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They can't use the same skill twice in a row to represent the law of diminishing returns when trying to convince somebody of something It's a little trick to show that if first you intimidate someone, the next time you try might not work as well. I lifted it from Diaspora. It's not crucial or anything.

"Alternating" just means that an NPC speaks, then a PC, then another NPC, then a PC, and so on; once at the end of each round, various other unnamed Woodmen speak as well, represented by the possibility of randomly shifting pieces. Again, it's just a way to impose some order on the proceedings. Think of it like initiative in a fight.

As an example of how it works:

So, after any Introductions by the party, Ingomer speaks in round one in favor of Amalodea, and rolls his Courtesy 3 (or whatever). If he succeeds, Amalodea moves closer to the Accepted box, the number of spaces being based on Ingomer's roll. Then a PC can speak, either in favor or against any one of the petitioners. Then, Hartfast pipes up, speaking in favor of Ceawin, saying that if the Woodmen will accept the remote men of Mountain Hall, then they should also accept East Bight into their ranks. He rolls his Awe 3, and possibly moves Ceawin's piece towards "Accepted". The another PC. Then Fridwald speaks against Mogdred, and rolls his Inspire 2 (I'm just spitballing these stats), and if he rolls well moves Mogdred closer to Rejected.. Then another PC, or if there are no more left, then the Woodmen have their say. a d6 is rolled for each of the three pieces, and if a 4-6 is rolled, the piece moves d2 spaces either to the left or right (also randomly determined). the Round is over, and two more happen until finally Ingomer calls for the vote.

What's important I think is to make sure that somebody speaks in favor of Mogdred, otherwise he would too quickly be moved to Rejected, and it's better later on if he is an ally of the Woodmen IMO; I have Hartfast doing so, because he'd rather have Mogdred's warriors as allies instead of enemies. I also have a PC speaking against Ceawin, because of his particular background.

Something I've added: "Instead of addressing the assembly, a PC may roll Persuade or Riddle to get the next leader to speak for/against a target of the PC's choice."  The TN of this roll is based on their relationship with the leader; my guys have made great friends with Hartfast in The Darkness in the Marshes, so attempts to Persuade or Riddle him would be at TN 12. They don't however have any relationship with the other two leaders, so the target is TN 16 (unless the Woodman PC tries, in which case it's TN 14).

I will defintely use it.
I like to introduce mini-games in the adventures, and this is a clever variant of the Encounter rules can feel refreshing but also familiar to the players. And it captures real well what a group discussion should be.

Kudos to you.

Devil wrote:Something I've added: "Instead of addressing the assembly, a PC may roll Persuade or Riddle to get the next leader to speak for/against a target of the PC's choice."  The TN of this roll is based on their relationship with the leader; my guys have made great friends with Hartfast in The Darkness in the Marshes, so attempts to Persuade or Riddle him would be at TN 12. They don't however have any relationship with the other two leaders, so the target is TN 16 (unless the Woodman PC tries, in which case it's TN 14).

My guys hate his guts (and the feeling's mutual), so they might have to use a reverse-Persuade on him.

I think your ideas are great, btw.

Thanks guys

Zedturtle, in that case I'd just make the TN to get him to say something favorable to the player's agenda a TN 20 roll

So I ran the adventure yesterday, using the mini-game I created. It went very well, very smoothly.

The key, I think, for this particular scenario (as is the case for so many scenarios in a gripping campaign), is to ensure that at least some of the PC's have very personal reasons for wanting to affect the outcome of the Moot. My players got into the "game" aspect of the Moot pretty intensely, but mostly because they like the challenge of getting their way - and midway through, they actually started voting against each other, as the implications of the Woodmen's future started to be revealed if certain groups were or were not accepted, and those implications came into conflict with the Woodman PC's intentions for the outcome. It was pretty cool. (In the end, all groups were accepted into the Woodmen, although Ceawin's folk slipped in by only a narrow margin - it was the random "voting" of the Woodmen using the d6 roll at the end of the third round that pushed him over to the "Accepted" box.)

As an aside, I feel that the session was greatly aided by a style of playing that I have implemented around my table; namely, whenever the players speak "in character", I immediately judge what social "skill" they just used, and have them roll. This has an excellent effect of encouraging my players to play as true-to-the-character as possible, but also of ensuring they phrase their statements in such a way as to illicit the most beneficial skill roll (this greatly affects Social Encounters, as player outbursts or interruptions count successes towards their victory, but failures against the Tolerance; therefore Socially-skilled PC's get encouraged by the others to do the talking). For example, the player of the Hobbit character, when it was his time to speak, got a little angry at one of the Woodmen leaders who had just spoken, and made some rather intimidating remarks to him. The player immediately realized his misstep when I asked him to roll Awe instead of his assumed (and much more effective) Courtesy skill, which he was hoping to trigger. The next round, he was careful to speak more Courteously, as befits a Hobbit of the Shire

Anyway, if anyone else uses the system in their games, I'd love to hear how it went, and whatever adjustments you made to make it work better for you.

Devil wrote: a style of playing that I have implemented around my table; namely, whenever the players speak "in character", I immediately judge what social "skill" they just used, and have them roll. This has an excellent effect of encouraging my players to play as true-to-the-character as possible, but also of ensuring they phrase their statements in such a way as to illicit the most beneficial skill roll

Great style!! I mighy try this. My players tend more to say: "I want to tell him this and that with Courtesy." They try to expose the theme in a corteous or inspiring or intimidating manner, but your system seems rather cool.

The "third person" style of your table is obviously totally valid, and all that matters is that everyone is enjoying themselves. It's curious that in 30+ yrs of gaming, my tables have always - always! - gravitated toward the first person style. Probably helps that their GM is an actor

Devil wrote:The "third person" style of your table is obviously totally valid, and all that matters is that everyone is enjoying themselves. It's curious that in 30+ yrs of gaming, my tables have always - always! - gravitated toward the first person style. Probably helps that their GM is an actor

By "third person" do you mean the expository/narrative style, rather than the...what's the right word?..."in character" style?

"I try to persuade him that he should give me some gold up front, so I can get some ponies."

vs.

"I'm going to need a speedy car. Speedier than that. Speedier than that."

(Bonus points to whoever knows that reference without googling it.)

Yeah, I guess I mean "first person" to be the player just saying exactly what the character says, instead of describing what the character says. (I guess "third person" would be, "Dori the dwarf says, 'Give me the sword!'")