How does one character "grab" another?

[siebharinn]

I have no problem applying a complication that must be bought off before being able to do something, if it makes narrative sense.

Suppose I have a group of heroes that are trapped in a building, which the villains cause to collapse, giving all of the heroes a "Buried in rubble d10" complication. For a brawler, it makes sense that they have to get out from under that before they can re-engage the bad guys. A telepath could continue to fight with the d10 penalty. But a clever player can come up with ways to justify doing something different, so staying flexible is key.

[babel2uk]

what if Nightcrawler decides to put the complication "stranded in the Himalayas" on a villain with no superpowered movement? The mechanics are, in such cases, going to have to constrain what's a feasible narration, or vice versa. (i.e. in practical terms, either making such a thing more difficult, or scaling back the effect achieved.)

Actually that's a really easy one to resolve IMO. And I wouldn't do it with Complications based on distance. Nightcrawler teleports away with the villain, and is now in one on one combat with said villain (essentially the PC has made the choice to split the party). Now he has to attempt to escape. I'm put in mind of X-Men First Class on this one actually. When Azazel is trying to teleport away from Beast, Beast digs his claws into him and says something along the lines of "where you go, I go".

In the case of a teleporter trying to escape I don't think complications for distance are necessarily the way to go either, they don't make sense. A disorientation or fear based complication (for the person holding them being flickered from place to place) sure. That makes sense to be stepped up past d12 (the victim is too disoriented or afraid to keep hold).

Obviously the above only works if the teleporter actually teleports themself with their victim. If they have a power that (to use Popinjay from the WildCards books as an example) teleports their target rather than themselves, it's a different set of affairs, and at that point maybe you have to look at building up assets, resources and some sort of distraction based complication to make sure that when the teleport actually happens there's enough dice and plot points involved to make resistance unlikely.

I'm hoping that makes sense.