I guess this is just a disconnect on what people come to the game for. For me, the whole reason of roleplaying a character of a certain type is to try and embody that character (since failure is both hilarious and safe), and having the stats alone speak for me is removing the fantasy entirely.
It's a perennial subject of discussion for a reason, people have different opinions of where on that spectrum is best.
Back to the original point then, probably something best brought up with the DM? One of my DMs would let you just roll through social encounters, but would give you bonuses for actually doing it yourself (like an advantage, or a lower DC) to encourage people to interact.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Back to the original point then, probably something best brought up with the DM? One of my DMs would let you just roll through social encounters, but would give you bonuses for actually doing it yourself (like an advantage, or a lower DC) to encourage people to interact.
When I DM I ask my players to tell me HOW they are doing a social, if they don't want to RP it out. Like I don't want to hear "I Roll intimidate to have the king give me stuff", I want to hear" I'm going to subtly threaten the safety of the kings daughter so we can get what we want". Then I'll ask for the intimidation check. I don't need them to play it out for me in a back and forth, unless they want to of course. Same way in combat, if someone is super jacked to do something cool in combat and narrate the attempt? That's awesome go for it.
I want people at the table to show me they are paying attention to the narrative, whether it be court intrigue, the ebb and flow of battle or the general vibe of the scene. Giving me a good "This is how I want to accomplish this" is good enough for me.
Yeah for me it depends on the player on who is describing how the charismatic character is charismaing their way through stuff. I have some players that will roll and then get deep into their exact actions and others that will be more towards the "I'm not exactly sure what I do but the dice say I do the fuck out of it" end of the spectrum. In the former case the player does their portion of the scene construction. In the latter I describe how they get to their good end making sure the play is cool with the player. It's really just player to player. Either way we end up with a scene where that character makes a good charismatic play and then we move on to the next scene.
Notably for a lot of combats I kinda do this too. When we're eschewing the map I assume competence on the part of the players and their characters, and simply advise which monsters they can close to, or have range and LoS on, and which of those closing movements would result in any opportunity attacks, and upon inquiry if any AoEs would be appropriate. I'll also advise if I see a player regularly missing a combat mechanic of theirs. Though I've definitely been told, yeah they don't like using that power for whatever fluff reason they had come up with, and so I started tuning the fights to take that into account.
Sleep on
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
There's an idea that comes up in PbtA from time to time that suggests the players should never state the names of their moves - everything should be descriptive on their end, and they only use a move/roll when the GM calls for them to do so. I think there's something there for this conversation about skill checks. I wouldn't want to hear a player saying that they're using intimidate, I would want to hear them describing, even loosely, an intimidation attempt. At which point I would probably tell them to roll intimidate.
As for the other examples used - combat in D&D is still deeply abstracted, and I would think that the tactical genius character's abilities are used for filling in the spaces left empty by those abstractions, rather than being where you move using a five foot gets system. Puzzles and riddles are a place that I would give a player the chance to roll if their character has relevant skills or knowledge, I guess, but I honestly just don't think that they're really a good component to a game.
There's a spectrum between "I roll to see if my character figures out the puzzle" and a Critical Role "say an actual-ass thematically appropriate poem when giving Bardic Inspiration".
I'm heavily towards the former. I generally only speak in character when talking to other party members, to npcs I try to sum up the gist of what she wants to get across. A lot of my frustration actually comes from being presented with situations where my character should know what to do or have something to say but I can't think of anything, so instead of something she does nothing. I'm not sure how to get around it really. It's kind of inherent to the medium that the player knows what their character wants to do.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Why not just interject, "Would my character know what to do on this situation?"
That's my go to when I'm dealing with stuff that my character would know and I personally don't. The answer might be no or you might need to make a roll for it or whatever, but there's little harm in asking.
Players should give the DM two things: What they are doing, and How they are doing it. Then the DM decides how to handle that. They don't get to "I'm going to roll arcana to see what spell that was" because that leaves things too open and too prone to trouble for everyone. This way also lets the DM apply the system a bit more broadly:
"I want to interrogate the dwarf by conjuring flame right under his beard."
"Sounds good, roll intimidate, but feel free to use your int mod."
For the tactical stuff, it also lets the players who aren't tactical genius, but who's character is, play their character. "I want to see if I can figure out a way to rout this zombie hoard, relying on some of those books I read back in Waterdeep when we had that week off". "Great, roll history, see if you can remember any good tactics" "22!" You remember reading about a battle where a great general used trenches and oil to fend off a bunch of elephants, that should be something you can work into a plan for dealing with zombies"
The player gets to inhabit their character, someone who tries to outsmart the enemy instead of going in head-on, but without making the player be fully knowledgeable about military tactics in a roughly medieval world but with magic.
A question like that is hard for the DM to answer in situations like "the fighter and monk are arguing about the monk's demon amulet family heirloom" or "my character's husband has lost all memory of her".
The answers to those require playing the character, which is kind of only my responsibility.
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DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
edited April 2021
I play a lot of wizards and I have them at least pretend to know basically everything, because they did 4 years of wizard college, and then grad studies, and then their doctorate. so constant History and Arcana and Religion checks.
Like, we fell into a magic book that had us play out a story and my wizard took control of the Party because "we had a whole wing in the library with these. Some of them are really great! There was a pirate one-" and he led them through a fairytale adventure.
