One of the guidelines is that a consequence has to be taken as a result of the conflict before the concession is offered.

Not that I'm contesting this, but I don't see how it meaningfully impacts the discussion.



The fundamental defining factor of a 'Taken Out' result is the lack of choice by the victim of the attack
The fundamental defining factor of a 'Concession' is, instead, it's voluntary nature

Thus, voluntarily submitting to a 'Taken Out' result (by pointedly neglecting to take on a consequence that would allow one to avoid that result) is, in fact, more in line, from a narrative perspective, fundamentally, with a 'Concession'

It is only slightly bigger than 1000.  It is smaller than 1500 from what I remember of the books.  I think it is far less than 1 in a million since that means there are 5-6 times as many people out of the council as there are in it.  That seems like way too many wizard-level talents. 

1/1mil might be high as a standing population number, but likely less so as a frequency of appearance
ie. Warlocks tend not to last very long, and so artificially deflate the numbers

No. Concessions are something that happen before someone is taken out. Concessions are a negotiation between opposing forces. A taken out result is completely dictated by the opposing forces and should be potentially worse then the concession. Even if you hadn't taken any consequences Someone who took you out would be well within their right to say you're dead. If you concede that isn't usually the case.

Here is the relevant section:

Quote

Finally, a character cannot be saved from a
roll that takes him out by offering a concession.
You have to offer the concession before the roll
that takes out your character. Otherwise, it’s
cheating the opponent out of victory.

It might not have been perfectly worded, but what I meant to indicate is that if you award a 'taken out' result in a situation when instead taking a consequence (or several consequences, even) was and option, and sufficient to prevent it, then the 'taken out' result was voluntary, as the individual with narrative control of that character chose to allow it.  Which is, fundamentally, a Concession.

Any 'Taken Out' result in a situation that was not capable of filling the stress track and all remaining consequences IS a Concession.
2-4 over the stress track is taking a moderate or severe consequence, not getting taken out, let alone necessarily killed.

That 'Concession' of the horrible burns and disfigurement? It'd also be a reasonable 'Taken Out' result, had the attack forced that.

While it's not necessarily the GM's fault, or even (sole) responsibility, they are generally the ones with the most resources available to them to fix such a problem

I don't disagree with that, which is why I advocate a system for law breaking that has nothing to do with compels.  Otherwise, even with a good GM, it wouldn't necessarily be a matter of waiting till the PC runs out, but rather having the appropriate dramatic moment come up when the player happened to be out.  Either way it's an unacceptable situation, but I feel that there being no risk associated with unrestrained combat magic to be unacceptable as well.

Except...

A weapon:8 evocation taking the form of a giant ball of fire comes flying at you when you're already scraped, bruised, and running on your last legs.
You manage to dodge the discipline roll down to a single shift, meaning you're about to take 9 stress.
Your minor, moderate, and severe consequences are already occupied, and have only 2 of your 4 physical stress boxes remaining.
You take the extreme consquence 'horrible burns', change one of your aspects to 'grotesque appearance', take one stress, and CONCEDE.  You'll survive, though, assuming you get medical attention in a reasonable amount of time, and no one takes the opportunity to just up and slit your throat.

Ah I see thank you. And natch the description doesn't actually limit you to Dark Powers allowing it, though I would. Light Powers would rather you help yourself! Though in this case it's sort of a grayish power...well maybe reddish...would that count?
And thus more rules confusion is added.

The only real ''light' power' described in that section, Soulfire, does include a suggestion of a lower credit limit, but there's not really a reason that they'd refuse to help in the same ways