forums.cubicle7.co.uk
archive

Hello everybody.
I'm new to the forum, but not new to Middle Earth role-playing. I have been playing MERP, ROLEMASTER, DECIPHER since each of the systems were invented and now I have finally arrived here with what I believe is the first Middle Earth rule set that capture the spirit of Tolkien’s universe.
The only aspect of the rules that distract my players from the story is the Advancement points.
According to the rule, each player keeps his own record of APs. And to get APs you need to succeed in skills.

What I found out was that players started suggesting tasks in skill categories, where they did not have AP ranks yet, and competition between the players as to who got to make the skill roll during encounters. And finally there was competition and bickering about who got the most AP ranks before the next fellowship phase.

The fix for this problem, was to distribute all APs collected by all the players during the adventuring phase equally at each fellowship phase.
Everybody could now enjoy the other players success at a skill check and our focus is now on the story again.

Hope this idea is helpful, if any of you guys have seen the same problem in your game.

Regarding Traits, then I have made a distinction between Specialties and Distinctive features.
In my game, you only get auto success when you have a Specialty, but you still get APs to follow your distinctive feature. And for all Traits, you get to argue for a skill test when there normally is no chance for success, as per the rules.

I felt, like many others, that you can argument on auto success for too many things if you are fx: Adventurous, Determined, Energetic...
Any thoughts on my two house rules? Useful or not? Or maybe it has all been said before… 

I'm curious as to why exactly you've decided to not allow Distinctive Features for auto successes. Equally, if your players are bickering over APs, you should really have a chat with them. The idea behind them is to encourage you to think about the way you're using your skill. Equally, there are 3 skills in each Group, and the likelihood that every member of the party all has, say, Stealth, and only Stealth, in the Movement Group is basically zero, simply because of the way the starting stats go. When I first started my players realised they could all just do a big band performance using their collective Song rolls to gain APs for each of them. I quickly had to put a stop to it because otherwise they would have just farmed APs (at least as I read the rules then)

I know there are other people on the forums who hand out APs as a bulk, but if your players are willing to stop bickering and allow each person's character to excel at what they're good at (as is the idea), they *should* get a pretty even spread of APs between them anyway.

/rant end

Hi Beleg,

The reason for the split between Distinctive features and specialties in my game is this:

Specialties are tasks you are good at, something you have trained all your life. Swimming, Cooking, Fishing, Trading... i.e. Auto success.

Distinctive features are personality traits, that should be roleplayed and when they are, the player should be rewarded with an AP because the player is being true to his personality.
Another reason for not allowing auto success is that the distincive features are vague as to what specific tasks should be granted auto success, this leads to uncessary discussions between the players, since they have to agree. This takes the focus away from the story.

Regarding the AP distribution, then I was observing the players suggesting tasks, because they didn't have an AP in that skill Group yet, not because they were promoting the story. I didn't realize this at first, but I kind of got the idea, when the Elf wanted to sing on the road and at every meeting they had. The Man from Dale was asking news from everyone with pursuade... And worst of all, insisted on rolling for tasks that could get an auto success, instead of moving on.

I have been consistant with the negative effect, when a skill roll fails, so the Elf was drawing evil creatures to the party, with his failed song rolls, the swimmer was drowning and nearly killed, even though he had the specialty.

And in the end the players are happier, when they benefit from another players success.

One more reason, why Distinctive features should not grant auto success:

Just because you are Tall, doesn’t mean that you are intimidating and should auto succeed in Awe. But if you are good at Awe, then you certainly are scarier.

Just because you are suspicious, doesn’t mean that you can tell when people are lying, it makes it easier if you know how, because you are looking i.e. you get to roll, when others do not.

Just because you are Wrathful, doesn't mean that people are afraid of you. Why is the boy in the class who always get angry, so fun to tease... Not because he is scary when he is angry... But on the other hand, the scary boy, with Awe, you don't want to mess with him!