Depressperado on
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
A question like that is hard for the DM to answer in situations like "the fighter and monk are arguing about the monk's demon amulet family heirloom" or "my character's husband has lost all memory of her".
The answers to those require playing the character, which is kind of only my responsibility.
I mean, those are different than the sorts of situations we've been talking about, but I still don't think they preclude asking for an assist.
Like, for the second situation, you could still say, "I don't really know what my character would say here, but I know she would say something. Does anyone have any suggestions?" Maybe your GM did have something planned that they want you to ask about, and they can push you in that direction. Or maybe just the pause and the discussion will help you figure out what you want her to say.
Alternately, you could just draw a curtain over the whole thing, just say that you don't want to roleplay out that (presumably pretty traumatic) conversation.
The line between roleplay, character potential and player potential is always a weird one.
For the most part I'm a big fan of 2 things:
1) Don't just say 'I wanna social' if you're the social character feeling stuck. Express what you want to do and then open it to the table. No one is a perfect improv writer but your whole group is a better one than just you. It also lets you use character potential as a lean in because your GM will make suggestions in the context of how good your PC is supposed to be.
2) Games that expressly draw lines on where player control is or isn't. Obvious examples include:
a) Mothership, there are no social rolls or skills in Mothership and no Stealth Skills or Rolls in Mothership. As a game of horror you can not mechanically strong arm an oppressor and you can not mechanically obfuscate yourself from the horror. You can only fictionally position yourself, use your environment and knowledge to prompt better circumstances and pray for the GM's mercy.
b) Mutant Year: Zero and the other d6 push Fria Ligan games: Persuade is a skill only to be used when roleplaying reaches an impasse. It is blunt and binary: If you succeed then they must give you what you want but it can come with a cost or caveat. If you fail then they will stone wall or even outright attack you. The perception skill is also very specific in its uses: It spots ambushes, traps and other threats lurking out of view. It never spots hidden levers, treasure or details. Those things are the purview of all players to find just by describing what their characters are doing and looking at in a situation.
The worst of all worlds are description bonus style mechanics that don't have a specific tie or description. Like in Exalted you get a bonus for doing more than saying 'I swing sword at bad man' but there's multiple tiers of bonuses which is fuzzy and annoying plus does it really help combat to have everyone attempting to out purple prose eachother every round?
In contrast Sword and Scoundrel has a great descriptive bonus: TAPS, your TAP value is (roughly) 1/3rd of the actual value of that skill and if you describe how it matters then you can add up to 2 TAPs to your dice pool. So doing legal threats lets you use your lore(law) as the core and your coercion as the TAP value. It's quick and organically prompts the most interesting question how would my character do this?
Right now i'm trying to come up with a One Unique Thing for my new character and it's harder than I expected. Especially given how open-ended it can be and how much is allowed. Looking at various examples and lists online there's a huge array of wild shit people come up with, and even mundane stuff that becomes interesting when you think about it. The first thing I thought of was "her father was a mana elemental" but I realized that's too similar to my current one.
Maybe I should try and come up with more details about the character and then come back to this part.
There's an idea that comes up in PbtA from time to time that suggests the players should never state the names of their moves - everything should be descriptive on their end, and they only use a move/roll when the GM calls for them to do so. I think there's something there for this conversation about skill checks. I wouldn't want to hear a player saying that they're using intimidate, I would want to hear them describing, even loosely, an intimidation attempt. At which point I would probably tell them to roll intimidate.
It's useful, when taking this approach, to try to default to skills players have, if at all reasonable.
For an example from my recent L5R campaign. At multiple times, my monk talked to people, trying to convince them to be reasonable and think for a second for the love of fuck, so the GM went "that sounds like an Earth approach, so that'll be a an Earth+courtesy roll". At which point I went "...ooookay, scratch that, I'm not saying any of that then", because I had an Earth ring of 1 and so if I have to make that roll with Earth I might as well not roll because I would basically need the equivalent of a nat 20 to land it.
Right now i'm trying to come up with a One Unique Thing for my new character and it's harder than I expected. Especially given how open-ended it can be and how much is allowed. Looking at various examples and lists online there's a huge array of wild shit people come up with, and even mundane stuff that becomes interesting when you think about it. The first thing I thought of was "her father was a mana elemental" but I realized that's too similar to my current one.
Maybe I should try and come up with more details about the character and then come back to this part.
I'll always remember the one I picked for an orc thief I ran in a game here. She was the only person to ever escape from the King's dungeon. Twice. It led to our party being relentlessly pursued by the cop from Lupin, while we recreated the chase scene from Aladdin.
The twist was going to be that she wasn't a master thief, her relatives were just the orc guards at the dungeon and kept letting her out.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
There's an idea that comes up in PbtA from time to time that suggests the players should never state the names of their moves - everything should be descriptive on their end, and they only use a move/roll when the GM calls for them to do so. I think there's something there for this conversation about skill checks. I wouldn't want to hear a player saying that they're using intimidate, I would want to hear them describing, even loosely, an intimidation attempt. At which point I would probably tell them to roll intimidate.
It's useful, when taking this approach, to try to default to skills players have, if at all reasonable.
