Hello,

From the unification of the rules for preliminary rolls, I'm noticing the similarity between travel, battle and social encounters. However, in my games, I can handle travels easily because of the lists of pre-planned hazards. I can handle battles by describing the consequences of successes and failures, and plan some events too (see for example the table of NPC actions in the first battle of "of leaves and stewed hobbits"). But I find social encounters much, much harder to make fun.

My first problem is that they're easy. My players didn't notice the Tolerance rule before I told them, because they almost always succeed. Well, maybe when they meet Beorn it will be harder. I don't want to lower the Tolerance to make encounters more difficult when there's no reason to, but that means that there is little risk, and therefore little fun.

My second problem is finding how much rolls the players must make. They introduce themselves (one roll, unless they all are speaking), they explain/sing what they want (one roll), and then what? I can make that a prolonged action, but do I simply ask them to roll several times in a row? That's boring. On the other hand, describing the action means roleplaying the encounter. And that leads us back to the age-old question: when roleplaying, should you succeed by roleplaying well, or by making good rolls? I don't want to have a player say something very smart, and have him make a bad roll to back that up. I could adjust the TN to reflect good roleplaying, that's an option.

In the end, in my encounters, players give me a general idea of what they intend to say, and then they roll several times. But I think it can be made a lot more lively and interesting (and difficult).

I'm thinking about introducing encounter hazards. We have travel hazards, we have battle hazards (because Eye-rolls can lead to called shots for the adversaries), why not add encounter hazards?

Those hazards should be different from simple failure. For example, failing a Courtesy roll might mean that you don't know the proper way to introduce you, and generating a hazard might mean that you made a bad mistake and offended somebody. Failing a Song roll means you fail to find the proper song, or you don't put proper spirit into it, but a hazard would mean you're singing something about an elf who is in the room, and putting him in a bad light. Other hazards could include some event that interrupts the encounter.

What do you think? Do you have any other suggestions?

If you did something like this, perhaps you should equate the skill used with the roles chosen in a journey. For example, if a hero was using Courtesy, he was in the Courtesy role. As such, a fail of Courtesy showing an Eye triggers an Encounter gaff that requires the next roll to be made with Awe to overcome the lack of manners.

Gotta go, but more later...

Yusei,
What a great question and the start of an interesting thread. Playing of your idea and drawing on The Hobbit, Tolkien gives us the scene between Thorin and the Elven-king. They way Tolkien wrote the scene culminating in Thorin's imprisonment could be interpreted as a failure plus an Eye. That is, assume we're playing Thorin and we hurumpf our way through the exchange, and accrue enough failures to exceed the Tolerance rating. The Elven-king, displeased with this display throws us out on the doorstep bruising are long nose. Pride hurt, relations between Free People's who should be allies no worse for the wear even if nothing was gained. But, let's say we as Thorin rolled an Eye along with one of those failures. Tolkien the LM not only ends the Encounter but claps us in irons and throws us in his dungeon. This "activated social hazard" becomes the backdrop, among other reasons for the Elven-king's willingness, nay eagerness to go to war against Thorin and company later in the narrative. The "activated social hazard" not only affects the player-hero in a seriously negative way, it comes back to haunt them in some way later on.

We could also read the initial Encounter between Thorin and company and the Wood-elves as an Encounter with an "activated social hazard" that resulted in Thorin's predicament. The dwarves and Bilbo were not simply turned away, one of their own was seized.

Following Tolkien's lead, these "activated social hazards" could be a lord summoning men-at-arms, animal-friends turning on the Fellowship, temporary loss of Wisdom or Valor as the offended party defames the player-heroes...? This last provides an interesting possibility for a new Fellowhip Phase undertaking, repairing the damage done from an Encounter that activated a "social hazard." Similar to removing Shadow, the lost point of Wisdom or Valor can be restored by an undertaking within the offended community or lord's service, etc.

Just a few early morning ideas...

Best regards,
E

Very interesting, Yusei.

I think we can take this idea beyond the "fumble" concept (ie a blatant error of the hero) and make them "unexpected complications".

Let's make some examples: if the fellowship trigger an "encounter hazard" during a meeting with Beorn, it can mean that one of Beorn advisors take a dim view of them.
This guy will speak against them with the chief, and antagonize them in any following situation. To get rid of this, they have to win his trust.
Another example: during an encounter with the Woodmen, a girl take a shining at the fellowship elf... Much to the chagrin of her husband and his whole clan (complications follows).
And so on...

Social encounters using dice rolls are always tricky!

