The Dresden Files > DFRPG

Clarifications requested for Feeding Dependency

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Deadmanwalking:
No worries, it happens to all of us at times.

And I've been thinking about your point #4:

Shouldn't getting Taken Out by hunger be hard? I think the only time we've seen it happen was in Turn Coat, and that was under some truly extreme circumstances.

LCDarkwood:

--- Quote from: Codrus on April 08, 2010, 06:39:01 PM ---Not sure I understand what you are saying.  "not getting a chance to roll hunger" means that you automatically suffer stress or that this exertion isn't enough to cause any hunger at all?

--- End quote ---

My bad. I meant that if you don't get the opportunity to make a Hunger check in a scene, you don't get an opportunity to remove the stress - you've still participated in the scene, and only a successful check makes the stress go away.

So, basically, "casual exertion" just maintains the status quo.


-Lenny

iago:

--- Quote from: Deadmanwalking on April 08, 2010, 09:42:36 PM ---Shouldn't getting Taken Out by hunger be hard? I think the only time we've seen it happen was in Turn Coat, and that was under some truly extreme circumstances.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, it should. And Thomas has some really impressive self-control (that's why we rated him with Good Discipline), which I think backs that up.

Codrus:

--- Quote from: Deadmanwalking on April 08, 2010, 09:42:36 PM ---No worries, it happens to all of us at times.

And I've been thinking about your point #4:

Shouldn't getting Taken Out by hunger be hard? I think the only time we've seen it happen was in Turn Coat, and that was under some truly extreme circumstances.

--- End quote ---

I have some thoughts on that. :)  I'll spoiler tag this though since we're getting into book specifics.

(click to show/hide)Thomas's loss of control in Turn Coat feels like he was already taken out and the Skinwalker chose to give him an extreme consequence rather than killing him. (Extreme consequences: Absolutely great implementation, by the way!)  That's not about Thomas being so strong minded that he can go multiple scenes without feeding. He was already taken out, and the Skinwalker could choose what happened to him.

I think a better situation to look at is Blood Rites, when they head back to the Raith estate. He'd fed earlier in the adventure, so as far as we know, he's not suffering any stress. Yet, we see him come within a hair of killing Justine after a single fight. Assuming Taken Out means he would have killed Justine, then clearly he wasn't taken out here. But stress on the track never forces a character to feed. To model that, in the system as written I'd assume that he applied a severe or moderate consequence and had it and his high concept compelled.

Lara, in Turn Coat, also feels like someone whose hunger reached the 'taken out' stage. Harry didn't want to stay anywhere near her.

I suppose it all comes down to what Taken Out means.  If we think of it as the equivalent of dying (he's permanently a mindless creature), then yeah, it should be hard.  If it means "lost control until he's fed and killed" then I'd argue it should be a little easier to get there on a hunger check, because we've seen Thomas come close a number of times. And by close, I interpret that in game terms as having bought out of it with fate points or by invoking aspects to succeed on the discipline check.

When it comes down to it, I'm just fine with modeling hunger temptation as a compel against high concept or a feeding related consequence. But if I'm doing that, then the hunger stress track doesn't feel interesting to me. It has very little in-game effect other than forcing the loss of powers -- but the very lack of those powers makes the next hunger check easier to make, which resets the stress track. If stress had an effect on discipline checks, or if there were more mid-fight causes of hunger stress, then I could see it as more interesting or useful. If the amount of stress had an effect on whether a character could stop feeding (that is, it influenced discipline checks), that's interesting too.

In fact, I think I see what's bugging me:  typically, the stress->consequences->taken out pattern is something that happens in as part of a conflict. Stress is supposed to be the stuff that disappears between scenes. Hunger is implemented as stress, but is special cased to be persistent...and it gets added after the scene finishes. Which means, to a great extent, that the reaction to a bad hunger check is going to become the scene that follows any fight.....and since this should happen immediately, no one else has had a chance to recover. Effectively, it becomes an extension of the previous scene, rather than part of that scene.  If you constantly incurred stress during a conflict, it might look and feel too much like spellcasting.  But those parallels are there.  Harry incurs stress each time he casts a spell, getting closer to exhaustion. Thomas, Lara and Susan incur stress mid-fight and lose more and more control.

An idea I'm considering as a house rule: If you have a feeding dependency and you use both a power AND invoke an aspect on the same roll, incur 1 hunger stress.

The shorter version: Compels are more interesting to me than the hunger stress mechanic, because compels happen as a scene is played out, while hunger seems like a mechanical thing that's applied after the scene is over. That implies to me that there's something wrong with the hunger stress track, because in building stories, the scene is the interesting part, not the bookkeeping.  It should matter whether Thomas/Lara/Susan is hungry during the scene, not after it.

Deadmanwalking:
Mostly, as I understand it, Hunger Stress isn't to reflect the extremes of hunger (that's compels and such), just the immediate aftereffects of fighting. Don't think your examples, which might be compels on either a hunger based Aspect or a High-Concept Aspect. Don't think the scene with Justine in Blood Rights (that was a use of Emotional Vampire's healing effects on a dying man, not Hunger Stress at all. Ditto for Laura's actions in Turn Coat, actually*), think the immediate post-big fight scene in White Night where Thomas has gone cold and is holding himself together by sheer willpower, and needs to feed, that or Susan being locked in with Harry in Death Masks. It IS post fight stuff.


*Actually, a lot of this stuff is Emotional Vampire, not Feeding Dependency. I'd advise reading over Emotional Vampire.

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