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doctheweasel wrote:I am open with stats once the party has experienced them directly. No TN to hit until they actually attack enemy. No damage from weapons until they have been hit by one. No knowing anyone's skill until that skill has been rolled.

Once it has happened, though, then it's all open. I don't roll behind a screen, so I can't (and don't care to) keep those things hidden.

I also like that approach. Player: "Yikes, he's got a sword skill of 4!" Character: "Whoah...that orc is a master swordsman."

EDIT: I wonder if Insight + appropriate lore speciality might give a hint before joining combat.

Absolutely FB! I run things almost exactly as you afterward suggest, & rarely reveal their stats but describe them as: "He appears to be rather strong," or, "Your blow seems to weaken him," etc.

That said, however, Yusei also hits it when he points out that astute players usually discern some of the roles after a swing or two.

Year's ago when we played Robotech, the GM made it part of the game to work out the stats of the Zentraedi. Military Intelligence required that all mecha pilots submitted reports to them after each engagement. This amounted to a record of our attacks, parries, dodges, damage to disable and destroy, etc. From that the Military Intelligence PC built up a profile of each opponent's statistics. I thought that was a cool way to introduce and embrace meta-gaming into the actual scenarios and game universe.

When ?I am teaching the game to new players for the first two scenarios they are playing i use the numbers and the descriptions, then after they've played use the descriptions.

I tend to hide everything and go with the descriptions instead. I've chosen this approach after playing one too many games of Legend of the 5 Rings with some ferocious metaplayers. I've nothing against the players trying to guess the scores, but I'm deadly against players assessing their chances and taking their risks based purely on the game math, opposed to the game story.
Another benefit of this method, in my eyes, is that you can allow yourself to be flexible with the TNs. When a character grazed success rolling just one point under TN, you may be generous without causing a table riot.
As for Hope, usually I tend to tell my players just if the +X would be enough to beat the roll or not.

I've always given the TNs, but not always the Endurance points. However, I prefer to be open about all the stats and I always roll in the open as well (my Loremaster's screen lies flat on the table). When the player-heroes hit the enemy, they know exactly how much damage they cause and what the Edge and Injury ratings of their own weapons are of course. So, I feel that knowing the stats of the adversaries isn't a big deal either. It kind of gives them an idea of how they are doing without me having to describe every hit precisely, etc. I don't usually tell them the special abilities in advance though. That is kind of a nasty little surprise! However, now that they have faced many Orcs, Spiders, and Trolls, they know what to expect.

Woodclaw wrote:I've nothing against the players trying to guess the scores, but I'm deadly against players assessing their chances and taking their risks based purely on the game math, opposed to the game story.

That would drive me crazy! I'm fortunate to have players that don't do that.

That being said, however, could you still give an example of how players might do this in a game of TOR if you were open about all the stats? Maybe my players are doing this to a degree, but I am not recognizing it, or I have interpreted things differently.

jamesrbrown wrote:

Woodclaw wrote:I've nothing against the players trying to guess the scores, but I'm deadly against players assessing their chances and taking their risks based purely on the game math, opposed to the game story.

That would drive me crazy! I'm fortunate to have players that don't do that.

That being said, however, could you still give an example of how players might do this in a game of TOR if you were open about all the stats? Maybe my players are doing this to a degree, but I am not recognizing it, or I have interpreted things differently.

Admitedly this never happened to me while playing TOR, but I have plenty of examples from other games (mostly D&D 3.something). One of the saddest example I got is from a Legend of the 5 Rings game I run at a convention.

The players were among the participants to a swordmanship tournament in the lands of the Crane clan. I told them that the tournament was a friendly competition and that the local Daimyo was more interested in seeing some fine example of dexterity and tactics from the participants, rather than blood and violence. Due to how the Roll & Keep system works to perform these feats the players have to add Raises to the basic TN of the action (each raise is a +5 to the basic TN). Each raise would allow a more spectacular effect, but make the overall action harder.

One of the players - the only already experienced with the system - managed to pass the first couple of round and went one-on-one with a much more experienced Dragon Clan samurai.

(me) : Judging by how easily he dispatched his previous opponents, the Dragon samurai is probably a expert duelist and a master of his own school. His skill with the blade is clearly superior to yours, but you're not certain by own much.
(player) : You said that this isn't a duel to death.
: Correct. Being a friendly competition, your host is more interested in seeing some stylish swordmanship.
[grabbing a handful of dices]: What is his TN?
Sorry?
What is his TN? my "to hit" roll is 6k3, which means I can easily beat TN20, if I have to put some raises into it I need to know how high I can go.
: As I said before, he's skilled and probably better than you, but you didn't have the chance to assess his skills first hand so far (i.e. he only wayched one of the two bouts before and didn't ask for any kind of assement roll).
: Fine. But I have to know how good he is. Otherwise I might go over 40 with the TN.
(and so on)

I hope this answer your question.

Correct response there is...

"Then go over 40 with your TN, and show him how good YOU are."

I usually tell players the TN for their rolls, but do not tell the enemy's Endurance, Hate, etc. They are welcome to keep track on their own of how much damage they have done, and I do give a narrative description.
"Your blow really rocked the goblin back" "The Troll does not seem at all weakened by your arrows" "The spider is reeling and unsteady on its remaining feet"

I once played with a DM who did all the dice rolling and kept track of all the numbers, for both the players and the monsters. We would be told that we had landed a solid blow, or were feeling barely alive and had to make our decisions based on that information only.