into a Director Stance tool for those situations where a permanent change is desired without shifting the focus of play.

-Chris

[Mike Holmes]

That all works, Chris. The HP thing is very rigorous, and effective.

But I was trying to do this without altering the rules. Though there seem to be loopholes, the text makes it pretty clear in examples that NPCs do usually have the same sort of plot immunity as PCs as the default. That is, my framing ideas here seem to potentially be somewhat of a change from the norm, and I'm looking for a way to show that they are the norm.

The opening is that the rules don't ever say anything like, "You can't kill an NPC without a dying result." You have to back-interperet to discover that. But it seems that this is what's indicated by doing that. Basically the consequences section is saying that death equals the sort of effect brought about by, and only by, a Complete Success.

I'm looking for the forward looking argument that says that this is not so (if there is one). Here's one, for example. Jumping over a wall has a permenant effect. The effect is that the wall has been jumped. That can't be changed back. The game suggests that this is doable with a marginal success. Meaning that the definition of "permenant success" in the Total Victory section must mean that it only pertains to certain kinds of successes. Permenant here must mean in terms of plot, or something. In which case, we have our explanation as to why killing mooks isn't a permenant change.

I think there are fairly simple counterarguments to this, however.

Mike

[C. Edwards]

Refer to my "lots of room between the lines" comment above. :)

I know you're looking for a solid solution that stems logically from a tight interpretation of the rules as written, but I honestly don't think you're going to find it. There's just to much inherent ambiguity to overcome.

The closest you could probably get is asking Greg Stafford just exactly how he meant such situations to be played out. He'll either take the tight interpretation or the loose, just as we have. Either way, leaves us right where we started unless someone actually rewrites that area of the rules to be completely explicit as to how to handle those situations.

-Chris

[RaconteurX]

Killing someone is possible by administering a coup-de-grace at the end of any successful combat-oriented contest. This is done like any parting shot, just a bit easier if the foe is already Injured or Dying. Mind you, I don't have my copy of HeroQuest handy and may be recalling the way Hero Wars implemented this.

Refer to my ancient post here for how I handled an assassination in playtest. It is a different process, really, as the goal is actually to render the target open to attack by circumventing his defenses and positioning oneself effectively to administer the killing blow/shot. I ran it as a group extended contest, with each round consuming a week's time.

The HQ mechanics provide plot immunity only in the sense that killing requires a conscious decision rather than a fortunate series of die rolls.

[Mike Holmes]

Killing someone is possible by administering a coup-de-grace at the end of any successful combat-oriented contest. This is done like any parting shot, just a bit easier if the foe is already Injured or Dying. Mind you, I don't have my copy of HeroQuest handy and may be recalling the way Hero Wars implemented this.

No, you're right, this is still true in HQ. A win in combat means that you have the opponent at your mercy. This seems somewhat at odds with the extended contest rules about "parting shots." I mean, if you can automatically just go to dying, then why would you bother in most circumstances tying hazardously to get some result in between?

Assuming this is correct, however, this might be the principle I'm looking for. If you extrapolate the concept to how you put it, "a conscious decision on the killer's part" then one could say that there's no difference between wounding the deer and administering a coup de grace and just asking for it to be dead based on the idea that it could have been anyhow. Similarly, if you declare that you're assassinating someone, then you could think of the contest as getting to the point where you can slit their throat, and the slitting being the coup de grace.

To extend this to creating the culture changing play, however, does that work? On a marginal success is the play metaphorically "on the ropes" and you can finish it off with just some "finishing move?" Or do the GM and player just negotiate this. I mean, what I like to see in many of these cases is the play taking a penalty to being finished, and then more rolls later with the play having a penalty to resist being written. Hmmm..

Good thought, Michael.

Mike

[simon_hibbs]

First, I'd like to address Mike's "Overshooting Goals" issue.

If I'm, using Close Combat to try to kill Frederick, then that's an apropriate use of Close Combat and we're fine. If my goal is to "Kill Frederick and impress everyone", the overshoot issue can be dealt with using an apropriateness modifier. My goal is beyond what you'd ordinarily expect to do with Close Combat, perhaps my Narrator would impose a -10 modifier. Now if I get a Major success perhaps I killed Frederick but failed to fully impress everyone, but it's still fair because without the -10 modifier I'd ahve probably got a Complete Success at a streightforward kill attempt anyway.

I think one problem is that in HeroQuest it's actualy very rare, even in Simple Contests, for an entire situation to actualy be resolved in a single roll. It's very rare in a Simple Contest combat for anyone to actualy die, even if the stated goals were to fight to the death.

This is a feature, not a bug.

Look at the drama of the situation. Even if it's just a fight with a mook, the moment of the mooks actual death is often worth an extra camera cut, an extra sentence describing the body being hurled against a wall and sliding to the ground, etc. Game mechanicaly what this means is that unless you got a Complete Success, you still have to state after defeating the guy that yes, you are realy going to make sure he's actualy dead.

How much fun would it be if every time you jumped at a wall, you either landed effortlessly on the other side, or bounced off and landed on your butt. Sometimes you have to flip off the top of the wall. Other times you land half across it and heave yourself over. other times you hit the wall, but just hang on to the top with your fingertips and have to panstakingly haul yourself up.

