Flipped tolerance in Encounters

[Arkat]

Hi people

I've always struggled with Encounters in RAW, but then I came across the suggestion in another thread (viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4176&start=60) that you could flip the tolerance rating of the encounter and say that this is the number of rolls the fellowship has got to spend to try to influence the outcome.

I think this is a wonderful idea and I'm going to test it out tonight. But I think I'm going to take the idea even further. I'm going to remove Introductions as a separate step. Tonight I'll run encounters with just preliminary rolls (Insight) and a maximum number of social rolls equal to the encounter's tolerance.

I wonder if this will make me more comfortable running Encounters.

[jamesrbrown]

Let us know how things turned out for you. If you could provide a detailed recounting of the way you handled the entire situation and how your players responded and played it out, it would be very helpful.

[Dunkelbrink]

Yes, please tell us how it went. Are you planning to tell the Tolerance Value beforehand? I am also considering using this house rule. There is one thing I fear though, and that is that the members of the Company with less then optimal skill values will never get to roll in Encounters. With the RAW you have at least the introduction phase where everyone rolls (expect for when chossing a single spokesman) and there's no real danger in failing a roll or two. I like it when my players have to use every skill from time to time, even those where they have lower skill values. But I see many pros with this rule as well.

[Arkat]

What can I say? I tried.

We had a scene with the fellowship and the council of elders in Woodland Hall, and I though this would be a good opportunity to test out flipped tolerance. But then my players suddenly started going off in different directions. Some wanted this, some wanted that and some didn't know what they wanted. So I just let the rules rest, and ran the scene freeform. Better luck next time perhaps.

But I guess there are several lessons here. Flipping tolerance makes rolls even more a group resource than it has been before, and this has important consquences for how you approach an encounter. If they have opposing views it isn't such a big problem, they'll just get in each other's way and no one will achieve anything. But what happens if different members of the fellowship have different but non-competing agendas? Do they still have to share the tolerance or will they have separate tolerance "pools"?

Right now I'm thinking I'll go for the latter option with an added house rule that each repeated use of the same skill, by the same person will increase the difficulty by one level. So to keep the difficulty level at the starting level you either have to switch skills or switch skill user, and thus make it sensible for several characters to cooperate.

Not sure it is enough though. I'll let you know when I try it out.

[Elmoth]

I would go for the same pool. Since you are introducing several issues all together, you are unlikely to have the time to develop any of them well, so in the end they are competing agendas for the interest of the listener and the strength of the arguments you can deploy. makes the listener more wary of what the hell you want to achieve as well.

Regarding the other question, yes, I would tell them the tolerance beforehand: I think it can set the mood for the encounter: Knowing that you only have 2 rolls forces you to thread carefully (and roll well!), while knowing that you have 7 rolls makes the encounter more lightweight unless you want to be the freaking king of the social media and be considered for the mayor position at the place you are interacting at, where you would require 6+ sucesses

Looking forward to hear how this works!

Cheers,
Xavi

[Falenthal]

Are you planning to tell the Tolerance Value beforehand?

Regarding the other question, yes, I would tell them the tolerance beforehand: I think it can set the mood for the encounter: Knowing that you only have 2 rolls forces you to thread carefully (and roll well!), while knowing that you have 7 rolls makes the encounter more lightweight unless you want to be the freaking king of the social media and be considered for the mayor position at the place you are interacting at, where you would require 6+ sucesses

My option has been to take the numbers out of the info the players have. I present the NPC as nervous when the Tolerance is low (0 to 2), willing to listen when medium (3 to 5) or overtly friendly when high (6+). The numbers are not carved in stone, but you get my meaning. As the Tolerance is lowered during the Encounter, I also tell the players how the NPC's attention shifts to a more suspicious or intolerant mood. This way they never exactly know how many rolls they have left, and avoid doing maths and focus on roleplay. But if an NPC tells them to shut up and get out of his house, then it also doesn't come as a surpise.

[jamesrbrown]

I am continuing to flip the Tolerance rating in my games and it works beautifully. It is very clear to the players about the number of rolls they are allowed and this causes them to roleplay better.

Last night we played an encounter with Lindar from the Elvenking's Halls. The highest Wisdom was 2 and there was one Elf among the company. So, the Tolerance was 3. I told the players that they would have 3 rolls during this exchange that would count toward their main goal, which was to build trust with Lindar to gain better access and treatment as guests. They didn't want to be confined to the cellars. I told the players that they could roleplay as much as they wanted, but let me know when they would be using a roll to affect the outcome. Roleplaying was used to converse and share information back and forth, while rolling was used to get what they wanted.

Everyone made a preliminary roll of Insight to gain bonus dice, but only the Elf succeeded.

During the Introduction, the Elf spoke, introducing his friends and vouching for them. He made a roll of Courtesy and used his bonus die, but failed anyway; a particularly awkward start! I made him narrate a sloppy introduction. He chose to mispronounce the host's name!

Then, for the Interaction phase, the Barding used Persuade to make many points about his history and to ask for trust. He rolled a great success, which convinced Lindar to trust them and listen more.

Finally, with only 1 roll remaining, the Elf made a final roll of Courtesy to apologize and recover from his rocky beginning to once again ask for trust, and this time he succeeded.

Having used up their 3 rolls, the encounter was effectively over, and the company had accumulated a total of 3 successes. Evaluating the outcome according to the table on page 189 of the core rules shows that 3 successes means an overall successful encounter. The company got what they wanted, but no more. They would have needed at least 5 successes to exceed expectations and gain an additional reward.

And so, Lindar simply granted them access into the nicer quarters to stay with their Elven companion, rather than requiring them to sleep in the cellars.

[Falenthal]

I told the players that they could roleplay as much as they wanted, but let me know when they would be using a roll to affect the outcome. Roleplaying was used to converse and share information back and forth, while rolling was used to get what they wanted.

I think your "Flipped Tolerance" rule is one of the best house-rule I've implemented in my games. It improves even more the interest of the Encounter mechanic.

I hadn't thought of allowing the use of the rolls in the way you describe above, but it's magnificient.
Up to now, what I did was to count the first X rolls made by the group, where X was the Tolerance rating of the group. Whatever those first rolls were. This forced the group to always choose the same people, with the same skills (the higher ones, of course) to beginn all Encounters.

Your detail about letting them choose when to influence the Encounter (when to ask for something, or to introduce a slippy issue in a conversation, etc.) is great for allowing more naturality in the conversations.

Thanks for having this idea, james.

[jamesrbrown]

Thanks for having this idea, james.

You are welcome! I find that this works very well when the companions establish a definite purpose for the encounter (what they hope to get). By using Tolerance to limit the number of "influencing" rolls, it also makes Tolerance that much more important. A low Tolerance means they will likely have to do very well on each roll to gain more reward than just their goal. If Tolerance is below 3, it may be very difficult to accumulate 5 successes to get a Great Success.

I've found the RAW for Tolerance to be almost trivial. Most companies can easily rack up 5 or more successes before exceeding Tolerance, thereby providing the expectation that they will always get what they want and then some. I just didn't like how this played out.

[Falenthal]

I've found the RAW for Tolerance to be almost trivial. Most companies can easily rack up 5 or more successes before exceeding Tolerance, thereby providing the expectation that they will always get what they want and then some. I just didn't like how this played out.

Exactly the same experience here. With the use of Traits, also, 1 success per hero was always granted at least. Adding one or two succesful rolls was a warranty of achieving 5 to 7 successes without any real effort.