Alright.  I've looked over the (revised) rules, this board, the Wiki -- everything I could get my hands on.  I think I might understand the Bringing Down the Pain mechanic, but I'm still not entirely sure.  Mostly I'm confused about the whole "changing of intention" thing.

I'm going to refer fairly heavily to the example of play in the rules.  I kinda hate doing this, since it seems to sound kinda whiny and petty.  But I'm just trying to honestly figure out what is going on.  This is the Matt and Emily example; feel free to play along at home.

During the free-and-clear phase, Matt says, "Ok, Gael stops for a moment and scans the area as the hair on the back of his neck stands up." Notice that Gael knows something's wrong: that's because Matt refused the outcome of the simple ability check. Also notice that Matt can narrate whatever he wants for Gael's action, as long as it stays within his overall intention. Emily, confident in her character's abilities, says "I'm going to creep along the wall slowly towards him, staying in the shadows." Another roll is made of Gael's Sense Danger versus Tela's Sneak, and Matt wins this check, with SL 3 (Great) versus SL 2 (Good). Tela takes a harm at level 1 - she's bruised.

Matt says, "A-ha! Gael sees a glimmer in the shadows behind him, and starts to move quickly away from it." Emily asks the Story Guide, "If I throw some rocks to make noise ahead of Gael, can I count them as a weapon, +1 harm to deceive him about my location?" The Guide agrees that the idea's sound, and Emily says, "Tela scoops up some pebbles and throws them ahead of Gael, trying to confuse him as to her location." Her Deceit's pretty low, so she spends her one point of Reason for a bonus die, canceling out her penalty die from being bruised, and nails it, beating Matt's Sense Danger ability check, scoring SL 4 (Amazing) versus his SL 2 (Good). With the +1 weapon, that's harm level 3 to Gael.

Matt's in trouble now. He says, "As Gael takes off forward, a sound rattles him, and he spins, looking confused, but shakes it off." Emily says gleefully, "Seeing the Ammenite's confusion, Tela dives and rolls across the alley to get behind him." Matt's worried, but thinks the dice have got to go his way. He says, "Gael spins around, scanning the area for the unseen intruder." Just to be careful, he spends a point from his Instinct pool for a bonus die. They roll, and he gets a SL 3 (Good). Unfortunately, the dice are hot for Emily, and she rolls +3; she's got a grand total of SL 6 - an Ultimate success! That's harm level 3 for Gael, but he's already taken harm level 3, so that's level 4. Gael is now bloodied in Instinct, and has a penalty die to all actions that use it, including Sense Danger. "Crap," he mutters. "I'm changing my intention. Gael's just going to high-tail it, trying to avoid danger."

It's Matt's turn, but Gael's got a penalty die. If he gives up, though, Tela will have cornered him, which he doesn't want, especially not this damaged. He glowers, "Gael's running as fast as he can." Emily smiles, "I'm changing intention if he's going to run." Matt figures that he can beat her in a foot-race, so he goes ahead and rolls Dash, with a penalty die, versus Tela's React: she could not sneak, but only defend this turn. With a low roll from Emily, he wins, scoring a mere Good success level versus her Marginal. She takes harm level 1, but that's already happened, so harm level 2 - a bruise.

I'm no expert, but my policy is to generally and every time ignore the examples of all roleplaying game rules I read. Thus, in this instance, I refer you to the actual rules, which state that to change your intention you have to take what equals to a defensive action. The example is wrong, I should say.

Then again, reading the same example got me confused on a different point:

Gael is traveling down an alley-way when Tela sights him, and slides into the shadows to follow him. Emily states, "I want Tela to sneak up on this guy." She makes a resisted ability check of Sneak versus Gael's Sense Danger and rolls a -1 versus his 0, for a total of SL 2 versus SL 2. "Screw that," she says, and spends a point of Instinct to roll a bonus die. Matt has the same opportunity, but wants to conserve his Instinct pool, since it's low. She ends up with a roll of 0, for a total of SL 3 - a Great success!

First, the simple answer:

Eero wrote:
What happens here is that Emily first rolls her dice in an ability check, and then decides to roll a bonus die to improve the result. I didn't know that you can do that, and can't find it in the rules. I guess I'll chalk this up to the general foolishness of not skipping examples...

Thanks for your quick and helpful response!

I had a hunch, nay, a premonition, that synchronization had been lost between the example and the rules in this newer edition.

I think it all makes sense now, so I'll proceed along to trying to get some actual play accomplished.

Cheers,
Roger

As a related clarification, can the Story Guide decide the use of an ability is inappropriate to the stated intention?  What if Gael tried to use something like Battle, or Cooking, if he's really good at it, and desperate to spot Tela, and just picks something he's really good at it, and then just rationalizes it to the SG (I am recalling my battle against the shadow-cats of north Ammeni / I am smelling the last meal on her breath in order to find her)?

I'm just curious as to your opinion of where / how quickly the Story Guide should put his foot down between rationalization and creativity.

I have several similar questions, so I thought I'd carry on, especially because I'm not still 100% clear after Clinton's response.

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Bonus dice & "combined" actions

The text indicates that combining two ability tests requires the say-so of the GM, because the GM must decide how failure of the first action affects the "actual" action. Cool.

However, in the example text, Tela wins the ability test with a rating 3 success, and the example text says she will get three bonus dice on her next action (by the way, this appears to be an error -- wouldn't she just get 1 bonus dice because the difference between her and her opponent is 1, not 3?). What IS her next action? (We never see it, because Gael's player brings the pain.) Why does she seem to be getting Sorcerer-like bonus dice for most any sequential action while the rules seem to indicate that this happens for "two abilities together" for a "complex action."

