This has not yet come up in play, but we are wondering how anyone’s handled it if it has come up:
So, the Witch has this hex to bind someone so they can’t physically harm anyone.
Hexes have no time span. I mean, sure, on a 10+, they’re “easily reversed”, but that is generally intended to be a good thing for the Witch, not the victim.
Some skins have Volatile as The Thing, and that generally means the Lash Out part. The Werewolf, for example, can be all about the violence.
The Witch came quite close to trying to bind the Werewolf so she couldn’t physically harm anyone. The player was looking very carefully for a reason not to do that, and found one, and was only considering it because the Werewolf attacked the school nurse. (School nurse wants the wolves dead because they killed her uncle. Werewolf was Raised by Wolves, so punched her. If she’d continued the attack, Witch would’ve bound her.)
So, the player asked, “Hey, if I did do this thing, how long would the hex last if I didn’t choose to undo it?”
And there’s nothing in the rules about that.
And we all agree that it’s a jerk thing to nerf a player’s Thing for too long, and if you’re playing the Werewolf, the Thing may well be Lashing Out Physically. And we’ve got a couple of theories about how to handle it.
* The Witch can undo it.
* Another witch or someone with that kind of power can undo it. This works fine in a game like the one I’m running, where there’s a lot of supernatural stuff running around, but what if the PCs are all or almost all of the supernatural stuff in town?
* There may be some condition to break a spell. Sure, this isn’t in the rules per se, but I could see “Okay, you have to find a dead man’s grave, cut off his left hand, bathe it in moonlight, and…”
* There may be a point where, narratively, it seems to make sense that the hex would end, but I’m not sure if there’s any good guidelines for that.
So, has this ever come up for anyone? How have folks handled it?
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Came up A LOT in a game I ran. We went with option 2 and 3 with a little of 4 while including a 5th option. Other things could break it. Player gazing into the Abyss was a good way to set this up. IF the Witch is not playing ball and the were wolf can’t think of a way to make the witch play ball then throwing in some other way just is good story telling.
Additionally it is a prohibition against causing harm, not lashing out physically. It could be played that the person can’t actually lash out or it could be they can lash out but their effectively don’t harm any one when they do even on an success.
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For player lashing out, you could also limit it to one time – especially for werewolf. The hex stops them from dealing damage on 10+ but then it breaks.
Or it gives them -1 ongoing to lashing out.
Maciej Starzycki Yes, both are possibilities. I’m not sure if those are the best answers, given the book doesn’t indicate time limits on any hexes.
You know, in traditional faerie tales, curses were generally contingent. Until you redeem yourself, until someone loves you, etc.
This is a story; why wouldn’t the hex be bound by story logic?
That is likely the way we’d go, yes. Mind, it’d be nice to have that in the text. Currently, though, the active hexes are:
Witch’s father under Ring of Lies. This has had consequences.
Witch bound himself not to be able to cause physical harm after seeing those consequences. Why no, that doesn’t keep him from hexing people.
Witch caused someone threatening him to see hallucinations and has now also bound him to keep him from harming anyone physically. Of course, this guy now has sympathetic tokens from the Witch and the Werewolf…
Oh right, the hallucinations are NOT easily reversible, as that is the option the player deliberately didn’t choose. The Witch is actually horrified that he can’t reverse that spell.