110. Go Aggro: Stakes and Mistakes

What are you rolling for when your character goes aggro? What are you rolling to find out? You aren’t rolling to see if you “hit” because whether or not the target of your aggression takes damage is up to them, not you. You’re not rolling to see if they cave, because again, that’s up to the target. As I look at the move, the roll determines how well you limit your target’s response to your violence, how little wiggle room you give them to react to your aggression.

On a miss, anything can happen. We see this in the first example. Not only does Joe’s Girl not go with Marie, she has Marie unarmed, bloody-nosed, and pinned to the ground before Marie knows what’s happening.

On a 7 – 9, the target can get out of your way, secure themselves away from you, try to appease you with whatever they think will work, try to prove to you that they are no threat, take the beating, or yield entirely and do what you want. This is Fleece sidestepping Bran’s attack in a “half-laughing, half-terrified” manner. According to the text, “What’s important is the character’s got the target’s attention and has forced them to change course or give ground” (139). At its most basic level, a successful hit means that the target can’t ignore you and must shift their behavior in some way to accommodate your demand on their attention.

The logical extreme of that measure is precisely what a 10+ gets you: the target completely changes her course to accommodate you or bears the full brunt of your attack. The best you can get is to give your target two choices: suck it up and do what I want. That’s where Plover finds himself when Keeler is bearing down upon him brandishing a claw hammer in the third example.

In Act Under Fire, the stakes of the roll are made clear by defining the fire, either situationally or verbally. In Go Aggro, the stakes are implied to some extent by the range of responses allowed by the move’s pick lists. Because of the structure of the move, the players never have to agree about what the aggressor wants or how the target might respond. What’s at stake is always how unignorable your intended violence is.

And that brings us to the “example of a mistake & correction”:

Audrey the driver corners Monk. “I scream at him, shove him, call him names. ‘Stay THE FUCK away from Amni, you creepy little turd.’ I’m going aggro on him.” “Cool,” I say. “Do you pull a weapon, or is it just shoving and yelling?” “Oh, yeah, no, it’s just shoving and yelling.” “Well, that’s fine,” I say, “but if he forces your hand, he takes 0-harm. I’m pretty sure that’s what he’s going to do. Do you want to roll for it anyway?” “I do, but no, he better take me seriously. I’m just shoving and yelling, but I’m threatening to cut him off, you follow?” “Oh!” I say. “Oooh. Yeah, roll it” (140).

This is a great example because it raises the issue of what happens when your violence is ignorable even if you make the hit. Audrey doesn’t want to bash Monk’s brains in, but she wants to physically attack him and be taken seriously. She’s not going to manipulate Monk with her hotness, and she doesn’t want to reason with Monk through her sharpness. She’s being violent and clearly going aggro, but her 0-harm attack means that on any kind of hit Monk’s choice to force her hand is tantamount to ignoring her, the very thing a hit is supposed to prevent. What to do?

The threat to “cut him off” give Audrey something additional_to hold over Monk along with the violence. If Audrey’s player rolls a hit, Monk will be forced “to change course or give ground.” To force Audrey’s hand now is to take the 0-harm _and accept that she’s cutting him off (from the drugs, sex, or whatever good stuff she’s been supplying him with). And I love that the MC is super intrigued by the threat, like she doesn’t know how Monk will respond to that threat any more that Audrey does and is eager to find out. Now everyone is leaning in to see what the dice say in order to find out what Monk will do. The fiction is clear, the stakes are clear, and everyone is engaged. That’s what the rules are there to create.

The passage strikes me as play advice disguised as a mistake. Going aggro isn’t “do X or I’ll hurt you.” It’s “I’m trying to hurt you but you can get me to stop if you do X.” First, if your character’s actions fit that equation, it’s going aggro, not seducing or manipulating someone. Second, you are not limited to only bringing violence; you can layer a non-violent threat on top of it. That extra threat has no mechanical teeth (meaning you aren’t bound either to follow through with the threat or to honor an agreement not to) but it does bring additional pressure to bear upon your target and can give you that “Oooh, yeah, roll it” moment.