Enough from me I am not asking any of you to change anything; I just think Traits is much simpler to manage this way.

I'd never thought of it this way.. it also deals with the whole "I'm Hardy so I can succeed at every Travel roll" issue, among others. Now I'm tempted to give it a whirl too

Beleg wrote:I'd never thought of it this way.. it also deals with the whole "I'm Hardy so I can succeed at every Travel roll" issue, among others. Now I'm tempted to give it a whirl too

Loremasters should not let players abuse the system in this way. Players are not allowed to invoke Hardy to succeed at every travel roll.

From the AB, page 95, emphasis is mine:

"The Loremaster may agree with a Trait invocation to speed up play, especially if failing at the roll would not lead to dramatically relevant consequences, or if the action wasn’t difficult."

A travel roll has dramatically relevant consequences. The same applies to other instances as discussed in this thread. The Loremaster must make a judgement call and be consistent in those calls when allowing or disallowing an auto success invocation by a player. "In all cases, the Loremaster’s word is final." -- from the AB, page 95

Beckett, I was only using the Travel roll thing as an example, I already agree with you wholeheartedly
That was just the first example that came to mind as it has come up multiple times on these forums with various people during discussions about such and such a Trait being more 'powerful' than others, etc. However, I don't recall anyone necessarily pointing out the dramatically important aspect of Trait invocation, which is obviously the most important aspect of them

Beleg wrote:Beckett, I was only using the Travel roll thing as an example, I already agree with you wholeheartedly
That was just the first example that came to mind as it has come up multiple times on these forums with various people during discussions about such and such a Trait being more 'powerful' than others, etc. However, I don't recall anyone necessarily pointing out the dramatically important aspect of Trait invocation, which is obviously the most important aspect of them

Hi, Beleg. Hope I didn't come off sounding like a grumpy old man. I mistook your "I never saw it this way..." post as agreeing with the general notion that invoking traits for auto successes was somehow broken because it was too powerful.

I've seen this come up several times on the forums as well. I think people are just forgetting the simple rule that a player cannot invoke a Trait (Specialities & Distinctive Features) if the roll has dramatically relevant consequences or if the action is deemed too difficult to warrant passing up a die roll. Adjudication by the LM is key here. I'm not sure why people forget this and just assume a player can invoke an auto success willy-nilly.

Personally, I don't use autosuccess till I have 3 AP in a category. Before that, I'd rather go for AP, so I always try the roll. Advancement is far more important then success on any single action.

Personally, I don't use auto success till I have 3 AP in a category. Before that, I'd rather go for AP, so I always try the roll. Advancement is far more important than success on any single action.

Sorry Angelalex242, but this is exactly the reason, why I chose to distribute the APs equally between all players.
If you can get an auto success, in a non critical part of the game, to speed up the story and not take an unnecessary risk, then I think you should do that, but if everybody is competing for the APs, then players start taking chances to get the APs they lack.

I my oppinion advancement is definitely 2nd compared to successfully swimming back out from the Marsh dwellers abode, when you have already rescued the Dwarves or another situation where you put the party at risk for no reason except to get another AP...

If one player take chances like that and succeed, then the other players will do the same, because if they don't, then it will just be the reckless player that advances.

Hope I didn't come off sounding like a grumpy old man. I mistook your "I never saw it this way..." post as agreeing with the general notion that invoking traits for auto successes was somehow broken because it was too powerful.

Hi Beckett, I actually don't think that auto success is broken, because it is too powerful, as the rules describe, that you only get auto success when the task is not dramatically relevant. The reason I have for making this change with the distinctive traits, is that it is too difficult to agree on the tests they should apply to. And in my opinion, stated above, you need the actual skill as well. It is not enough to be Tall, you need Awe to be intimidating.

But just to be clear, I am not trying to change any of your games or way of playing, I am simply presenting another way to look at APs and Traits, which really helped my group.