Hardy has the following description:

Hardy
You can withstand long hours of toil and travel far without rest, or under extreme conditions.

Does that mean that a character with the Hardy Trait should automatically pass all Fatigue tests for travel? Based on the Trait rules it would seem so.

I have these same sorts of issues with some of the other Traits. Does Burglary let you open any lock successfully? Will Leechcraft always treat a Wound without fail?

There doesn't seem to be any provision in the rules for not allowing these things besides an arbitrary GM decision. No TN threshold, or recommendations on requiring certain success levels.

Am I missing anything?

The Trait rules don't grant an automatic success. The GM may grant an automatic success. Its not granted as of right.

Page 95 of the Adventurer's Book expands this to say:

In most cases, a Fatigue Test would not fit either of the these as the action is difficult and failure leads to dramatically relevant consequences.

As a LM, I could see granting an automatic success on a Fatigue test if the Journey was short and the added Fatigue was unlikely to create any long term consequences. For example, the PCs travel from Erebor to Laketown. PCs all make a Fatigue test, but Hardy would let you hand wave it for that PC and cut down the rolls.

The same approach applies to all Traits.

Burglary: Is the lock difficult to pick or does failing to pick the lock not lead to dramatically relevant consequences?

Leechcraft: Is treating the Wound difficult or does failing to treat the Wound not lead to dramatically relevant consequences?

Thanks, that page 95 quote helps, especially the part about "dramatically relevant consequences". The whole Traits thing is taking awhile to sink in but I'm getting a better picture of it.

No probs. Automatic successes do look scary. But Traits have page 95 of the AB and Gandalf Runes have page 20/21 of the LMB. Both of these help moderate their use.

In general I would treat Traits in a sense that one and the same trait cannot be used to automatically solve one and the same task over and over again during the same session.

Repetition is boring and kills suspense and they're an insult to dramatic convention.

So using your Hardy example above... I'd probably allow that Character to get "one" automatic success on a Fatigue Test per session... or something like that.

My Guidelines for allowing Automatic Success would be that in order to work, a Trait Use must be entertaining and memorable and I would try to decide whether a Players description is entertaining, using the following criteria:

Is it Fun? If I find something new, original, or unexpected (but fitting) about the players description, I'll consider it entertaining. Conversely, if the player recently (either in this session or previous ones) used the same trait to achieve the same end, the attempt is probably repetitive, and therefore not entertaining.

Does it highlight the character? Does the player's action reveal or confirm something about the character, or the characters relation with the recipient of the success? If it does, without being repetitive, the Trait works.

Does it create suspense? If use of the Trait puts the character at genuine risk - physical or otherwise - it will invest the Company more heavily in your success, and thus deserves a chance to work.

(Example: Automatically Succeeding in Sneaking into an Orc Fortress will actually put you at MORE risk than failing, being detected by an Orc Sentry early on and have time to run and hide in the forest.)

Does it elicit an excited or emotional response? If the rest of the Company reacts to the Player's description with obvious enjoyment - laughing, sincerely applauding, sitting forward in their seats, riffing on what the Player suggested, then the Player have objectively proven it entertaining. This criterion trumps all others.

At first glance, it may seem that this way of playing might put the LM in the uncomfortable position of critiquing player performance. But in practice I think players can be counted on to step up to the creative challenge, and will, after a few tries, learn to propose entertaining Trait Uses.

That's my two cents.

/wolf

My houserule:

You get one autosuccess per trait per session in tasks up to TN 16.

This would prevent players from abusing it, gives the power back to the players and lets them decide when it is most crucial to succeed in a task.

The autosuccess would be a normal sucess of course.

Let's say your character is ELUSIVE -> you are wandering Mirkwood and a goblin patrol is hunting you, so since you're low on Hope, you decide to automatically pass the STEALTH test the LM just asked and used your trait for this session.

You still have DETERMINED and QUICK OF HEARING left to use this session (example)

Sounds fair, uh?

It sounds like it could work. My take however is different. As stated in the Loremasters book, any action which is routine or dramatically irrelevant should be automatic.

Dice rolls whould be saved for those actions where drama can be built up or where the level of success is important.

Auto successes from traits should be more for flair in easier and less dramatically important rolls and as such I see no reason to limit them. In fact I would use them more to allow a character to perform a given task quicker and automatically in order to help the game move along more smoothly.

The only limitation I would impose would be advancements granted because of trait use. I would only do so the first time they use it unless the situation was cool enough to ignore this.

E

I hear you eldath... but in my book any LM calling for a test of -

- should have his head examined. Trait or no Trait... these things should NEVER be rolled.

That's how I play it.

