Let’s say that while our favorite murder-hobos are fruitlessly examining some strange, shed scales, they are interrupted by 1d6+2 kobolds, who attempt to herd the explorers down the nearby stairwell.
Now, these adventurers, being the quick-thinking sort, immediately think to kill away these interlopers, but, perhaps due to the surprise, find that they cannot. Nor does it seem possible to drive these things off. Fleeing is an option, but that’s what the kobolds want, so it can’t be good. So, counter to their blood-thirsty nature, our “heroes” decide to capture the kobolds instead.
In other words, a patrol of kobolds having been invoked as a Twist during a failed Hunter test can only be engaged in Flee, Capture, Convince, or Trick Conflict.
So, how does one convey that to the players? Or does the GM just take their saber rattling into consideration, and say, “They’re too close and too fast. The best you can do is corner them. This is a Capture Conflict.”
Not to cause any trouble, but I’d almost be inclined to ignore that rule, or at least be flexible with it. I’d possibly treat it as a “try to do” rather than a “must do”. As much as possible describe the scenario in such a way that the only sane reactions are the valid ones, but without saying “no the rules say you can’t do that” in situations where there reaction doesn’t seem unreasonable from a role-playing perspective. Is there a strong justification for this rule that makes it sacred (like turns and checks which are integral)? Or is the idea simply to try to ensure that the GM uses the right enemy for the right twist in the right way?
You’ll be inclined to ignore it until your players try to trick/kill/drive-off or whatever their one trick is out of every conflict. Rule’s there for a reason. It creates tension between acting thoughtfully and acting like a bunch of hooligans. Forces players to think a bit.
Ignore was an excessively strong word choice on my part. Point well taken, though. I suppose disregarding the rule is potentially shooting yourself in the foot if later the party gets in a rut and you need to pull it out to force them to switch things up. Still, if the RP feels right it might be worthwhile to treat it like the helping rules and allow one GM determined conflict type to be added to the list, or it might even be alright to allow unique non-standard conflicts in. If the goal is forcing variety of interaction then to apply the rule to constrain variety seems counter productive. I feel like a lot of conflicts are a result of twists, unless you have a party that just loves charging in and starting trouble, so I wouldn’t want to constrain creativity if the players are employing it. Again though, I’m wondering into Hackish territory, and I think I do now understand the purpose of the rule and hope I’m not squashing it’s intent with my boundary testing.