For an example from my recent L5R campaign. At multiple times, my monk talked to people, trying to convince them to be reasonable and think for a second for the love of fuck, so the GM went "that sounds like an Earth approach, so that'll be a an Earth+courtesy roll". At which point I went "...ooookay, scratch that, I'm not saying any of that then", because I had an Earth ring of 1 and so if I have to make that roll with Earth I might as well not roll because I would basically need the equivalent of a nat 20 to land it.
So, minus the part where you renege on the action after the fact, I think this is actually an excellent example of it working as intended.
You shouldn't go "Okay I'm going to make an Air+Courtesy roll to try and get them to see reason", or whatever, but the way you phrase it is valuable.
It's not a perfect art, especially in a system like L5R, but I think part of falling into pace with that system is trying to describe what you're doing in a way that fits your character.
A character with low Earth might have a rough time just plainly asking people to see reason and act responsibly
If your character has a high Fire ring, maybe that character tries to cajole them into acting out of self interest, an Air approach might involve manipulating them to think that they agree with you from the outset, so on and so forth
You don't need the social acumen, necessarily, to have the actual words at hand, just the general vibe you are putting out
And maybe your character does just try to make them see reason, even if it's not their strength, and they fail, and that's alright too
EDIT: to be clear, this isn't to say that GM should use skill checks as a gotcha. It's all a collaborative exercise, or it's usually a collaborative effort between the players and GM.
But in this case specifically, where L5R is a game in which social elements are so important, carefully considering what your character says or at least carefully considering the way they present themselves, or not, is a vital part of the system
Maddoc on
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited April 2021
I don't think there's anything wrong with reneging on it, honestly. Being on the same page about what you're trying to accomplish and how should be established in sync with deciding what skill to use. That's one of the things I appreciate most about how Blades in the Dark is written.
If your character continuously found themselves making Earth approach roles despite having an Earth of 1 I would start to think that your character build and character image didn't match up and it might make sense to revisit their point allocation.
-- as a personal example, I've been playing a violent little shithead in Scum and Villainy for a few months now, and one of the things I enjoy about that character is that I have no Sway or Consort, but I do have Command (which doubles as Intimidate) so if I want to be successful in a persuasion situation I have to be scary and threatening, which doesn't always fit what I want to do but absolutely fits what Lament would do.
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
There can certainly be some discussion about what skill or attribute you think should apply, but I think a number of systems just work better if you describe what you're doing without necessarily naming a skill.
Now, in the flip side, it could also be argued that this is just asking people to try and say a skill without saying it, and that is one hundred percent a problem with this approach depending on the group.
In short, there's no perfect answer, but I like the idea of just saying what you want to do, letting a competent GM apply a check to it knowing generally what your character is and knowing that they're not trying to actively thwart you, and rolling with it regardless of how it turns out.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
There can certainly be some discussion about what skill or attribute you think should apply, but I think a number of systems just work better if you describe what you're doing without necessarily naming a skill.
Now, in the flip side, it could also be argued that this is just asking people to try and say a skill without saying it, and that is one hundred percent a problem with this approach depending on the group.
In short, there's no perfect answer, but I like the idea of just saying what you want to do, letting a competent GM apply a check to it knowing generally what your character is and knowing that they're not trying to actively thwart you, and rolling with it regardless of how it turns out.
I think 9/10 rolls should be decided when the GM says "that sounds like X" but leaving it open for negotiation and revision at that point is vital to avoid bad feelings. No matter how competent your GM is they're capable of mishearing/misunderstanding/just not being on the same page as the player and their expectations. Certainly there are times when I'm happy to laugh and say "yeah, that is a Sway, isn't it?" and then boost the roll the best I can and see what happens, but there are also times when I'm certain I'm Commanding and will revise how mean I was to make sure of that.
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Yeah, it's not an all the time thing for me, it's more of a guideline to try and aim at. Sometimes there's going to be a miscommunication, sometimes players will know they have a special move that the GM doesn't remember, sometimes you don't want to describe hacking and slashing for the third consecutive turn in the fight.
Right now i'm trying to come up with a One Unique Thing for my new character and it's harder than I expected. Especially given how open-ended it can be and how much is allowed. Looking at various examples and lists online there's a huge array of wild shit people come up with, and even mundane stuff that becomes interesting when you think about it. The first thing I thought of was "her father was a mana elemental" but I realized that's too similar to my current one.
Maybe I should try and come up with more details about the character and then come back to this part.
I think an aspect of One Unique Thing that is under considered is that anything you choose is now Unique. Choosing something that sounds pretty mundane could have a major effect on the setting.
There's an idea that comes up in PbtA from time to time that suggests the players should never state the names of their moves - everything should be descriptive on their end, and they only use a move/roll when the GM calls for them to do so. I think there's something there for this conversation about skill checks. I wouldn't want to hear a player saying that they're using intimidate, I would want to hear them describing, even loosely, an intimidation attempt. At which point I would probably tell them to roll intimidate.
This is a common misconception- it's part of the MC's agenda to make their moves without naming them, but players are having to navigate the rules purely via their sheet and basic moves.
This is where another rule comes in: if you do it, you do it; to do it you have to do it. A player can't just say "I manipulate them" and roll, their character has to do it in the fiction too; likewise, if their character does something in the fiction, then they have to roll the move. The MC's job is to make sure they do so by prompting them until they do it as second nature, and to give them the chance to change what they're doing if they're unwilling to use a particular move.
