Encounter Hazards

[jamesrbrown]

I was going through some old, as in the old, forum threads from August 23, 2012 and found a suggestion I made about Encounter Gaffes (as I called them then). Now that I've released Wild Adventures, which contain optional rules for triggering Hazard episodes during all three heroic ventures, I thought I might re-post my ideas here to help anyone who might want to try them out.

Basically, anytime an Eye is rolled on the Feat die it triggers a Hazard episode, whether during a journey, combat, or encounter. So, if the company is in the middle of an encounter with Beorn, who is in a gruff mood, for example, and they roll an Eye, something happens that they must fix or it could ruin their chances of getting what they want or even stop the meeting prematurely.

When using Persuade to make some points with Beorn, a player-hero rolls an Eye and Beorn becomes visibly impatient, rising to escort the company from the hall. To fix the insult, the player-hero must make a successful roll of Courtesy. If he does, Beorn sits back down and allows things to continue forward. The success also counts toward the total for the encounter. If the player-hero fails the Courtesy roll, it counts against the Tolerance rating. Beorn may start to lose his temper, but the player-hero can try again until he succeeds or exceeds the Tolerance rating for the encounter.

Here is the list of ideas I posted long ago for handling encounter hazards:

• Inspire triggers a hazard 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 hazard 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 hazard 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 hazard 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 hazard 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 hazard 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 hazard 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.

[Corvo]

Really interesting rules, JamesR!
I remember the old thread you are referring to: saved the content on my TOR-folder, but never managed to work into it.
I think these rules add "spice" and complexity to the encounter rules, something that imo is welcome.
And the unification of travel and encounter rules is really elegant. The only thing still lacking is an "encounter hazard table", but I doubt it's really feasible
Thank you for posting this work

[Rich H]

Here is the list of ideas I posted long ago for handling encounter hazards:

... I've been using these for yonks, see page 7: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/795 ... 0Rules.pdf

[Glorelendil]

Really interesting. Coincidentally (or not) there's a thread on rpg.net right now where some h8er is grousing about TORs "disconnected wonky subsystems" or something like that. Not that parallelism is the same thing as interconnection, but maybe more parallelism would make TOR more accessible to people who have trouble grasping it. The new edition of the rules did that with preliminary rolls; maybe the next step is Hazards.

Combat Hazards? Maybe the effects of rolling an Eye should vary be stance, like it does by Journey role. Could have the side benefit of making stance decisions richer.

[jamesrbrown]

In a way, combat already has one hazard trigger. When a player-hero rolls and Eye, it automatically triggers a Called shot from his opponent. This isn't always the most desirable thing, however. In many cases it actually benefits the player-hero as the Called shot is difficult to achieve. In some of the official adventures, the Eye also triggers special effects or battle events.

Putting these things together, I propose in Wild Adventures that a combat hazard is triggered anytime an Eye is rolled. The Loremaster can use the default Called shot option, an event written in the adventure, or he can generate a different hazard. Something takes place that requires a Common skill roll to overcome or avoid. The Loremaster determines the skill needed and describes the situation. For example, a player-hero rolls an Eye while making an attack roll against an Orc-chieftain, triggering a hazard episode. The Loremaster determines that Awarness is needed to avoid a falling rock coming down the mountainside. If he cannot avoid it, he will take a Success die worth of damage.

[Majestic]

Don't forget, too, that rolling an Eye (during anything other than combat) adds to the new Eye Awareness pool, if you're using that fairly new mechanic (from Rivendell). They happen pretty frequently for us (being as there's so many players), and one of my players always whispers loudly "I SEEEEEE YOU......." when they happen at our game.

Not to mention rolls of an Eye can trigger a Bout of Madness for anyone who's Miserable.

I like the idea of new, exciting stuff that happens when an Eye is rolled. Once a party becomes pretty experienced, they fail Common Skill rolls less and less, so it's nice to have something unexpected for them.

[Indur Dawndeath]

Hi James,

I like your encounter Hazards and have already used them in my game. They are great fun, but I think they get better if there is some variation.

I came up with these additional Hazards, that can spice up the encounter. Roll random and select an appropriate occurrence. Not all makes complete sense, but I tried to get all common skills into the list.

The way I see it, I would use your ideas, if it came natural from the conversation, and if it seemed awkward, then roll on this list for a random event.

Encounter Hazards
1. Interruption by another individual.
a. Courtesy to ask politely, if this can wait until your meeting is finished.
b. Awe to demand that you are given time to present your case undisturbed.
c. Persuade to reason with your subject, that your case is more important.
2. Natural disaster or accident.
a. Craft to extinguish a quickly developing fire, perhaps caused by your negligence.
b. Awareness to avoid the accidental destruction of one of the subject’s personal effects.
c. Athletics to catch a dropped item, to avoid its destruction.
3. Misunderstanding.
a. Lore, to correct a misunderstanding.
b. Search to help find the missing item / map, before the conversation can continue.
c. Riddle, to understand correctly the answer and avoid misunderstandings.
4. Sudden illness.
a. Healing to help cough up a piece of fruit
b. Insight to notice an illness, in time to remedy. (E.x. Subject getting pale, as he is losing consciousness, help him sit down.)
c. Song to calm a child or animal that is not feeling well and is disturbing the conversation.
5. Embarrassing moment.
a. Stealth to quickly hide an embarrassing item.
b. Hunting to correctly identify sounds as harmless animal noice (E.x. Mating moose…)
c. Travel to explain where the item you just stepped on can be repaired or replaced.
6. Doubt in your abilities.
a. Battle to explain how you could defeat the problem / foe.
b. Inspire to change his mind about your ability.
c. Explore to convince him, that you are able to solve this from another direction.

Comments are welcome, and other descriptions of the common skill usage.
Hope others can use it

[Deadmanwalking]

In a way, combat already has one hazard trigger. When a player-hero rolls and Eye, it automatically triggers a Called shot from his opponent. This isn't always the most desirable thing, however. In many cases it actually benefits the player-hero as the Called shot is difficult to achieve. In some of the official adventures, the Eye also triggers special effects or battle events.

A common solution to this (and one that definitely qualifies as a Hazard) is to make the Called Shot triggered by an Eye not require a Tengwar, just an ordinary success. This has the advantage of simplicity, and doesn't make things too deadly if you only allow enemies to make Called Shots under those circumstances.

More complicated versions are also valid of course, I'm just noting the simple way to make Eyes more hazardous in combat.

[Rich H]

In a way, combat already has one hazard trigger. When a player-hero rolls and Eye, it automatically triggers a Called shot from his opponent. This isn't always the most desirable thing, however. In many cases it actually benefits the player-hero as the Called shot is difficult to achieve. In some of the official adventures, the Eye also triggers special effects or battle events.

A common solution to this (and one that definitely qualifies as a Hazard) is to make the Called Shot triggered by an Eye not require a Tengwar, just an ordinary success. This has the advantage of simplicity, and doesn't make things too deadly if you only allow enemies to make Called Shots under those circumstances.

Another way is just to say that an ordinary success results in a standard attack rather than a miss. Makes it less deadly but just as simple - which may be more preferable to some.

[Glorelendil]

2. Natural disaster or accident.
a. Craft to extinguish a quickly developing fire, perhaps caused by your negligence.
b. Awareness to avoid the accidental destruction of one of the subject’s personal effects.
c. Athletics to catch a dropped item, to avoid its destruction.

This made me laugh. Especially (a).