Hi,
Just checking. So if you lose a Kill Conflict the ENTIRE party is dead with the exception of Mid-Level Compromise (where one member can possibly survive) or Major Compromise where the ENTIRE party can be left for dead.
I believe this to be correct, but sometimes it is a little hard getting the brain out of the ‘individual’ mentality of combats in other systems.
Thanks,
S.
Yep, that’s how I read it.
Yup, if you lose a kill conflict either everyone dies, all but one person dies, or everyone survives but are left for dead with all conditions (which is pretty damn close to having everyone be dead, you are four tests away from everyone being dead). Try not to lose kill conflicts.
3 turns at most… conflicts take a turn, so even if you started the fight on turn 1 you’d already be on turn 2 as you were laying face down in the dirt. I guess a kill conflict on turn 4 only has the option of one person surviving then, since having all conditions at the end of the conflict sends you immediately into the grind where you all die.
eta: unless you count lying unconcious in a pool of your own blood an impromptu camp phase, in which case you wake up on turn 1 of a new adventure phase 
Try not to enter Kill conflicts unless you’re prepared. It helps to have the right spells memorized and to have some rewards to spend!
On the other side of this coin… if the players WIN a Kill! conflict but lose Disposition they are subject to the same Killing is My Business rules, right? So having to give even a minor compromise could mean a character death, and a major compromise could mean several deaths for the party?
The risk is there, yes. But the GM has the latitude to choose the result. None of the compromise levels require the GM to kill or even injure a player character. The GM certainly may. And in some cases it’s appropriate.
I don’t see anything about someone dying on a minor compromise , but yes, you face player death on a mid or major compromise. However, as a GM I would consider it bad form to kill someone as a result of a compromise unless they were already injured.
eta: ok, i see what you might be looking at for minor compromises, if you are already injured and get a minor compromise of being injured then you run the risk of dying, yeah. Then again if you are injured you run the risk of dying on every single test you take that has a physical component.
Death is among the options the GM can choose, but the GM still gets to choose.
Sure, but I’m not sure how I’d feel playing with a GM that frequently chose death as a mid level compromise for Fresh character under undramatic circumstances. I feel like the rules that describe getting the death death condition as a last heroic action, something dramatic that adds to the story, is subverted under situations like the one I just described.
I suppose it’s a matter of expectation as well. If the GM makes it clear upfront that he can and will kill characters as part of a mid level compromise regardless of who the enemy is or what their condition is, then at least players know what they’re getting into when they choose to kill. A naive player wouldn’t expect that their character winning a conflict, barely losing half their disposition, and still Fresh from town would die. Unless a GM makes it clear that they are going to be that harsh I would think doing that would be a breach of the spirit of the game and a subversion of the other written rules on the subject of death. That said, Kill conflicts are an exception to the general rules on death, and I understand that. I guess I’d just like, as a player, to know up-front how harsh an exception it is… is this heroic fantasy or realistic fantasy?
I couldn’t stop laughing about the idea. Anyway I thing that all the rules encourage a grim and gritty style of game. From the start the book says that your character IS NOT a hero. That doesn’t mean that you character can’t be a hero, it even makes it more valuable since it’s hard as hell to do the right thing when you are thirsty angry and afraid in the dark. Even some rules like the food spoilage, the random event tables, the Might rules, etc gives you the idea that the world around you is unfair. So yeah, a kobold swarm might kill you and your fellow adventurers might ditch you in an unmarked grave: but you were useless anyway, so who gives a damn?
Stay cool 
Ha, fair enough. I still feel like you need player buy-in to have a play style that cruel, and most players wouldn’t expect that level of cruelty unless you make it explicit, particularly for completely ignoble and meaningless deaths. I suppose I prefer something closer to Lord of the Rings than Game of Thrones (Not necessarily with regard to reading, but jeez I’d be a nervous wreck in a campaign run by George RR Martin!)
So… Dungeon World? Or BW!
But yeah, I totally agree with the GM detailing what kind of conflict will be playing BEFORE it starts. I love negotiation between players (GM included). Also it gives a cool opportunity to define setting by being constant about this kind of outcomes:
GM: “Orcs are more dangerous than Hobgoblins.”
Player: “Why?”
GM: “Because Orcs always kill the fallen.”
Stay cool 
As an aside, if the party lost half of its disposition in a Kill Conflict, it probably wasn’t spread around evenly. Somebody in the party probably has 0 at the end of the fight. That reads “dead” to me. (Although I suppose if the GM were to choose from two guys with 0 disposition, where one guy dies but the other doesn’t, then it might seem a little weird.)
Yeah, ok, if it was explained to me (and applied) that way, then I think I could accept that. Which is interesting, because then that player will put a lot of pressure on his teammates to Defend and get him back up to avoid death. Though again, the rules don’t restrict it in that way either, and the GM would be fully within his explicit writes to kill you even if you didn’t lose all or even most of your own personal disposition. It would just be a jerk move unless everyone at the table understood in advance that it could happen.
Yeah, “jerk move” seems to be the important phrase. Honestly, I’d feel horrible killing any of the PCs, especially if I had to choose. At the very least, I’d have to be sure to say, “Really? You’re going to try to kill it? Because I guarantee that I, as the GM, will try to kill you back, hard.” Then, if they keep going, it’s like they’re killing themselves.
Yep, that’s basically what I meant when I said it was bad form for a GM to kill players if they aren’t injured. With this discussion I’ll also add “if they aren’t at 0 disposition at the end of the fight”, and “if the GM didn’t tell them that the risk of death through compromise was very high”.