Schrodinger's Fallout (on the Dogs, not on the cat )

[Darren Hill]

<snip>I noticed that when I am tired, at the end of a session, sometimes I forget to let the players narrate their own results. And sometimes they forgot that they should narrate and look to me asking for a description of the results and I sometimes without thinking give it to them before remembering that I shouldn't. It's an automatic reflex after so much time, but I am learning to catch myself in time...)

It's something I struggle with all the time, too, and from other threads in this forum, we are in good company. :)

1 dog (Emanual) is freeing his sister, who became a sorceress "in good faith" (she believed that she was talking with angels), was caught and repented. He want to banish her from the city, giving her a chance to start a new life. But blood was spilled, an old woman (the aunt of another dog) was killed by the followers of Emanuel's sister (against her will), and another dog (Angela) want to kill her. They first talk, then fight without weapons, but Emanuel lose every conflict and can't stop the other dog until they reach his sister (who get shot in the leg by the other dog, and can't run anymore).  The current conflict is "I want to kill her" against "I want to delay Angela until my sister is safe".

Angela raises with "i shoot her".

First, let me mention something tangential to your question: you can't use a raise to accomplish the stakes of the conflict. So, if the conflict is "does sister sorceress die?", you can't raise with "I kill the sorceress" (well, you can, but only if you acknowledge that you don't really expect that to happen - you're really raising with, "I try to kill her, but you stop me - tell me how").
So, the next question is: who was Angela's raise targeted against? If this was a Raise against the Dog, Angela was wrong - the dog takes the fallout.
If, on the other hand, this was a raise targetted against the sorceress, and the sorceress was a character involved in the conflict, it's a touch more complicated.

When you make a raise against multiple foes, they come in two sorts: ones that target an enemy group ("I shoot at everyone!"), and ones that accomplish some action which everyone on the opposing side will want to stop ("I blow the charges and bury the mine entrance!") That second case has specific rules: everyone on the opposing side must, in order of Best Roll, make a See against that action - and the first one to Block counters the action: everyone after that need not See.
So, lets say, Brothers Artax, Cadmus, and Benjamin are trying to escape a collapsing mine, and their enemy raises with "I blow the charges, and collapse the mine entrance!)
Artax has the best Roll, but can't afford to Block so Takes the Blow - "I leap at the detonator, but don't reach it in time."
Then Cadmus is next, and Blocks: "I am fast enough, and cut the wire from the detonator - the charges don't go off!"
Because Cadmus has countered the raise, Benjamin doesn't need to See the action.

It sounds to me like Angela can argue that her action was of this sort. Since the life of sorceress was the stakes, everyone on her side of the conflict would need to See that in order of Best Roll. So, if Emanuel had a Best Roll that was above the sorcereress's, he MUST See: if he Blocks, the sorceress need not See. If he takes the blow, she still has to See.

Now, if Emmanuel has a Best Die that was worse than his sister's, by the rules he can not attempt to See before she does. Of course, you can ignore this order priority in the interests of drama (I think it's the most commonly ignored Dogs rule) if your group feels it necessary. In the case you describe, I probably would have done the same as you, if my group didn't object.

As to your second question about the sequencing and who decides who takes fallout, the Best Roll rules answer that.

[Moreno R.]

Taking the blow is NOT losing. 

It's not losing the stakes. But it can mean "losing the raise".

If you can avoid "losing the raise" even when you take fallout, why there is the need of a rule that say that a raise that could "get the stakes" isn't legal? You could raise with "i get the stakes" and it would be legal because the other player could always day "no" even if he see with a lot of dices.

Another example: Stakes "i want to capture him", raise "i want to shoot his horse", the GM "see" with 6dices and "get the blow" like "you miss, and he spur his horse at a faster pace".

I don't really think that the conflict resolution rules work like this...

Giving up and dropping out of the conflict is losing.  Taking the Blow is a block that hurts and puts a person at risk. 

From the rules, I get that isn't a block at all. The raise get through.

The fallout you earn from that is your price for using more dice to take the blow.  There is no "imposition" of a "good sequence of events" suggested.  What I'm trying to say was that it was a legal move by Emanuel's player. 

