Directly Engage + Not fighting back + Defend = wtf?!
So Tiny the Bull wants to whack Smokey the Delinquent over the head.
Smokey just wants to Defend himself against the attack, not hit Tiny back.
So if there is no back-fighting than there is no Directly Engage a threat because on a hit there wouldn’t be an exchange of blows.
Smokey just wants to Defend himself from the attack. But there is no roll to give -2 to. Maybe you could argue that the whack on the head is a Provoke but that doesn’t feel right.
Even when rolling Engage it feels weird to choose to avoid the blows because there is no backfighting.
So how to handle the situation?
I don’t think it’s Directly Engage either, also because Smokey isn’t a threat, and the trigger is to directly engage a threat; first question that comes to mind is: Why does Tiny wants to whack Smokey? Does they wants to hurt them? Does they want to bring them to do something?
Tough question. If I was the GM here I would need to know why Tiny is punching Smokey. What are they hoping to achieve?
I’d skip straight to having the defender take a powerful blow for resolution. On a miss, the Deliquent successfully defended themselves, “say how you weather the blow”. On a 10+, the Bull soundly clobbers the defender and the Delinquent either gets knocked out, scrambles away or explodes. On a 7-9, the defender has the option of using Influence to make the Bull feel guilty for clobbering their pacifist teammate, which is pretty wonderful.
I’d mod the directly engage to an impromptu custom move where failure means he makes a bad impression on someone whom he respects. Then allow the defend to work as normal.
So high attack, low defend. Smokey gets clobbered.
High attack, high defend no hit lands but the scene isn’t caught
Low attack, high defend Smokey escapes and Tiny gets some reputation woes.
Low attack, low defend. Smokey gets hit, Tiny gets a bad rep.
Sub, I have ideas on this! Also Francesco Berni Matteo Suppo it’s exactly what happened when Aaliyah was trying to beat up Jason in low earth orbit, and I think that we handled the situation pretty smoothly. What did we do exactly?
Hey Tim Franzke! Defend is the move you want for one PC to “interfere” with another. Within the core move: “For PC threats: on a hit, give them -2 to their roll. On a 7-9, you expose yourself to cost, retribution, or judgment.”
This is addressed in the core book:
“You don’t trigger defend someone when you’re trying to keep yourself safe from an NPC or environmental threat—that’s much more likely to be another move, like unleashing your powers, or rejecting their Influence. You can defend yourself from a PC threat when another PC tries to hurt you.”
Also, there’s one other way to do this:
“When you take advantage of your Influence over someone, surrender the Influence you hold over them to choose one:
• give them -2 on a move they just made (after the roll)
• inflict a condition on them
• take an additional +1 on a move targeting them (after the roll)”
Make sure you have Smokey say exactly what Smokey is doing—if Smokey’s not actually doing anything that reaches the bar of defending, but Tiny is really hitting him, then yep, Matt M. has it, and skipping to Take a Powerful Blow is the right move.
Hope that helps!
That is more or less wha we settled onThat is more or less what the end result was – there was an engage that was rolled but it wasn’t really of much consequence.
Magpie Games, what if a PC wants to hurt me and I just want to defend myself (like, I just block their blows)? Engage doesn’t apply, but if I use Defend there has to be a roll, otherwise I can’t give -2.
That is the exact question.
Ok, so Tiny wants to hurt Smokey; I kinda dislike the Take a powerful blow approach, since that means I already took it, while the point of me trying to defend myself is exactly to be able to not taking it (even more if I’m defending myself by dodging), and what’s the difference if I’m not defending myself?
On the other hand, I’m not sure about other approaches :/ If I had to decide on the spot, I’d be tempted to use Defend with the NPC options, since Defend could trigger and the NPC options make sense.
Alberto Muti I don’t remember exactly, but Aaliyah probably was using the nova powers to kick Jason’s ass, while Jason was using his move to take powerful blows.
I think a combination of that and using my own powers to block hers – at the time, I still had the indestructible shield glowers.
So yeah, if neither Directly Engage nor Defend are triggered, and characters aren’t unleashing their powers, I’d just treat it following the fiction – one is attacking, the other trying to resist. Do they keep at it? Do they break it off? Do they try to escalate? What do they do? If they look at you expectantly, you get to make an MC move.
