Quote from: CRKrueger;754335You can have risks obviously that aren't lethal, but if death is off the table, or so rare that it might as well be due to mechanics, then there is no risk at all, because who cares?  Any situation is temporary, and can be dealt with later (like the hero who loses his wife in Season Two gets a new girlfriend in Season Three).  Yeah it sucked ass at the time, but oh the story arc!

Experiences differ on this one.

I have seen players who would shrug off the killing of their character's spouse because it is temporary as you say - but I've also seen many players who are able to shrug off the death of a PC. Their PC gets killed, they get a good death scene in, and then they happily roll up a new PC. I've been in plenty of casual beer-and-pretzels gaming where this is a positive thing - everyone enjoys a good characters death. I've also had some high-lethality Call of Cthulhu campaigns where it was considered a problem.

You can try making new characters start at 1st level / 0 XP to make players care more about their characters - but what that is really doing is encouraging them to care about stats and bonuses, and it doesn't always work. In casual gaming, plenty of players were knocked back down to 1st level, and they were happy to play the fresh-faced newcomer in the crowd.

Conversely, I've played in a number of low-lethality games (mainly superheroes and certain Amber games) where the players cared a lot about what happened to NPCs and the world situation, and got very invested in that - moreso than their character's lives in the Call of Cthulhu campaign, for example.

TL;DR - Some players may only care about their PCs lives, but some don't, and some care more about other things.

Yeah but to a player who doesn't care about PC death, then who cares about them?  Seriously, I can't make someone care, and sometimes, as in Paranoia, that's the fun of it.

However, show me a player who cares very much about non-death risks for their player, you're not about to try and tell me that they wouldn't care more about the death of the character itself (unless of course, it's something the character would die for, like protecting a loved one).  In which case, again, no death robs them of the catharsis.

In any case, if a player cares about the character, getting to play the character itself or not is the ultimate risk.

So it's not that there's different experiences, as much as different types of players or games you're attempting to conflate with different opinions toward risks.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754429No it wont, not if you only take the 1 in 5000 chance risks 20 times over the course of a campaign. It will not always kill you. It isn't inevitable unless you are performing the risk regularly enough for the odds to catch up with you.

I believe I covered this in my caveats. In short, I agree, but there's a tension between "risky enough to register as a risk" and the compounded risk over multiple acts of derring-do. Conversely one could argue that a 90% chance of death per incident also doesn't guarantee a dead PC after a finite # of incidents.

Ultimately as I said there are a number of variables to consider; there's more than one way to meet a certain tolerance for PC death/turnover even with a fixed level of BTB lethality.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754470Yeah but to a player who doesn't care about PC death, then who cares about them?  Seriously, I can't make someone care, and sometimes, as in Paranoia, that's the fun of it.

However, show me a player who cares very much about non-death risks for their player, you're not about to try and tell me that they wouldn't care more about the death of the character itself (unless of course, it's something the character would die for, like protecting a loved one).  In which case, again, no death robs them of the catharsis.

In any case, if a player cares about the character, getting to play the character itself or not is the ultimate risk.

So it's not that there's different experiences, as much as different types of players or games you're attempting to conflate with different opinions toward risks.

I'm not sure how we're disagreeing on this. When I said that experiences differ, what I meant was that different people have experienced different types of players and games.

My main point was:

1)  There are some high lethality games where players don't particular care about PCs dying - like Paranoia as you say, or plenty of other beer-and-pretzels games.

2) There are some zero-lethality games where the players do care about consequences instead of shrugging everything off as temporary like you described in your post. In most cases, I'd agree that they also care about their PCs lives - but that doesn't mean that the threat of PC death will make the game better for them. (It may or may not "rob them of catharsis" - I'm not sure what that means.)

Quote from: Arminius;754520I believe I covered this in my caveats. In short, I agree, but there's a tension between "risky enough to register as a risk" and the compounded risk over multiple acts of derring-do. Conversely one could argue that a 90% chance of death per incident also doesn't guarantee a dead PC after a finite # of incidents.

