And, yes, I'll say that most of the time "I want to kill you" isn't the primary goal, and there's ways of setting up conflicts that aren't about that.  But sometimes, it is - you make it to the baddie's inner sanctum with murder on your mind.  I'm specifically talking about the latter situation.

"I want to kill you" allows the concession "I totally believe I killed you" because, narratively, that's exactly the same in-character-POV.

"Kill Them All" has to be a valid conflict goal because it's all too frequently the bad guy's order to his horde.  But it has to be understood that it's "Do What Is In Your Power To See Them As Killed" more than it's actually "Kill Them".  Because your goal shouldn't be able to reach into the meta quite that way.

"Find The Clue" means "find something that serves as a clue, even if misleading".  "Cross The Bridge" means cross the bridge as far as you can, which might not get you across if the bridge is actually severed part-way.

Sometimes you might win the conflict and still not get what you want because what you want isn't narratively possible by the end of the conflict.

Yeah, clearly if the bridge burned down in the Conflict, you can't cross the bridge.

What would you feel about a GM that said, "I will never, ever allow the 'what you want' to be 'I just want this NPC dead'"?

You don't have to accept a concession that includes "but I'm really not dead"...  So I think you can go into a scene with murder on your mind and quite possibly achieve it even if the bad guy concedes.

Of course, I'm enough of a moralist to say it won't go well for you afterwards...

His concession is "But I want to place an enduring Haunted By Guilt aspect onto my killer." seems rather hard to say no to...

Also, FWIW, I don't know that I'd personally allow a Concession if the other side's goal is "kill them all".  However, you could certain change the scene into a Contest as you try to run away.

edit:  A concession of "haunted by guilt"?  Yeah, I'd buy that.

A Concession is a plot decision, not an opponent decision. The NPC may want bloody murder, as might the PCs. A Concession safeguards the potential for more plot exploration along a given path, and shouldn't be treated as a surrender between characters: indeed, a Concession may be equally bad for all involved, but it keeps the conflict going. "Mistaken for dead" feels right, as does "Negotiated a deal".

That's a good point... the concession may well reflect the fact that, in play, the initial goal changed.

"Made a deal" is a subset of that, but perhaps one of the larger ones.

Also, you might kill them, but maybe they let off a grenade as the concession, or their party retains the secret plans, etc.

But the stakes of conflict are based on the character's POV, right?  And a Concession can't negate the victory of the non-Conceding party...

I can see "Mistaken for Dead", since from the character's POV it's the same thing.

Also. Few groups will only have such a single goal. Even the most black and white encounter will have nuances. Someone so singularly focused is pretty rare in fiction.

Yes, I know.  But I'm interested in the black and white case here.  With multiple goals, obviously there's options for Concessions on the table.

But for the final battle between Mr. Hero and Mr. Nemesis?  Often, only one's getting out of there alive.

Having an NPC that is seeking death of the PC(s) seems unrealistic to me unless they are a killer. If that's that case then you're pretty much throwing Concessions out the window against that NPC, useless it's not a game about specific PCs, and they are meant to be cycled through ala Hollowpoint.

Consider what happens when people are defeated in real life. Death is not typical. They most often get conscripted into doing things they do wish to do. Death is only the case if they don't give in, or if the party they are opposed to is using a weapon that is highly lethal. 

High lethality weapons don't really indicate that the opposition desires the deaths of those they are up against. High lethality weapons show that they are willing to risk the deaths of their opponents to get what it is that they actually want.

So, using your example of the inner sanctum being invaded.

The PCs don't really want the bad guy dead. They want the threat the bad guy reps eliminated. If they could wipe his/her memory, reprogram them to be charitable, and kind, etc. That would be better, or at least as good.

The reverse is true of course. The baddie just wants the threat neutralized. An interesting bad guy isn't going to kill the PCs. No. They are going to get them to do something they don't want to do for the Concession. 

The easiest way to avoid this problem is to never use death as a goal, but as a vehicle to reach a goal. The Concession is side stepping that vehicle, not the goal.

How about the classic hostage "I'm willing to die, but I take that guy with me" concession?

I think it's important to realize that the goal at the start of the scene isn't necessarily the goal mid-scene or at end-scene.  I just finished reading the new Dresden book and there are numerous scenes where people go into the scene with a "kill them all" goal but get their objectives changed part-way thru by unexpected developments.

Concessions are, in part, a way to reflect that stakes don't necessarily sit in a sacrosanct, unchanging position disconnected from the events exchange-by-exchange.  They evolve alongside the narrative.

+Jack Gulick:  Sure, that can change, but I think that change really should come from the characters, not be enforced.  Again, what about the GM saying "I'd never allow 'I want to kill the NPC' as a goal"?

+T to the E to the O:  And if you're, say, hunting a vampire down, yeah, sometimes "I want to destroy the monster" really is the goal.  Again, I get that the vast majority of the time it's not.  I get that most of the time the real goal is "stop burning the village" or "let me in the keep".  I'm interested, with this question, in those few situations where death really really is the goal.

