Creating Fallout Results
Included below are example fallout results, but when you create your own resistances, you’ll need to make a few fallout results to go along with it. Alternatively, you can make up fallout on an ad-hoc basis as and when it’s required, judging the severity by the stress incurred and what’s dictated by the fiction - but it’s useful to have things to fall back on, and players often find it more palatable to receive pre-written fallout rather than something you’re coming up with on the spur of the moment.
In general, fallout will at least do one of the following things:
- Make the player choose between two undesirable options
- Increase difficulty in a certain situation
- Line up events to happen in the next session
- Deny character access to certain resources until pre-defined conditions are met
- Frame an upcoming scene
- Dictate an action (usually undesired)
- Trigger additional stress under certain conditions
Fallout has a variety of durations, too. It can be:
- Resolved immediately, then removed
- Held, and resolved at some point in the future (usually before the end of the next session)
- Permanent, removed only with extensive effort
- Permanent, and not removable
When we use the word “resolved,” we mean that the fallout has an effect on the story and is then removed from the character. Some fallout can be triggered multiple times without being removed - for example, a character who lost a leg will suffer penalties when trying to move quickly or accurately. If they get a replacement leg and learn to walk with it, the fallout is resolved.
When creating fallout, it’s important not to overly punish the player or block story from happening. Fallout isn’t a _bad _thing: it’s a way of creating story, and roleplaying is primarily about telling stories together, so fallout gives you deeper, more interesting stories by introducing narrative consequences. To that extent, fallout results that give dice penalties, make player characters skip scenes, have players lose control of their character for extended periods of time or permanently remove upgrades and advances generally aren’t a lot of fun - they often stop stories from forming.
Instead, think about how you can push story forward, and how fallout can trigger exciting or interesting situations - fallout can give you additional challenges to overcome or provide a new angle on an existing scene, but it very rarely stops you entirely.
As a guide, Minor fallout is generally resolved within a day or so; Moderate fallout takes longer, or has minor permanent effects; and Severe fallout can redirect a character arc or introduce an entirely new facet to it.
Less-Lethal Fallout
As it stands, the system for resolving fallout is pretty brutal. If you’d like to make your game more survivable (or, more accurately, limit the amount of misfortune lumped upon the player characters) then you can treat each resistance as a separate entity when it comes to calculating total stress, rather than adding them all together - rolling under the stress marked in the resistance in question will trigger fallout, but the stress marked to other resistances isn’t factored in.
EXAMPLE FALLOUT RESULTS
With all of these results, we’ve put the relevant Resistance in square brackets before the mechanical explanation of the fallout.
Spy Fallout
Minor
ADRENALINE. [MEAT] Your instincts kick in and you do something stupid. If you’re trying to get away or de-escalate, you lash out at your opponents. If you’re trying to fight, you get panicked and retreat. This is only momentary, and fades after a moment - long enough for a single, immediate action.
ROUTINE CHECK. [COVER] Your actions attract the attentions of the police; they don’t come in all guns blazing, but they’re suspicious and want to learn more about what’s going on.
LIE. [COVER/LOYALTY] Trying to justify your actions, you tell a lie that will cause a problem this or next session.
Moderate
NO WITNESSES. [COVER] You receive word from your handlers that the people involved in the deal can’t be allowed to survive. You’re tasked with eliminating them and hiding the bodies.
BROKEN ARM. [MEAT] Your arm breaks under the strain, and splintered bone juts up through your skin. You can’t use the arm until it heals.
SERVICES RENDERED. [CASH] You’re forced to sell your skills to a third party to pay your debtors, and the work is not pleasant. Work out with the GM what your character doesn’t want to do but is prepared to in order to make ends meet.
Severe
TURNCOAT. [LOYALTY] Tired of being messed around, your true allegiances come to light - you’re a double agent. Maybe you always have been. While you appear to be a loyal agent, in fact you’re serving the enemy, and putting your allies in danger.
BURNED. [LOYALTY/COVER] Tired of your incompetence, or suspicious of your true motives, your agency gives you false information and sets you up to be captured and interrogated by your enemies.
Fey Incursion Fallout
Minor
TRICKED. [IRON] The patchwork unrealities of the fey are insidious. The GM picks someone or something you have been interacting with during this situation; it is an illusion, and everyone aside from you can understand this. It is either completely non-existent, or a mask laid over the top of something else.
WEIRD. [SPIRIT] You do something unsettling that bothers normal people - obsessive behaviour, singing to yourself, fulfilling a strange compulsion at inappropriate times. At the earliest opportunity, the GM can declare that your weirdness puts a useful NPC off you (and probably your allies, too). Once this happens, remove this fallout.
Moderate
BAN. [IRON] Exposed to the fey, your body warps and changes to mimic theirs. You are now subject to a ban, like they are - when you encounter it, all difficulties are 1 higher than usual and you feel compelled to flee the source of the ban. Work with the GM to figure out what your ban is, but here are some examples: music, running water, unforged iron, salt, homes without a mother figure, strong liquor, smoke, scientific instruments, and unpleasant smells.
PERMANENTLY WEIRD. [SPIRIT] As WEIRD, but: it lasts until you get proper treatment, and the GM can trigger it whenever they like. You can suppress the effects of this fallout for a scene by marking D3 stress against Mind.
Severe
CHOSEN. [BLOOD] You pass out and awaken in a half-dream state before a fey Noble, and you can strike a bargain with them in exchange for your life. If you accept their terms, you return to consciousness (changed, always changed) and if you don’t, you slip away into death.
FETCH. [IRON] When no-one is looking, the fey replace you with a animated copy made of feathers, dead leaves, animal bones and clockwork enchanted to look and feel like flesh. You will act as normal and slip into the life your double had (your original character is trapped in a fey prison somewhere beyond the incursion barrier) but always act in service of your fey maker.
Political Fallout
Minor
PROTEST. [FACE] Upset at your actions, the people gather outside your places of power and protest at the injustice. Doing anything nearby will increase the difficulty of all tasks by 1 until the protest dissipates (either give it time, or break it up forcibly).
DIRT. [BACKROOM] Whatever you did wrong, someone knows about it, and they’ve got the capacity to damage your reputation with it. GM, you don’t have to decide who it is, but you should work it out before the end of the next session.
FAVOUR. [BACKROOM] You’re forced to owe someone a favour; they’ll call on you to help them out next session.
Moderate
ENCAMPMENT. [FACE] As PROTEST, but it will not dissipate without your direct action.
STRIKE A DEAL. [FUNDS] Running out of credit, you cut a deal with a wealthy supporter to earn funding - someone you’d rather not work with. They’ll call on you at some point during this or the next session of play, and ask for a favour; they can do this once per session from now on.
WITHDRAWAL OF FUNDS. [FACE/BACKROOM] A prominent supporter withdraws their funding after what you did upsets them. Until you find a replacement, when you take stress to FUNDS, roll twice and pick higher.
Severe
HIGH-PROFILE INVESTIGATION. [FACE] You come under intense scrutiny from official agencies looking to root out corruption and/or illegal acts in your administration. Any stress suffered to BACKROOM is doubled during the investigation procedure; if it uncovers anything serious, you will be forced to retire or hounded out of office.
PUPPET. [BACKROOM] You possess no real power - instead, you are controlled by people in your organisation who have leverage over you. You can go along with their commands, trying not to draw any unwanted attention, or take one last shot at claiming power and making an impact before they remove you from office.