One could argue that but there is a clear difference between those two probabilities. Dying 9 times out of every ten versus once in every five thousand are much different stakes. If I go in for elective surgery and the doctor tells me there is a 90% chance it will kill me, I am getting the heck out of there. Bnt a 1 in 5000 is much more palatable if the surgery is important enough to me. My basic point was the argument that "it is inevitable because you gave it a chance of happening" doesn't hold out for everything. It matters what the probability itself is and how often it comes up in game, the specifics of a given campaign and whether the PCs can avoid it or not. I just see it used way too often in discussions about whether anything in the game should have even a small chance to kill a PC.

I think in terms of there being tension, i would agree, and that is why you try to find the sweet spot for the needs of the game you are making. But if it is truly risky enough to register as a risk, the group kind of needs to accept PC death as a possibliity. Or at the very least that players who want their characters to survive will need to be a bit prudent and not leap over every flaming chasm that presents itself. That isnt a bad thing. I mean the threat of death in a game can really enhance play but it also can lead to interesting solutions or developments. There are a few ways to approach a more lethal game. On the one hand you accept it and take the risks anyways, enjoying the challenge of surviving, on the other things can get much more down to earth, and the players might approach the risks a bit more like we do in real life.

Since we are launching this off of The Butcher's original post, i am curious what his interests are here and how substantial a threat he wants character death to impose (are you okay with 1-2 pcs dying per adventure for example, even if that number isn't a certainty).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754611Since we are launching this off of The Butcher's original post, i am curious what his interests are here and how substantial a threat he wants character death to impose (are you okay with 1-2 pcs dying per adventure for example, even if that number isn't a certainty).

There is no numerical answer to your question that I can think of.

I want jumping over a cliff, or charging a gunman unarmed, or being ambushed by Thuggees with garrotes in their hands and murder in their eyes, to be dangerous enough for PCs to consider alternatives and only take the more dangerous route because (a) there's no timely alternative available or (b) because they're fucking crazy and they live for this shit.

I am unconcerned with the means employed to achieve the desired end-result: a world that feels close enough to our world that "danger" and "peril" and "defying death" have actual meaning, instead of being hollow buzzwords in a world that behaves like a hip webcomic or a Saturday morning cartoon, that (to use Black Vulmea's words) enshrines the genre as parody.

If I had to guess at an optimal number, I suppose I'd be satisfied with actual risk of death (put it in the order of 20% or higher) popping up once or twice a session for at least two players. But I'm not railroading players into very dangerous situations to achieve some contrived "danger quota". Unless they're at a loss as to how to proceed, in which case my response is a gang of thugs kicking down the door, guns blazing.

Quote from: Arminius;754327No major disagreement, but I think the chunky salsa rule is also an exaggeration

I don't see it that way at all.  It's saying that there are circumstances where you don't even bother rolling the dice.  If you're captured and put under a guillotine, YOU DIE.  No dice involved, no rolling damage, etc.

Quote from: Arminius;754327There are gradations of mood even before you get to conscious parody and beyond. It's reasonable to complain if pop trends push your favorite genre into a narrow niche that's fairly removed from the original center of gravity.

Absolutely.  And pulp doesn't have to equal "gonzo pulp".

Quote from: Arminius;754327As far as risk and tactics, I think one thing I may not have made clear is even in theory, the ability to avoid personal risk through sound tactics doesn't mean that personal risk will disappear.

Again, I don't see any real risk if the result in reality is that there is nobody dying.

The difference is that if there is literally zero chance of death, you have idiocy like charging machine gun nests.  Which I think we can all agree is not a desired outcome (at least outside of a supers game).

Quote from: Arminius;754327--If you take a blow, you can trade off the damage by having your girlfriend break up with you when you get home, or whatever, or

Where the hell does this keep coming from?  I'm assuming this is a slight at Fate, but Fate doesn't work that way unless you're deliberately coming up with a strawman version of how consequences work.

