General SotC questions thread

[Hudson Shock]

I'm hoping this thread will become a "check here first" resource for general Spirit of the Century questions.  I know I have a lot.  Some are "How do you do this?"  Some are, "Why is this done this way?"  Some are, "I don't quite understand how this works".  Here goes:




While adventuring in the Lost Jungle, suppose a PC is covered in a sticky, entangling gloop by a Glooposaurus, a Maneuver that puts an "Entangled" Aspect on him.  Obviously, the Glooposaur can Tag that Spect for a bonus, no sweat.  But say I want to Compel that Aspect to work against the PC as he tries to run away or jump a chasm:

  A) Do I give the PC a Fate Point every time the gloop acts against him in the scene?

  B) Is there a way to use the Aspect against him in a purely mechanical way, such as a -2 to the roll?  The rules as they stand only allow another NPC to Tag the Aspect for a bonus, or the GM to Compel the Aspect to force a difficult choice.  But there are no rules for simply making an uncontested roll more difficult (like jumping a chasm).

[Hudson Shock]

On pg 155 of the pdf:  "Man of Iron" description:

Very simply, this means that the character doesn't start picking up consequences unless someone hits him for more than his capacity (difficult at best!) or all of his boxes are filled up.

This strongly implies that a single, very powerful hit (6+ levels of difference between the Attacker's Effort and the Defender's), can force a Consequence on the defender, right?

I ask, because I'd previously had a different understanding, prior to reading this stunt, that I posted over at the Forge:

You could take a guy out in five really good shots:

The first hit is a five-point hit, filling in the top Stress box.
The second hit is also a monster 5 pointer.  Since that Stress box is already filled in, the target can either choose to be Taken Out or take a minor consequence.
Ditto for the third hit, but now must take a Moderate Consequence.
Ditto for the fourth hit, but now it's a Major Consequence.
On the fifth hit, the target has no more options and has to be Taken Out.

Is that right, oh Gurus?  And is five shots the absolute minimum it would take to take out a dedicated character who refuses to concede at any point?

To which, Fred replied:

Hudson, you've got it right.

So, what's my question, exactly?  Two of 'em, actually:

A)  Can a single very powerful attack jump straight to causing a Consquence on a previously unhurt and unStressed character? Or does the first attack have to fill in a Stress box, regardless of how powerful it is.  (Given the pulp nature of the game, I could see either way being correct, but I'm curious as to the official ruling.)

B)  Can a single very powerful attack jump straight to causing a Moderate or Severe Consequence on a previously unStressed and un-Consequenced character?  Or even straight to "Taken Out"?  (A Superb attacker rolls ++++, and an average defender rolls ----, for instance.)

[Hudson Shock]

What would be the best way to model a "Powerful But Slow" attacker?  (I'm still thinking giant robot for an upcoming game.)  Another way to put this is "Is there a way to separate damage done from the chance to hit, for highly accurate attacks that do minor damage to for inaccurate attacks that do a lot of damage?"   

The best way I can think of is to give the NPC "Wrestler" so that Might is used instead of Fists, and then let the PC's tag the NPC's "Slow and Clumsy" Aspect for defense.  That is just a tad unsatisfying, though: 

It only allows a 2 level difference (as opposed to only an Average chance to hit but with a Superb level of damage). 

It costs the PCs a Fate Point each time to take advantage of the clumsiness, whereas I'd like it to be more inherent to the creature, like a skills.

Other ways I can think of are too complicated (roll Fists vs Fists to hit, but apply the shifts to Might vs Endurance to figure levels of damage - blech).

Any suggestions?

[Hudson Shock]

The "Master of Fear" stunt requires 6(!) stunts (Master of Fear, Fearsome Gaze, Aura of Fear, Steely Gaze, Aura of Menace, Scary), meaning it is impossible for a beginning level PC to have.

Master of Fear = prerequisites "Fearsome Gaze" and "Aura of Fear"
  Fearsome Gaze = preq "Steely Gaze"
  Aura of Fear = preq "Aura of Menace"
  Both "Steely Gaze" & "Aura of Menace" = preq "Scary"

Is this on purpose, and if so, do you remember what other stunts are impossible for beginning PC's?

[Hudson Shock]

In actual play, has it been your experience that NPC's run through FP's pretty quickly?  For instance, say you've got some mobsters armed with superscience ray guns stolen from a crashed time machine.  The guns all have a "Superscience" Aspect just waiting to get tagged by the mobsters with every shot - but at 1 FP per shot, it seems like they'd run out of FP's pretty damn quickly, and the guns would stop being any more useful than a normal pistol.

This also applies to a question I posted on rpg.net about how to armor a giant robot.  The short answer was "Aspects", but it seems like that would also burn through FP's even more quickly, at about 1 FP per attacker per round.