I pretty much followed the rules for Tales From Wilderland, but neither my players nor I were entirely happy with the system, so now that I'm writing the adventures, I am messing with the rules a bit.

Tolerance remains and so do the dice rolls, but information passed to the players will depend on what they say and do during the encounter, keeping the role-play in the game.

The dice come into effect when they have role-played and the skill chosen depends on what they have said.

A good roll may earn them bonus treasure, or additional information to help them in the 'adventure' ("that reminds me... there's a cave troll guarding the entrance") or may help them in future encounters with the individual.

And a bad roll means they phrased something badly, offending the individual they are speaking with (or one of his advisors perhaps) and potentially reducing their reward, or missing out on some useful tip ("did I not mention the cave troll guarding the entrance?").

Exactly.
And I hate the disconnect between die rolls and actual role play.
This is the reason I like to invoke "unexpected complications" for a fumble from a player who just delivered a great speech.
I don't want to lessen the value of good role play, nor make social skills useless.

Here's what I tend to do with social encounters. The player describes roughly what they want to do, makes the roll and then we roleplay out the result, which tends to lead to another roll somewhere down the line. The introductory roll (Courtesy, Awe, Riddle - also maybe Inspire depending on the situation) determines the reception the party is going to get. Then Riddle, Persuade, Insight come in to play during the conversation and the roleplay - following where the players take their characters in the conversation. Tolerance is lost for a failure, but also if the players start getting their characters talking over each other or giving conflicting messages to the NPC.

The Loremaster's Screen includes table 3.2 Encounter Structure, which gives a nice synopsis of how to use appropriate skills during both stages of the Encounter.

For those of you who don't have it yet, let me give you the entries for the Interaction stage.

Description (of Interaction stage)
The main part of an encounter. Usually, only heroes who were properly presented during Introduction may now propose actions.

Useful Abilities (examples) (of Interaction stage)
Insight to observe and evaluate; Inspire to address crowds and uplift spirits; Persuade to make a point; Riddle to gather information; Song to garner approval.

At the beginning of an encounter the players should focus on an objective and choose their course of action accordingly.

So, if a group of players were trying to convince Thranduil to come and help the Beornings defend Woodland Hall against an invasion of Orcs, they might start with Persuade to make their point. If they had several points, they could continue making them with additional rolls of Persuade as long as they did not exceed the Tolerance rating for the Encounter. If they fail a roll, they could switch to Insight to stop talking and just observe for a minute. The Loremaster could roleplay their failure by speaking of Thranduil's disagreement with their point. Afterwards, they could make a roll of Riddle to ask a question. If they succeed at this, they get their answer. If they feel like they have succeeded enough, they can stop the Encounter and the Loremaster checks the quality of success. All of this is done by roleplaying around the table and adds to the fun.

But, to give it a little more tension, change the quality of success scale. For harder to impress figures, require 9 or more successes to achieve the ultimate response instead of the standard 7+ successes.

To continue my thoughts from my earlier post, you could develop Encounter Gaffes for each skill. These are triggered when a failed roll also shows an Eye.

For example, you are setting up an Encounter with Beorn, who is in a gruff mood. If the heroes use Persuade and fail with an Eye, they trigger a Gaffe. The Gaffe you have chosen for the Persuade skill is called Beorn's Temper and requires a roll of Courtesy to remedy. They must apologize and calm Beorn down. If they fail their Courtesy roll, Beorn goes ballistic and they have to try it again at TN 16 and so on. This pattern continues until they either exceed the Tolerance rating or they give up and forfeit any successes toward the objective.

Here is a full compliment of generic suggestions:

• Inspire triggers a Gaffe that Persuade can remedy. The hero comes across as insincere in his high sounding speech. The only way to fix this properly is to make some reasonable points with his audience.
• Persuade triggers a Gaffe that Courtesy can remedy. The hero gets his facts mixed up or mischaracterises the subject. Now, he must apologize and demonstrate humility to carry forward the conversation.
• Courtesy triggers a Gaffe that Awe can remedy. The hero unknowingly insults his subject with inappropriate hand gestures or words and the only way to gain respect now is to demonstrate confidence and power.
• Awe triggers a Gaffe that Insight can remedy. The hero exudes arrogance and pride instead of importance. To regain the consideration of his subject, he will need to be quiet and listen well.
• Insight triggers a Gaffe that Riddle can remedy. The hero does not listen well and comes across as disinterested. To straighten things out, he must ask good questions and prove his commitment to the subject.
• Riddle triggers a Gaffe that Song can remedy. The hero asks foolish, assuming, or drawn-out questions that the subject is bored with. Only a sweet melody or rousing recital can break the monotony and draw responses.
• Song triggers a Gaffe that Inspire can remedy. The hero forgets his words and cannot find the right pitch, causing his subject to cringe and disapprove. He must now impress the crowd with a heartfelt speech to retain the subject's attention.

