Conflicts

Conflicts are the bread and butter of the game. Mighty heroes taking up arms against terrible monsters, or a battle of wits against a tyrant.

A conflict scene is divided into rounds. During a round, each character gets a turn, in order of initiative.

Types of Conflicts

Escalation and Deescalation

Framing the Scene

Over the course of a conflict, the elements in play in the scene can play a part in how the conflict unfolds. In framing the scene, the GM determines

Scene Aspects

Like a character, a scene can have aspects. Characters can add and remove these scenes a they take appropriate actions.

Example Scene Aspects:

Example: Adding and Removing

Scene Difficulty

Rather than setting difficulties on a case-by-case basis, the GM can set a default difficulty for the scene. In normal circumstances, this is set at Mediocre. In extreme cases, it can go up to Good, or even Great.

Examples: difficult scenes

Zones

If the scene is taking place over a broad area, the GM also describes the zones the scene will be occurring in. Each zone is a loosely defined area where characters may directly interact with anyone else within that zone (which is a nice way to say talk to or punch them). Who is in what zone affects things like whether or not characters can attack each other or if they’ll need to throw things or use ranged weapons. At the outset, determining which zones characters start in should be reasonably intuitive, but if there is a question, the GM can rule on where the character starts.

When looking for a quick rule of thumb, remember that people in the same zone can touch each other, people one zone apart can throw things at each other, and people two or more zones apart can shoot arrows at each other. Any one given scene should not involve more than a handful of zones. Considering that bows and attack spells easily operate over three zones, sometimes a few more, a comfortable number would be around three to five zones – but don’t feel like you’re forced to cram in more zones than the scene needs.

Example: Zones

Initiative

The order of characters’ actions is determined at the beginning of the conflict, with characters acting from highest to lowest Alertness skill (for physical conflicts) or Empathy (for social conflicts). Ties in initiative are resolved in favor of characters with a higher Resolve. Any remaining ties are in favor of the player closest to the GM’s right. (Meaning that PCs beat NPCs.)

When a character is attached to a group of minions, use the character’s initiative. Otherwise the group of minions has initiative as indicated by the quality of the group.

Once that order is established, that is the order in which turns are taken for the duration of the scene. When the last person in a round has taken his turn, the round ends, and a new round begins with the first character acting again, and everyone else acting in the same order.

Minion Groups

Often characters are too unimportant to be treated as individuals. These faceless hordes are instead treated as a group that acts like one character. Determine Minion grouping when the scene begins. In some cases, a major character will attach himself to a group of minions, leading their actions. See the companion rules for more.

Actions

A round is enough time for each participant to do one interesting thing, and possibly some boring things as well. During your turn, your character can take one main action, and any number of minor or free actions. The main action should be the only one that requires a skill roll. Free actions are totally trivial things, like talking and looking around. Minor actions are things that fall in between, like drawing a weapon, moving one zone, or picking something up. Each minor action inflicts a -1 penalty on the main action. In some cases, extra shifts on your main action can be used to take more minor actions. The GM has the final say on how many minor actions you can take in a round.

Example: minor actions

Attack

An attack is an attempt to force the attacker’s agenda on a target, by attempting to injure them, by bullying them, or by some other means. An attack is rolled as a contest, with the attacking character (the attacker) attempting to beat the defending character (the defender) in a roll of skills.

In a physical conflict, this uses the Fighting, Archery, and sometimes Magic skills. In a social conflict, you can "attack" with your Rapport, Leadership, or Deceit.

An attempt to persuade or distract someone is also a sort of attack. When determining whether or not the attack rules apply, simply look for two characters in conflict, an agenda (or “want”) pushed by the acting character, and the target or obstacle to that agenda, the defending (or “responding”) character. The skills used to attack and defend depend on the nature of the attacker’s agenda.

If the attacker wins the roll, his shifts may be spent to inflict stress on the defender. If the defender wins, the attack fails. If the defender wins significantly, he may even earn spin, which he can use to his advantage.

Example: non-physical attacks

Maneuver

A maneuver is an attempt to change the situation in some way, affecting the environment or other people, but without damaging or forcing the target (if force is used or damage is dealt, it would be an attack). When a character tries to jump to grab a rope, throw dust in an enemy’s eyes, draw eyes upon himself in a ballroom, or take a debate down a tangential path – that’s a maneuver.

