>> attempted a fancy maneuver to
>> take out one of the peasants (against whom player characters get a
>> column shift, so it's doubly embarrassing) botched it spectacularly
>> and was knocked down.
>Doubly embarrassing, but not actually possible. The worst you can do
>in this situation is to roll a "1" -- "Big Failure", which gets bumped
>up to Failure. Pretty much by definition, a Failure is a non-falling
>- -on-arse result. (Unless the Ability being tested was "magical affinity:
>not falling on arse", of course.)
>Alex.
No, it is very possible. The falling on arse result is entirely
dependent on the number of status points wagered. Judging by the
description in this case it was a hefty amount, easily allowing a
Failure to result in dropping below zero status points and thus
landing upon one's posterior.
Only if the status points wager was relatively small would a Big
Failure be required to take someone out, and then only if they had
plenty of points at the time.
Eric Rowe