+Jack Gulick Yes, this is why concessions are negotiated. You cannot take away their victory, but what constitutes a victory is very temporally dependent.

+Robert Hanz I understand that you wish to discuss a black and white issue - but ultimately that is simply a straw man  that serves little purpose. Fiction is not black and white and RPGs are even less so. The are a social contract between competing desires - be them players or characters in a book.

As Fate seeks to position itself as modeling fiction then so to must it model the grays and interplay of fictional situations. When you reach a death in fiction it is there to serve a purpose - even if that purpose is simply a display a callousness.

I think that GM is creating an artificial limitation.  There are many ways to accept an "I want to kill him" goal and still have him come out the other end alive.  A ride in the sporty little GM Fiat is not necessary here.

BTW, the "I will never ever accept 'I want to kill him' as a goal" isn't an artificial example - it was actually pointed out to me from elsewhere.

There's always a 3rd party person, with the instruction, "No, we need them alive!" 

Villain: the villian is beaten, but is given a good reason why you need to keep him alive. Only he can get you into the keep; your gods would disown you; only he knows where the jewel is hidden.

Hero: you might bluff a reason why you're necessary; give a reason why shouldn't die (Harry Dresden's Death Curse has saved him more times than is funny.) The violent lieutenant's boss shows up and reminds him that he had orders to capture, not kill. 

In the bridge example, maybe they manage to sever the bridge, but not until the lead baddies get across. (Which means the rest of the troops are delayed, but not disabled.)

So, I guess I'll let on a bit more of the context here, as it may help the discussion.

I'm involved in a discussion on another site.  Some people there don't care for Fate, and pointed out a thread where the GM is basically using concessions as his "you can't kill my NPC" armor - essentially saying that he can always Concede out of any conflict until he decides it's a "dramatically appropriate time".  That's why he said "I want to kill the NPC is never, ever a valid goal".

Which, to me, is a bit of horseshit, as it's pretty heavy-handed railroading.  If the players go along with it, okay, fine, but to use it as a GM Fiat (as +Jack Gulick so eloquently put it) to me totally tromps all over anything resembling agency.

I disagree. The goal is to eliminate the threat the monster presents. At the time DESTROY! may be the only way the players can imagine to do that, but it's not the actual goal. When death is really really the goal it's really finality that is the goal.

When you Concede you can offer alternate solutions, because you're basically saying you'll help out. 

"Second of all, you get to avoid the worst parts of your fate. Yes, you lost, and the narration has to reflect that. But you can’t use this privilege to undermine the opponent’s victory, either—what you say happens has to pass muster with the group."

From:
- http://fate-srd.com/fate-core/conflicts#conceding-the-conflict

It doesn't say you can't alter how they win. It says you can't alter that they do win. If they want you dead, but give them something better, or just as good that's not undermining it IMO.

That vampire might offer to let them imprison him, and advise that his blood holds the secret to an immortality serum to sweeten the deal. He knows where they can find a scientist that is working on it, and they can tap him to provide him the juice he needs. Or he says he'll rat out other vamps, whatever. What he's offering is better, and still, by any reasonable measure, victory.

Hmmm, knowing that, well, if I had players that decided they really wanted to kill NPCs then I'd have an issue that made it necessary, or allow them to create one.

The goal as expressed at the start of the scene is, I agree, the goal at that moment.  That goal can be unrealistic, arbitrary, and extreme.

It will change as the situation develops in play, but it's a waste of time to re-set the goal every step of the way.  Concession (thru negotiation) lets us reflect those changes in how we end the scene.

As such, the concession can violate the express goal at start of scene but still be acceptable to the players at the end of the scene.  Because their goal is likely to have evolved due to play.

What Jack said : )

It doesn't say it expressly in the book, but being that the other players, and the GM are the group that is referenced in the phrase "what you say happens has to pass muster with the group", it does seem that what happens is ultimately up to all the players (including the GM) as a matter of consensus. 

I don't see GM fiat as being a matter here. If the GM wants a bloodless game, then the table needs to talk about what other final solutions there are besides death.

If they want a bloodless game in a setting where it makes no sense, well, again, this is a matter to be talked about.

I'd prefer that players not want to kill my NPCs. Not because I love my NPCs, but because I like stories about heroes, and heroes shouldn't be bloodthirsty IMO.

Concessions are two-way streets - if the players do not accept the concession then the conflict continues. Concessions are a negotiated settlement. If one side's goal is only to destroy/kill the other - then that is easily accomplished by taking out the other side during a conflict.

However, that point is only really reached when (1) The players feel they no longer have the agency to be "part" of the game, thus they are simply lashing out. (2) The person being taken out has reached its fictional end.

On point 2. If the target still has any fictional relevancy then when the non-conceding side will want to milk that fiction from it as long as they feel they are still a part of the fiction.

If a target still has fictional relevancy then this goal is far more likely when the table is experiencing a schism in expectations. That is best handled with a discussion at the player level.

"No 'Kill Them All'" as a "let's keep this away from bloodthirsty mayhem" is, IMO, different from "No 'Kill Them All'" as a way of avoiding unconcessionable conflicts.