I believe that this call for a direct intervent by Vincent, because I think we "read" very different thing in the rules...  Do you think it's better if we branch this question in another, different thread? (seeing as we are no longer talking about fallout, but about the meaning of "taking the blow"

[Moreno R.]

1 dog (Emanual) is freeing his sister, who became a sorceress "in good faith" (she believed that she was talking with angels), was caught and repented. He want to banish her from the city, giving her a chance to start a new life. But blood was spilled, an old woman (the aunt of another dog) was killed by the followers of Emanuel's sister (against her will), and another dog (Angela) want to kill her. They first talk, then fight without weapons, but Emanuel lose every conflict and can't stop the other dog until they reach his sister (who get shot in the leg by the other dog, and can't run anymore).  The current conflict is "I want to kill her" against "I want to delay Angela until my sister is safe".

Angela raises with "i shoot her".

First, let me mention something tangential to your question: you can't use a raise to accomplish the stakes of the conflict. So, if the conflict is "does sister sorceress die?", you can't raise with "I kill the sorceress" (well, you can, but only if you acknowledge that you don't really expect that to happen - you're really raising with, "I try to kill her, but you stop me - tell me how").

I agree. But this was a different case. Angela's player said "i shoot her", not "I kill her". She wanted to give her fallout (and make Emanuel's player lose dices), but it was understood by everybody at the table that that wasn't an automatic kill.

So, the next question is: who was Angela's raise targeted against?

Mechanically, to the "group" of Emanuel and his sister (both played by the same player, using all the dices of Emanuel + 2D6 + 1 trait from his sister - see page 85 in the first edition, "when an NPC takes a PC side").

In the narrative, the raise was directed very specifically to his sister ("I get to shoot her without puttig at risk Emanuel"). For her to shoot Emanual was the equivalent in other game system of a "fumble". She won very easyly the raise, I don't thing would be "right" to tell her "you won the raise, so I drop on you the exact opposite result from what you asked"

Thinking about it, I made a mistake at the beginning of the conflict, not realizing that Emanual's player would play like this. Thinking that he wanted to fight with the help from his sister, I negotiated a three-persons conflict (and he didn't think to describe his strategy until the exact moment he played it. The usual way we all played for years...). I (we) should have negotiated a conflict between Emanuel and Angela, alone, with the stakes about her pushing past him or "he stop her". But putting Emanuel's sister in the conflict got Angela a clear target to shoot at without having to pass though Emanuel...

If this was a Raise against the Dog, Angela was wrong - the dog takes the fallout.

If, on the other hand, this was a raise targetted against the sorceress, and the sorceress was a character involved in the conflict, it's a touch more complicated.

When you make a raise against multiple foes, they come in two sorts: ones that target an enemy group ("I shoot at everyone!"), and ones that accomplish some action which everyone on the opposing side will want to stop ("I blow the charges and bury the mine entrance!") That second case has specific rules: everyone on the opposing side must, in order of Best Roll, make a See against that action - and the first one to Block counters the action: everyone after that need not See.
So, lets say, Brothers Artax, Cadmus, and Benjamin are trying to escape a collapsing mine, and their enemy raises with "I blow the charges, and collapse the mine entrance!)
Artax has the best Roll, but can't afford to Block so Takes the Blow - "I leap at the detonator, but don't reach it in time."
Then Cadmus is next, and Blocks: "I am fast enough, and cut the wire from the detonator - the charges don't go off!"
Because Cadmus has countered the raise, Benjamin doesn't need to See the action.

It sounds to me like Angela can argue that her action was of this sort. Since the life of sorceress was the stakes, everyone on her side of the conflict would need to See that in order of Best Roll. So, if Emanuel had a Best Roll that was above the sorcereress's, he MUST See: if he Blocks, the sorceress need not See. If he takes the blow, she still has to See.