Quote from: Arminius;754327--The stakes of a given conflict are always resolved, but PC death isn't an option. Sure, you can have an ultra-tactical fight to ward off the hired guns trying to run Uncle Fred off his farmland, but if you "lose", you're only left for dead, or forced to retreat, etc.

I don't think anyone here is arguing in favor of "PC death can never happen no matter what", so I don't know why this keeps getting brought up.

Quote from: Arminius;754327In conclusion, grittiness and lethality may not depend on a particular mortality rate, but they do require that risk of death be a real factor for the PCs to consider.

What I'm hearing here is "nobody dies in our games, but they're still deadly, damnit!"  Which, frankly, I don't understand.  It's like a bunch of NHL players playing a high school team and arguing it's a challenge because if they all sat on their butts instead of skating the other team *could possibly* win.

The one thing I can see for that is that it prevents obviously stupid behavior.  But frankly, "don't do dumb things and you'll live" isn't really that interesting to me.  I like having actual risks.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754335You can have risks obviously that aren't lethal, but if death is off the table, or so rare that it might as well be due to mechanics

And this is my experience in *most games*.  And if you look at the "how many have you lost" thread, it seems to be the overall experience in *most games*.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754335Any situation is temporary, and can be dealt with later (like the hero who loses his wife in Season Two gets a new girlfriend in Season Three).  Yeah it sucked ass at the time, but oh the story arc!

Regardless of the game being played (D&D, GURPS, TFT, whatever), most of the players I've played with actually do care about stuff that happens to their characters and the world.

And, gee, who says that non-death consequences have to be temporary?

Quote from: S'mon;754342@robiswrong - "good tactics work" is a really bad definition of "railroading", and makes me wonder if you've encountered actual railroading  ("the PCs will now be captured"/"if they leave the path, hit them with draconians until they turn back"), or even typical linear adventure design ("the PCs must find clue X to get to place Y for the adventure to continue").

I generally define railroading as lack of agency.  If there are certain things that will work, and those work every time, and other things don't work, eventually the game can devolve into simply exercising those known good options.  Meaningful choice is removed.

Maybe 'railroading' isn't the most accurate term there, but the lack of actual meaningful decisions is the issue I see.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754356No jackass, I'm saying charging a machine gun nest head on is going to probably end in your death due to the lack of things like cover, visibility, multiple angles of attack etc that will make it hard for them to shoot you.

And who, exactly, is arguing against this?

Quote from: Arminius;754378Or to avoid getting hung up on that one term, I was suggesting that The Butcher's complaint about "pulp" being misunderstood is valid even if there's little difference in the actual death rate between Butcher-approved "real pulp" and gonzo neo-pulp. I'm saying you have to look at the quality of play, not just the rules and the outcome.

And that I'll agree with - rules that allow/permit gonzo play will result in a vastly different play experience.  It seems at that point that the real issue isn't the actual lethality of the game, but rather the tone that comes about as a result.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754436I mean it may be helpful if I am making a gun for a gritty and lethal game to know that it has a x % chance of killing at point blank in a single shot in the hands of an average character.

Depending on how you define 'gritty' - I define it more as being about *pain* than death.  You may come out of the fight - but you'll probably be injured/scarred/whatever.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754436And in some games that means characters will die on occassion. But that is totally fine. While I will happily play games that are less lethal, I really do get a huge thrill playing games with a higher body count. It creates a "shit just got real" vibe.

Sure, it can.  What I find important is actual *risk*.  The PCs have to *lose* on occasion, and it has to mean something.  Character death is the easiest way to do this, of course, but it's not the only.

Quote from: CRKrueger;754470Yeah but to a player who doesn't care about PC death, then who cares about them?  Seriously, I can't make someone care, and sometimes, as in Paranoia, that's the fun of it.

