[tSoY] How do these three rules interact?

[Sean]

1. Only players can call for bringing down the pain.

2. In conflict resolution, you specify what happens if you win.

3. You can't permanently remove a 'special' GMC from the game (forget the term) except by bringing down the pain.

So OK. I've fought my way through an ancient temple in Qek and now stand, blade naked, before the Serpent God, who is a special character. I specify 'I cut him to pieces' as what's at stake for me and win the conflict. What happens?

Or what am I missing here?

[dyjoots]

I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but I think the correct answer is to Bring Down the Pain no matter what you roll.  This would put you in a very strong position if you succeeded at your roll, and give you a chance to manage alright if you didn't.  The rules specifically state that you can BDtP whether you win or lose, and if you really wanted to kill the Snake Person, then you need to BDtP to be able to.

[Brennan Taylor]

I doubt you will step on anyone's toes, dyjoots. But my understanding is that if you Bring Down the Pain, you open yourself up to deadly damage, too. Isn't that correct? In that case, you might want to hold back if you thought you would lose.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

1. Only players can call for bringing down the pain.

2. In conflict resolution, you specify what happens if you win.

3. You can't permanently remove a 'special' GMC from the game (forget the term) except by bringing down the pain.

So OK. I've fought my way through an ancient temple in Qek and now stand, blade naked, before the Serpent God, who is a special character. I specify 'I cut him to pieces' as what's at stake for me and win the conflict. What happens?

Or what am I missing here?

You cut him to pieces. He is not permanently removed. The GM could bring him back whenever he felt like, changed or unchanged.

[Sean]

Excellent, Clinton.

I suppose the limit case scenario is it's like one of those martial arts movies, where the guy gets a lethal beating and then staggers back to his feet while the other character chortles. The blood and bruises are (sometimes) just Color.

So in that sense as a player you could be doing any of a number of things here by not bringing down the pain: exhibiting stupidity, or showing your wish for a longer/certain type of battle, or showing your contempt for your foe by not bothering to roll your victory into some pain...all kinds of things.

Let the games teach us their own answers...

[Rod Anderson]

I could be wrong, but I read Clinton as saying that you cut him to pieces. He's a soggy pile of mincemeat. Later, perhaps, a mad wizard regrows him from a drop of dried gore on the temple steps. Or his spirit is not destroyed, and possesses (say) your character's girlfriend, who becomes scaly and malevolent but still way hot. That sort of thing.

[Sean]

I think that would be a legitimate way of handling this situation, Rod, if you wanted to handle it that way.

I don't want to speak for Clinton, but if I'm reading him right that's not the only way you could handle it. Winning a conflict means establishing your effect; if you don't want to bring down the pain then your effect stands. But the GM can bring back 'important' characters until you get into an extended conflict by bringing down the pain.

To stick with the Serpent God, then, I think any of these would be reasonable:

- Letting the conflict end then and there, with the Serpent God to return in some different adventure at a different time.

- Having the Serpent God reincarnate night after night and attack again, until the character Brings Down the Pain to finish him for good.

- Having the statistically identical Spirit of the Serpent God rise from the soggy corpse and initiate a new conflict.

- Have the pieces of the serpent god reanimate then and there, or interpret 'cut to pieces' slightly less  literally, in which case it's the martial arts movie scenario,

etc.

Remember, the rules do not enforce realism. You can die of a broken heart, I think, if the pain is brought down in the right way. The rules tell you what the world of the game is like. A noted nemesis can be hacked into a thousand pieces, but if you didn't choose to struggle with him fully, he can be back for more - realistic explanation purely optional, or at least a matter of Color to be decided by individual groups.

That's how I'd want to interpret the game and Clinton's post in this thread, in any case. But since it's his I'll bracket what I just wrote as my take, and see if the Master contradicts me.