Song Skill

[venger]

Hello
Regarding the SONG skill, my group recently took on a new player who chose a Hobbit with SONG 2 and RIDDLE 3.

He appears to want to roleplay these apsects of his character and was asking about using it for other than social encounters, as in how it benefits during Combats or other situations.

I would like to incorporate something but unsure and post today asking for ideas, house rules etc.

[farinal]

in open stance,

- Rally Comrades: Forgo your attack and make an Inspire or
Song roll instead. If the roll is successful, all fighting
companions, including you, who suffered a loss of Endurance
during the current combat, recover one or more Endurance
points. If the roll is failed, you lose one point of Hope.

[Stormcrow]

Follow the same rule as for everything else: the player proposes a task using Song or Riddle and states what he wants to accomplish. If a majority of the players agree, and if the Loremaster doesn't veto it, the Loremaster sets a difficulty and the player rolls.

Let them be creative. Veto them if they're being abusive. If the idea is weird but in any way plausible, give it your honest assessment of its difficulty. It is very rare that a Loremaster should say, "You can't try that."

[Dalriada]

in open stance,

- Rally Comrades: Forgo your attack and make an Inspire or
Song roll instead. If the roll is successful, all fighting
companions, including you, who suffered a loss of Endurance
during the current combat, recover one or more Endurance
points. If the roll is failed, you lose one point of Hope.

And you can easily add some similar moves.
Example : a mocking song, to anger enemies and make them rush while it would be wiser for them to stand their ground.
A soothing song, to help a wounded character to rest more peacefully.
Song are more magical in the middle-earth than in reality, after all.

[DavetheLost]

Remember Bilbo in the Hobbit singing that silly song to annoy the spiders and draw them away from the Dwarves. That is a pretty inventive use of song.

I like it that this system allows and encourages players to make creative use of their skills and attributes. If you as a LoreMaster feel that what the player is proposing is very unlikely then set a ridiculously high difficulty and let the player roll.

[Stormcrow]

Remember Bilbo in the Hobbit singing that silly song to annoy the spiders and draw them away from the Dwarves.

Excellent example!

[venger]

Thank you all for the excellent thoughts and suggestions. I am considering every one of them.

The player in question, if he plays true, is roleplaying a Hobbit that does not relish battle, and indicated to me he (his hobbit) would leave the blood letting to the butchers (not his exact words but close enough), it would be nice to have Song influence mechanics in some way to compensate.

I am throwing around some ideas, what do you think of this?

Based on your suggestions, SONG could affect numerous things. So this has me brainstorming, what about certain Songs that evoke different feelings (and have different effects) that could be learned?

Each effect would have a particular song or songs associated with it.

As a musician I know it takes time and practice or a teacher to learn a Song to the point that it is good enough that it touches people.

So to reflect this, One song could be learned or written with any successful SONG roll with enough proficiency to be useful during a Fellowship phase. The player can choose what Song (effect) they want to try for.

If a roll is failed, then they can't learn that song type this Fellowship phase, but may try another by spending a point of Hope. So in a way, success is practically guaranteed to learn a song.

As an alternative to this, maybe they could "buy" songs as Virtues in lieu of the ones offered by the rules. But that might be a bit much.

I could come up with at least several song types from your suggestions and my own ideas.

A Song to Lift the Spirits
A Song of Hope
A Song to Rally and Rouse Friends to Battle
A Song to Provoke Foes
A Soothing Melody for Restless Friends

They could be given clever names that relect the Culture of the Minstrel, "The Ballad of Bullroarer Took" (for the Hobbit Song to Rally), "Thorin's Rage" (for the Dwarvish song to Provoke foes), "The Light of Elindil" (Elvish song to lift Shadows) etc

So over the course of years, a minstrel will have acquired a formidable set of Songs to aid the Fellowship

Here is one I have been toying with;
A merry song can lift the shadow from the hearts of those who hear it, sort of thing.

During events that prompt a Corruption test allow SONG to be rolled, and a point of Hope spent and the quality of the success could reduce the TN of the Corruption check, maybe something like this;
Success- reduce TN by one level
Great- reduce TN by two levels
Extraordinary- reduce TN by three levels.

I am running an adventure where they are traveling through a blighted broken Valley, Shadow Lands.
Its basically a giant maze with lots of dead ends. Depending on the paths they choose it will take many days, perhaps weeks to find their way through.

We are taking a day-by-day approach instead of the standard journey rules, and they are rolling Corruption daily.

Fortunately some areas are less blighted than others and the TN varies.
There are also a couple of encounters and events that will prompt Corruption tests.

It would be handy to have something that could mitigate some of the Shadow.

Does any of this sound unbalancing or unsound? I'd have to think about multiple Minstrels effects stacking too.

[Jon Hodgson]

Just a small thought, but I've been toying with an idea for the C7 staff campaign, wherein a character at times of stress could sing a song from their childhood to themselves, and with a successful song (Or maybe lore, but we're talking about song right now) roll thereby gain the advantage of some ancient lore hidden in that song - just like nursery rhymes in real life often have hidden "lore". Not sure if a mechanical or just in game knowledge reward would be the most appropriate - I suspect that depends on circumstance.

Be interesting for my character who is a foundling, who perhaps remembers songs unknown to his finders.

[Rich H]

Recently in my campaign, the companions and a group of dwarves led by Balin and Gimli were being pursued through the southern part of the Long Marshes by a Myrrhross. Spirits were low and the Woodman character, Iwgar, decided to sing an old song about his people and the great journeys that they undertook to find places to call home. He rolled really well (I seem to remember him rolling a G rune and also getting a couple of Tengwar results on his skill dice), so I decided that the G rune resulted in the Fellowship Pool refreshing to maximum and each success on the skill dice could be used to support himself (or one of his companions) in their next travel/fatigue check.

I didn't make the player sing, though I may next time.

[Stormcrow]

I would avoid a "song list." I believe this would encourage the player to simply "fling songs" at targets, rather than invent creative uses for them on the spot. Such songs would be the very definition of spells.