Secret of Knock-Back?

[Ludanto]

Ok, it knocks an opponent back several yards.  Got that.  But it also ends Bringing Down the Pain "without resolution".  Sooooo, what does that mean?  Do we go back to the results of the original Ability roll?  Do they have to roll again in a new Ability roll?  Is the conflict simply voided until somebody tries again?  How does that work?

[Eero Tuovinen]

Starting BDTP already voided the original result (which changed into bonus dice in the first exhange of BDTP). When Knockback voids BDTP, no resolution is left. In other words, the conflict is interrupted without resolving the stakes. This is a pretty common feature in modern games, and I love it; nothing better than gearing up for a big conflict and getting a "delayed" result instead of clear win for either side. I first encountered it in MLwM, where it brought some awesome situations, especially as you indeed couldn't just "roll again", but had to wait for at least a full round before trying again.

As an example, consider the typical kung-fu situation: your guy is a master of the snake style, while my up-and-coming challenger is competent with the Seven Clouds discipline. We're having a conflict to see who is better, among other things. You're starting to lose in the conflict, so you use the Secret of Knockback to knock me off a cliff into a raging river below. Conflict result? Clearly undecided, even if you might tell your henchmen that this "proves" your superior kung-fu. That voice will be different when I come back a little later to finish the duel.

[Andrew Cooper]

Okay, where I'm a little confused on this Secret is how it works when there doesn't seem to be an easy way to leave the Conflict without resolving what's at Stake.  Let me give an example.

The Stakes are "Capture the Masked Bandit."

The players BDTP and then when it looks like he might lose, the Masked Bandit's player uses The Secret of Knockback.  Well, exiting the Conflict without capturing the Bandit is resolving it.  It is identical to resolving it as a failure to capture the Masked Bandit.  It seems like the Secret of Knockback is an insto-win ability in these kinds of Conflicts.

I used the Capture Stakes in the example because it is a fairly common type of Conflict in my games and thus isn't me just pulling something obsure out of my ass.

[Eero Tuovinen]

That's when ending a conflict unresolved is most fun, because it ends up leaving a very tense situation! As a technical point, note that ending a conflict unresolved has at least one immediate result: anybody can contest the same stakes again. Compare two situations:
- Masked Bandit escapes via winning the conflict: the other players are out of luck, and have to find some competely new means to find the Bandit.
- Masked Bandit nulls the conflict: the other players are completely within their rights in declaring the same conflict again, insofar as the fiction has not progressed to make it impossible or inadvisable in some manner.

However, to answer the question, here's some options for the narrator of the escape situation:
- The Masked Bandit hides in a basket while the characters run by. A moment later they find out that the Bandit is nowhere to be seen. Did he escape? Is he still around? The conflict has ended, but the Bandit, stuck in the basket next to one of the characters, isn't exactly safe. So clearly neither side achieved their stakes. This is used all the time in chase comedy -type films to provide a short break in the action.
- The Masked Bandit is gone, but not without tripping and losing a shoe. It's a clue! So while the immediate chase situation has ended, the characters can still declare a conflict for catching the Bandit. It will just be a bit different now that instead of running it'll be about their detective skills.
- Nothing at all happens in the fiction, it's just a mechanical result. The chase continues, but instead of rolling, now it's just narration. Both parties can narrate in a freeform manner just like before the conflict, and if there should be disagreement, a conflict is entered. In this manner a new conflict in a new situation might be entered, but with the same stakes as previously. Especially efficient for a complete change of scene, like when the Bandit jumps into a moving train to elude his pursuers.

The thing to understand is that not having your stakes resolved is not the same thing as losing your stakes, however you happened to phrase the stakes. In truth there are always two stakes, even if you only say one of them aloud. So in this case the stakes are whether the characters manage to capture the bandit, but also whether the bandit manages to escape the characters. The "unresolved" result always resides in between the two, as a state where both are still up in the air.