There's an idea that comes up in PbtA from time to time that suggests the players should never state the names of their moves - everything should be descriptive on their end, and they only use a move/roll when the GM calls for them to do so. I think there's something there for this conversation about skill checks. I wouldn't want to hear a player saying that they're using intimidate, I would want to hear them describing, even loosely, an intimidation attempt. At which point I would probably tell them to roll intimidate.
As for the other examples used - combat in D&D is still deeply abstracted, and I would think that the tactical genius character's abilities are used for filling in the spaces left empty by those abstractions, rather than being where you move using a five foot gets system. Puzzles and riddles are a place that I would give a player the chance to roll if their character has relevant skills or knowledge, I guess, but I honestly just don't think that they're really a good component to a game.
This is a bad idea, and the people who have it will make the game worse by implementing it. Having GMs never state the names of their moves makes sense, because the GM moves are just intended as prompts for narration and players have no hooks for them - nobody is +3 to save vs. separate them or gets 1 XP whenever they're put in a spot. The best that could possibly happen when a GM says the name of their move is to slow down play slightly for the benefit of prospective GMs who are currently playing.
Player moves are collections of scripts and choices, and a player can decide what they want to do by seeing a mechanical result they want to achieve, thinking about what makes sense for their character to do next, or both at once, and if a player wants a mechanical result why should they have to play footsie with the GM in order to get it? The ideal is that the player comes up with both the move they're trying to make and the game fiction that justifies it.
Worse, making the GM the authority on the move that gets made can lead to another extremely undesirable scenario where they force players to roll for moves the players don't want to make, because the players said something that sounded to the GM like the move. The GM and the player, if not the entire table, should agree on what move a player is making and how.
The rule for moves is to do it, do it. In order for it to be a move and for the player to roll dice, the character has to do something that counts as that move; and whenever the character does something that counts as a move, it's the move and the player rolls dice. Usually it's unambiguous: "dammit, I guess I crawl out there. I try to keep my head down. I’m doing it under fire?" "Yep." But there are two ways they sometimes don't line up, and it's your job as MC to deal with them.
First is when a player says only that her character makes a move, without having her character actually take any such action. For instance: "I go aggro on him." Your answer then should be "cool, what do you do?" "I seize the radio by force." "Cool, what do you do?" "I try to fast talk him." "Cool, what do you do?"
Second is when a player has her character take action that counts as a move, but doesn't realize it, or doesn't intend it to be a move. For instance: "I shove him out of my way." Your answer then should be "cool, you’re going aggro?" "I pout. 'Well if you really don’t like me...'" "Cool, you’re trying to manipulate him?" "I squeeze way back between the tractor and the wall so they don't see me." "Cool, you’re acting under fire?"
You don't ask in order to give the player a chance to decline to roll, you ask in order to give the player a chance to revise her character's action if she really didn't mean to make the move. "Cool, you’re going aggro?" Legit: "oh! No, no, if he's really blocking the door, whatever, I'll go the other way." Not legit: "well no, I'm just shoving him out of my way, I don't want to roll for it." The rule for moves is if you do it, you do it, so make with the dice.
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
I'm just going to leave this here without comment past the fact that I felt possessed with the desire to do this to myself:
The Most Mechanics I can Put On A Single Combat Roll in a d100 system.
Because there is no god but the need to streamline so hard you come out the other end.
The system is generic d100 roll under. Doubles are critical failures or successes depending on where they land.
Mechanic 1: Damage.
Damage comes from your weapon and is on a sliding scale from 1-5. Because everything must be from a single d100 roll the damage is obviously read off the dice.
Damage 1: Negligible, minor hits that get downgraded. Simply take the tens value of your dice (Which, if most PCs/NPCs have 60 as their target number means a range of 1-6)
Damage 2: Your fists, tasers and other not super effective ways to hurt people. Take the units value of your dice roll (1-10)
Damage 3: A club, beanbag rounds, shorter bladed weapons, add your two dice together (2-20)
Damage 4: The majority of fire arms, any serious melee weapon, multiply the results of your dice together (2-60 on the presumptive average target number of 60)
Damage 5: Shit That Kills You, heavy ordnance, a car crash as a pedestrian and so on. Just take the raw d100 result (1-60 but consistently higher than the multiplication route).
Crits shift your damage up a category (a theoretical damage six is instant death) and armour shifts it down.
Mechanic 2: Ammo and fire rates.
Guns use bullets equal to the units value of the dice roll, success or fail.
If the gun has the slow firing trait or the shooter has military training then they use half that. If both are true it only uses a third of the result.
Burst fire and full auto allow you to upgrade the damage category of the weapon, improve your target number by 10% or pick a second target (basically good shooter boost, bad shooter boost, aoe shot).
Burst lets you apply one of these bonuses and costs twice the ammo.
Full auto lets you apply two of the bonuses (or even the same bonus twice) and uses three times the ammo.
Mechanic 3: Armour.
Armour shifts damage category down based on the armour rating (usually only 1-2 unless it’s absurdly heavy duty).
Armour that doesn’t provide full coverage or provides mixed coverage will have two armour ratings. The primary one is used when the tens result of a dice shows odds, the other when it shows evens. In this way you can have a full plate carrier on and nothing else and get something like 2/0.
Armour also has a reliability rating. If an attack gets through and the units result is higher than the reliability rating then the armour rating in that section is reduced by one.