I'm liking those encounter gaffes JamesRBrown and will certainly be using that idea.

Increasing the difficulty as they keep blowing rolls makes perfect sense, that's how disagreements escalate to raised voices and threats of violence!

Good stuff!

There have been some good suggestion for house rules on the forums that are sadly scattered all over the place. Some do need work still, but it would be great if they could be compiled into a single PDF!

Eluadin, your "Social Hazards" and my "Encounter Gaffes" sound very similar. We are starting to think alike! Maybe we should work together on some ideas or something

Seriously, you mention something in your post that I think is worth developing further. I like the idea of a new Undertaking to repair a social loss. You are right about pointing to Wisdom or Valour, as those two ratings are the only mechanics that can really affect Encounters, as they directly determine the Tolerance rating. But, I'm not keen on a complete loss of Wisdom or Valour. I think an easier solution might be to give them a negative Tolerance modifier when meeting with that individual or culture again. In some cases, they may not be allowed audience again.

This might be worth exploring so that a Dwarf can become friends with Thranduil and erase the negative modifier he already has.

Those are excellent James, consider them well and truly pinched!

Great discussion folks .... good groundwork for further development.

There has been discussion in other recent threads (sorry, little time to find & attach links!) regarding Standing as it applies to cultures other than the Hero's own - a kind of pseudo-Standing for use in non-native social encounters .... a 'Reputation' rating if you will.
Perhaps this concept fits with the Encounter Gaffe mechanic?
Clearly Valour & Wisdom would be major factors in determining 'Reputation', and gaffes & social loss would impact it.
Standing is generally involved with Tolerance checks where applicable - so perhaps this 'Rep' can play a similar role in non-native cultural interactions??

Is 'Reputation' the best term to use going forward. Alternatives could be 'Fame' or 'Renown' or ...

EDIT - found the thread:
Is it too difficult to gain Standing

http://cubicle7.clicdev.com/f/index.php?tr...topic=3495&st=0

Without having thoroughly read the other thread, I'd like to continue my idea for Tolerance rating modifier. I think that the Additional Modifiers section (p. 53, LB) covers these circumstances well. I also think the Prejudice section on the same page touches on this when it says, "Different individuals may have several reasons to hold a culture or group in contempt[.]" The "group" held in contempt could be the fellowship of companions and the principle can be extended to a particular person as well.

Notice that the prejudice modifier is only a -1 and the entire range for modifiers is simply -3 to +3. If the companions really flubbed their chances with Beorn, for example, I would assign a negative modifier to Tolerance the next time they encountered him, based on how badly they did. I may even increase the TN for all their rolls to 16. The Tolerance represents how long they will be given to make their case. The TN represents the difficulty in getting cooperation.

Here are suggested modifiers based on the quality of an encounter. These modifiers are to be applied when the heroes next encounter the individual.

• 0 Successes, -3 Tolerance
• 1 Success, -2 Tolerance
• 2 Successes, -1 Tolerance

For TN modifications, these are a bit more tricky to quantify. The Loremaster would need to judge how difficult it will be to get cooperation during the encounter due to prior insults and failures.

As far as 'Reputation' goes, I would need to study Tolkien further to find any references where this is illustrated as a valid benefit or detriment worthy of creating its own mechanic beyond Additional Modifiers. Does news travel through Middle-earth fast enough to make individuals famous or infamous without elevating them to the level of enemy? After all, encounters are conducted with powerful or important Loremaster characters who are not the enemies of the heroes. It seems that even Strider was not that well known and to those who knew of him, he was mysterious. If one Loremaster character feels negatively about the heroes, does he spread that throughout Middle-earth to his colleagues and friends? Perhaps he does through a letter. But, what kind of impact will that really have on an encounter? Perhaps a -1 modifier to the degree of prejudice.

Maybe within a culture itself 'Reputation' carries more weight, but that is what 'Standing' was created for.

Standing only affects one's own culture. Valour and Wisdom affects other cultures (as Amado reminded me in the other topic).

Negative Tolerance modifiers can be applied to an encounter anytime the Loremaster feels it is necessary. This would include when 0 successes have been scored during an encounter or (now that I think about it further) even when one or two successes are obtained. The negative modifier can be the "unexpected complication" that is recommended for a Narrow Success.