/wolf

I think you may have misunderstood my post wolf

I agree completely with you and was stating that such things should never be rolled.

E

The reason I suggested my houserule is exactly that: I usually don't make my players roll for trivial tasks.

Now if you play by my houserule, traits become something really useful and flavorful in the game, giving players something they'll probably value in their sheets.

For example: Elusive - I don't see any fun in succeeding automatically in a Stealth test that is irrelevant for the session just to speed up play, as I already make it automatic.

But when the player has the trait Elusive as a resource he can evoke once per session to automatically succeed in something relevant - ha, now it's fun!

; )

My houserule will beat the crap out of your houserule any day of the week...



Sorry I couldn't resist... all in jest I assure you. It's late... I've probably had too many coffees...

(must contain bursting giggles)

/wolf

Ah... my bad.

I read too much into it making it read: "Traits can only be used for Automatic success when it would mean absolutely nothing."

Admittedly I was off the mark... I apologise.

*phew* I almost choked on my coffee there.

/wolf

That seems to me to be a severe reading down of the rules for Traits and is almost a self fulfilling prophecy in then needing a house rule to fix it.

A non-difficult task can include some pretty important rolls.

A task where failure does not lead to dramatically relevant consequences doesn't IMO mean it is routine or trivial. My test will be that if I as a LM have something specific in mind arising from failure that I think is cool and adds to the story, then I won't allow a trait to be used for an automatic success. However, if I don't have a clear idea of what failure will mean then I will go with the automatic success and move the story on.

So, I think there can often be times where an important task has no dramatically relevant consequences on a failure.

People really seem to be swinging between the extremes on this rule from "Autosuccess! That is so broken" to "Only for trivial tasks! That is so pointless"

I think you continue to misinterpret my own misinterpretation of what another poster (eldath) tried to say.

I was off the mark and we cleared that up. So I don't really know what you are trying to say here friend.

/wolf

Yeah, my bad. I think I was responding more to annatar777's sentiment, which was also raised in another thread.

Anyway, I came across what I think is a good example of Trait use that is non-trivial. In the Hobbit, when the Dwarves are all imprisoned and Bilbo is looking for a way to escape, there is a moment where he takes the keys from the butler. I could totally see this as being a place where the player of Bilbo would invoke Burglary Trait for an auto success.

The task in not difficult though it is challenging and there is an element of risk. Failure would have pretty serious consequences, but as GM those consequences may not be dramatically relevant. If Bilbo got caught, the story would grind to a halt and like Tolkien himself found, another solution would be very difficult.

So, if Bilbo's player came up with a cool plan showcasing Bilbo's Burglary Trait and it involved a serious task, then as GM I would jump on the idea of granting the auto success. You get a cool character scene and the story as a whole moves on. This is even though the task isn't trivial nor is it a task that an RPG system would normally allow you to bypass without it being an obvious lapse.

I fully agree.

My own personal guidelines would support this.

Has he been stealing keys off guard before? No. So this is a new action. No boring repetition involved.

Does it highlight the character and his relation ship to the people he is trying to save with this action? Yes. Most definitely.

Does it create suspense? I would say so. The situation that follows is a lot more suspenseful (sneaking out, avoiding detection etc.) than the alternative, being discovered or failing to rescue his friends.

I would allow a trait use for sure!

/wolf

My house-rule to address the muddle that can result from the "Auto-Success on Traits" rule is this:
No auto-success, instead if a trait applies you can re-roll some, all or none of the dice used in the Skill Check.
That way Traits are still very useful, the difficulty of the task is relevant and there's less confusion about if a Trait applies (i.e. is it dramatically appropriate, etc.)

I think that kind of ignores the most important aspects of traits and focusses on a very narrow part of them i.e. a boost to PC ability. IMO they are meant to be a way showcase what is central and different about a PC whilst allowing for a shortcut in narration. A reroll does neither of these. A reroll is effectively just a bonus which is less mechanically distinct than an auto success. Also, a reroll adds more rolls rather than allow for a shortcut.

To be honest, I don't think there is a muddle with Traits and auto successes. They will require some thought from everyone as they are a relatively novel mechanic, but I think given the opportunity in play they will really shine.

On saying all that, you are of course free to do what you want

Just a few considerations about Traits...

Traits are supposed to provide nuances to a character's build and 'modus operandi', and to evoke some of the atmosphere found in the books (all traits are taken from either The Hobbit or LotR). They are not supposed to grant more solid bonuses, as might be provided by a reroll for example. We experimented a lot with those (and other types of solid bonuses) but in the end I was confronted with a choice: either discard many flavourful traits for the sake of balance (if a trait lets you reroll any one roll, would you choose 'patient' or 'keen-eyed'?), or make them work in a 'subdued', more interpretative way. I chose the latter. So, if you are going to make traits more mechanically influent, bear in mind that many traits won't be picked by some players - some players won't pick 'Merry' or 'True-hearted' anyway, but that would be another reason not to do so...