I'm trying to decide between "believes she has seen a vision of her own death" and "lost her shadow as part of a gambling debt" for my character's One Unique Thing.
She is at least going to have a hummingbird familiar i've decided that. Since she also is small and aggressive.
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DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
edited April 2021
losing your shadow in a bet is whimsical as hell I love it
it's like part of a folktale
Depressperado on
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
If you want to do the former, I think you have to commit
Lots of people believe they've seen a vision of their own death, but she actually has
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
There's an idea that comes up in PbtA from time to time that suggests the players should never state the names of their moves - everything should be descriptive on their end, and they only use a move/roll when the GM calls for them to do so. I think there's something there for this conversation about skill checks. I wouldn't want to hear a player saying that they're using intimidate, I would want to hear them describing, even loosely, an intimidation attempt. At which point I would probably tell them to roll intimidate.
It's useful, when taking this approach, to try to default to skills players have, if at all reasonable.
For an example from my recent L5R campaign. At multiple times, my monk talked to people, trying to convince them to be reasonable and think for a second for the love of fuck, so the GM went "that sounds like an Earth approach, so that'll be a an Earth+courtesy roll". At which point I went "...ooookay, scratch that, I'm not saying any of that then", because I had an Earth ring of 1 and so if I have to make that roll with Earth I might as well not roll because I would basically need the equivalent of a nat 20 to land it.
Wait, an Earth + Courtesy roll? Is that a thing? I guess I haven’t really looked into the FFG version of the game, maybe it makes sense in that context.
I play (and have only ever played) 4th edition but the GM making me roll a ring instead of a trait and a different ring entirely than what the skill is normally associated with feels like a major “pulling the rug out from under the player” move to me.
But then again I don’t think courtesy is even a skill in 4e so I am guessing the FFG version.
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
There's an idea that comes up in PbtA from time to time that suggests the players should never state the names of their moves - everything should be descriptive on their end, and they only use a move/roll when the GM calls for them to do so. I think there's something there for this conversation about skill checks. I wouldn't want to hear a player saying that they're using intimidate, I would want to hear them describing, even loosely, an intimidation attempt. At which point I would probably tell them to roll intimidate.
It's useful, when taking this approach, to try to default to skills players have, if at all reasonable.
For an example from my recent L5R campaign. At multiple times, my monk talked to people, trying to convince them to be reasonable and think for a second for the love of fuck, so the GM went "that sounds like an Earth approach, so that'll be a an Earth+courtesy roll". At which point I went "...ooookay, scratch that, I'm not saying any of that then", because I had an Earth ring of 1 and so if I have to make that roll with Earth I might as well not roll because I would basically need the equivalent of a nat 20 to land it.
Wait, an Earth + Courtesy roll? Is that a thing? I guess I haven’t really looked into the FFG version of the game, maybe it makes sense in that context.
I play (and have only ever played) 4th edition but the GM making me roll a ring instead of a trait and a different ring entirely than what the skill is normally associated with feels like a major “pulling the rug out from under the player” move to me.
But then again I don’t think courtesy is even a skill in 4e so I am guessing the FFG version.
The new game is a new game; it has a roll and keep mechanic but it's very much its own thing rather than an evolution of the AEG line. The core mechanic is rolling ring + skill.
If you want to do the former, I think you have to commit
Lots of people believe they've seen a vision of their own death, but she actually has
Yeah, it's important to remember that the thing is unique. Nobody else has ever done that thing. A One Unique Thing not only tells folks about your character but it also shows what isn't in the world. One example I remember was "A Sergeant in the Emperor's Army", which is bad because it'd be a really weird world with only a single sergeant in an army. Changing it to "The only Halfing Sergeant" pretty quickly lays out all kinds of implications about the world and the army and that characters relationship to it.
The death thing probably needs more details or conditions added to it. Like "The Prince of Shadows showed me exactly how I'll die, for free" or "I've seen how I must die or else".
Though I think the shadow one is better, in part because of the unique thing implications. There isn't some random magic shadow thief, this is the ONLY shadow thief, and they've only stolen one. What is so special about your shadow that they wanted to steal it? What use is your shadow being put to? That should feel really ominous.
If you want to do the former, I think you have to commit
Lots of people believe they've seen a vision of their own death, but she actually has
Yeah, it's important to remember that the thing is unique. Nobody else has ever done that thing. A One Unique Thing not only tells folks about your character but it also shows what isn't in the world. One example I remember was "A Sergeant in the Emperor's Army", which is bad because it'd be a really weird world with only a single sergeant in an army. Changing it to "The only Halfing Sergeant" pretty quickly lays out all kinds of implications about the world and the army and that characters relationship to it.
The death thing probably needs more details or conditions added to it. Like "The Prince of Shadows showed me exactly how I'll die, for free" or "I've seen how I must die or else".
Though I think the shadow one is better, in part because of the unique thing implications. There isn't some random magic shadow thief, this is the ONLY shadow thief, and they've only stolen one. What is so special about your shadow that they wanted to steal it? What use is your shadow being put to? That should feel really ominous.
This could be a fascinating one. Especially if your party are dead set against letting it happen.
My DM isn't a fan of it being unique setting-wide, so i'm not sure how that's going to be handled.