So, is it more correct to say that in TSoY, simple test victories translate into bonus dice on subsequent actions? (I.e., is it supposed to work like Sorcerer?) Or, should this apply to only one intended, complex action with the GM's assent?

Oh, one last  bit -- where is Gael's 1 bonus die? In the example, he wins the first exchange in the Bringing Down the Pain by a margin of 1 against Tela. So, according to the rules as I read them, he should get 1 bonus die in the next exchange (From the rules text: "If this is the first action in Bringing Down the Pain, the winner at the roll that initiated Bringing Down the Pain gets bonus dice to her first action equalt ot the difference between her and her opponent's success levels.") The example is silent on his bonus die, so perhaps it's not relevant. Perhaps he still loses the next exchange anyway, even with the bonus die.

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Surprise!?!

I don't understand Surprise rules. (In fact, I'm not sure why they're in the game at all -- it seems antithetical to the game's wonderful simple tests conflict resolution.) Again, the rules text and the example text make it really confusing for me. I have a few questions here.

The rules explanation says:

If a character acts against another character, and the latter has no clue what's going on, the player will not be able to make an ability check to resist. This still counts as a resisted ability check, and the player can announce that he'd like to Bring Down the Pain.

As stated before, the winner at the check that initiated Bringing Down the Pain gets bonus dice to her first action equalto the difference between her and her opponent's success levels. This is an indicator of her opening advantage.

If this is the first action in Bringing Down the Pain, the winner at the roll that initiated Bringing Down the Pain gets bonus dice to her first action equalt ot the difference between her and her opponent's success levels.

Matt wrote:
Bonus dice & "combined" actions

The text indicates that combining two ability tests requires the say-so of the GM, because the GM must decide how failure of the first action affects the "actual" action. Cool.

However, in the example text, Tela wins the ability test with a rating 3 success, and the example text says she will get three bonus dice on her next action (by the way, this appears to be an error -- wouldn't she just get 1 bonus dice because the difference between her and her opponent is 1, not 3?). What IS her next action? (We never see it, because Gael's player brings the pain.) Why does she seem to be getting Sorcerer-like bonus dice for most any sequential action while the rules seem to indicate that this happens for "two abilities together" for a "complex action."

So, is it more correct to say that in TSoY, simple test victories translate into bonus dice on subsequent actions? (I.e., is it supposed to work like Sorcerer?) Or, should this apply to only one intended, complex action with the GM's assent?

Oh, one last  bit -- where is Gael's 1 bonus die? In the example, he wins the first exchange in the Bringing Down the Pain by a margin of 1 against Tela. So, according to the rules as I read them, he should get 1 bonus die in the next exchange (From the rules text: "If this is the first action in Bringing Down the Pain, the winner at the roll that initiated Bringing Down the Pain gets bonus dice to her first action equalt ot the difference between her and her opponent's success levels.") The example is silent on his bonus die, so perhaps it's not relevant. Perhaps he still loses the next exchange anyway, even with the bonus die.

Surprise!?!

Now, I obviously am not getting this section of the rules very well. But, as I do understand it, my advice and my intention is to eliminate the Surprise rules entirely. They really seem like a "heartbreaker" hold out. That is, it feels like a "fantasy games have surprise rules, so TSoY does too" kind of thing.

Actually, I think those "surprise rules" are kinda useful and a logical part of the system, overall. You see, there certainly are several possible situations (setting-dependent, of course) where characters act against others without the other party having any recourse:
- Using magical rituals against a magical newbie from a distance.
- Indicting somebody in a court of law in absentia.
- Pronouncing an excommunication on a layman.
- Slaying somebody who intentionally and completely disarmed himself previously.
I think it's kind of cool to have the additional option of maneuvering for total and complete surprise. I wouldn't use this for stalking somebody on the street (normal Sense Danger ability check suffices there) or even surprising them in their sleep (a penalty die does the trick there), but I like having the option for extraordinary situations, like those listed above. Essentially, IMO you should use the surprise rules when the opponent doesn't have any suitable ability to use in countering the attack. (This game is about clashes of different cultures, too, and boy do different cultures have esp. social weapons against which others have no recourse.) I imagine that it's a very cool situation when you get this kind of overwhelming conceptual advantage against somebody. Also, note a necessary implication: if you're getting the surprise advantage, it's most likely that at least your first few rolls in BDTP will be parallel, simply because the opponent doesn't have any means of competing against the manner of attack in question. In the worst case the your opponent will be doing unconnected parallel rolls just to find a means of attacking you back. I can even imagine playing in a setting where only one culture has some psychic/magical power that cannot be countered by any means available to others.

Then again, I don't think those surprise rules are very confusing at all. The surprise text just says that instead of initiating BDTP from a resisted ability check, you use a standard test. Clinton's wording confusion between "the first roll of BDTP" and "the roll initiating BDTP" can and should be disregarded, he clearly means the latter in both cases. I think this is a pretty natural step of logic: if the opponent can't or won't for some reason resist the ability check in question, then there still needs to be some method of continuing the game. Considering the resisting result equal to zero is as good a way as any.

I just realized why I don't like the surprise rule where the unaware character gets no roll: It ignores fortune-in-the-middle.

Instead of pre-loading a "surprise" situation before the roll, any "surprise" benefits should be explanation of the results after the roll. It is, as far as I can tell, the only situation in the game where we don't let the players explain their glorious results. So, we have a situation where Tela's sneaking up on Gael? Cool. Both players roll. If Tela wins big, we just narrate the situation as a surprise ambush.

In other words, it's the only game rule situation that deprotagonizes a player. I find this contradictory to the nature of the game.

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Clinton, as for the other bits, I'm re-reading the text and your replies. It's making more sense, but I'm still sorting through it. I'll post another question if I find it. FYI, I'm reading the online version you just posted, which as far as I can tell is identical to my print edition of the revised TSoY.