I've managed to play TSoY three times in the past two weeks.  I'm playing it again tonight. TSOY is now my preferred game. I still have two main issues.

Stakes
Over on Story games, and maybe here, I don't know where or I'd link it, I read the thread by Ron or where Ron contributed and brought up the notion of "chesting" in the stakes negotiation phase (not necessarily in TSOY, just any game that has stakes setting).

Basically saying, from what I remember, if you don't have a game mechanic to control the outcome then, well, you're going to end up setting narrative consequences for success and failure in possibly arbitrary ways.

At any rate, that thought really resonated with me.
I know in TSOY, as SG, I have all the narrative power to determine the stakes and its take it or leave it.  But, I must say, I'm just a bit gun shy when it comes to stakes because I know they can be so arbitrary.

I'm sure there are tons of threads on stake setting i could try to slog through.  But I'm lazy. What I'm asking here is: in TSOY what are a few good rules of thumb for setting stakes?

A very common stakes setting situation in my games seems to be the Stealth up on someone and then kill them (i know, they are not seeing the potential of the system).  But I had difficulty setting interesting, stakes.

Usually I said: if you succeed, they are dead.  If you fail they are able to pull a weapon, and get into a defensive stance, or maybe i'd let them run away.

How much Harm should I be willing to deal out: ie, if you fail you take 3 harm to your Vigor and 1 harm to your Reason. (I mean, if you did this against some cool NPC that has cat like reflexes-- this actually sounds like a cool secret -- sort of anti-sudden knife).

My other issue is based on an argument that developed during a BDtP with a first time player, long time gaming friend.

I had managed to get a good hit in early in the combat, got him to Bloodied (V).
My player then nickled and dimed me through all my bruised stages and finally got me to Bloodied (V). 

I then managed to bruise him again in Vigor, so his next check was at 2 penalty dice, while I was in a state where I could never get 2 penalty dice in one check (because he nickled and dimed me but I had survived through that early stage of the combat).

He complained that the system was broken and not realistic.

I tried to explain that my guy got in an incredibly good shot early, and that's one of the benefits of hitting someone hard early. 
He said I didn't understand his argument and we just ended it there.

I think he's now made up his mind that TSoY is a broken system.  Does he have a point that I'm not seeing?

Oh, and another point, when would be good situations where other players can join a BDtP.  I got the feeling that it was a zoom in on one action and a series of blows and punches took place rather quickly, so I didn't let other players (in the above case), who were one Athletics check away (there was a chase), join the BDtP.

Rustin,

That's a lot of questions, and I don't have answers to all of them. It seems like the most important one, and the one I can't answer, is what to tell your friend. I mean, I don't think the system's broken, obviously. I don't think it's realistic, either. I think your friend wants something different out of a game than TSOY gives, and that's great. (Has he even noticed that characters can be harmed by arguments yet?)

As for "stakes setting," I realize I talk some about that, but realize it's the same thing as in any game: one character is trying to do something, and another character is trying to stop them. Start from there. There's no need for "bigger stakes." I also wouldn't have Harm as an effect of a roll unless it's a roll against an inanimate force, like climbing a mountain or leaping a chasm.

Stakes setting is hard. I liken it to an art form as in "it has to appeal to the aesthetics of the group to play with". I know this is an easy cop out, but it has proven true on many occasions to me.

And you know what? Nobody forbids you to ask for input regarding stakes and incorporating your players' ideas before setting them. Even then, there is ample room for discussion in the open/free-and-clear stage of a BDtP volley.

Sometimes it helps to think about stakes as something that connects parts of a story together. Like in the "sneak up and kill" scenario, if the guy simply is dead, that's boring. Having to fight him if you lose, that might be even more boring. Trying to think a bit outside the box can help with stakes: "OK, you'll manage to kill him. If you succeed, you find a guard schedule before you have to go back into the shadows. If you fail, you will retreat without noticing the witnesses…" (it's hard to always come up with stuff like that on the spot, I know!).

I think I had a similar online discussion about BDtP recently as you did with your friend. TSoY may seem "broken" if you come to it with an assumption of time-sliced combat rounds as in other games. IMHO, the structure of BDtP is not set by  time slices, but  "story-important thing" slices. With some abilities in a single BDtP, one volley could be assumed to cover very long time spans (a day or days with Battle, for example), another may be over in an eye's bat (stopping the battle with a mighty "STOP THIS MADNESS" and a roll against Orate, for example). As Clinton said, it's a matter of taste nonetheless.

The description of BDtP in the rule book is very compact, so some things (like joining in and multi sided BDtP) are not handled in detail. You might want to look here for a variant explanation of this. In short: People can join during the open/free-and-clear phase of a volley if they wish, stating their own intent, or supporting an existing one.

Clinton wrote:
That's a lot of questions, and I don't have answers to all of them. It seems like the most important one, and the one I can't answer, is what to tell your friend. I mean, I don't think the system's broken, obviously. I don't think it's realistic, either.

I found the link to the discussion on stakes I mentioned earlier.

Linky

Thanks for the replies.