Marines are outside the airlock, about to enter.
Morgan: “I fire into the airlock as it cycles, keeping their heads down.” That’s a maneuver using a Slug Throwers check to place “Keeping heads down” as an Aspect on the airlock zone.
Caller: “Roll against target value zero.” Dice are rolled and evaluated as success. Caller notes the new Aspect on the map and gives it an open check box for free-tagging.
Marine A (played by the referee): “I’m going to make a move check to enter the airlock.”
Caller: “Compels?”
Morgan: (holding up a fate point) “Hey, it’s raining lead in there—you hold up outside until the automatic fire subsides.”
Marine A: (giving one of his own fate points) “Yeah right—we are MARINES!” Caller: “Roll your Agility for movement then.” Dice are rolled, shifts generated,
and the marine enters the airlock. Hallie: “I fire on the marine that just entered.” Caller: “Compels?”
...and so on. Hallie, if not compelled to inaction, might well free-tag the cover- ing fire Aspect to get a solid hit. The important thing is that the Marine gets to decide whether or not to pay for his ability to ignore the covering fire, using the same mecha-
nism we see all over the game. The fate point economy gets ramped up and story- relevant decisions abound.
damage
When a character has been hit by an attack that generates shifts, she may take damage. Before marking the damage, she may reduce the shifts by applying one or more Consequences: a mild Consequence reduces the number of shifts by one, a mod- erate Consequence reduces the number of shifts by two, and a severe Consequence reduces the number of shifts by four.
After mitigation by Consequences, the remaining number of shifts indicate the box to be marked on the appropriate stress track. Mark this box and all boxes below it. If the highest box to be marked has already been marked, the damage “rolls up”: mark the next higher open box and all below it.
A player may only ever have a maximum of three Consequences and may only have a maximum of one of each type regardless of the track the Consequence was scored against. This means that a character suffering economic hardship (see Chapter 4) is easier to take out.
The defender determines the precise wording of the Consequence (subject to rea- sonableness, as determined by table authority).
taken out
A character is out of play when he sustains a hit past the end of any stress track. This means a person can be Taken Out without ever taking a Consequence and there-
fore without ever taking any serious damage! A person that takes eight shifts past his Health stress track cannot be saved. That’s a one-shot kill… or maybe there’s a better way to narrate it?
The attacker narrates taking out his opponent (subject to reasonableness, as deter- mined by table authority). Anything that suits the method (gunfire, punching, whatever) and that genuinely removes the character from play is suitable.
When narrating how an opponent is Taken Out, it is essential to articulate how and if the opponent can return to the game. A ship that has been Taken Out is no longer able to participate in space combat, but could, in theory, be boarded (where it could revert to the personal combat game). Or it could be destroyed (in which case it could not re-enter the game). This gives a lot of power to the victor, and should be an incentive to players to offer concessions when things aren’t going their way. A major opponent Taken Out in personal combat can no longer fight, but the long-term reper- cussions are determined by the narrative. Being Taken Out might also change features of a character sheet, though this requires some negotiation.
Example: Karen has spent a Stunt for her character to have a ship, and the ship is Taken Out. The referee may determine that the ship explodes, in which case at the end of the session, Karen will be able to re-invest the Stunt (subject to the progress of the narrative and table consensus). Let’s say that the narration for Taken Out was simply that the ship was abandoned by the crew. Now Karen has a choice: she can change the Stunt as above (acknowledging that the ship is no longer hers);
however, by leaving the ship in play, the referee cannot take it away from her. She may have lost her crew, but if Karen wishes to doggedly hold on to the floating wreck (keeping the Stunt), she will have major repairs ahead of her, but the ship can be saved. In any case, the ship will not be capable of space combat again in this session.
Another example: Jack’s character has the Aspect “Señor Padillo is hunting me.” After a gruelling duel using the personal combat game, Señor Padillo is Taken Out (Jack rejected the referee’s offered concession that he escape to fight another day). Jack now has a choice: is Señor Padillo to be actually written out of the story? The narration might say he is dead, in which case the character’s Aspect will have to change at the end of the session (“I slaughter any who oppose me,” perhaps). Perhaps Señor Padillo is only unconscious, and the players leave him “Bleeding out” or “Unconscious but stable”: both of these indicate that Padillo is out of the personal combat, but Jack needs to decide as part of this narration, whether Pa- dillo can ever return. If the Aspect remains unchanged, he’ll be back (if not next session, perhaps in a later one); if the Aspect is removed completely, the matter is left in the hands of the referee. What Jack can’t do, however, is appropriate Señor Padillo as a benefit for the players: he has been Taken Out, and if the team wants an ally then someone will need to invest a Stunt, committing character resources, before Señor Padillo can become part of the team.
healing
Characters cannot begin removing Consequences until the associated stress track has been cleared.