The main thing with the death one is that I wanted it to be ambiguous if it was actually true or not, so that mechanically it doesn't get weird if she dies in combat but it wasn't what she saw. Of course at that point I guess it wouldn't matter to her anymore.
I am leaning the shadow one, yeah. I did realize a few hours later that it's kind of Peter Pan-ish, but hopefully the circumstances are different enough.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
My DM isn't a fan of it being unique setting-wide, so i'm not sure how that's going to be handled.
The main thing with the death one is that I wanted it to be ambiguous if it was actually true or not, so that mechanically it doesn't get weird if she dies in combat but it wasn't what she saw. Of course at that point I guess it wouldn't matter to her anymore.
I am leaning the shadow one, yeah. I did realize a few hours later that it's kind of Peter Pan-ish, but hopefully the circumstances are different enough.
Man, Everyone can run their game however they want, but the bolded is the best part. It's not a unique thing if other people have it!
I imagine you could fidangle a hit location table in a d100 roll system. 1-10 determining different locations with various limbs on the bottom register, most of the middle torso, and only 90+ for headshots. 10's place determines hit location with a talent to choose between the 10's and 1's place for location.
only bring this up because it's weird and cumbersome and thus sorta in the spirit of this brainstorming
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It's a perennial subject of discussion for a reason, people have different opinions of where on that spectrum is best.
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When I DM I ask my players to tell me HOW they are doing a social, if they don't want to RP it out. Like I don't want to hear "I Roll intimidate to have the king give me stuff", I want to hear" I'm going to subtly threaten the safety of the kings daughter so we can get what we want". Then I'll ask for the intimidation check. I don't need them to play it out for me in a back and forth, unless they want to of course. Same way in combat, if someone is super jacked to do something cool in combat and narrate the attempt? That's awesome go for it.
I want people at the table to show me they are paying attention to the narrative, whether it be court intrigue, the ebb and flow of battle or the general vibe of the scene. Giving me a good "This is how I want to accomplish this" is good enough for me.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Notably for a lot of combats I kinda do this too. When we're eschewing the map I assume competence on the part of the players and their characters, and simply advise which monsters they can close to, or have range and LoS on, and which of those closing movements would result in any opportunity attacks, and upon inquiry if any AoEs would be appropriate. I'll also advise if I see a player regularly missing a combat mechanic of theirs. Though I've definitely been told, yeah they don't like using that power for whatever fluff reason they had come up with, and so I started tuning the fights to take that into account.
As for the other examples used - combat in D&D is still deeply abstracted, and I would think that the tactical genius character's abilities are used for filling in the spaces left empty by those abstractions, rather than being where you move using a five foot gets system. Puzzles and riddles are a place that I would give a player the chance to roll if their character has relevant skills or knowledge, I guess, but I honestly just don't think that they're really a good component to a game.
I'm heavily towards the former. I generally only speak in character when talking to other party members, to npcs I try to sum up the gist of what she wants to get across. A lot of my frustration actually comes from being presented with situations where my character should know what to do or have something to say but I can't think of anything, so instead of something she does nothing. I'm not sure how to get around it really. It's kind of inherent to the medium that the player knows what their character wants to do.
That's my go to when I'm dealing with stuff that my character would know and I personally don't. The answer might be no or you might need to make a roll for it or whatever, but there's little harm in asking.
"I want to interrogate the dwarf by conjuring flame right under his beard."
"Sounds good, roll intimidate, but feel free to use your int mod."
For the tactical stuff, it also lets the players who aren't tactical genius, but who's character is, play their character. "I want to see if I can figure out a way to rout this zombie hoard, relying on some of those books I read back in Waterdeep when we had that week off". "Great, roll history, see if you can remember any good tactics" "22!" You remember reading about a battle where a great general used trenches and oil to fend off a bunch of elephants, that should be something you can work into a plan for dealing with zombies"
The player gets to inhabit their character, someone who tries to outsmart the enemy instead of going in head-on, but without making the player be fully knowledgeable about military tactics in a roughly medieval world but with magic.
The answers to those require playing the character, which is kind of only my responsibility.
Like, we fell into a magic book that had us play out a story and my wizard took control of the Party because "we had a whole wing in the library with these. Some of them are really great! There was a pirate one-" and he led them through a fairytale adventure.
I mean, those are different than the sorts of situations we've been talking about, but I still don't think they preclude asking for an assist.
Like, for the second situation, you could still say, "I don't really know what my character would say here, but I know she would say something. Does anyone have any suggestions?" Maybe your GM did have something planned that they want you to ask about, and they can push you in that direction. Or maybe just the pause and the discussion will help you figure out what you want her to say.
Alternately, you could just draw a curtain over the whole thing, just say that you don't want to roleplay out that (presumably pretty traumatic) conversation.
For the most part I'm a big fan of 2 things:
1) Don't just say 'I wanna social' if you're the social character feeling stuck. Express what you want to do and then open it to the table. No one is a perfect improv writer but your whole group is a better one than just you. It also lets you use character potential as a lean in because your GM will make suggestions in the context of how good your PC is supposed to be.