Francesco

Good insights.

Given Attributes add a bonus and Skills add dice, the impact of Traits feels distinctly different in being more character and story oriented under the rules as written. The three benefits of Traits in particular reinforces this as they are more about character and story benefits and manipulation.

Making Traits into another mechanical bonus of some kind would feel both out of place and a duplication of other mechanics.

I'm bumping this and another thread to run concurrent with the new 'Traits and Automatic Success' thread. A working forum search engine sure would come in handy *cough cough*

great idea indeed!

Cough cough nudge nudge wink wink


Thanks for resurrecting this thread. Very nice topic right now.

And here's something else to consider with this in mind:

How many times in other RPGs are you playing a character that is doing something so in tune with the nature of your character - so married to your character's concept that it would warrant a Trait in this system - and then you describe this nice big elaborate scheme full of narrated fun, with a chance to truly shine and "DO what your character was "BORN TO DO" as per a Traits connotation......


Then the proverbial FAILURE occurs on the one skill test your GM asks from you.......and you just feel crushed and anti-heroic that you couldn't do the one thing you're truly good at doing and would have been a wonderfully memorable, book-worthy moment. A al Bilbo freeing his friends.


Now instead, the TRAITs notion of Auto-success allows for just this sort of iconic narrated example of game that allows you to adhere to your trait's spirit and as Wolf suggested earlier - learning something defining to the character.

This then in the end has a much more rewarding experience for all when a player can take the time to truly hash out details and be creative, and not be foiled by a bad dice roll - for something that is truly inherent to his character's existence.

Spot on, thank you.

This considerations remind me of the game of two nights ago (we were playing Don't Leave the Path from Tales from Wilderland with new players) when Rotho the Hobbit initiated Lindir the butler of the Elvenking to the joys of pipe-smoking - probably laying the foundations for a small pipeweed trade between the Shire and the Woodland Realm at the same time...

Francesco

I'm still not comfortable with the idea that you have to choose to invoke your Traits either to guarantee and ordinary success, or to gamble such that you risk failure but also stand to gain an Advancement Point if you succeed. SirKicley's scenario could still occur if you went for the AP and didn't roll well enough.

- The description of Automatic Action on AB p.95 sounds like you have to invoke the Trait in advance.
- The description of Advancement Point on AB p.96 sounds like you invoke it after the roll has been made.

So is the answer to use invoking Traits like you spend Hope Points: after seeing how the dice fall? That way you can either convert a failure into an ordinary success, or a success into an Advancement Point, depending -- but without having had to gamble and risk losing altogether.

The downside is that this might make it look like the players are only encouraged to roleplay and engage with their Player-heroes' personalities if the dice let them down.

Cheers,
--Os.

Hey Os. unless i and others have been doing it wrong all along this is how it goes down...
.

LM calls for a test.

player rolls dice and succeeds. IF he can conceivably tie his trait via Invkoking it; meaning he narrates and describes its role in the endeavor, he can earn an advancement point.


OR


LM calls for a test.


Player conceivably sees how his trait makes him inherently capable at performing this skill check. player narrates or describes why the trait is relevant, describes his actions and takes an auto success. no advancement point is awarded.


Typically we do not do a lot of narrating or describing of actions until we know the result of the dice.. or in the case of auto-success after we clear with LM that it is allowed to do so. Then we will describe the action that unfolded.


For instance during combat a player may say "well i'm in fwd stance so i'm charging and attacking.". then after the dice is rolled to adjudicate any success or not. The LM in the case of a miss or an Eye; or the player in the case of a successful attack will describe more detail of what just transpired. I.e. the player will describe his character charging leaping swinging cutting chopping whathaveyou....after the dice proclaim the mechanics lf the outcome. then we adlib and abstract what the numbers mean.


in the case of bilbo's player narrating how he went about saving his friends, i am going with the assumption that the player already cleared it with the LM that his burglary trait would allow for an auto success. Now the player is describing in detail what he did, using that moment to truly shine in the story...doing what his character was designed to do....a trait that is so inherent to bilbo that it defines him. And now the player knows that he doesn't have to worry about that blasted unlucky bad dice roll and failure to rear its ugly head after working so hard to roleplay and narrate out the scene!


This is how francesco can stand by his words that even traits that could be viewed as mechanically inferior are still just as important to have because they are roleplayed out in a scene; as opposed to just adding a stagnant bonus to a type of dice roll - which obviously would favor certain traits over others.