Another idea is for the Loremaster to judge if a negative Tolerance modifier would be appropriate for the next encounter with the host IF the player-heroes exceeded the Tolerance rating to end the current encounter. That might be a good way to bring some tension to encounters as players must choose between pushing it for more successes while risking the loss of tolerance from the host next time, and settling for a lesser quality result while keeping a good reputation with the host.

This is such a great idea, please don't be upset if I totally steal this for my game, James. Excellent idea, and perfectly presented, mate.

I like the idea of Encounter Gaffes, even though I wouldn't want to apply them quite so mechanistically.

And in all this discussion, I still haven't seen a good summary for what exceeding Tolerance would mean.

According to the RAW, it can mean just the end of the Encounter. But it can also sometimes mean being physically attacked, no matter how many successes you've accumulated up to that point (TfW52).

The best way to introduce tension, IMO, is not to raise the necessary successes (that just means more rolling - yay?). It's to make sure exceeding Tolerance comes with a price - the players will then have to decide whether to make do with the successes they already have or risk undoing that by pushing their luck to get more successes.

I don't think you're supposed to allow more rolls when you increase the necessary successes. That way, the players need to have at least some great or extraordinary successes to really impress the audience.

Maybe I misunderstood something, but there's no mechanical difference between two extraordinary successes and six ordinary ones. Again, the incentive is to just keep talking (and rolling) until you exhaust the NPC's Tolerance, at which point the Encounter just... stops. That's boring, because there's no player choice involved - when to talk, when to shut up, which skill to use (if James's Gaffes are applied as mechanistically as he suggests).

My take on this was: the players decide how they approach the encounter, and decide the rolls they will make. They decide on a fixed amount of rolls, but the encounter can end before they are finished, if they exceed the Tolerance threshold.

Say they make 4 rolls. They can have between 0 and 12 successes. Then, you can make the encounter more difficult, without increasing the number of rolls, by changing the scale. Having more than 4 successes will require at least a great success at some point. Reaching 9 successes will be really hard.

Yes there is, mechanically you've taken 4 more actions/rolls to achieve the same number of successes and if you limit the number of actions allowed in an Ecnounter (as I believe should be the case) then you also won't get into a situation where your players simply keep rolling until they get to the target number of successes or they use up the Tolerance.

Ah, I see. Yes, if you limit the number of rolls in advance, that works. I think I'd prefer Yusei's version of letting the players decide in advance how many, if I were to run things this way. The NPC's side is already accounted for in Tolerance.

Separate question regarding the 'fun' part of Encounters: does anyone follow the RAW in limiting the speakers to whoever's introduced themselves personally? In Encounters where a spokesman is best, I find that rather limits roleplaying opportunities.

That works but bear in mind that as Loremaster you may have to reign in certain players that are manipulating the encounter just to gain successes - an extreme/silly example would be someone repeating their introductions because they failed first time around. In my opinion, the encounter should flow logically so the players shouldn't have absolute control over how long it lasted or how many rolls they could make - its more of a mutual thing between PCs and NPCs.

I've done that but you're right it does limit the fun of others and isn't something I like. It *is* logical for some encounters, and I do like to retain verisimilitude, but where there is any wiggle room for allowing everyone to speak then I go with that when running things and more often than not actually make it an expectation of the NPCs that they want each character to introduce themselves and then within the interaction proper have each character offer their opinion. Another tip is for the NPC to ask a specific character a question so they get to interact - eg, "What news from the west, Iwgar?", rather than a general question of news to all present. That obviously assumes the player wants the character to speak!

This is why I have the players first describe what they want to do, and then do it. So, for example, when asking for help they might decide to:
- introduce themselves with Courtesy
- tell how they were attacked by Orcs and fought valiantly using Awe and/or Song
- hide that they were attacked by Orcs because they stole something from them, using Riddle
- ask for help using Persuade

So that would make 4 or 5 rolls, but they wouldn't be able to change that if they failed at some step. And dragging the encounter for too long would increase the TN or lower the Tolerance of their host.

Regarding "encounter gaffes", I think I'm going to use them, and allow unplanned rolls to fix them, but those rolls wouldn't count as successes, they would only help not lower the Tolerance.

That's how I approach things Yusei, as well. It has the added benefit of clarifying things for everyone aswell as structuring the players' approach.

i allow a player who previously wasnt involved in the introductions to cut in and be a part of discussions with an increase of 2 TN.

