I've never been happy with the "stated stakes" argument in a combat - you're not (usually) fighting to wound, or to capture, or to drive away - if you've got swords out, you're going for a kill. Period, End of statement (I also don't buy the "I only pulled out my gun to scare him, I didn't mean to kill him" defense in murder trials).
You can change your mind on what to do with him once the contest is over and decide not to kill him, but the "Stated Stake" in any weaponed (and some non-weapon) combats is (in my mind, anyway) "I'm gonna kill the bastich".
> Don't get me wrong, I actually advocate allowing death on a marginal
> victory
> in the right cases. The rules do say that if you get a victory, any
> victory,
> that you get your goal. But then it says that you can't kill somebody in
> combat without a complete victory. This seems directly contradictory. I
No, it actually doesn't say that. It says that, on a complete victory, the guy is dying *as a result of stuff that happened during the contest* - this is *not* the same as saying "you can't kill someone except on a Complete Defeat".
In my mind the rules *really* mean: "If you decide *not* to kill your opponent, he suffers the following penalties..."
(I also don't like the effort Kathy puts into *not* killing in the example on page 76 - it seems really forced to me - and that's what I said way back when. Page 75 is okay because it presents in-character/in-world reasons not to kill; page 76 is Narrator fiat on what will happen (no saving throw!) if you do kill).
Sure, I absolutely agree that mooks have no immunity, and can be killed in droves, but that some villains (and Heroes) have some form of scriptal immunity, and you don't just kill Luke or Darth when you've got them at a disadvantage. (I was *really* disappointed that Darth Maul *didn't have scriptal immunity - it just felt really jarring that we was cut down so easily. It didn't help that the next "villain" up the Sith spout was so wimpy).
Perhaps the biggest difficulty I see is that the fights with the Villain in Chapter three (when we're just getting to know him) and in Chapter 10 (When our heroes have tracked him to his secondary hideout) aren't *really* combat against the villain. But that is how it's usually presented. I know: swords are out, people are trying to kill each other, etc. but the fight is *not* a Death-combat against the villain, but a contest against his *plan*. The contest consequences text would look something like:
Villain Any Victory: The Villain's plans succeed.
Marginal: +1 to one ability in the next plan segment.
Minor: +3 to two different abilites in the next plan segment
Major: +5 to three different abilities in the next plan segment
Complete: +5 to all abilities in the next plan segment
Tie - No effect on the villain's plans
Marginal Defeat - the Villain escapes, a marginal setback. -1 to one ability
in the next plan segment
Minor Defeat - The Villain escapes with minor damage done to his plans
Major Defeat - The plan is salvalgable, but with great effort. the Villain
barely escapes, Lair destroyed.
Complete Defeat - The plan can no longer go forward, the villain must start
from scratch. Lair destroyed. Villain escapes by the skin of his teeth.
This sort of contest consequennces don't require the Narrator to be prescient and know that his villain is in trouble going into the fight -Scriptal immunity is "built in" to the consequences. Sure, to the players it looks like the fight is a standard "We're gonna kill him", but as they drive the villain to Defeat, the "Escape" clauses kick in, and he gets away (The villain jumps on his horse and rides away, the villain uses flash-powder and disappers, the villain rolls through a hidden door in the base of the statue and escapes while the roof starts to cave in, etc.)
RR
He was born with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world was mad
R. Sabatini, Scaramouche
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