2) Games that expressly draw lines on where player control is or isn't. Obvious examples include:
a) Mothership, there are no social rolls or skills in Mothership and no Stealth Skills or Rolls in Mothership. As a game of horror you can not mechanically strong arm an oppressor and you can not mechanically obfuscate yourself from the horror. You can only fictionally position yourself, use your environment and knowledge to prompt better circumstances and pray for the GM's mercy.
b) Mutant Year: Zero and the other d6 push Fria Ligan games: Persuade is a skill only to be used when roleplaying reaches an impasse. It is blunt and binary: If you succeed then they must give you what you want but it can come with a cost or caveat. If you fail then they will stone wall or even outright attack you. The perception skill is also very specific in its uses: It spots ambushes, traps and other threats lurking out of view. It never spots hidden levers, treasure or details. Those things are the purview of all players to find just by describing what their characters are doing and looking at in a situation.
The worst of all worlds are description bonus style mechanics that don't have a specific tie or description. Like in Exalted you get a bonus for doing more than saying 'I swing sword at bad man' but there's multiple tiers of bonuses which is fuzzy and annoying plus does it really help combat to have everyone attempting to out purple prose eachother every round?
In contrast Sword and Scoundrel has a great descriptive bonus: TAPS, your TAP value is (roughly) 1/3rd of the actual value of that skill and if you describe how it matters then you can add up to 2 TAPs to your dice pool. So doing legal threats lets you use your lore(law) as the core and your coercion as the TAP value. It's quick and organically prompts the most interesting question how would my character do this?
Maybe I should try and come up with more details about the character and then come back to this part.
It's useful, when taking this approach, to try to default to skills players have, if at all reasonable.
For an example from my recent L5R campaign. At multiple times, my monk talked to people, trying to convince them to be reasonable and think for a second for the love of fuck, so the GM went "that sounds like an Earth approach, so that'll be a an Earth+courtesy roll". At which point I went "...ooookay, scratch that, I'm not saying any of that then", because I had an Earth ring of 1 and so if I have to make that roll with Earth I might as well not roll because I would basically need the equivalent of a nat 20 to land it.
I'll always remember the one I picked for an orc thief I ran in a game here. She was the only person to ever escape from the King's dungeon. Twice. It led to our party being relentlessly pursued by the cop from Lupin, while we recreated the chase scene from Aladdin.
So, minus the part where you renege on the action after the fact, I think this is actually an excellent example of it working as intended.
You shouldn't go "Okay I'm going to make an Air+Courtesy roll to try and get them to see reason", or whatever, but the way you phrase it is valuable.
It's not a perfect art, especially in a system like L5R, but I think part of falling into pace with that system is trying to describe what you're doing in a way that fits your character.
A character with low Earth might have a rough time just plainly asking people to see reason and act responsibly
If your character has a high Fire ring, maybe that character tries to cajole them into acting out of self interest, an Air approach might involve manipulating them to think that they agree with you from the outset, so on and so forth
You don't need the social acumen, necessarily, to have the actual words at hand, just the general vibe you are putting out
And maybe your character does just try to make them see reason, even if it's not their strength, and they fail, and that's alright too
EDIT: to be clear, this isn't to say that GM should use skill checks as a gotcha. It's all a collaborative exercise, or it's usually a collaborative effort between the players and GM.
But in this case specifically, where L5R is a game in which social elements are so important, carefully considering what your character says or at least carefully considering the way they present themselves, or not, is a vital part of the system
If your character continuously found themselves making Earth approach roles despite having an Earth of 1 I would start to think that your character build and character image didn't match up and it might make sense to revisit their point allocation.
-- as a personal example, I've been playing a violent little shithead in Scum and Villainy for a few months now, and one of the things I enjoy about that character is that I have no Sway or Consort, but I do have Command (which doubles as Intimidate) so if I want to be successful in a persuasion situation I have to be scary and threatening, which doesn't always fit what I want to do but absolutely fits what Lament would do.
Now, in the flip side, it could also be argued that this is just asking people to try and say a skill without saying it, and that is one hundred percent a problem with this approach depending on the group.
In short, there's no perfect answer, but I like the idea of just saying what you want to do, letting a competent GM apply a check to it knowing generally what your character is and knowing that they're not trying to actively thwart you, and rolling with it regardless of how it turns out.
I think 9/10 rolls should be decided when the GM says "that sounds like X" but leaving it open for negotiation and revision at that point is vital to avoid bad feelings. No matter how competent your GM is they're capable of mishearing/misunderstanding/just not being on the same page as the player and their expectations. Certainly there are times when I'm happy to laugh and say "yeah, that is a Sway, isn't it?" and then boost the roll the best I can and see what happens, but there are also times when I'm certain I'm Commanding and will revise how mean I was to make sure of that.
I think an aspect of One Unique Thing that is under considered is that anything you choose is now Unique. Choosing something that sounds pretty mundane could have a major effect on the setting.
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This is a common misconception- it's part of the MC's agenda to make their moves without naming them, but players are having to navigate the rules purely via their sheet and basic moves.
This is where another rule comes in: if you do it, you do it; to do it you have to do it. A player can't just say "I manipulate them" and roll, their character has to do it in the fiction too; likewise, if their character does something in the fiction, then they have to roll the move. The MC's job is to make sure they do so by prompting them until they do it as second nature, and to give them the chance to change what they're doing if they're unwilling to use a particular move.