Thus perhaps they felt they may hinder the ensuing conversation and so allowed a spokesman to speak for him but then during discussions he realizes he has something to add and so he steps up apllogizes for interrupting if need be, quickly introduces himself if needed and then i increase his TNs by two for any check he wants to make. This allows the room for everyone to still have a chance to be involved instead of being draconian and saying the rules dont permit you to take part in this now

Something that came up in play last night: how do you handle Traits granting automatic successes in Encounters, especially vis-a-vis Tolerance rules? In theory, the companions can invoke Traits indefinitely without ever exceeding Tolerance. Thoughts?

I doubt the same Trait would apply to every encounter skill.

What Trait was being invoked?

Player-heroes should be interacting with the host during an encounter. This means they talk and speak when they want, using the suggested skills and abilities (as outlined in the core rules). The Gaffes are just suggestions that a Loremaster can use to see how the Loremaster characters respond to a terribly failed roll that a player-hero has just made. By setting up a test for the player-heroes that will fix the mistake, the players are being afforded more opportunities to gain successes, which will improving the quality of the results of the encounter. They are also being given more opportunities to gain Advancement points.

If the Loremaster and the players prefer not to use mechanics to help guide the results, then simply roleplay everything as you wish! Or, mix it up if you like - let the players use skill rolls to interact (as the rules describe) and just roleplay Loremaster character responses without rolling. In this case, my Gaffes are just suggested responses, but don't bother making the rolls. Allow the players to fix things by simply talking it out.

You may want to do the reverse, as well. Have players roleplay without using their skills and then call for appropriate tests to properly respond to the Loremaster character's responses.

Every encounter is going to be a little different. The important thing is to have fun.

I'm not sure what part of the way I presented Gaffes seems too mechanistic (please explain further). As a Loremaster, you are always roleplaying responses and interactions with the player-heroes. None of that should go away. Gaffes are kind of like hazards in the middle of a journey that the heroes must overcome.

This is how it runs at my table and it works wonderfully. The player dictates what the character says or does and when they are done I'll say what kind of roll it warrants (every so often there is a little negotiating/haggling on which skill).

We have played together long enough that we all know the right "tempo" for how much is said per roll, so it moves fairly briskly. It's also Narrative first, Rules second, which keeps Encounters from being a dice-fest.

No, typically it wouldn't be the same Trait over and over again. But multiple players could invoke different traits for different things and gather successes without needing to roll. It's another thing that arguably makes Encounters too easy.

In this case, though, it was a slightly different scenario. They hadn't achieved their aim and would exhaust the NPC's Tolerance with one more failure. So a PC invoked the Forthright trait (and roleplayed how that worked) to get the one success that would net them at least the minimum that they'd come for. It was just a bit anti-climactic - it felt like a cop-out, as the player himself said.

That's more or less what we've been defaulting to so far: the players roleplay and, depending on what they say and how they say it, I call for an appropriate skill roll.

If Gaffes are based on Hazards, a certain roll automatically triggers a certain skill-use. Make a mistake on Persuade? Remedy it with Courtesy; Awe's out of the question. Maybe that's not what you meant. I certainly wouldn't play it that way, and I'm not asking you to defend your decisions either. YMMV, etc. Like you say:

I think I understand what you're saying now. It seems a bit mechanistic for your taste to call for a particular roll (a Test) in an encounter instead of allowing the players to decide for themselves how they will respond (a Task). In other words, why should they be forced to Sing if they would rather Inspire?

I get that and see how it could feel like the Loremaster is tying the hands of the player-hero.

This is not a defense of my ideas, but food for thought...

You wouldn't necessarily have to tell the player-heroes what skill to use. You could simply roleplay the Loremaster character's responses and let the player-hero figure something out for himself. However, because of the Gaffe, only the successful use of a particular skill (which you have chosen in advance) will do any good. Any other skill, even if rolled successfully, will automatically fail because the Loremaster character just won't respond positively to it no matter what the player-hero does. If Beorn is not in the mood to hear arguments (Persuade), then it will just anger him more (especially extraordinarily successful arguments!).

I can imagine that most allies will ask directly for the kind of response they are looking for though. Beorn might request a Song, the Master of the Lake might say, "Stop singing and let's reason together (Persuade)!" etc. Will the player-heroes refuse the request and succeed at the encounter?

If a player-hero is having a hard time coming up with the appropriate response, let him pause and make an Insight roll to choose the right course of action.

This post has been edited by JamesRBrown on Sep 13 2012, 01:50 AM