It is a bit late since it already happened in my game - but I'm looking for some general GMing advice so (hopefully I might improve). What do you guys do when players' actions are working at completely cross purposes (delibrately or by accident)? My particular example is below but I'm interested in people's views/advice for the general case. I let the dice decide which resulted in one player effectively losing out, with some special 'so your fatepoint wasn't a total loss' consequences afterwards, but what would you have done?

I think I am pretty fortunate in that no one rowed or got upset at the table and there has been a good discussion afterwards aiming to avoid this happening in the future. But I do want to try and make sure I am better prepared in the future…

*** SPOILER: HOUSE OF DUST AND ASH ***

In this case as the Gilded Widow made her pronouncement demanding the blood of the scion my player who was the scion immediately ran up and hacked off her own hand to feed the chalice. Just as she passed out from blood loss the rest of the party arrived to 'save' her because they all thought that bad stuff was going to happen (cos if a heretical thing says it, you probably don't want to do it). I allowed them strength checks to stop the Widow drinking giving the automaton a str of 80. They then went about breaking the crystal heart with bolt rounds and power weapons once the drinking was getting delayed. I rolled total arse and so they managed it before the widow won the str checks.

So I had one player who spent a FP to save everyone and effectively got nothing out of it. I have therefore given her knowledge imparted as her Haarlock blood was in contact with the widow - so giving her FL(Erasmus Haarlock) as a skill, which I will allow her some insights into things as the campaign goes on.

My take on this is to let the dice decide the outcome. And if the characters survive never let them off he hook. So when their superior hears of their actions he will have something to say about the value of cooperation and how it might be learned in the excrutiation table.

P.S. my group reaches the climax of HoDaA tommorow….

I agree. Let the dice determine what happens. In-party conflict is the name of our game, more or less.

On a related issue, you don't necessarily die from losing a hand, or indeed an arm. People have survived these kind of wounds for millenia, so no need to lose a Fate Point here. Losing the hand may be sacrifice enough, as they still have to survive the rest of the adventure before even getting a chance of looking for a cybernetic replacement.

Give him back his FP, and all should be well, no?

I think this situation was handled ok. Letting the dice decide the outcome is a nice way of letting the players have some control over the situation.

One alternative approach is to give the player some insanity or corruption points for making a deal with a devil. I used this in the past as a way for the players to know that there were consequences for their actions.

Thanks guys, glad you agree I did ok. In terms of the crit, I had the player roll damage on themselves, roll two dice pick the highest, and she caused a 10+ point crit so a FP was required. Given the circumstances and her intentions, I ruled it was effectively hacking her own hand off to get enough blood into the chalice as quick as possible. She wasn't unhappy with spending the FP just that the others had stopped it achieving anything.

Can't stress enough how pleased I am to have a good bunch that have taken this situation and used it to advance the party dynamic rather than cause a split! Two of them are relatively radical in their actions, one has decided to rediscover the slight radical leanings in his background, and the fourth wants to use it as an opportunity to become more of the conscience of the group ensuring that they don't ever go too far.

konst80hum - how did it go?

Well they still managed to stall, however this time for a semi good reason. They went through the soiree with a dead Heretek and with Captain Rubio missing some teeth and the Ozzymandias. I now have a Daemonette possesing one of thew adepts (long story), the Guardsman (who is the group's Primaris) geting hold of a Melta gun at extortionist prices and a Psycker who the night before discovered that his last name is Haarlock and is masquerading as a Rogue Trader searching for references to the "worm that walks". Next Session is the grand Climax (i hope).

I have to thank you for the extra locations that you and Luther Harkon have provided. I ruthlessly plundered your work ( the players loved the Enjin Room the Web and the Observatory and thanks to them are convinced that the whole place is built on a spaceship).

BrotherKane said:

Was she already injured? Even the most weedy Adept is likely to have around 10 wounds at the start of their careers, and a TB soak of 3. So to generate a 10+ Crit you would need to deal 23+ gross damage if the character was uninjured when taking the hit.

Then there is the whole discussion where Combat mechanics don't work well outside of combat. Hacking of your arm is not really a combat action. Did you roll WS "to hit"? Is the arm considered "helpless"? Consider if she just wanted to hack of her pinky (little finger) instead: Would you still roll damage the same way?

On the other side, I think that dying from blood-loss is appropriate. I recall discussions about this scene where it was pretty clear that the Widow would need enough blood to ensure the victims death (otherwise there wouldn't be much point to the whole trap).

In the end I agree with the others, you handled it ok

konst80hum said:

Thanks. My current group were also convinced it was a spaceship when it all started to rumble :-D.

The mechanics I used were this:

She was trying to cause a wound severe enough that she would bleed into the cup copiously (I told her the cup wass BIG). It did take place in combat, so each round she attacks her own to slit her wrist effectively. I got her to roll two damage dice and pick one, no WS check required. Minus her TB but not armour as I assume she would delibrately find a gap. Now I check my notes again she actually got a crit that caused her to pass out before she got to 10+ but she was suffering from Blood Loss. It did take her a couple of rounds to reach this.