Well.
@Imaro you called it.
Okay. Last week player ended up on the roof with the enemies long rifle and was going to use it to shoot some muscle the other players were engaged with. I ruled situation risky with normal effect. He rolled and got a 4. I had him take out the target but the strong recoil made him drop the gun and it fell off the roof.
The game didn’t tell me to pick that consequence. I could have picked lesser effect and have it take out the enemies left arm instead of kill him. Or have the recoil hit the pc so hard it caused harm. Or have the bullet go through and hit and harm his ally below. Or I could have had the pistol toting bad guy get a lucky shot off on him. Etc. Tons of options.
The game really doesn’t actually offer advice on which fiction to pick does it? If not, then I was absolutely correct.
Its difficult to know exactly if this was the right call on Position and Effect, but it could easily be.
So lets take a look at Position, Effect, Consequences, and Resistance.
POSITION
Position is about how troublesome and dangerous the situation is. In order for me to be confident that I know Risky was the best choice, I would need to know more about the fiction and what had been established through play to this point. Things like:
* which city ward were they in?
* what was the Score type?
* was this in broad "daylight" with civs around?
* Bluecoat patrols or precinct nearby?
* was this a haunted building or is there any other supernatural phenomenon in play?
* does this gang have an allied gang laired nearby?
* it appears this gang includes rifleman/snipers (a member of the Crew secured a long gun from them). Is this their Turf and are their other buildings nearby where they migh have sentries in an overwatch position that could put this PC downrange of some iron sights?
* Is this just a one story building with easy ingress/egress to the top via fire escape? If this is their turf, this could be an easy reinforcements complication with Thug tag enemies (a few mooks or an Expert based on Position).
EFFECT
* Scale - if you're in melee and they've got a numerical advantage, Scale differential hurts your Effect level. The opposite is true if you're in an overwatch position firing down on a melee. If the bad guys have your Crew outnumbered, that means you've got a target-rich environment so your one shot to take somebody out is at an advantage.
* Scale - distance. If this shot is beyond your typical blunderbuss/long gun range, then reduce Effect for that.
* Quality/Tier - If your long gun (or a long gun in your hands) gets + Effect and you're same Tier than the bad guys, that is increased Effect (and vice versa).
* Potency - Probably not much in the way to help here unless they have armor and you've secured armor-piercing rounds as an asset (or something like that).
So just tally up the factors for Effect.
CONSEQUENCES
So, like you've mentioned above, there is always going to be a diverse menu of consequences. The flow chart for evaluating consequences and winnowing them down to your ultimate choice is basically like this:
* Always change the situation tangibly.
* Follow the rules for Position.
* Follow the fiction (what constellation of Consequences are in play).
* Don’t make the PCs look incompetent.
* Follow through with the Consequences you've already telegraphed (Telegraph Trouble and Tell them the Consequences and Ask <if they want to follow through> before the Action Roll is made...maybe they want to revise their course of action).
* Don't negate a PCs success with your Consequence (you can throttle it back just like they can do with your Consequences via Resistance, but don't negate).
* Advocate for the interests and capabilities of the setting and your NPCs via your Consequences.
* Play Goal-Forward (understand what the players are trying to accomplish and put obstacles and consequences in the way of their evinced objective/intent).
* Ask leading questions and follow their lead. Do they think their Rival could be in play here? Is something thematically relevant to them potentially at risk.
* Set and Tick a Clock. Think both on-screen (intra-Score) and offscreen (Setting/Faction Clock outside of the Score). Is that the best and most interesting play here?
* Don't overcomplicate things. Sometimes its just Harm or its just Heat. If that makes sense and it fits all the rest of the bills...do it.
* Use more than one Consequence where you can (especially Desperate Position; eg a Controlled Consequence + Risky Consequence = Desperate). It changes the situation more dynamically, creates more interesting decision-points for players, and gives them the opportunity to outright mitigate a Controlled Consequence to nothing.
* Keep the meta channel open. Ask them what they think of the consequences. Make sure they remember they can Resist the consequence and tell them the mitigated impact of the Consequence (eg now that you will be moving it from Risky to Controlled).
RESISTANCE
As mentioned directly above, (a) always remind the players they can Resist a Consequence and (b) be ready to depict what that newly mitigated/throttled-back Consequence (eg from Risky now to Controlled) will look like so they can navigate their decision-point.
So without knowing a bit more, I can't say for sure if the Position or Effect was the way to go here...but Risky : Standard is the default matrix so its a good fallback if you aren't sure!
As far as your Consequence goes, I would say one big thing to be mindful of is "Don’t make the PCs look incompetent." Scoundrels handle firearms routinely so about the only time I would go with the complication of "the recoil is so intense that you fumble the weapon and it clickety blacks on the street below you" is if this was a specialty weapon with special effects that was either (a) crafted or (b) acquired as an asset which also has (c) a Volatile tag (an auto-Consequence) where you've already telegraphed that the kick/recoil is the default Consequence you're going to administer for the Volatile tag.
The other thing to consider is this. Unless otherwise stipulated (like the Hound's weaponry), Duskvol firearms are all breech-loading weapons with Slow reload. So firing off your Blunderbuss long gun and then losing it actually may not be much of a complication at all because they would be out of the conflict for a bit having to reload it anyway.
Here are my thoughts on what I might have done given a particular set of parameters/fiction:
* IF it was Risky.
* IF it was a one-story building.
* IF this is on their Turf.
* IF the gang has sufficient scale to support reinforcements/more personnel (due to their Tier).
* IF this gang is Billihooks (dogs and thugs).
* THEN, I'm probably saying the following:
GM: "From your position you can hear "sniper on the roof(!)", followed by the sound of the doors to their vice den double doors opening and shutting dramatically. "I got 'em! Sick 'em boy!" The sound of a ravenous barking dog bolting up the iron-wrought stairs to your position on the roof (Its going to be an Expert Thug). Its going to be on top of you QUICK. No time for reload before it gets up here. (If you can somehow Resist this, then its just a Thug Dog and not an Expert...they didn't have time to deploy their meanest canine so they grabbed what was on-hand)."
They have a moment to act, the long gun isn't going to do much for them here, and their facing down a dangerous Thug (if they're a "long gunner", it may be that melee Action Dots aren't their forte). Maybe they flash back to trap the steps. Maybe they flashback and load out a zip line that they set up and they're going to slide down it all the way to the alley across the street while they reload the long gun. Maybe they pull out a melee weapon and go to work against this dog. Maybe they can somehow befriend it. Maybe their a Hound and their ghost-dog-friend will handle this dangerous mutt while they reload and continue raining hell down upon the bad guys.
Who knows.