Automatic Defeat is an interesting and somewhat undefined condition. It comes about when a character, because of penalties, has a TN in a contest of less than 1 (making it impossible to roll against him). I think it's found in the rules for modifiers, actually.
Just what does automatic defeat entail? Well, from my POV, it's a signal for the player to find a different contest to attempt. I'll often tell the player that if he attempts X, that it'll be an automatic failure. In fact, even before that point, I'll consider framing the contest somewhat differently so that the situation doesn't even come up. "Well, the contest is for you to run away, because if you stay and fight, it's an automatic defeat." Or, again, the player will come up with this alternative goal for the contest.
But occasionally the player persists, understanding that it's hopeless. I assume that I then merely get to narrate whatever result I like - much like an automatic success. What's interesting, however, is that we have no mechanical result from which to guage how large a penalty to assign to this loss in either an automatic victory or defeat.
The simplest thing, of course, is to opt not to give a penalty at all. This could be because the opposition is satisfied with some winning condition that's not penalizing. Like they might be fighting just to get the character in question to stop fighting. In which case, the losing character stops, and is not injured. In fact, you can even narrate injury, and choose not to apply a penalty if you like. Call this the Rambo Effect.
But what if the goal was to, in fact, injure?
The implication with automatic failure seems to be that the Narrator gets to simply select a level of penalty to apply, up to and including Complete Defeat. In fact, the book is pretty explicit that if a contest is to render somebody unconscious or something, that, if successful that said incapacitated character can be rendered dead at the whim of the character doing so. That seems to be an application of Complete Defeat to Dying, and then even going so far as to say that the Dying condition leads immediately to Death.
One would think that the application of something less than death would also be possible. The opponent cuts off your hand and runs off, or just gives you a good poke with his sword in your leg as a reminder not to mess with him. That could be just a -1 Hurt, if you like.
Does this seem to be a reasonable interpretation of the rules? Is there another way to look at it?
Mike
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