Alberto Muti, but what if Defend is triggered… but its effect can’t be used? If I want to to beat you, and you try to defend yourself, you are defending someone from an immediate threat, so Defend triggers; but if you aren’t trying to beat me, Directly engage doesn’t trigger, since you’re not a threat, so you can’t give me -2.
There’s always unleash as the universal backup move if you need to throw dice on both sides; just call it overcoming the obstacle of the defender putting their hands up and panic-squealing (or whatever a Delinquent does when a Bull is trying to smash their face in) and then the self-defend -2 is back on the table. Probably let the instigator roll Danger for it instead of Freak, depending on fiction. On a 10+, beat them up. On a miss, don’t. On a 7-9, it’s a bit of a mess.
The problem here is pretty much inherent to the PbtA system itself, just ’cause moves are designed to produce a self-contained result: make move, roll dice, thing happens, carry on. It works nicely most of the time because the GM doesn’t roll anything and is happy to accept those results, but PVP situations make things a bit muddy and awkward ’cause suddenly two sides want a chance to chuck their dice at the situation and the core system ain’t really built for that.
I like powerful blow because it’s a single, concise roll and its existing job is detailing the result of conflict, with a wide range of results, so it’s kinda suited to the situation already. The scene could easily be summed up with a defensive unleash too, though, favouring the defender’s ability to mitigate instead of the attacker’s ability to kick ass: 10+ get away, 7-9 get away but stress out or only avoid things temporarily, miss: facesmashed. Either way, I think keeping it simple is the important part to me because I can’t stand the messy mechanical PVP spiral that always emerges somewhere down the line with certain kinds of players, like:
1. Tiny unleashes at Smokey.
2. Smokey defends against it.
3. Tiny gets a 9, a hit + a complication.
4. Smokey gets an 8, a -2 to Tiny’s roll + a complication.
5. Smokey burns Influence to reduce Tiny’s roll by another -2, making the unleash a miss.
6. Tiny burns Influence to reduce Smokey’s roll by -2, making the defend a miss, which in turn undoes the first applicable -2, turning the unleash back into a hit.
7. My eyes recede into my skull.
8. Smokey starts talking about rejecting Tiny’s Influence, with +2 from a Delinquent move, wanting to cancel it and get a +1 forward.
9. Jia the Janus pipes up that she wants to come to Smokey’s defense against Tiny and roll her own defend move, at which point I bludgeon all my players with a bag of heroclix and go watch cartoons instead.
.
I am not s fan of using Unleash here. What if Leaf Lass (who has no strength powers) is punching Smokey. There are no powers to unleash there.
I honestly can’t see a way to do this rule-wise, anything I can think of or read about has something that twists the rules or the fiction (Taking a powerful blow means you are already hit, you aren’t defending yourself; Defending with NPC options uses NPC rules for PC, etc.). I’m thinking about a solution, but right now I can’t point to one and say “This one follows all the rules and the fiction”.
Matt M. UGGGHHHH. This more or less happened in a session I was playing in yesterday. Not a pleasant occurrence, to say the least.
Yeah I’d say there were a couple of unleash and powerful blows taken around and a snatch oh what a snatch
“Tiny, Smokey dodges out of the way of your fists – do any of your want to escalate this further?”
might just be the simplest thing to do here.
(This can either be the Bull Move Bolster their Rival or maybe Make them pay a price for victory)
I’m not sure about that either – why should Smokey get an automatic success and not Tiny? I mean: “Smokey, Tiny hits you – do any of you want to escalate this further?” is the same thing, it’s just Tiny succeed in hititng instead of Smokey in dodgning.
Also consider fictional positioning: if Tiny the bull has super-strength and enhanced reflexes, and Smokey doesn’t have anything of the sort, resisting or trying to get out of the way may be more difficult.
Mauro Ghibaudo because Smokey is the Bull’s Rival?
Yeah it could go the other way as well but Tiny was rather out of it at the time. Just recovered from getting hit really hard (10+ on take a powerful blow) a few minutes before.
But for whomever you decide one player might feel left out in that case. Pointing at powers might be the right thing to do.
