This is fair game right?
Knowing the Angel just spend her last angel kit stock I told her the result of the move was that she needed to spend another stock to safe her patient.
Fair game?
I then told her she could substitute that stock with healing touch.
That is also okay right?
Another option could be: you have about an hour to get enough bling to acquire another stock. After that he is beyond saving. Works too, right?
I’d say that with substitutes offered it IS totally a fair game.
I think saying that when I know they can’t pay is okay too I think. When I don’t know how much they have it wouldn’t matter.
It’s fair game without substitutes offered. You always have the option to say “no, sorry; they’re beyond saving”. Admittedly, telling her how she could have saved the patient if she’d only had more stock is a little mean. But it’s the kind of thing I do all the time – “can I do x?” “no; if you had y then you could, but since you don’t…”
“If we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.” – e.e.cummings
On a hit its kind of rubbish, because a hit is a success. I do like offering the other move to make up for the deficit, but depending on the result this might have been lame.
But even on a 10+ I get to choose one and all choices are in themselves equal.
The choices are fictional! Of course they’re not equal!
I guess what I mean is: every other choice is a hard bargain and involves commodities the character always has a choice in: they’re all time or procedures to follow. But eating up 1 stock is the only choice that is outside the character’s control. If the only way to save someone is with an additional stock, and they don’t have it, and you choose it — well, 1) that doesn’t fictionally make any sense because they have no more stock so how can it eat up more stock? And 2) its taking their 7-9 or 10 and shitting on it.
Again, I think your solution was a great Offer An Opportunity! But for an angel who doesn’t have psychic healing powers, for example, I think the same choice is terrible.
Wat if they have the move that boosts their weird if they have someone dying?
I almost expected (and suggested) using another patient as a subsitute (or recovering stock allready used on them). Making it a “You can only safe one of them situation”.
Ask the player Tim! ‘Whats the worst thing that could happen to your character here?’ Then give them that option or something else equally as nasty. Create a countdown, make a stakes question. Push that unstable tower of shifting status quo down.
was it a 10+? man, don’t dick them over on a 10+. it’s like, why even have them roll if you’re going to have them fail on the best possible success
also, on a hit, they succeed. your option isn’t “they have to spend 1 stock more or they don’t succeed”, your option is “make them spend 1 stock more”. if they don’t have 1 more stock to spend, and you choose that option, i’d say you wasted your choice, because no matter what, they succeed on a hit.
the six things you have to choose from are consequences of the healing and stabilization; they aren’t requirements. nothing you can choose will take away the fundamental fact that the player succeeded at healing and stabilizing the person they were trying to.
In the situation we where in, the choice totally worked.
As a player I would not have minded to let the NPC die (yeah, more drama) and for the character, the choice felt more like ” do you want to risk anyone seeing your weird healing shit and adjust what they think about you accordingly” (total drama potential there too).
But I can see why handling it this way might be upsetting in other moments.
We were in the 2. or 3. to last scene of the campaign. I used the “act under fire” option on the roll before and didn’t wanted to make the same choice again. The extra time options didn’t make sense as the game was basically over (and I used one of them earlier). There wasn’t much choice left. In the situation I was 100% fine in that call and would make it again.
I was interested in a more general view of such behaviour and I can see that it might be seen as a dick move. However, I still wonder how the conversation would go when I tell the player that is what I choose, not knowing they didn’t have any stock leftover.