What are the limits of the “take something from them” option in Directly Engage a Threat?
When my players use the Directly Engage move, on a hit, they have a habit of coming up with stuff like “I want to take something from them. Can I take their vitality? What about their sight? Can I take their secrets? Or their will to fight? Or their powers?”
I’ve been nixing anything that would end the fight before the villain’s conditions are all checked, but I’m not sure how far to let them stretch the definition of that option. (At least one player has vitality draining powers and psychic abilities, so some of these requests are somewhat reasonable.)
So clearly, “I want to take their sight” is actually “temporarily blind them” which is basically “create an opportunity”, or maybe “impress, surprise, or frighten”.
Is “take information/take a secret” a reasonable use of the option?
If they try something like, “take their self confidence”, could I let them pick which of the villain’s condition get’s marked? (Insecure, in that case).
What if the villain doesn’t have anything worth taking (and i can’t invent something off the top of my head)? Do I just say “there’s nothing here to take, choose another option).
(I love my players, I love how creative they are, and that’s why they drive me crazy. 🙂 )
My general rule is that it has to make sense in the fiction. For example unless the character has power suppression I wouldn’t let them take a villains powers.
Taking someone’s secrets could be them blurting something out as a result of the attack.
I think it’s reasonable to nix requests that don’t make sense in the fiction, especially if you offer an alternative. My players have surprised me with some pretty creative uses of this option, including the Beacon repeatedly acquiring villains’ weapons this way.
Yeah, stick with the fiction. “Can I take their sight?” is 100% a question that can only be answered by looking at the abilities and situation of the character
Jason Corley True! I bet a lot of the time, you can say yes to “Can I take their sight!” with, “Yeah, you throw dirt in their eyes, they’re swinging blind for a few seconds.” If the player wants to permanently blind an opponent, that probably takes another role.
Right. Or maybe they have psychic powers or darkness powers or what not
I played a Nova sorcerer who had a number of “I take their [x]” ideas, some of which I used and some I didn’t. I eliminated a giant robot (one of many) by taking its mass, making it float away, for instance. I’d planned to blackmail a low level villain by using a curse to take away his bladder control, but I never got the chance.
But I didn’t try to use it on the big bad of the encounter, because that’s not a fun way to create the fiction. Talk to your players about what would look cool in the comic; quick and easy victories usually doesn’t make the list.
Don’t let it replace other moves (like Provoke or Pierce the Mask.)
Remember they immediately make a condition move too if the character hit hard, even if blind/whatever.
“Can I take their secrets?” (sounds like a great opportunity to turn their move back on them)
Sure. As you move in to punch the cowering La Espada, you catch a glimpse of her confident smile as she gloats about you falling for her ruse. You can see the sparks of the energy blast she’s about to send you flying across the room with…
Sure. You and the crime boss Dai Ushi are trading sword blows across her warehouse. She laughs and says “You and your friends were wondering where my ‘pet’ dragon was…” Then she transforms…
Of course, you want to mix things up and not always turn things back on them, but sometimes be straightforward, like a villain has a to-do list written out and kept in their front jacket pocket. Or they glance to the left and cause the hero to notice the window into the secret lab where they are experimenting on orphans and homeless.
As the others have said, the most important thing is to follow the fiction. If a player’s action that triggered Directly Engage was to kick the villain in the face, then taking their good looks makes sense, whereas taking their BMW (parked in the lot a floor below) doesn’t.