A maneuver is either a simple action or a contest, with the difficulty or opposition determined by the nature of the maneuver. A maneuver that doesn’t target an opponent is resolved as a simple action. Most simple maneuvers like this result in a character rolling against a GM-set difficulty and doing something with the resulting shifts. A maneuver can also target an opponent, and, if successful, place a temporary aspect on him. Either kind can also be used to place a temporary aspect upon a scene.

Example: maneuvers

Full Defend

A character can opt to do nothing but protect himself for an exchange. By foregoing his normal main and minor actions, he gains a +2 on all reactions and defenses for that exchange. Characters who are defending may declare it at the beginning of the exchange rather than waiting for their turn to come around. Similarly, if they have not acted in the exchange at the time when they are first attacked, they may declare a full defense at that point, again foregoing their normal action for the exchange.

Wait

A character can opt not to act when his turn comes around. A waiting character has the option of taking his turn any time later in the exchange. He must explicitly take his turn after someone else has finished their turn and before the next person begins. He cannot wait until someone declares what they’re trying to do, then interrupt them by taking his turn.

Block

When the character’s action is preventative – trying to keep something from happening, rather than taking direct action to make something happen – he is performing a block action. He declares what he’s trying to prevent and what skill he’s using to do it. Players may declare a block against any sort of action or actions and may theoretically use any skill, but unless the block is simple and clear, the GM may assess penalties based upon how hard it would be, or how much of a stretch it would be. Players should never be able to “cover all bases” with a single block.

A blocking character can declare that he is protecting another character. He makes this declaration on his turn, and rolls the skill he’s using to block; the result is the block strength. When, later that exchange, any enemy tries to attack the protected character, the protected character gets the benefit of both the blocker’s defense as well as his own, whichever is better. The attacker rolls his attack as normal. The defender rolls his defense as normal. If that defense roll is higher than the block strength, he uses the defense result; otherwise he uses the block strength. The attacker then generates shifts as normal.

For other types of blocks, the blocking character declares the block on his turn, and rolls the skill he’s using to block, subject to any penalties imposed by the GM. The result is the block strength. Later that exchange, every time another character tries to perform the blocked action, he enters into a contest with the blocker. The character trying to get past the block rolls the skill he’s using for the action (not a skill specifically appropriate to the block), and compares it to the block strength. If the attacker gets at least one shift, he successfully overcomes the block.

Example: blocks

Movement

Movement is one of the most common minor actions. When it is reasonably easy to move from one zone to the next, characters may move one zone as a minor action. If they wish to move further than that, they must perform a sprint action, a major action rolling Athletics. The difficulty is usually Mediocre, and the character can move a number of zones equal to the shifts generated.

Sometimes, it is more difficult to move from one zone to the next, such as when there is some sort of barrier (like a fence or some debris) or there is some other difficulty (like getting from a rooftop to the street below and vice versa). This movement complication is called a border. The numeric value of that border increases the penalty for a move action and subtracts shifts from a sprint action.

Stress and Consequences

A successful attack inflicts an amount of stress on its target equal to the number of shifts on the attack (the difference between the attacker’s effort, and the defender’s effort). Stress represents non-specific difficulties a character can encounter in a conflict.

In a fight, it’s bruising, minor cuts, fatigue, and the like. In a social conflict, it’s getting flustered or being put off one’s game. In a mental conflict, stress might mean losing focus or running in circles.

The type of stress that a character takes in a conflict should be appropriate to the type of conflict. Every character has two stress tracks. The first is the Health stress track, used for physical stress, such as wounds and fatigue. The second is the Composure stress track, representing the ability to keep it together in the face of social and mental injuries.

A character can only take so much stress before being unable to go on, represented by a stress track filling up. See character creation to determine how many boxes are in each stress track.

When stress is determined, the character should mark off that box on the appropriate stress track. For instance, if the character takes a three-point physical hit, he should mark off the third box on the Health stress track. If a given box is already checked, the hit rolls up to the next one.

If a 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, he can either take a consequence or be taken out.

Example: physical & mental stress

Consequences

Whenever your character takes stress, you can choose to take a temporary aspect called a consequence instead. Normally, the person taking the consequence gets to describe what it is, so long as it’s compatible with the nature of the attack that inflicted the harm. The GM acts as an arbitrator on the appropriateness of a consequence, so there may be some back and forth conversation before a consequence is settled on. The GM is the final authority on whether a player’s suggested consequence is reasonable for the circumstances and severity.