Do I really need to quote that block of text from Eric Wujick again?

Quote from: CRKrueger;754470However, show me a player who cares very much about non-death risks for their player, you're not about to try and tell me that they wouldn't care more about the death of the character itself

Death of a PC hurts, but it's done and over and you roll up a PC and move on.  Other stuff I can drag out.

And it's a matter of how likely the 'bad stuff' is to occur.  I like games where the PCs 'lose' on a *regular basis*.  I'm not a fan of the endless series of victories that I so often see.  If losing always equals death, then it's a meatgrinder campaign, and I know very few players who are interested in losing characters every other session.

And let me restate this again, because something seems to be getting lost:

I am not against character death.  I am not advocating having PCs never die.  I am advocating having something at risk all the time, and not having a series of neverending victories.  I am advocating non-death risks IN ADDITION to the risk of character death, not INSTEAD OF.

I *want* characters in games to hurt and to suffer.  How the fuck can the highs have any meanings without the lows?

Quote from: CRKrueger;754470In any case, if a player cares about the character, getting to play the character itself or not is the ultimate risk.

Why?  You can always roll up another character, and in some games you might have a few characters by default.  I mean, of course nobody likes losing characters, but why is it the "ultimate risk"?  Because you might lose your shiny levels and shiny gears and powers and all the stuff you've "earned"?

On the other hand, things may happen in the game world that impact the campaign as a whole, and all characters.  Why is that considered a lesser risk?  If I'm playing Forgotten Realms, is the destruction of Waterdeep a lesser risk, really, than the death of a single character?

I mean, isn't that a big part of roleplaying?  Having your character's actions have an impact on the setting?

I mean, seriously.  If I was playing in Forgotten Realms, I think that having a character die would be less of a blow than having that character be responsible for the destruction of Waterdeep, kicked out of any organizations he belonged to, and hunted as a traitor.  Yeah, the character death probably sucks more at the moment, but you deal with it, make a new character, and keep playing.  The other stuff I'm dealing with for a very, very long time.

Quote from: The Butcher;754642But I'm not railroading players into very dangerous situations to achieve some contrived "danger quota".

Good, because I'm pretty sure nobody is advocating for that.

I'm not sure the meme of "you can avoid dying if your girlfriend dumps you" comes directly from FATE. I think it may be from With Great Power, or maybe Truth and Justice.

I don't know any of the three particularly well, so if someone could help out...

Quote from: Arminius;754833I'm not sure the meme of "you can avoid dying if your girlfriend dumps you" comes directly from FATE. I think it may be from With Great Power, or maybe Truth and Justice.

I don't know any of the three particularly well, so if someone could help out...

I know FATE and Truth & Justice pretty well, and have played With Great Power but don't remember it particularly well.  I don't think that as phrased this fits any of them. The closest I can think is:

Truth & Justice does have an abstract damage mechanic and freeform stats, so as you are damaged you can lose points off a "Piano Playing" trait or I suppose a "Loves Girlfriend" trait since traits can be anything. (Also, the first damaged trait you take always generates a story hook - bringing your less actively used traits into play.) However, you never have the choice of this or dying. In order to be taken out, you need all your traits to be taken to zero.

FATE would potentially allow you to get a Fate Point if the GM had your girlfriend dump you as a Compel - and that Fate Point could later be used to avoid damage. That seems like a stretch, though.

Thanks; that T&J description may be what I was thinking of.

That could be.

I kind of assumed SotC due to the OP and the focus on pulp, while I'm guessing that those games are more aimed at supers.

Also, "I got hit!  Instead of getting hurt, I'll lose my girlfriend!" sounds a lot like either a misinterpretation or a strawman version of Consequences (take stress, take a consequence to avoid getting taken out) - missing the part that the consequence is supposed to actually fit with what the hell is happening (getting hit in the nose would more likely yield a Broken Nose consequence).