This is a bad idea, and the people who have it will make the game worse by implementing it. Having GMs never state the names of their moves makes sense, because the GM moves are just intended as prompts for narration and players have no hooks for them - nobody is +3 to save vs. separate them or gets 1 XP whenever they're put in a spot. The best that could possibly happen when a GM says the name of their move is to slow down play slightly for the benefit of prospective GMs who are currently playing.
Player moves are collections of scripts and choices, and a player can decide what they want to do by seeing a mechanical result they want to achieve, thinking about what makes sense for their character to do next, or both at once, and if a player wants a mechanical result why should they have to play footsie with the GM in order to get it? The ideal is that the player comes up with both the move they're trying to make and the game fiction that justifies it.
Worse, making the GM the authority on the move that gets made can lead to another extremely undesirable scenario where they force players to roll for moves the players don't want to make, because the players said something that sounded to the GM like the move. The GM and the player, if not the entire table, should agree on what move a player is making and how.
Look, I'll quote page 10 again:
The Most Mechanics I can Put On A Single Combat Roll in a d100 system.
Because there is no god but the need to streamline so hard you come out the other end.
The system is generic d100 roll under. Doubles are critical failures or successes depending on where they land.
Mechanic 1: Damage.
Damage comes from your weapon and is on a sliding scale from 1-5. Because everything must be from a single d100 roll the damage is obviously read off the dice.
Damage 1: Negligible, minor hits that get downgraded. Simply take the tens value of your dice (Which, if most PCs/NPCs have 60 as their target number means a range of 1-6)
Damage 2: Your fists, tasers and other not super effective ways to hurt people. Take the units value of your dice roll (1-10)
Damage 3: A club, beanbag rounds, shorter bladed weapons, add your two dice together (2-20)
Damage 4: The majority of fire arms, any serious melee weapon, multiply the results of your dice together (2-60 on the presumptive average target number of 60)
Damage 5: Shit That Kills You, heavy ordnance, a car crash as a pedestrian and so on. Just take the raw d100 result (1-60 but consistently higher than the multiplication route).
Crits shift your damage up a category (a theoretical damage six is instant death) and armour shifts it down.
Mechanic 2: Ammo and fire rates.
Guns use bullets equal to the units value of the dice roll, success or fail.
If the gun has the slow firing trait or the shooter has military training then they use half that. If both are true it only uses a third of the result.
Burst fire and full auto allow you to upgrade the damage category of the weapon, improve your target number by 10% or pick a second target (basically good shooter boost, bad shooter boost, aoe shot).
Burst lets you apply one of these bonuses and costs twice the ammo.
Full auto lets you apply two of the bonuses (or even the same bonus twice) and uses three times the ammo.
Mechanic 3: Armour.
Armour shifts damage category down based on the armour rating (usually only 1-2 unless it’s absurdly heavy duty).
Armour that doesn’t provide full coverage or provides mixed coverage will have two armour ratings. The primary one is used when the tens result of a dice shows odds, the other when it shows evens. In this way you can have a full plate carrier on and nothing else and get something like 2/0.
Armour also has a reliability rating. If an attack gets through and the units result is higher than the reliability rating then the armour rating in that section is reduced by one.
She is at least going to have a hummingbird familiar i've decided that. Since she also is small and aggressive.
it's like part of a folktale
Lots of people believe they've seen a vision of their own death, but she actually has
Agree with this 100%. There are so many hooks involved in this, especially if you want it back.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Wait, an Earth + Courtesy roll? Is that a thing? I guess I haven’t really looked into the FFG version of the game, maybe it makes sense in that context.
I play (and have only ever played) 4th edition but the GM making me roll a ring instead of a trait and a different ring entirely than what the skill is normally associated with feels like a major “pulling the rug out from under the player” move to me.
But then again I don’t think courtesy is even a skill in 4e so I am guessing the FFG version.
The new game is a new game; it has a roll and keep mechanic but it's very much its own thing rather than an evolution of the AEG line. The core mechanic is rolling ring + skill.
Yeah, it's important to remember that the thing is unique. Nobody else has ever done that thing. A One Unique Thing not only tells folks about your character but it also shows what isn't in the world. One example I remember was "A Sergeant in the Emperor's Army", which is bad because it'd be a really weird world with only a single sergeant in an army. Changing it to "The only Halfing Sergeant" pretty quickly lays out all kinds of implications about the world and the army and that characters relationship to it.
The death thing probably needs more details or conditions added to it. Like "The Prince of Shadows showed me exactly how I'll die, for free" or "I've seen how I must die or else".
Though I think the shadow one is better, in part because of the unique thing implications. There isn't some random magic shadow thief, this is the ONLY shadow thief, and they've only stolen one. What is so special about your shadow that they wanted to steal it? What use is your shadow being put to? That should feel really ominous.
This could be a fascinating one. Especially if your party are dead set against letting it happen.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
The main thing with the death one is that I wanted it to be ambiguous if it was actually true or not, so that mechanically it doesn't get weird if she dies in combat but it wasn't what she saw. Of course at that point I guess it wouldn't matter to her anymore.
I am leaning the shadow one, yeah. I did realize a few hours later that it's kind of Peter Pan-ish, but hopefully the circumstances are different enough.
Man, Everyone can run their game however they want, but the bolded is the best part. It's not a unique thing if other people have it!
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
*for a certain definition of "unique"
Just makes me think of:
only bring this up because it's weird and cumbersome and thus sorta in the spirit of this brainstorming