I know I can GM fiat a lot of this, such as just say "The robot has armor that reduces all damage by two shifts" or "the futuristic ray guns give a +2 to the Guns skill of anybody using them."  I'm just wondering if that is either against the general spirit of rules or if I'm missing a better method that's already spelled out.

Given the likelihood of giant robots, apes and dinosaurs in pulp adventures, all of which probably have some degree of armor and tremendous damage (but not a tremendous change to hit), I think these are issues that definitely need to be addressed.

[Hudson Shock]

I just wanted to give a big giant "THANKS!" in advance.  I feel like I've unloaded a dump truck of questions, and I know everybody has lives outside of publishing this game.  Take your time.  And another "Thanks!" for all the questions that Fred and Rob and others have already taken the time to answer.  (The breakdown of how to pace and set up a climactic fight on top of a zeppelin over on rpg.net was incredible, not only in clarifying how much of the game works but also as a source of inspiration, and really made me want to run this game even more than I wanted to already.)

[drnuncheon]

A)  Can a single very powerful attack jump straight to causing a Consquence on a previously unhurt and unStressed character? Or does the first attack have to fill in a Stress box, regardless of how powerful it is.  (Given the pulp nature of the game, I could see either way being correct, but I'm curious as to the official ruling.)

p 67: "If the character takes a hit which he doesn't have a box for, either because it's higher than the number of boxes on his
stress track, or because it rolls up past his last box, the character must take a consequence."

B)  Can a single very powerful attack jump straight to causing a Moderate or Severe Consequence on a previously unStressed and un-Consequenced character?  Or even straight to "Taken Out"?  (A Superb attacker rolls ++++, and an average defender rolls ----, for instance.)

Doesn't look like it.  Later on on p67: "The first consequence a character takes is a mild consequence, the second is a moderate consequence, and any additional consequences are severe."

J

[drnuncheon]

What would be the best way to model a "Powerful But Slow" attacker?  (I'm still thinking giant robot for an upcoming game.)  Another way to put this is "Is there a way to separate damage done from the chance to hit, for highly accurate attacks that do minor damage to for inaccurate attacks that do a lot of damage?"

I don't think there's one directly, but here's something to consider - Maneuvers.  Have your giant stone Aztec statue robot (or whatever it is) go for Maneuvers rather than attacking every round.  For instance:

The giant statue lifts its leg, higher, higher - the shadow of its enormous foot falls over you as it prepares to stomp down and crush you into a lifeless paste!

If the maneuver succeeds, the targeted character gets the temporary "Under my foot" aspect that I can tag next round when I try to step on him.

The cool thing about this is that if the target can think of a good way to do it, they can invoke the "Under foot" aspect to help themselves out.

J

[Rob Donoghue]

The "Master of Fear" stunt requires 6(!) stunts (Master of Fear, Fearsome Gaze, Aura of Fear, Steely Gaze, Aura of Menace, Scary), meaning it is impossible for a begin

Is this on purpose, and if so, do you remember what other stunts are impossible for beginning PC's?

There are, I think, maybe 2 or three stunts that arent' available out the door. I believe there's also one in the Stealth tree and _maybe_ one in the Mysteries tree.  So yes, it's on purpose, but they're also the extremes of the envelope.

-Rob D.

[Rob Donoghue]

There are a bunch of individual questions that come up regarding the flow of FP and I probably can't give a comprehensive answer in the time I have available, so I'll cut to the end - it's a self-correcting economy.  There's a lot of leeway in making judgement calls about when to compel aspects, when to make aspects sticky or fragile and such, but generally speaking, as long as those judgement calls are consistent, it's hard for things to go wrong.

As short answers:

* Jumping over a chasm is one of those terrible, terrible areas of rules, and is part of the reason the fallign rules aremostly not about falling at all.  It is, to my mind, kinder and more clear to the player to invoke the goop and remove an option (There's no way you coudl jump that chasm in yoru current state) than give a penalty on a "make it or die" roll.  But that's based around the core idea that the choices are where the meat of things are.

* NPC FP supply is your throttle for a fight.  In the absence of FP, a quick look at the stats on the board can make the sahpe of the fight pretty clear, so the FP supply has a bit more art than science to it at times. :)

* This is a fudge, but if you want to have a death machine it might perform manuevers on itself, adding various versions of the "Charged up" aspect and then at some point tagging them all at once.  Honestly, though, I'd use the kind of thinking in the Falling rules section, since it's really the "rules for stuff that should totally kill your characters in one shot, but that would be lame".

-Rob D.

[Hudson Shock]

* Jumping over a chasm is one of those terrible, terrible areas of rules, and is part of the reason the fallign rules aremostly not about falling at all.  It is, to my mind, kinder and more clear to the player to invoke the goop and remove an option (There's no way you coudl jump that chasm in yoru current state) than give a penalty on a "make it or die" roll.  But that's based around the core idea that the choices are where the meat of things are.