Of course, the funny thing is that The Butcher's explanation of what he likes in games...

Quote from: The Butcher;750127I like conflicts to escalate and spiral out of control as men and women frantically grasp at the last straws and the Fates weave their tangled thread, Atropos ever with scissor in hand. Glad if something else works for you, doesn't work for me.

This perfectly describes the Fate games I'm running, and is exactly what I like in gaming.  (Not saying that Fate/etc. is the only way to get that, of course).

I was deliberately hyperbolic in the OP. The game described therein does not exist, being a patchwork of several abstract and forgiving game mechanics of the sort that really, really turn me off. But if it did, I'm 100% sure it would be an instant RPGnet darling.

My opposition to the "pulp can't be gritty" or more specifically to the "pulp PCs must have 'plot immunity' reflected in the mechanics somehow or it's Not A Real Pulp Game" is sincere, though. It's particularly rankling because it is borne of a narrow and borderline parodical reading of the "pulp men's adventure" genre (one of many under the medium of pulp, but the one that tends to get saddled with the "pulp genre" label in RPG-speak).

I feel like I've been repeating myself over the last few posts and I think we've pretty much reached a point where we'd best agree to disagree.

But this piqued my interest:

Quote from: robiswrong;754874Of course, the funny thing is that The Butcher's explanation of what he likes in games...

This perfectly describes the Fate games I'm running, and is exactly what I like in gaming.  (Not saying that Fate/etc. is the only way to get that, of course).

I found FATE 3.0, at least as presented in SBA, a horribly written and abstruse RPG. Seriously, Savage Worlds (the horrible original version with the super annoying Smiling Jack sidebars) is a paragon of clarity and objectivity next to it. I had to read the Diaspora SRD before I could make sense of half of what the rulebook was going on about.

So let me get this straight. If you have the option of walking out of a conflict with a Concession, or avoiding damage by taking Consequences, how can you possibly die against your will? Sounds pretty damn hard, especially when you consider that getting Taken Out won't necessarily mean death (and just when Taken Out = dead strikes me as another potential source of game table drama).

I feel PCs have far too much control over the terms of a conflict in FATE. Certainly far more so than in the real world, and that's enough to turn me off. But I could, conceivably, be reading the rules all wrong because SBA is a very badly written game.

Quote from: The Butcher;754642There is no numerical answer to your question that I can think of.

I want jumping over a cliff, or charging a gunman unarmed, or being ambushed by Thuggees with garrotes in their hands and murder in their eyes, to be dangerous enough for PCs to consider alternatives and only take the more dangerous route because (a) there's no timely alternative available or (b) because they're fucking crazy and they live for this shit.

Seems fair

QuoteI am unconcerned with the means employed to achieve the desired end-result: a world that feels close enough to our world that "danger" and "peril" and "defying death" have actual meaning, instead of being hollow buzzwords in a world that behaves like a hip webcomic or a Saturday morning cartoon, that (to use Black Vulmea's words) enshrines the genre as parody.

I think this is really important and I largely agree. I will qualify it by saying I am also a fan of games that emulate genre physics and do include things like buffering PCs from harm, but it feels like a lot of people today have trouble grasping that some of us do want (at least for certain games) things to feel closer to the real world than to a movie or comic book in terms of the bodily threat some risks impose. And we are not always looking to have our games reflect "the source material". I enountered this a lot with Terror Network, when all I was looking to do was make and play a game where I could be an FBI agent in a real world terrorism investigation. But people kept writing to me asking what movies or shows their adventures should be patterned after, and how  i envisioned them sturcturing adventures.

QuoteIf I had to guess at an optimal number, I suppose I'd be satisfied with actual risk of death (put it in the order of 20% or higher) popping up once or twice a session for at least two players. But I'm not railroading players into very dangerous situations to achieve some contrived "danger quota". Unless they're at a loss as to how to proceed, in which case my response is a gang of thugs kicking down the door, guns blazing.

