Non-lethal victories - showing mercy and avoiding Lawbreaker 1

[exploding_brain]

This is definitely a "Your Mileage May Vary," "Depend on what kind of game your group wants" sort of area, but have you used the narrative authority of Taken Out and Concessions to avoid killing NPCs, especially mortals?

It seems to me that, worst case scenario, your wizard is fighting a mortal villain (with an allied Warden literally looking over your shoulder), and you Take him Out with a blast of magical fire, the player doesn't need to fear killing the target, since he can describe how the villain is Taken Out by his attack.  "A ball of flame explodes right in front of him, and expands exactly far enough to burn away his shirt, his chest hair, and his eyebrows, and give him a first degree burn.  He drops his gun and surrenders."

On the other hand, if the villain choses to concede rather than suffer a consequence earlier in the fight, the GM and the players have to negotiate the terms of the NPC's defeat.  If we're looking at the concession from the NPC's point of view, they're not going to chose death as the circumstances for their defeat.  But if we're looking at it from the GM's point of view, and the GM wants to cause this particular kind of trouble for the PC, he can offer a "Yeah, that blast of fire kills the guy" concession.  Then the player has to negotiate for a less severe outcome, or refuse the concession, so that he can continue the fight and Take Out the NPC without killing him.

Could lead to some rather counter intuitive situations, I'd imagine.  Hasn't happened to me yet in our game, but our Red Court Infected gun-bunny character was asking me if victories gained through firepower are possible without NPC death.  I wasn't quite sure how to handle it.  I'll probably let them get away with irresponsible use of force most of the time, unless there's an opportunity for a nice, juicy, life complicating compel.

[Wordmaker]

I'm not sure that anyone can object to any character taking a concession in a conflict. But basically, as I understand it, the idea is that for a character to really fall into temptation, the step to do so must come from free choice, not from being tricked into it. As such, I would never use a concession to cause a PC to kill a character they didn't intend to kill.

One option you might want to consider, which is something my group does sometimes, is when a physical conflict starts, get an idea of everyone's intent. So the players get to know if their opponents are going to kill them if they win, and they also need to make the decision right there if they're going to pull out all the stops.

Now, compels are a much different story. If a PC takes someone out in a physical conflict, and you want to see whether they'll cross the line or not, offer them a Fate Point and compel an appropriate Aspect. That's much more in keeping with the way the system's designed, and the player can feel like you're just heightening the drama rather than trying to catch them out.

Granted, I get a very strong vibe of "don't take the p*ss" with this game. Sure, the players could fling fireballs and gunfire around, and decide "no, I'm not killing anyone" all the time, but that sets a very specific, light-hearted (or even comic) tone, which isn't appropriate for every game. It's the responsibility of everyone, player and GM alike, to make sure everyone's on the same page.