Fate SRD

Apr 08, 2014 So I’ve been thinking about Consequenc...

- April 08, 2014 at 4:48 PM -0400 - Updated: April 08, 2014 at 4:48 PM -0400
So, I've been thinking about Consequences, and specifically about how they don't interact with the system outside of Conflicts.

And the question I have to ask is... why not?  Would it hurt things to make Consequences a generally available mechanism on rolls?  IOW, for any roll, you may take a Consequence, and gain its value as a bonus to a roll.

This would neatly supplant the "success at a minor cost" option in many cases, and would be a useful option for "success at a major cost", in addition to more narrative options.

I'm not really seeing any negatives to this, but that is likely due to my lack of insight more than anything else.
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- April 08, 2014 at 4:51 PM -0400
That's sort of already in there, as taking a consequence is one of the costs if you succeed at a major cost. Of course, that's slightly better than getting a bonus from the consequence.
- April 08, 2014 at 4:55 PM -0400
Sure, this just kind of codifies it a bit more, and suggests just how much of a Consequence you'd need to take.

How it intersects with SWS is a different question.  It also opens up a few things - on an attack, you could choose to burn a Major Consequence and declare "yeah, I allow his counter to hit me as I sacrifice my body to land the killing blow."  Which seems like an awfully common fiction-type thing to happen.

Just kind of thinking it through, I'm not even sold on it being a super-awesome idea yet.
- April 08, 2014 at 5:34 PM -0400 - Updated: April 08, 2014 at 5:35 PM -0400
I really like that idea. I may steal it for...a project, yeah.

Actually if you use that rule in combat it would alter things a bit...I mean they get hit an a consequence normally mitigates stress. Now using this a consequence could change failure into success...
- April 08, 2014 at 5:43 PM -0400 - Updated: April 08, 2014 at 5:45 PM -0400
Isn't it part of the fractal? Kind of?

Let's take my favorite example, the thief and the lock, and look at it from the locks point of view. If you only have an overcome action from the thief, the lock only sees the thief as a "one aspect, one skill" opposition. If you enter a challenge against the lock, the lock sees more of the thief, a few aspects, a few skills, maybe a stunt. Lastly, in a conflict, the lock sees the thief as the full character, aspects, skills, stunts, consequences.

So not having consequences in situations other than conflicts makes sense to me. The scene isn't too important, so I won't treat it as a full blown conflict, and this lesser importance of the scene sort of acts as plot armor for the character.


That being said, using them outside of conflicts will probably work just as well, though it will also make the heroes seem more vulnerable.
- April 08, 2014 at 5:51 PM -0400
I used that to model paradox backlash for my Mage hack and it worked pretty well, we thought.
- April 08, 2014 at 6:27 PM -0400 - Updated: April 08, 2014 at 6:27 PM -0400
The "take a Consequence and get a bonus to a roll" thing from the OP is already in the Toolkit on page 60.

Extreme Effort. 
- April 08, 2014 at 6:31 PM -0400
Kinda seems like to can use consequences anywhere In the system as they are aspects. And there's no reason why an overcome couldn't cause stress to the person for example a half giant forcing open a portcullis could still take stress equal to a certain amount of shifts below the target. isn't something like that in the rules already?
- April 08, 2014 at 6:34 PM -0400
Well, thanks +Aaron Schwarz.  I guess it wasn't as dumb of an idea as I thought.

The downside is that it also was nowhere as unique of an idea as I thought.  C'est la guerre!