There are three degrees of consequences: mild, moderate, and severe. If you take a mild consequence, reduce the hit by two points, for a moderate, four points, and for a severe consequence, six points. A character can normally only endure one of each type, but there are stunts that allow a character to take more.

As long as the consequence is on your sheet, it may be compelled or tagged (or invoked!) like any other aspect. Even worse, the attacker gets a free tag against it.

Example: physical & mental consequences

Taken Out

Being taken out means the character decisively lost, and cannot act at all for the rest of the scene. The exact fate of the character is up to the GM. It's sometimes a good idea to simply be taken out, rather than deal with a nasty consequence.

Example: taken out

Recovery

Consequences will fade with time – characters heal, rumors die down, and distance brings perspective. How long this takes depends upon the severity of the consequence, which in turn depends upon how it was received.

Stress and mild consequences are removed any time the character has the opportunity to sit down and take a breather for a few minutes. These consequences will last until the end of the current scene, and will usually be removed after that. The only exception is if there is no break between scenes – if the character doesn’t get a chance to take five, the consequence will remain in place.

Moderate consequences require the character get a little more time and distance. A good night’s sleep or other extended period of rest and relaxation is required. Moderate consequences remain in place until the character has had the opportunity to take several hours (at least 6) of “downtime.” This may mean getting sleep in a comfortable bed, spending time with a charming member of the opposite sex, reading by the fire, or anything else of that ilk, so long as it’s appropriate to the consequence. An afternoon of hiking might be a great way to get past a Heartbreak consequence, but it’s not a great choice for a Bad Ankle.

Severe consequences require substantial downtime, measured in days or weeks. Generally this means that such a consequence will linger for the duration of a session, but will be cleared up before the next adventure begins.

If the character is in back-to-back sessions where no in-game time passes between them, such as in a multi-part adventure, he gets a break – any consequences he begins the session with are treated as one level lower for how quickly they’re removed.

Some Stunts can reduce recovery time.

More on Maneuvers

There are three types of maneuvers – uncontested maneuvers (without an opponent), scene-altering maneuvers, and maneuvers that target another character.

If the maneuver is uncontested – for instance, the character is trying to grab an idol or swing from a rope – it is a simple action, resolved just like any other simple action. The GM sets a difficulty, and the character rolls his skill and applies the resulting shifts as normal.

This type of maneuver can alter the scene in some way. How hard this is to do can range from trivial (knocking over a candle in a hay loft to add an “On Fire!” aspect to the scene) to virtually impossible (flapping one’s arms very hard to try to remove the “Foggy” aspect from a scene .) Whatever the result, the GM can decide whether or not the change the character makes merits adding or removing an aspect to the scene.

If the target is another character, the maneuvering character and the target make opposed rolls, using whatever skills the GM deems appropriate. Success is usually achieved if the maneuvering character generates at least one shift. A successful maneuver may add a temporary aspect to the targeted character. The target can either accept the temporary aspect, or spend a fate point to avoid accepting it. An aspect that results from a maneuver is temporary and does not last very long – we’ll get to the duration in a moment. The temporary aspect may then be tagged for a bonus on a subsequent roll. Since this aspect was created, it merits one free tag.

If a character is simply trying to increase the difficulty of another target’s action, this is considered a block action, and should be resolved as such.

Maneuvers can also have effects other than changing aspects, as determined by the GM. Some examples of these kinds of maneuvers are given later in this chapter.

Temporary Aspects

Temporary aspects can be either fragile or sticky. A fragile aspect always goes away the first time it is tagged, and can be lost without having been used. A sticky aspect usually requires another maneuver to remove the aspect.

• Blind
• Disarm
• Push
• Throw
• Mark
• Stun
• Demoralize
• Feint
• Trip

Overflow & Spin

Sometimes a good roll gives you more shifts than you can use. With three or more shifts, a character generates overflow. This means some sort of side effect happens, similar to the results of a maneuver. The exact effect is determined by the GM.

When this happens on a defense roll, it's called spin. In this case, the benefit is always the same: the character gets a spin token, which can be spent to grant any ally a +1 defense.