Well, I never really considered jumping a chasm a "do or die" roll.  Most likely it would be something along the line of the chasm in King Kong - either jump the chasm or fall down into the tangled web of vines and end up in an even more difficult fight there.  In the source material, people don't make a leap all the time, but they always end up hanging onto a root system, or clinging to the end of a collapsed rope bridge, or just fall into the river below, miraculously unharmed (but now even farther from their objective).  A penalty doesn't mean death, it simply changes the probability of the direction the action will take.

But I do see the philosophy behind the idea that a choice is more interesting.  In this case, I could almost see a 3-way choice: A) take the FP and fail to make the leap and fall into vines, B) spend a FP to overcome the goop and make the jump unhindered, or C) say "forget it, I'm not jumping at all" and stay FP-neutral.

[Hudson Shock]

B)  Can a single very powerful attack jump straight to causing a Moderate or Severe Consequence on a previously unStressed and un-Consequenced character?  Or even straight to "Taken Out"?  (A Superb attacker rolls ++++, and an average defender rolls ----, for instance.)

Doesn't look like it.  Later on on p67: "The first consequence a character takes is a mild consequence, the second is a moderate consequence, and any additional consequences are severe."

I just figured this one out.  Yes, you can jump straight to a Severe Consequence, or even straight to a Taken Out result, with a single attack.

Basically it looks like Consequences act like additional Stress Boxes, only they don't clear immediately after a conflict and they force a temporary Aspect on you if filled.

Example: Sally Slick has been in a slugfest with Blitzmann, and has
filled his three highest stress boxes (4, 5, and 6). She lands a monstrous
6-shift hit next – but only really needed a 4-shift hit to force a taken out
result, due to roll-up. Therefore, Sally has 2 shifts of overflow, and uses it
to beat a fast retreat as Blitzmann's secret base falls apart around him.

[iago]

B)  Can a single very powerful attack jump straight to causing a Moderate or Severe Consequence on a previously unStressed and un-Consequenced character?  Or even straight to "Taken Out"?  (A Superb attacker rolls ++++, and an average defender rolls ----, for instance.)

Doesn't look like it.  Later on on p67: "The first consequence a character takes is a mild consequence, the second is a moderate consequence, and any additional consequences are severe."

I just figured this one out.  Yes, you can jump straight to a Severe Consequence, or even straight to a Taken Out result, with a single attack.

Basically it looks like Consequences act like additional Stress Boxes, only they don't clear immediately after a conflict and they force a temporary Aspect on you if filled.

Example: Sally Slick has been in a slugfest with Blitzmann, and has
filled his three highest stress boxes (4, 5, and 6). She lands a monstrous
6-shift hit next – but only really needed a 4-shift hit to force a taken out
result, due to roll-up. Therefore, Sally has 2 shifts of overflow, and uses it
to beat a fast retreat as Blitzmann's secret base falls apart around him.

Actually, that example doesn't shore up your conclusion.  The example talks about how if you have excess shifts from the minimum necessary to push the hit past the end of the target's stress track, then you can use those shifts to do something else, like retreat from an exploding base.

In SOTC, it's not meant to be possible to inflict a nastier consequence than whatever's "first available" when you exceed the stress track.  (In Dresden, this mechanism will function entirely differently.)

[Hudson Shock]

Well, you're the author, so you know what you intended and what the rule are actually supposed to be, but the example certainly looks like it matches my conclusion.  You say:

The example talks about how if you have excess shifts from the minimum necessary to push the hit past the end of the target's stress track, then you can use those shifts to do something else, like retreat from an exploding base.

... but the example from the book clearly says "force a Taken Out result" not "force a Consequence".  Plus the math is pretty clear: She's got a 6 shift hit, Blitzman's #6 Stress box is full.  "She only need a 4-shift hit to force a taken out result, due to roll up" and has 2 shifts of overflow.  That's 1) Minor Consequence, 2) Moderate Consequence, 3) Major Consequence, 4) Taken Out and 2 shift of overflow.  Pretty clear.

I'll take your interpetation as official, but if there's a revision or errata in the future, I think this should be rewritten or made clearer.

[iago]

... but the example from the book clearly says "force a Taken Out result" not "force a Consequence".  Plus the math is pretty clear: She's got a 6 shift hit, Blitzman's #6 Stress box is full.  "She only need a 4-shift hit to force a taken out result, due to roll up" and has 2 shifts of overflow.  That's 1) Minor Consequence, 2) Moderate Consequence, 3) Major Consequence, 4) Taken Out and 2 shift of overflow.  Pretty clear.

I'll take your interpetation as official, but if there's a revision or errata in the future, I think this should be rewritten or made clearer.

Ah, I see the problem now.  You're drawing a different conclusion from old language that we didn't fix prior to publication!

The original idea went something like this:

* When you overflow a stress track, that forces a taken out result.
* The target may avoid the taken out result by taking a consequence (if available/possible) or conceding.

But we realized that that was a muddled way of portraying it.