The former is a matter of taste that should be discussed by the table, I agree.

The latter is the GM pre-conceding to a lack of imaginative escape strategies (to be a bit extreme about it).

I kind of feel that players who are coming to the table, and thinking they are missing out on something by not being able to kill NPCs might be playing the wrong game. 

I rarely say that, but there it is. 

Killing NPCs, or PCs just doesn't seem like it's high on the list of things to do in Fate. 

Fate is about resolving conflicts. Sometimes characters die, but it's not the objective. I think it should happen when it makes sense for a scene to play out like that though.

In the conversation around this, the point for the GM was very clearly "you don't get to defeat my NPC at that moment, but you can defeat him later at a 'dramatically appropriate' time".  It wasn't about 'you end the threat in a way that doesn't involve murder'.  It was 'he gets away until I decide it's dramatically appropriate'.

It wasn't about "killing NPCs bad!"  It was about "don't kill him yet".

Of +Jack Gulick's two options, it very much felt like the second.  Even without a Concession, the vamp can still turn into a flock of bats and fly away, subject to the characters trying to stop it.  That doesn't require Conceding.

I agree that Fate is about resolving conflicts, not just murdering everything in your path.

That said, sometimes death is the appropriate, or even only, means of resolving a conflict.  Just because death isn't the only method of conflict resolution in Fate doesn't mean it can't ever be an appropriate method of conflict resolution.

.

Fair enough. It just sounds like the thread you were describing is focused on the GM not allowing NPC death. What are they allowing though? Are the PCs able to accomplish what they set their sights on?

I suppose I don't see why that became the focal point of the discussion unless they are coming from the contentious kind of culture that we are all familiar with from other sorts of games where death is the only resolution, or people assume that to be so.

I just can't imagine being upset that the GM said I can't kill an NPC, because they have Conceded. I either accept their terms, or I don't, and force them to roll. At that point I get to push them to Taken Out, and if I want to say they are dead, well, there it is. 

Again, this is relying on "must pass muster of the group". If the group can not agree on the terms of Concession, well, it makes sense to just default to the roll for resolution.

That also seems like it should set well with a person coming from a death centered game culture, because they can always be the guy who doesn't agree, and push things towards the roll, and Taken Out, so they can narrate deaths. I'd hope they had an Aspect to tap for that though, as doing that would cause lots of problems, and they should probably earn FP for all the opportunities they are passing up on just to kill things, and screw up the party's long list of other options for play.

"Kill 'em all."
For someone who's about killing every, and anything.

"Those who serve X deserve to die."
For a more focused obsession.

"I will devour the heart of X."
For a very pointed Aspect directed at only one NPC.

The more I think on it, the more I think I could accommodate such a person, but I still wonder if they'd be happy.

+Christopher Ruthenbeck, you'll have to speak louder : )

o

I am still unsure about what a period means. I think I once read that it meant there was a comment, but it got deleted, and that the gesture emerged from forum culture, because there were some forums that wouldn't allow deletion, but one could edit a comment down to one character. That one character was customarily a period.

Is that warmer, or colder?

In order to get notifications about a post, you need to leave a comment. The period is an unobtrusive way of subscribing to the post without actually leaving a comment.

Ah, so /sub. Noted, and thank you!

From what I understand, +T to the E to the O, the . is the hole where the subscription pushpin would be, if there were a physical pushpin in the comment threads. I believe that +Fred Hicks started using it to replace the "/sub" that many were using to keep track of posts they wanted to follow, since G+ doesn't notify you of follow-up comments to someone else's post without you commenting on it.

I think the GM that thinks He is the only arbiter of Picking NPC Death is a bit Heavy Handed in that.  Although I understand what he means, Having the bad guy ALWAYS get away is very frustrating to Players and seems heavy handed.  I'm running a flash Gordan-esqe game and there is no way that the Players are going to get at My Ming anytime soon, but then again i am not going to be putting him in position where he will be brawling with the PC's either.
 
If PC's goal is to Kill NPC's I would try to clarify that goal,  but some times it is personal and they want him dead.  In those cases I go with "No one could have survived that!" type of concession and if Death was the PC's goal I might add an new aspect to the NPC like "Horribly Scarred by PC hero"

Well, a good way of figuring out what the PC goal really is is "okay, so your goal is to kill the eveil Necromancer?  Cool.  So I guess that means you're okay if you kill him, but the ritual goes off?  No?  Okay, so maybe that isn't the goal here..."

darn communication with the players thingy, rearing its ugly head again :)

Yeah, killing isn't likely the goal. Not really, so it seems like a bad point to spin a dispute about Concession. I mean, yeah, if they really wanted to kill the NPC, and I had them Concede (I must admit though, I rarely have NPCs Concede, and this thread has made me think I should do it more often), sure, maybe they are dead, but again, killing something like a vampire may not truly vanquish them from the world, or stop the evils they were responsible for.

I suppose I could see killing the vampire as the goal if it was one of those stories wherein the makes must die to cure the progeny though.

/sub