Stakes

The rules say that BDTP is "the only way to permanently injure or get rid of a major named character controlled by the Story Guide." Does this mean "I kill Gandalf" is illegal as the stakes of a simple Ability Check (that is, not Bringing Down the Pain), resisted or otherwise?

Yes, it is illegal. [1]

Q: Presumably PCs must have at least as much protection as major NPCs, so is "I kill that obnoxious player character" is also illegal as the stakes of a simple Ability Check?

This is unclear in the rules. Some G Ms feel that the PCs right to protect their characters by calling for BDTP (which the GM explicitly does not have for NPCs) is sufficient.

Q: Can you specify harm to your opponent as the stakes of a simple Ability Check (not B Dt P)? e.g. "I humiliate Gandalf in front of the king, doing level six harm in Instinct and making him give me a pony."

The GM can, but not players. The GM may specify any Harm included in the stakes, and if he doesn't, then you aren't causing any harm. Note that the rules say: "The player states the character's intention and the Story Guide sets the stakes." [2]

Miedvied dissents: "The GM being able to specify whether or not harm occurs on a roll and the player not being able to - this is one of those double-standards that seems rather ... well, completely at odds with the entire tone of the T So Y mechanics. I just don't think you can get harm in a non-BDTP roll, with some rare exceptions (like using Sudden Knife)."

The rules seem to contradict themselves about who precisely has authority, final or otherwise, to define stakes - the player, the GM or the group. Which is right?

The actual decisions about who sets stakes and who narrates what are intentionally vague in TSOY. Here's the deal:

When I started playing RPGs, this stuff didn't vary by game: it varied by group. In some groups, you said what your character did if you won the dice roll. In some groups, the GM did that. In some groups, you could say whatever for what your character was going to do, and the GM would tell you what to roll. In others, they'd say you couldn't do something.

Anyway, I feel this is a healthy way to look at this stuff. For the people who don't realize that these duties can be shared, I mention it, because I think it's good to see options. But I'm not going to say, "the player should always set the stakes and narrate when he wins" because I think that's too constrictive.

As a general rule of thumb, all input in TSOY should be done as a group, and the Guide's job is to synthesize that group input, and definitely, to shape it. If agreement can't be found, the Guide's job is to help find it.

-- Clinton R. Nixon

Can you set uneven stakes for a conflict? For example: If player A wins, player B is dead, if player B wins, his char gets a cookie.

You can, and you're right that its "normal" SG behavior to try and balance it. What you DON'T want, by my experience, are people agreeing to stakes they can't abide. And that means not just "Oh, man, if I lose this, I can't be happy with it ever" but also the surprising "Wait, I didn't really want that if I win." I often have sides set stakes, and if it seemed even slightly convuluted, formally repeat the stakes as SG, just so everyone's clear. This is helpful with new groups, as people sometimes put riders on it, or even realize they want to change the stakes. [3]

Resisted Checks

Can I have a Resisted Ability Check where both parties actually try to instigate an action, not just resist what their opponent is throwing their way?

both sides can definitely have intents and those examples with passive intents just suck. I would recommend not getting too hung up on the formalities of dealing with intent, as the purpose of the rules is clear: whoever moment-by-moment gains dominance with an appropriate Ability check has their way in the situation. When the situation changes (such as a character gives up on whatever they were doing and tries something else, a scene ends, some new factor enters the scene, the situation moves to a new level or new issue or whatever) a new check might be warranted, as well as when a character uses some Secret requiring a check. But apart from that, you just roll the dice to find out who dominates the situation at hand.

Considering that as the prime objective of simple conflict resolution, I tend to interpret Clinton's Ability check variants as a list of specific adapted techniques for different fictional situations: he's not saying that these are the canonical forms any Ability check needs to fit in with no overlap, but rather he's giving some examples of how Ability checks might be compared with each other when it's necessary to find out not only whether a character succeeds (the definition of the simple check) but also how that success interplays with the success of others (which is where the two other examples come up).

Consequently, I haven't actually ever worried about placing a given conflict in the "competitive" box or the "resisted" box myself, especially not before the check itself. The narration will make it clear whether the success of one party prevents the other from succeeding, which is the only difference between the competitive and resisted conflict types as far as I can see. In summation, for IIEE purposes all this means that all you need before rolling is to determine what the characters are doing and why, after which you can roll (the "what they are doing" part), and then narrate the dominance of whichever party over the issue (the "why they are doing it" part) of the check. [4]

Surprise

Does a character acting with the advantage of surprise basically get her intention unless the other character decides to Bring Down the Pain (which only works if the other character isn't an NPC), or is there something else mechanics-wise meant to happen?

That's how it works - except that it's pretty hugely dispowering and I wouldn't do that unless the other character didn't matter, in which case no BDTP would happen, so it's a fairly moot point. (Clinton Nixon, 14/05/2006)