“there’s this awkward moment where you two are struggling, Tiny trying to get their hands on Smokey, who tries to sidle away – but you can’t run forever smokey, you’re in a room. For a moment, you’re sort of there, stalled. What do you do? Do you leave it at that, or does one of you try to escalate? looks at rest of team What about you folks? do you intervene? do you let them have their way?”
i don’t think Mauro Ghibaudo that in this situation have a definite and non situational solution. He could give a free hit or a free dodge as a soft move from the MC depending on what kind of move he want to make and maybe fiction leverage. If no one use powers (and so there is no Unleash) this is the usual silver plate to do a GM move, what move to use it’s situational, it could even be an interruption from a random Villain that was passing by and choose to use this as an opportunity.
precisely, as i said above, if there’s tension but no move is triggered, usually people at the table are looking at you expectantly.
Sure, I know it’s situational, the very first thing I did in this discussion was asking for more details about the situation; I wasn’t looking for a solve-all solution, I was thinking about what I’d do in this situation – and in this situation I’m not sure deciding one of the PC just gets their way is the right thing, also because – as Tim says – one player could feel left out. “*Could* be akward” because, again, I know it depends on the situation, but not being in that game I can only think and reply on whichever information I have about it (for example, I didn’t know Tiny was just hit hard).
But please don’t treat my replies as I’m thinking about this in a non-situational thing – again, asking for more info about the situation was the very first thing I did.
I guess what baffles me in this case is also that a move does trigger – Smokey is defending himself from a threat – but the options can’t be applied, which I feel is somewhat different from no move triggers altogether.
From an NPC. I quote directly from Magpie Games post (bold added):
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You don’t trigger defend someone when you’re trying to keep yourself safe from an NPC or environmental threat —that’s much more likely to be another move, like unleashing your powers, or rejecting their Influence. You can defend yourself from a PC threat when another PC tries to hurt you
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yeah deleted that because i read that better, just not fast enough
That PvP Spiral is indeed annoying.
Why are the two characters fighting?
Unleash or they Take a Powerful Blow.
Unleash can be used without powers. A character just dodging or using their fighting knowledge to maneuver themselves into a better vantage point is them unleashing their fighting powers. It talks about that in the rule book…. “Powers” is fluid in this instance.
If you need to overcome an obstacle or change your environment…you Unleash.
that wasn’t really what was happening though.
I’m not sure Unleash can be used without using one’s powers (I quote from the rules, italic added):
→
Unleashing your powers is the move for doing something complicated, dangerous, and difficult with your powers
[…]
This move is for those situations when you do something intense with your powers
←
And even more:
→
If the characters are just using their regular abilities to solve a problem—running from a threat with no special powers, for example, or trying to drive a car into an enemy—then it’s not unleashing your powers
←
It’s true the rules also use “abilities”, but keep in mind that’s just how powers are named in the playbooks.
Can you point me to where it says you can use Unleash without powers?
In almost all instances of one super human defending themselves from another super human, “powers” will be involved. Remember that even “acrobatics” and “extra agility” is considered a super power (under at least three different playbooks).
Its specifically the move youd make to overcome an obstacle.
But if you dont feel like powers are involved (and again, I almost feel like anything our supers are doing that would actually affect a supers type environment [ie not against normies] is using their power in some form) then Id just go straight into Powerful Blow.
Yes this person is trying to “dodge” but thats just their fluff for how their wether the powerful metahuman blows coming at them.
I actually agree at first just roll with the narrative and keep asking them “what do you do now?”, but if the PC keeps wanting to engage and the other decides not to return, then sure Powerful blow.
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Oddly you still do a directly engage in that one person is directly trying to fight, the other isnt escaping but is engaging in the fight by holding their ground and blocking … damage could still be had if the attacker rolls badly, more via frustration over not landing any solids hits (mark angry).
If powers are involved for the defending PC, would you still roll Unleash?
My problem with Taking a powerful blow is that means the blow is taken – yes, you could say dodging it’s just how they weather it, so who cares, if I weather it I just say I dodged it; still, the trigger is “When you take a powerful blow” (and from the rules: “Taking a powerful blow is a move for when you get hit—hard [physically or emotionally]”; I’m not hit, I’m trying to avoid that).
This for me is a strange situation: on the one hand, I feel like Defend is the right move, with the right trigger… but with the wrong options. On the other, I can see why Taking a powerful blow would work too… but it has the wrong trigger. So either you change the options on Defend (like using the NPC ones), or you change the trigger on Taking.