See above. I the game rules, A player don't get to try to "see" one time for every NPC that help his character. He "see" once, with the added rolled dices from the NPC' help

[Darren Hill]

My last quoted section above is by the book, but only applies if Emmanuel and the Sister were being treated as completely separate individuals, with their own dice pools.
Since you were using the group rules, where Emmanuel rolls his own pool, but gets a 2d6 + trait bonus from his sister, that means that Emmanuel's player gets to choose who the fallout affects.
In this case, he can word the See so that fallout affects either him or his sister - whichever he prefers. Since the stakes are about whether the sister lives or dies, he will probably want to take all the fallout himself.
Also, Glendower is correct. When you make a Take The Blow, you do NOT have to let the raise happen. You can describe something else bad instead.
If I raise with "I shoot and kill your horse," you can Take The Blow and say, "I leap into the path of the bullet and save the horse." You take the fallout, and the horse lives. You could also say with a Take The Blow, "the horse tumbles to the ground, injured but still alive."
Read the text on Taking the Blow: it says you have to concede something, but it need not be precisely what the raiser wanted. If the raiser really wants to get some specific thing, the only way to guarantee that is to have a new conflict, with that thing as the stakes.
Think of a Take The Blow as a either a Partial Success or Partial Failure at a Block, rather than a Complete Failure.

[lumpley]

Hold on. Bro Blood, in the conflict between Angela, Emmanuel, and Emmanuel's sister, who rolled dice? Angela's player and Emmanuel's only? Or was it Angela's player, Emmanuel's player, and you, for Emmanuel's sister?

PRESUMING THE FORMER:

When I play, you have to concede the spirit of the raise. Accordingly, you were right to side with Angela's player.

Here's something you can do next time. Let's say that Andy is Angela's player, and Edith is Emmanuel's player.

Andy, raising: Angela shoots Emmanuel's sister!
Edith, blocking: Emmanuel dives in the way! He takes the bullet!
Andy, to you: Does Emmanuel get fallout for that? I want him to.
You: No, but you can just bet that as soon as this conflict's over I'm going to launch a conflict where what's at stake is, does Emmanuel die from the bullet in him.

-Vincent

[lumpley]

See collateral damage in conflicts, especially here and here.

-Vincent

[Moreno R.]

Thanks, Vincent!  I was beginning to think that I fumbled my "understanding roll" when I read the rules: I had always played the game with the understanding that you can't "see" a raise with less than 3 dices, that raise happen and you can't do nothing about it. And it's a BIG issue: I have seen people give up conflicts they were winning, to avoid a very nasty raise. It give meaning and "bite" to the sequence of "I narrate (my raise), you narrate (your see), you narrate (your raise) I narrate (my see) that make up the conflicts, giving importance on every word.

If the character can avoid every raise at will, even if he take fallout, the wording of the raise (and the very fact that the raise must be worded) lose much of his importance, becaming (in my opinion, anyway) simply a long manner to decide at the end who "win" the stakes.

But this quote from the thread you linked give an even better way of ruling about this:

One very good approach - and fully consistent with the rules - is to let the person who made the raise decide. So if you raise and I take the blow, you get to say whether my narration preserves the spirit of your raise, and ask me to try again if it doesn't.

So, it's possible to give a different interpretation of a raise, but ONLY with the approval of the raising player. Gaining in flexibility without losing the "power" of a successful raise. Perfect!

In the specific case of Emanuel and Angela:

Hold on. Bro Blood, in the conflict between Angela, Emmanuel, and Emmanuel's sister, who rolled dice? Angela's player and Emmanuel's only?

Yes. I decided to give the Emanuel's player complete control on the sister, too (he got to decide if she would repent or not after Emanuel talked to her, for example) after he freed her, because I did not want to decide by myself on something so important for his character.

Or was it Angela's player, Emmanuel's player, and you, for Emmanuel's sister?

No. But I am curious about what would be the difference in this case...

PRESUMING THE FORMER:

When I play, you have to concede the spirit of the raise. Accordingly, you were right to side with Angela's player.

Here's something you can do next time. Let's say that Andy is Angela's player, and Edith is Emmanuel's player.

Andy, raising: Angela shoots Emmanuel's sister!
Edith, blocking: Emmanuel dives in the way! He takes the bullet!
Andy, to you: Does Emmanuel get fallout for that? I want him to.

At this time, if Andy wanted to hit Emanuel, the problem could be solved easily using the way indicated by your quote at the beginning of this post: Andy accept as a valid "taking the blow" that Emanuel get shot, with the associated d10s of fallout.

But in the game we played, Andy did not want to give fallout to Emanuel, so the situation is more tricky. Edith has to "see" to put Emanuel in the line of fire, and so doing Emanuel avoid getting fallout

You: No, but you can just bet that as soon as this conflict's over I'm going to launch a conflict where what's at stake is, does Emmanuel die from the bullet in him.