Crossing a wall or killing a guy are binary situations. Either you crossed it/killed him or you didn't. Makign someone fall in love with you is a much more graduated situation. She might be in love with you today, but it might be an easy fad for her to shake off, or she might be utterly devoted to you unto death. In a binary situation I'd sualy just require extra narration from the player as to how their character coped with a partial success, but not require any further rolls to acheive their goal. The contest leaves the mook incapacitated, actualy kiling him is a post-contest act with no resistance. With a situation where the final goal is a result on a flexible scale there's a bit more of a problem. Intuitively I'd like to give the result measurable rating, like an ability. The better your seduction result, the higher the Love rating you inspire in your lady. A number of ways of doign that have ben proposed on the HW rules list.

Personaly, I usualy give pretty much a Complete Success result on a Major Success, and on Complete Success give extra bonus narration and rewards on a Complete Success. If I'd written the rules, the scale might have been Marginal, Major, Complete and Outstanding Success. That kind of interpretation of results has proved much more satisfying for me and my players.


Simon Hibbs

[Mike Holmes]

Mostly your post seems to come down to just saying that you cope with it just like the rest of us do, Simon. It's certainly right where I'm at right now, I just cope with it in whatever way seems appropriate at the moment (if I've given some impression that this has even slowed my play by one iota, then I apollogize for misinforming you). What I'm looking for is some guiding principle that makes coping much more straightforward. So that we can deal with any declaration of intent in a process oriented way.

Which I'm becoming more and more convinced just isn't forthcoming. In part because I haven't managed to state the problem so that people really understand it, and in part because I think it may simply be insoluble. All the suggestions that I'm getting seem to boil down to "use your best judgement, and make it work." Which is precisely where I started at, and was hoping to overcome.

I'm still interested in approaching the problem from the "Parting Shot" vs "Coup de Grace" contradiction. Let me restate the problem. The Coup de Grace rule seems to state that if I've achieved any level of success over an opponent, that I can then adjust their state to the "dying" level. There are many implications. One of which is that, if I can put them to dying, that I should probably also be able to move them to any lesser state. I should be able to injure them instead of killing them, for instance. The other question is whether or not the rule pertains to situations outside of combat. Given that the consequences of contests are meant to apply to any contest, I'd think that you could do a similar maneuver in a non-combat situation. That is, you could, if you defeated a foe in a debat, put the nails in the coffin, so to speak, and move him to a completely defeated position. The generalization of the rule would mean that any level of success would effectively be a Complete Success if the player so desired.

It seems to me that this dramatically changes the entire dynamic of contests. I mean, what's the point of determining a level of outcome if the player can then just select a more potent one? Or is the rule really only meant to cover combat situations? The reasoning being that it's an important moral choice, so that balances out the motive to do it? I'm not sure that I'm buying it.

I think that quite possibly, there are two directions in design conflicting here. If you don't have the Coup de Grace rule, it means that death never occurs without a Complete Success. I think that some people just have a problem with that. Looking at HQ contests as task resolution, they think, "If I want to kill someone, and I only get half way there, why would I stop?" Basically, this is a failure to understand how the "No Repeat Attempts" rule works. Because it's completely viable to play in a way that would only allow for people to die only on complete successes.

What I see here are two colliding visions of how the game works. The "parting shot" rule is actually a functional compromise. It says, you can't do repeat attempts, but you can get in a parting shot. That's fine. But why use these risky rules if the Coup de Grace rules seem to make them unneccessary (even if only in combat situations)? What I think is going on is that the Coup de Grace concept was from HW, and that the discussion of killing folks in the book was meant to be about the moral choice, not a mechanical choice. Though I'll have to read up again.

OTOH, another interpretation is that circumstances could make a further roll a matter of an automatic success. This again becomes a framing issue. Like the assassination example given above. If your goal is to knock someone out (or the equivalent), which only requires a marginal success, then killing them could be construed as a second goal, in which case it's not a repeat attempt. And being unconscious, it's ruled an automatic success.

What this means, however, is that all a player has to do is be very careful about how they state a contest. If they really want an NPC dead, then they should state that they're intending to incapacitate the NPC. Then they can kill them at lesiure. Whereas if they stated that they intended to kill, ironically, a marginal success would have to result in the target fleeing or something that made a repeat attempt implausible in-game.

So, you either have one of two problems. If the coup de grace is an additional rule, it means that mechanical consequence levels are a player choice. If the coup de grace is a matter of framing and automatic success, then you incentivize players to approach contests with some strange assumptions, which, if exploited, again mean that the mechanical consequence outcomes are selectable.

The "solution" to all these problems is to have the narrator in control of the dramatic scope of all contests. But sans guidelines this seems heavy-handed and arbitrary. In any case it seems that eliminating the coup de grace as a separate concept would help that.

Mike

[soru]

Basically, this is a failure to understand how the "No Repeat Attempts" rule works.

Does that rule really still apply if you succeed at a task?

If you pick a lock, there is no reason you couldn't reset the lock and pick again.

Similarly, you get a minor victory in a fight, and (based on the last abilities used) the current situation is they are flat out on the ground, only slightly wounded, and you are standing over them with sword at throat and emotionally ready to kill.

They are defeated, they can't just declare they are standing up and restarting the fight, they lost.  But you didn't. In this situation, starting a new contest you'd be getting a mastery or two sit mod, they'd be getting a wound penalty. Given that you already beat them once, this is almost always going to be a 'no hero can reasonably fail' contest. Hence the coup de grace rule.

With a different set of abilities used towards the end of the fight, the end situation could be different (e.g. they ran away and you threw a dagger or an insult at their back), so the situation modifiers would be different, and so even though you won the first time it might be difficult or impossible to do the same again.  

Does that interpretation actually break any rules? Would it cause any unforseen problems in play?

soru