What happens when a character's feeding stress track is maxed out?

Question

I've got a player playing as a White court Vampire, and with the template they have a feeding dependency. Let's assume that he ends up going for a while and not feeding and his stress track goes over the limit, what happens then? For this particular instance he feeds on fear.

Answer 1

The hunger stress track is a bit different from other stress tracks. Other stress tracks overflow as a result of an enemies' actions. The hunger stress track is only checked in general as the result of a feeding failure (see YS190), which only happens at the end of a scene. As such, first, the feeding failure would result in losing powers and abilities equal to the amount of stress that would be taken over the stress track.

From YS190:

If you cannot or do not wish to spare consequences, then you must lose access to a number of your powers, up to a refresh cost equal to the amount of stress taken.

Only if you have no powers left to lose are you taken out by a feeding failure. In that case, your failure is dictated by the game master, not an opponent. The only case when your opponent would get a chance to dictate your fate would be when the feeding failure was brought on as the result of a compel.

YS190 is a good resource for rules on the differences between the hunger stress track and other stress tracks.

NOTE: If an opponent does compel a check for feeding failure and you succeed, you immediately clear out your hunger stress track, just as if it was a check between scenes.

More references for the answer:

From Fred Hicks on Twitter.

Bolded section is what you do instead of taken out. Any stress not soaked by the track or consequences = points of power lost.

From a separate e-mail thread asking this same thing, I got this further response:

But I mean in the case that you have no more powers to shut off. Does nothing happen? Or do you get "taken out", i.e. lose control completely or something appropriate to the narrative?

That's left up to the individual table, specifically the GM as the "attacker".

So the progression from this interpretation is

1. Take stress.
2. Take Consequences
3. Lose Powers
4. Taken out

(Posting this as asked by Fred)

Answer 2

There is a simple definition of being taken out (ie. running past a stress track) on all FATE 3.0 games. The player loses control of the character, and the character's fate is in the hands of any opponent(s) (YS 203). The character may or may not be able to return to the game depending on whatever the said opponent decrees within reasonable bounds.

With a White Court vampire, being taken out on the hunger track probably translates to something like passing out, freaking out, going into a feeding frenzy or doing something stupid, even maybe something suicidally stupid. You have lost control and your fate is in the hands of others.

If you have no powers left to lose and are taken out by a feeding failure, you are actually taken out (resulting in complete incapacitation, extreme emaciation, and other nasty fates) — YS 190

"Other nasty fates” like becoming a mindless monster driven only by hunger. It's ugly. — Harry Dresden

Being taken out is a serious thing, treat it as instant death because it may well become one if your opponent offers a reasonable story for that. Remember that you can always offer a concession (YS 206).