[TSoY] Resolution "scale"?

[James_Nostack]

I don't know the proper RPG Theory Mumbo-Jumbo to ask this question efficiently, but here goes:

You're playing some Conan the Barbarian rip-off.  The storyguide throws a bunch of thugs at you.  You've been running low on rations lately, so you decide to butcher them.  

The dice come out.  You win the roll.  How many human meat-snacks are produced?  That is: do you kill one dude?  Many dudes?  Every dude in the universe?  Wound one guy on his pinky toe?

I understand that a player always has the option to "bring down the pain" and zoom in for a tight play-by-play view of the action.  But what's the default "size" of a success?  

Naturally the question generalizes to things beyond combat.  I imagine this is determined by common sense/story needs/other meta-gamey stuff, but I was just wondering.  Is the Success Level chart a good ballpark estimate?

(In honor of the Christmas holidays I was originally going to entitle this post, "Won't you guide my slays tonight?")

[rafial]

The dice come out. You win the roll.

Here's my take on it.  You know that little digression into IIEE on page 32?  Here's where that shows its importance!  Read it again!

By going directly from "the dice come out" to "you win the roll" you've skipped over a very important part which is "nailing down your intention" (what you get to do) and "setting the difficulty of the roll" (what the Story Guide gets to do).

So lets say your intention was "gut one of these guys like a fish", then the Story Guide might decide that it's a straight up roll of your whomping people ability versus his.  On the other hand if the intention was "slay them all in a whirling ballet of death and steel" then she might feel moved to sock a penalty die on your ass, or require a Good success or both.

Whatever the case, the dice should not hit the table until both you and she have successfully negotiated:

a) what will happen if you succeed
b) what ability/abilities will be used in the check
c) what target success level is needed and what amount of penalty or bonus dice you or your opponents begin with.

Until everybody is clear and comfortable on those points, the dice should stay in the bag...

[James_Nostack]

Excellent advice, thank you.  Solves that question!

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I go away for the holidays, and Wilhelm answers this one like a pro.

Different RPG authors are certainly getting different styles of conveying rules in their text. Mine's the "here's some tools, make a table" style in which I figure you can get fill in the rest yourself. It sometimes backfires, but I like it because each group can fill in the rules with what's important to them.

Depending on your group, you could deal with how this works several different ways. I'd definitely allow an attack to knock out several people at once, but give a penalty die for attacking many people.