The not railroading them is a key bit here and something I think a lot of folks miss in these discussions. If the adventure is a series of set pieces the players have to pass through, and every adventure one of those set pieces has something like a 20% chance of killing one or two players, that is quite different from a scenario where stuff like that might crop up, but players candecide to be cautious and take the long way around.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923My opposition to the "pulp can't be gritty" or more specifically to the "pulp PCs must have 'plot immunity' reflected in the mechanics somehow or it's Not A Real Pulp Game" is sincere, though. It's particularly rankling because it is borne of a narrow and borderline parodical reading of the "pulp men's adventure" genre (one of many under the medium of pulp, but the one that tends to get saddled with the "pulp genre" label in RPG-speak).

And I totally agree with that.  By that definition, CoC ain't pulp, and well, that seems utterly bizarre.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923But this piqued my interest:

Cool.  The fact that you didn't just shut down and go "nuh uh, you're lying because that's not the experience I had!" is pretty damn nice, and I'm glad to be able to discuss it with you, and possibly figure out where the difference in perception is.  No snark

Quote from: The Butcher;754923I found FATE 3.0, at least as presented in SBA, a horribly written and abstruse RPG. Seriously, Savage Worlds (the horrible original version with the super annoying Smiling Jack sidebars) is a paragon of clarity and objectivity next to it. I had to read the Diaspora SRD before I could make sense of half of what the rulebook was going on about.

My view of Fate comes primarily from Fate Core and the other Evil Hat products.  I have no real insight into other implementations of the system.

I'll also be the first to admit that Fate can be very hard for new players to grasp, especially those with a more traditional background.  That's not being condescending - it was tough for *me* to grasp, coming from a traditional background (interestingly, GURPS players, and GURPS was my system of choice for *years*, seem to have a harder time than most other players).

Quote from: The Butcher;754923So let me get this straight. If you have the option of walking out of a conflict with a Concession

So, we'll start with Concessions, and please, excuse me if I get pedantic.  I'm not trying to talk down here, I'm just trying to be super precise about stuff so there's less room for misinterpretation.  

You're in a fight, right?  Presumably, you're fighting for a reason, right?  Since most people don't want to die, and not fighting is usually a reasonable way of achieving that, there's some reason you're fighting instead of high-tailing it.  That's all that "stakes" means.  It's not some big drawn out legal discussion thing, it's usually "the guards don't want to let you in!" "well, we're going in anyway!" kind of thing.  It's almost always very implicit (social conflicts can be a bit more explicit, but physical ones are pretty obvious).

So, if there's guards preventing you from going where you want, we get into a Conflict.  Which means we fight until one side either Concedes (retreats) or is Taken Out (defeated).  So if the guards start kicking your butt, you can Concede, which represents you running off with your tail between your legs - something that could happen in any system.

Here's the catch, though - your Concession *cannot* invalidate the other party's goals.  That's what Conceding means - they win.  They get what they wanted, and you get some say in *how* you fail.

So in the case where the other party's goal *really is* "kill the bastards", you really can't Concede.

The other point is the timing of a Concession.  You can Concede any time - until dice are rolled.  So at every point, it's a gamble - are you willing to try and stay in this fight, and risk getting Taken Out?  Or are you going to give up and let them get what they want?  But once the dice are on the table, no takebacks.  So, sure, you can Concede just about every fight - much like you can retreat in just about every fight in a more traditional game.  If you retreat from every fight in D&D when you hit half hit points, you're not going to be very likely to die.

Since Fate very much advises against 'linear adventure paths', and making sure that things matter, retreating from every fight at the first sign of adversity is likely to let your enemies get further and further ahead, making your situation more and more dire.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923, or avoiding damage by taking Consequences,

If there's "damage" in Fate, it's in the form of Consequences, not stress. Stress clears up after the conflict is over.  Consequences stick around.  Taking a Consequence is *worse* in all ways than taking stress.  At the very minimum, it gives a free invoke on the Consequence, meaning you've gotten away with a little this turn, but that bonus is going to make your next turns suck.

