The question is how do I keep the impossible…impossible?
Problem
I had a scenario where a group of Weasels had a Wolf that was drugged and tricked, carefully, into attacking some towns. This is a distraction to attack Lockhaven. One of the characters got kidnapped by the group of Weasels when he was snooping around. While they were debating about what they should do with him he broke free, he is a master smith. He then let the Wolf free, beat it in single combat…mercilessly, then rode it out of the camp by steering it with his axe in its head.
Actually, it was pretty awesome, not sure if it is really a problem.
Spending Persona to tag his nature, and rolling really well, and me rolling poorly. A wolf has what? 17 dice, I had about 6 success throughout the entire conflict, he had no failures.
I am just curious - what do you mean by “beat it in single combat”? I am thinking he started a Fight Animal conflict and set as his goal something like “If I win, I get to control the wolf.”
I’m going to guess here, but I bet that the goal was “if I win, the town is safe” and riding it out Black Axe style was way cooler than just cutting it down in the middle of town.
As for the single combat part, presumably it was Mouse vs. Wolf, one-on-one deathmatch.
First, I would demand to check his dice, because I am convinced the majority of dice out there are are about as balanced as a sailor on a three-day bender.
Second, I would say, “Hey, epic win. We will not see it’s like again, as the odds are 1/(2^18) that anyone can repeat the performance. Salǔt.”
Riding a wolf into the sunset is how any story starring a mouse should end.
My rolls defy statistical probability. My players have often offered to roll for me, or asked me to just use a screen and lie to them. I once played Monopoly for 8 hours and never made a complete circuit around the board, I ended up in jail on every roll. Every roll.
On page 225 it says:
“Animals that are more than two ranks
higher on the scale may only be run off.
They may not be captured or injured using
Fighter or Hunter.”
How did he injure a wolf when it is a whopping 5 ranks higher on the scale? Quite frankly, a mouse getting a teeny little axe into a wolf’s skull isn’t realistic at all. Unless it is the Black Axe maybe. Why is everyone okay with this?
The Axe-in-the-head steering is irrelevant. The OP says he “beat [the wolf] in single combat…”
Per this rule:
[QUOTE=Twice Born;80634]
On page 225 it says:
“Animals that are more than two ranks
higher on the scale may only be run off.
They may not be captured or injured using
Fighter or Hunter.”
QUOTE]
You don’t “beat” a wolf. You maybe intimidate it somehow, or let it know that a mouse your size may not be worth his time. Honestly, if some little creature sunk an axe into my head and it cut through enough to stick in, I would consider that an injury. These rules were set up for a reason. When you down play the realism, it messes everything up. After axeing a wolf, your player prolly won’t be satisfied with killing a weasel. And when there are no limits, there is no satisfaction to accomplishing anything.
Not trying to bust anyones bubble, but this could potentially break your game. I would have the same wolf show up for revenge and rip the character up so that he realizes that not every wolf encounter is gonna end pretty. That’s just me though. I can be pretty cruel.
Did the wolf gain the Injured condition? If not, it’s not injured. It was run off, with colour.
More interesting to my mind than having it come back for revenge would be it regarding the Guardmouse as its dominant and having the regular mice push him to get rid of the damn thing.
Yes you can beat a critter much bigger than you. It just can’t be for an intent of injury.
An example (smaller scale) from one of my sessions:
Saxon and Nola encounter a fox. Saxon’s intent was to convince the fox they are too much trouble to eat. The Fox’s intent is to eat Saxon and Nola. They took turns playing tetherball with said fox’s body parts… They won, hands down, and got their intent.
They beat it soundly… not able to cause it injury… they then proceeded to talk it into carrying them…
Oh, actually I suppose I recant. I did let one of my players poke a fox in the nose with his halberd. And then he stabbed it in the foot. He was trying to draw its attention away from NPC that had just fallen into its den, and it worked. That was the first RPG session I ever played in my life though, so I think I was making all kinds of mistakes. I dunno, it still seems wrong to be, but I guess it’s just up to the current GM.
ok first, thats completely and utterly amazing, im never that lucky with dice, and second, although it does (kinda) go against the rules, if he got that lucky and was that willing to risk his character and that kinda stuff, then WON if i were gming id let it slide, but mot probably wouldnt, what id say is that it wasnt injured, but i mean if somebody repeatedly stuck a very sharp toothoick in your head, HARD then id be like “ok quit ill get you out of here” so id let him ride it into the sunset.
[ol]
[li]I think he broke it,
[/li][li]but it was fun.
[/li][/ol]
Please note that the over-riding concern of games like BW is (2); if (2) applies, (1) really doesn’t matter. Don’t have my books handy, but I suspect it’s in the beginning in Luke’s comments, but not an actual Rule 0.