Team without social skills - LM problem

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zedturtle
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by zedturtle » Mon Dec 29, 2014 5:53 pm

My biggest question for the OP is what Traits do they have? Answers will depend on that...
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Looping
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by Looping » Mon Dec 29, 2014 6:51 pm

SirGamingScotsman wrote:The other suggestions are a good idea. Although, as an LM, I don't always let the dice do the talking, that's what the players are for. I will let them talk and introduce themselves, and if they roleplay their character well then I will give them a point or two towards the Encounter, even if they do roll and it goes badly I might not take away too much Tolerance.
I do agree that LM should not always "let the dice do the talking" but in my opinion there is a fine line to walk here. While every LM ought to encourage their players to be in character and roleplay as much as possible, one has to make sure the players are roleplaying THEIR character. If a character has more Awe than Courtesy, or is Gruff, the player's roleplaying should reflect this. That does not mean the action cannot be attempted but the character's lack of eloquence and etiquette should be evident, and I do not think the LM should be too quick to fudge the rolls.

While I agree with SirGamingScotsman that players need incentives and rewards for roleplaying, I would not let the eloquence of a player substitute totally for that of his/her character.


SirGamingScotsman wrote:Of course if one of your characters does do particularly well, give them an advancement point, or more, in their Personality area and try to persuade them to spend those points in another social skill, as they have begun to learn how to address those they meet in Middle Earth and from learning from others, if there are other NPCs talking etc.
I would also award AP for good roleplaying and to represent what the character learned from his less-than-epic courtesy try. Even failures are good learning opportunities.

Glorelendil
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by Glorelendil » Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:28 pm

zedturtle wrote:My biggest question for the OP is what Traits do they have? Answers will depend on that...
Gruff, Secretive, Vengeful, Elusive, Proud, and Reckless would be a problem.

But, yeah, they could always invoke traits like crazy to scrape through the vital encounters while they try to earn AP other ways, and then increase their skills.
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Rich H
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by Rich H » Mon Dec 29, 2014 7:34 pm

Looping wrote:
SirGamingScotsman wrote:The other suggestions are a good idea. Although, as an LM, I don't always let the dice do the talking, that's what the players are for. I will let them talk and introduce themselves, and if they roleplay their character well then I will give them a point or two towards the Encounter, even if they do roll and it goes badly I might not take away too much Tolerance.
I do agree that LM should not always "let the dice do the talking" but in my opinion there is a fine line to walk here. While every LM ought to encourage their players to be in character and roleplay as much as possible, one has to make sure the players are roleplaying THEIR character. If a character has more Awe than Courtesy, or is Gruff, the player's roleplaying should reflect this. That does not mean the action cannot be attempted but the character's lack of eloquence and etiquette should be evident, and I do not think the LM should be too quick to fudge the rolls.
This kind of thing is only a problem if a gamers role-play a scene and then roll the dice afterwards. Best way is to:

1) Set out the objective of the task - eg, the player explains to the GM what their character is trying to do

2) Resolve the action - eg, based on (1), the player and/or GM makes the appropriate roles as per the rules

3) Roleplay the results - eg, based on the result of (2), the players and GM role-play what the dice previously determined. So, this could be the player (or GM) describing how their character failed or they could actually 'act' it out; it basically boils down to whatever the gaming groups' way of RPing is

Following the above steps negate any of those silly situations where a player RPs something amazingly well, then rolls badly, etc and gets people playing their characters within the rules.
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Glorelendil
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by Glorelendil » Mon Dec 29, 2014 8:32 pm

By the way, I personally don't like the suggestion that good roleplaying overrule poor dice rolls. If everybody at the table really is for it then great, but if I were at such a table I'd probably keep my mouth shut even though I wouldn't like it. So the enthusiasm of the LM or a vocal player might not mean that everybody is really buying into it.

I'm not very good at improvisational acting. I usually role-play by saying, "My character does such-and-such..." and not actually voice-acting. So from my point of view it doesn't feel "fair" that a glib player gets what amounts to extra abilities for his character.

Imagine that I take a Hobbit with great social skills, then I roll poorly. So the Beorning or Woodman steps up, with all his skill points in Athletics and Hunting and Healing, and ignores the game mechanics to sweet-talk the LM. Makes me feel like my character is pretty useless. Yes, I know we're all on the same team and I should be happy that we succeeded at the Encounter, but still.

Now imagine if we got to the Combat, and the Beorning flubs his rolls, and I've got a measly 2 in Shortbow, so I pick up a pen off the table and throw it across the room, sticking it neatly into the drawing of an orc on a bulletin board. Should that count as my dice roll?

Silly example, but I hope illustrative of why I'm not a fan of role-playing overriding dice rolls.

I vastly prefer the role-playing (and the descriptions of clever combat maneuvers) to illustrate the dice rolls, not replace them.

Again, if other tables disagree, and everybody is on board, then by no means think that I'm suggesting that anybody change what they're doing.
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zedturtle
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by zedturtle » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:01 pm

I try to hit something middle of the road with my approach of "your Roleplaying tells me what you did, the die ro tells me how the NPC reacted." Of course, sometimes that leads to some odd moments like the guy who has a 0 in Courtesy writing something to tell me how his character will blow it yet again, but then rolls a Gandalf and the NPC has to take it as a clever joke instead.

For the most part it seems to work. I do modify the TNs based on approach, ie trying Courtesy on Beornings or Awe on Elves is going to get you a higher TN than vice versa.
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Glorelendil
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by Glorelendil » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:14 pm

zedturtle wrote:I do modify the TNs based on approach, ie trying Courtesy on Beornings or Awe on Elves is going to get you a higher TN than vice versa.
That I totally agree with.
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Majestic
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by Majestic » Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:29 pm

I try to do as zedturtle just suggested, hitting more of a middle-of-the-road approac, where the role-playing more defines what the character is doing.

But you make an excellent point, Glorelendil, and your analogy is similar to one I've used before as well.
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Rich H
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by Rich H » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:09 am

Glorelendil wrote:
zedturtle wrote:I do modify the TNs based on approach, ie trying Courtesy on Beornings or Awe on Elves is going to get you a higher TN than vice versa.
That I totally agree with.
I'm pretty sure there are examples of that in TfW.
TOR resources thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=62
TOR miniatures thread: viewtopic.php?t=885

Fellowship of the Free Tale of Years: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8318

zedturtle
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Re: Team without social skills - LM problem

Post by zedturtle » Tue Dec 30, 2014 12:15 am

Rich H wrote:
Glorelendil wrote:
zedturtle wrote:I do modify the TNs based on approach, ie trying Courtesy on Beornings or Awe on Elves is going to get you a higher TN than vice versa.
That I totally agree with.
I'm pretty sure there are examples of that in TfW.
Oh yeah, I'm not claiming a patent on the idea or anything, it's just what works for me... if the PC is pursuing a less effective approach, they get penalised. I try not to let the quality of the writing/roleplaying impact the decision.
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