[In A Wicked Age] IIEE A Little Unclear
lumpley:
Yes! Exactly.
If you want to do the former, don't make the network of spies a particular strength, make it some NPCs.
However, still, "I assassinate the king" and "I force my victim to eat human flesh" are desired outcomes, not actions. "Through my network of spies, I put poison in the king's food" is an action. "I possess my victim" is an action. Establishing your action allows us to negotiate outcomes, with you having both mechanical power (in the form of the exhaust/injure stick) and narrative power (in the form of poison in the king's food and possession of your victim's body).
However, if I would rather be exhausted resisting your control of me than eat human flesh, you don't have the power to force me; you have to settle for exhausting me. That's on page 18, under "Negotiating as the loser."
-Vincent
lumpley:
"Settle for exhausting me" - I left something out. It's this: you can settle for exhausting me, or you can say, "look V, I know you'd rather be exhausted, but it's my call. Eat the flesh or I injure you." And then maybe I'm like, "crap dude, okay, I eat the flesh." Or maybe I'm like, "whatever, injure me then," and you have to settle for that.
-Vincent
Valvorik:
Very helpful discussion. I understand this then to mean:
(1) I was wrong to suggest there can be a declared action "I make you look a fool in front of your beloved." as that's a stake, an effect. There is "I get you drunk in front of her", "I trip you in front of her", etc. and "look a fool" is a negotiated outcome I then might get if I win and you prefer that Effect to losing dice via Exhaustion or Injury.
(2) In IIEE terms, a player declares what action they are trying to Execute, rolls dice to determine details of how that goes, and who wins the right to determine the Effect of that action including the specific fate of its Execution (which could be blocked).
(3) Actions that are fatal on their face (decapitate you) are themselves often scaled back even if the player wins. The rules themselves often block the literal success of such actions unless they are voluntarily accepted by a loser in negotiation. Winning conflict to decapitate someone doesn't mean the other character is dead (they only die if they accept that in negotiation or if 2 dice go to zero and death rather than "being out" fits, for example they are not on owe list and the dice went to zero as a result of an action that could logically be fatal). This is the only "forced scaling back" I can see in the game, otherwise an action that is won is executed successfully barring negotiation.
(4) When negotiation fails, narrative authority is with loser who after losing to "decapitated" can narrate "scarred and left for dead" or something that admits "as much of the successful action as possible". In "admitting" they are the one authoring.
Valvorik:
sorry for the added post, can't edit,
3b - Mostly a style thing for a group, but if you prefer to avoid retroactive revisions forced by rule if I'm reading it right, it's better say "I burn him" than "I burn him to ashes", "My elephant tramples him" than "[that] + pulverizing him to pulp", "I deal him a vicious blow" than "[that] + that cuts off his head".
lumpley:
1. Yep.
2. Yep.
3. Basically.
3a. Basically.
4. Nope. The winner and the loser are responsible together for deciding what happens, and then narrative authority falls upon whoever happens to describe it - could be either, could be the GM, could be anybody.
About (3): personally, I don't experience "I totally chop your head off and throw your corpse in the ditch and pee on it, you jerk! Ha! Doubled! You are injured!" as including any kind of backward revision. The part about the corpse, the ditch, the pee, that stuff was always an expression of enthusiasm, not of action, exactly the same as "you jerk" was. "Chop" was the only word I really meant and committed to. But that's me.
In other words, yes, a group style thing.
-Vincent
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