People have a tendency to assume that Sorcerer's combat system (because it is simple and quite fast) is a drama-based, "ignore the dice if they aren't working for you" system.

It is not. Bluntly, nothing could be further from the truth.

Approaching Sorcerer as though it's drama-based ''"well, I want her dead, so I'll just have the bullet kill her" misses most of the fun of working within the system -- it is simple, but has meaningful and powerful constraints. (Like writing a haiku vs. free verse, if that doesn't sound too arrogant.)

Die-rolls should be "out there" (forget that dice screen -- keep it for your notes), they should be honored, and they are very concrete in their results.

Once the results have been produced by the system (the dice have hit the table), they are essentially set in stone for an exchange -- concrete results *without* all the rules-crunchy barometric-pressure readings and height-difference charts.

With these dictated results in mind it is easy to then narrate the specifics of what happens, according to the feel of the genre, and in an interesting way. Yes, it's dramatic and narrated in it's results, but not in its resolution -- no matter what, the results of using the system are still what __has__ to happen as a result of the conflict.

All of this comes about as a result of the Announcement Phase, in which consequences of possible actions are discussed openly before the dice ever hit the table -- it's all very OOC and omni-vision because it has to make sense and be fair for everyone -- no one should be able to say, after the dice fall, "I didn't know that would happen if I did X."

Making sure everyone is clear on everything going on while still in the announcement phase is critical. The GM suddenly saying, following the rolls, "And roll to defend against this other guy's attack! He changed his target!" is just as illegal as the player saying "I change my action to hit Bob instead!" Get all of that out before any dice are rolled.

Admissible changes to your choices during resolution are only for aborting to defensive rolls; there are no saved actions and no "holding action until after 'x' happens". The moment of player control comes during Announcement, where everyone's deciding what they're going to do. Once the system goes into action, that's it. [1]

Stated actions should be both general and dramatic, along the lines of "I beat him about the head with my pistol butt, paying particular attention to his face." There's no need for a blow-by-blow account of what happens (that's for after the dice are rolled), but you still have room for dramatic descriptions and their associated bonus dice. [2]

See also: Combat Initiative