(Note:  I only say "if there's damage" because Consequences aren't *limited* to physical damage.  Going temporarily crazy?  Consequence.  Headache from using too much magic?  Consequence.  But almost all physical injury of any lasting import will be modeled as a Consequence.  Consequences are really "the bad shit that happened (to you, personally) as a result of what happened that's gonna stick with you for a while").

Minor consequences aren't a huge deal, but a moderate (or is it major?  I forget) consequence?  That lasts until the next session, at least.  And severe ones will last for several sessions, and extreme consequences permanently alter your character.  They're usually used for things like having your hand burned into cinders (the actual original inspiration was that very thing happening to Dresden), or losing a limb, etc.

But let's say you take the Consequence "Broken Leg" from taking a big hit.  That would probably be severe.  Great.  You've now got a broken leg.  So for the next several sessions, you're dealing with that.  It's an Aspect, which means all of the usual aspect stuff gets associated with it, in addition to it being a target for hostile invocations.

Going to climb a ladder?  Really?  With a broken leg?  I don't think so.  Running around and dodging?  That's gonna be tougher.  Let's throw some passive opposition your way.  Damn, broken legs suck, huh?  Especially in comparison with taking stress, which would go away at the end of the fight.  They're even worse (IMHO) than hit points, which have no additional mechanical impact, and are generally easy to replenish.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923how can you possibly die against your will?

You die because you say "Fuck, no, I'm not backing down.  This is worth it" and then shit doesn't go your way.  Just like damn near every system.  Hell, I think there was a thread here a few months ago about TPKs and how they're a result of people *not retreating*.  Same thing.

I mean, seriously, in D&D, you don't get one-shot killed, right?  What happens is you choose to stick in the fight even as your cleric runs out of healing spells, or you run dangerously into the middle of the bad guys and get swarmed.  If you had retreated before then, you'd probably live.  That's what conceding really is - retreating.  Giving up.  Letting the bad guys have what they want (provided that "what they want" isn't "your head on a plate").

And seriously, the GMing advice for Fate is usually "go hard on your players.  Make them hurt."  It's not "make a fair fight that they'll likely win, but is close enough that they'll feel like they were in danger".

Quote from: The Butcher;754923Sounds pretty damn hard, especially when you consider that getting Taken Out won't necessarily mean death (and just when Taken Out = dead strikes me as another potential source of game table drama).

"Yeah, these guys attacking you?  They've got some serious bloodlust in their eyes.  They don't look like they're going to be satisfied with just beating you."

"The guards look professional - the type of guys that go for the killshots every time."

At this point, players should consider themselves warned.

I mean, I'll admit, Fate's not a game predicated on lethal brutality and one-shot kills (neither are most games, really).  But it also gives a lot of tools and places a lot of emphasis on things actually going wrong for players, and them not just winning all the damn time.  And those losses should mean something - the bad guys get closer to their goal, bad things happen, the shit pile that characters are in gets deeper.  And those types of things should be on the table *all of the time*, and be real risks *in every conflict*.  Death is extra gravy when necessary.

But, really, if I said the above to my players, and they bitched about Taken Out = dead, I'd have very little sympathy.

Quote from: The Butcher;754923I feel PCs have far too much control over the terms of a conflict in FATE. Certainly far more so than in the real world, and that's enough to turn me off. But I could, conceivably, be reading the rules all wrong because SBA is a very badly written game.

How it works in practice often isn't immediately obvious, especially reading it with a more traditional mindset.  I don't really know about how SBA presents the rules - it's certainly possible that their presentation doesn't help things.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;754358This is a very important distinction and it is important I think for those at the table to be aware which WWII they are in. I had a player who used to ask questions like "Is this hollywood Rome or real Rome?"

"Am I Ray Stevenson or Tony Curtis?"