Occams Razor

So there are skills available to players that allow you to inflict Targeted to a person. If that gesture is broken does the inflict go away? I ask this because the flavor is for a targeting laser being painted on the target. If the laser is not on the target then the target is not Targeted. Just wondering what the case is.

So, Gestures are a bit of a weird area as there is some room for interpretation in the skill, but strictly speaking from the rules:

"Someone points at you with a hand or a weapon and calls out “By My Gesture” followed by a verbal. If the effect has a duration that is not instantaneous, then instead of the normal duration, the effect lasts so long as they point at you."

This means, if the effect has a timer like Agony, Paralyze, Root, Drain, etc, the gesture determines how long it lasts. The classic "instantaneous effects" in Accelerant are: Damage, Death, Disarm, and Maim. Slam is a bit different as it lasts till you let your shoulder blades or chest hit the ground, so the end of the effect is determined by the person taking it (this makes Permanent or Short Slam very strange). Inflicts can be used in 2 ways either "Here read this card" or simply last till the end of the event (most trait inflicts are till end of the event), but is not strictly defined as a timed effect or an "instantaneous effect" as a result of this dual use. Imbue/inflict is there in part to allow for some flexibility to the Accelerant system in creating roleplay effects that don't strictly fall into the system calls, hence the vague nature if its existence.

As a gesture delivery from a PC, the skills we have probably intend to be treated like the "marked" trait was in Seven Virtues as, once delivered by Gesture, the target will keep it till they are dead or are "cured" of it, but that will be determined by Plot Staff.

When "Painted" was delivered by your name or some other method, I heard "X and cure painted to painted." This indicates that the trait was permanent when that call was done. The standard ruling.

Gesture painteds were handled via BMV X to painted. So a gesture inflict would likely last as long as the gesture was held, or until line of sight was broken. Since short inflict X is also possible, I'd imagine the BMG modifier would work as normal. If the delivery was intended to be permanent, By your name could be used to the same effect with no ambiguity.

Since the flavor of the trait was to paint the target via laser scope, this is what makes the most sense.

Either way, when I was painted BMG, I dove behind a wall. When the attack went off, I took it anyway because it was the cool thing to do at the time. After all; the drone could've been anywhere in the sky. My wall wouldn't do jack shit if I was still somehow exposed to the sky.