[Dork] A Little More Information

This is still pretty hard-dork.  Under the cut.

Facts about the Fight – This is our Job Together.

During the Fight, depending on the number of dice you roll and whether or not you get any successes, you or I can say things about what is going on in the Fight that do not relate to the confirm or contradict the stakes we agreed upon.

If our stakes are “Getting the girl away from the goon without her getting hurt.” Then you cannot get the girl away from the goon before and unless the Fight is won, and I cannot hurt her before and unless the Fight is lost.  That said, if you get to state a fact about the Fight, you can hurt the Goon, and if I get to state a fact about the Fight, I can hurt you.

The facts you and I get to establish don’t have to be anything to do with the actions of you or your opposition.  You and I can add or subtract or change things about the scene and the Fight as long as they do not confirm or contradict the stakes.

You can say that the goon’s hands are tangled in the girl’s bindings and he can’t attack you freely.  Or that there is an innocent boarder who has been drawn to this commotion and is ready to help the girl.  Or that there is a portion of the railing you can pull off and use to beat down the goon.

I can say that there is another goon at the top of the stairs waiting for his colleague and the hostage.  Or that your foot goes through the stair, tripping you up.  Or that there is a bubble in the gas system that lights the old house and –oh crap- there’s a fire starting.

Between bouts, it’s possible for you to change your action, your goal, even restate the stakes of the Fight, depending on how things go.

Once the allied boarder is in play, you can ask her to help and focus on taking out the goon.

If the place is in danger of starting on fire, you can lunge for the gas valve to shut it off or, better yet, use the situation to help you convince the goon to do it.

If you fail the bout, I can establish something against your stakes as a result of the failure.

You try to get to the girl, but the goon sees you coming and shoves her against the stairs before he turns to face you.  She cracks her head pretty hard against the step and looks a little dazed.

You try to get to the girl, but the goon sees you coming and runs her up the stairs, shoving her into an upstairs room before turning to confront you.

You try to get to the girl, but the goon sees you coming and runs her up the stairs, dragging her into an upstairs room and slamming to door.

If I do something like this, I can’t make out as if the Fight is lost (you still have a chance to get the girl away from the goon, in the first case, before he does real damage and in the second two cases, before he hurts her at all).

Examples

Hard Violence vs. Ma Fratelli – 6 successes in 1 bout is almost impossible unless someone is very skilled and lucky.  Alice guesses that she’s only got 1 bout for this so asks for the Landlady’s Target.  Watching all the color drain from her face when she hears it makes me happy, because I am a douche.  Alice decides since she’s not winning this on even her usually formidable martial capabilities, and since she’s an Angel, she rolls just her Nature, coming up with a 6.  A success, but she lost.  Fortunately, she gets to stipulate something about the Fight. First, she asks if she can make it so that the landlady is so mad at her, she decides to put off calling for help and attack directly.  I shoot that down – the stakes say “take her out before she calls for backup,” so she’s calling for backup.  That said, backup can be kind of far away, so that gives everyone a little extra time before more goons join the fray.  Alice then states that the resounding clang to the old lady’s head does little more than piss her off, and her eyes fill with rage directed at Alice and Alice alone (she thinks she can take the old lady in an extended Fight).

Hot Disaster to Save the Girl – 5 successes in 3 bouts.  Ballast isn’t sure how much time he has on this, so he asks for Target.  Learning he has a 5 Target, he suspects that this operation is going to be trickier than he thought, so throws his Strength and a Trait “Agile” into the Fight, willing to risk a worse outcome to knock this off quickly (especially in light of Alice’s Fight).  He manages 2 successes on the first roll, and with 3 dice rolled, I get to tell him that the stairs are really narrow, single-file, and that the goon’s body is totally blocking him from the girl.  Ballast is not dissuaded; he spends a strength and cries “There are no limits! I parkour up the railings, off his back, and over his head, landing in front of the girl!”  I think this is awesome – so we go Hot Against Disaster again.  This time he gets 3 successes on 3 dice and wins.  Ballast is also an Angel, so I narrate his victory, telling him it works like a charm, but, because he rolled 3 dice, as he gets to the girl and pulls her away, he notices that she has a bag over her head, can’t see him and starts struggling against his attempts to save her.

Soft Violence vs. Stairway Goon – 4 successes in 2 bouts.  Cilice is not confident in her martial abilities at the best of times, and decides that in order to accomplish this, she’s going to reach under Ballast as he’s going up and over and grab the goon’s shoe, tripping him.  She spends Strength on this, but lacking anything that might help her with this, that’s all she’s got.  She’s also got no successes on the first roll of 2 dice.  The goon stomps on her hand as she grabs for him.  Something might be broken.  Okay, no more Ms. Nice Cilice.  For her next bout, she decides to throw the whammy on him with magic, slides the talisman into her uninjured hand and says she’s going to make him dizzy and frightened on these narrow, steep stairs, which she convinces me is Dark against Will.  This time, she has an Instinct and a Trait to add, so she does, managing 5 successes on 3 dice.  A winner is Cilice, and as a Devil, she tells me that the massive fear and vertigo she induces in him knocks him the hell out, but I get to say something now.  It occurs that when the goon gets dizzy and falls down, he’s got nowhere to go but onto Cilice.  He’s down for the count, but she’s down at the bottom of the stairs underneath him, with a broken hand.

Bright Will vs. Door – 2 successes in 1 bout.  Dallas has a gonzo ability that lets him pull this off.  He knows it can’t be that tricky, but he fears he has little time.  Also, his friends have not been rolling so well, and he’s about to be in the middle of a Alice vs. Ma Fratelli No-Holds-Barred.  So he asks about Timing and is sad to hear he has only one shot at this.  Still, he’s just as scared of compromise as he is of failure, so he takes his favorite 2 dice and goes for it, getting 3 successes.  Dallas is also a devil and says that door is going to stay stuck unless they break it down, break his spell or he decides to let it go.  I am good with that.  It might not be as strong a door as he’s hoping, depending upon how subsequent Fights go.  Also, he said “stuck” which means they are stuck in as much as the goons are stuck out.