Yes, there’s a difference between a player actively seeking to position things to his character’s strengths than “just describing it that way”. I mean… things can be positioned such that a guard cannot reasonably be sneaked up upon. If that’s the case, Prowl is off the table.
Sure. I don't mean there never are situations where it is not pretty clear cut which skill to use. It is just a that due the intentional overlap, the situations where it is not clear cut are very common, and then it is is more about flavour and how you describe things will affect it. And this is either intentional or if it is not, bad rules writing.
That the actions intentionally have some overlap is different than “unclear situations happen constantly”.
They happen way more often than any other game I've encountered. Because whilst some edge cases always exist, most games are written in attempt to avoid such from occurring, whilst Blades seem to for some reason to be written to intentionally create them.
Like look at the more social-based stats: Command, Consort, and Sway. Most social interactions allow for any of them to be deployed, right? One is being forceful, one is being friendly, and the other is being persuasive. But won’t the circumstances of the interaction matter to which may be the most effective? Or the most to provoke a strong reaction? Commanding an underling makes a lot more sense than trying to Command a Bluecoat, for example. I would expect most tables to grasp this idea pretty well right away.
I think style of command is more distinct. Consort and sway overlap
a lot though, and it often is far from clear which is the one that obviously used.
I’m not sure what makes combat so different. Like, you have a good Hun? Okay… trying to position your character in a place to take advantage of that makes sense… but it requires action of some kind. Maybe there’s a burned out building nearby that overlooks the area where the Score is taking place. Okay… how does the scoundrel get up there? Don’t they have to climb? Do they need to make a roll of some sort to do so? Or deploy gear? Or are they free to simply say “I climb up the ruin and then shoot using Hunt”?
Are there any details provided ahead of time that would constrain player action declaration in this way? Or does player action declaration then prompt the GM to present a decision point for the player? If neither of these things is true, then why not?
You are again thinking about situation where it is clear which skill to use, like sniping someone from a roof. Of course that is hunt. But if we are in combat, and the enemy is not next to me, I have some distance, like they're across the room or yard or something. Then do I use hunt or skirmish? Skirmish is for close combat, hunt is for shooting from "long distances." Unclear, and intentionally so, I'd argue. And the actual play is full of situations like this.
Well, the GM can offer input, no? When I get the impression someone’s really stretching a justification to use a given Action because it’s higher I just say “Really? Does this feel a bit weasely to you?” or something similar.
They could. But again, I am not talking about trying to stretch skills beyond credulity, merely taking advantage of the ambiguity.
And why can we trust a GM to pick a reasonable action, but not a player?
I mean, with game where the skills are intentionally ambiguous like this we probably couldn't, but then there at least would not be haggling and and discussing it all the time. GM says it is this, and that's that.
No, trying to manage all the different elements is part of the game. But so is knowing that you won’t manage them all. At some point, there’ll be a hard decision to make between clearing Heat or Recovering from Harm… and the player will have to pick which one is more important. That’s just part of the game.
But it is not a hard decision whether to roll with tree dice or one. And yeas, sometimes there indeed could be touch choices like you mention (except not really, as then you just pay for extra action, with stash if necessary and do both.) but most of the time it just is pretty basic maths and managing numbers.
Embrace danger… embrace the scoundrel’s life. Follow the fiction. Don’t be a weasel.
What does it actually mean? Does it mean to not play skilfully? Like characters are doing crimes left and right, of course they're living dangerously, but does it mean the players should not try to use rules to manage risks and increase the chance of success?
In open combat. Facing off with an enemy. Prowl is when you sneak in some way. If a PC and an opponent are looking at each other… think Obi-Wan and Vader… neither should be using Prowl. They’re clearly about to Skirmish.
Are you sure they are not about to
duel, and thus use finesse? But yeah, not prowl. Until one of them is distracted by something else, and one can reposition and attack from unexpected angle, then a case for prowl could be made. In any case, even with you original example I think at least as strong case could be made for finesse.
Sure… this is what Set Up Actions and Group Actions are for.
So if one PC is trying to distract a target to help the other PC sneak up on them, that sounds like a Set Up Action to me. I’d have the first player make a roll for the distraction (I’m imagining Sway or maybe Consort for that) and the result would then determine a shift in Position/Effect for the sneaking character.
Players coordinating like that is great… but it’s up to the GM to properly take the situation and then use the mechanics to resolve it in a satisfying way.
Yeah, so sometimes it might be setup action, but often it is just the situation evolving, sometimes it could be a help action. Like if one character throws a bomb at the enemies (using wreck) then another can use the confusion, smoke etc to use prowl to get a drop on one of them. Stuff like that.