I am not sure about the kind of conflict we are talking. The usual 4 die of "weapon used" with authomatic result of 16 written in the "Life or Death" chapter in the rules? So in this case that would be 4d10 (+5d10 demonic influence) in confllict with Angela, if she stop to cure Emanuel, o authomatic death if she doesn't cure him (and there is nobody around who does)?

But it's "legal", by the rules, to say "if you want to cure him you have to forfait RIGHT NOW this conflict with his sister", or the Angela' player has still the option to say "no, I will kill her and after that I say I am still in time to cure him: say yes or roll the dices!" ?

[Moreno R.]

Wait, I thought a little more about the situation, and maybe I am getting the hang of it. Please let me know if the following make sense to you...

Dog #1: Emanuel (player: Edith)
Dog #2: Angela (player: Andy)
Emanuel's Sister, Prudence, (played by Edith or by me)

Situation: Angela want to kill Prudence. Emanuel want to save Prudence (but he doesn't want to hurt Angela). Prudence is scared. They begin a conflict, between
A): Angela - stakes "If I win, I kill Prudence"
B) Emanuel + Prudence (Edith make the roll, using the Emanuel's dices + 2d6 in traits + 1 skill from Prudence as for NPC help rules), "if I win, I delay Angela enough to let Prudence flee"

Edith's dices are really no match for the sheer mass of multiple "ten" that Andy rolled. Plus, Andy escalated to gunfighting and Edith doesn't want to. The fight seems to be already written, and it doesn't look good for poor Prudence.

Andy raises with "I shoot Prudence".  Edith can "see" with 2 dices, but he know that he can parry 2, 3 times at the most, and after that he will not have the dices high enough to parry anymore. So he says "I want to take the blow, but taking the bullet for Prudence, and the fallout, it's ok for you Andy?".

If Andy agree, Edith decides (choosing the dices he use to see) how much fallout dices Emanuel get. He can narrate as Emanuel, wounded, continue to put himself between Angela and Prudence (forcing Andy to decide if he want to continue shooting the other dog or letting Prudence go) or he can narrate as Emanuel fall, and Prudence run to help him, and Andy must decide if Angela shoot her or help her save Emanuel.

But in this case Andy disagree, so Edith decide to "see" with 2 dices, saying "I jump between Angela's gun and Prudence, taking the bullet for her", without getting fallout. And Edith describe as Emanuel fall to the ground in a poll of blood. It will be necessary, after the end of this conflict, to do another (against 4d10+5d10 demonic influence) to save his life.

At this time, it's the turn of Edith to raise. Emanuel is out of the conflict, but Prudence is not. And there are many things that Edith could choose to do:

-1) Prudence continue to run. If Angela let her go, she can keep her best dice in the follow-up conflict to save Emanuel's life. If she doesn't drop the conflict, instead, she get to kill Prudence but lose the bonus dice. It's a little bonus, sure (but the time it would take Angela to pull the trigger again to shoot Prudence is little, too), but can Angela risk in this manner the life of another dog to kill Prudence? Knowing, afterwards, that she DIDN'T do all she could do to save his life?

-2) Prudence return to her brother's side. If Angela let her live, she can keep the bonus dice PLUS the 2d6 + trait that Prudence can give her to save his brothers. Or she can kill Prudence, taking a bigger risk with the life of Emanuel...

-3) if Edith has the right dices for a single big enough raise, she can raise with "Emanuel die now, if you don't drop the chase and help him". If Andy can't parry this, he has to drop out of the conflict to avoid the raise (and Emanuel's death). If instead he can parry, the situation return to (1) or (2)

I am rather sure that (1) and (2) are "by the rules", but I am not so sure about (3). What do you think?

[Darren Hill]

But in this case Andy disagree, so Edith decide to "see" with 2 dices, saying "I jump between Angela's gun and Prudence, taking the bullet for her", without getting fallout. And Edith describe as Emanuel fall to the ground in a poll of blood. It will be necessary, after the end of this conflict, to do another (against 4d10+5d10 demonic influence) to save his life.

Note that Edith Seeing with 2 dice is a Block or Dodge, so if Edith is willing to see with two dice, she can describe how Emanuel stops that attack safely and does not take fallout.