Tips for more RP-centric Encounters?

[Glorelendil]

One of the benefits of rolling first is that I often find that players encourage the weaker role players to get more involved. My 12 year old son plays with out group. I think he sometimes feels intimidated role playing with a group of older guys who are more knowledgeable about ME and the Tolkien canon. His character has a much higher Awe than anyone else though and as that is often needed in encounters, other players will encourage him to attempt an Awe roll. He often is quite successful but then will say, "I don't know what to say." So people will make suggestions as to what his character might want to say or do in the given situation. Everyone is supportive of his effort and it is helping him to become a stronger role player. If he wasn't needed for the occasional awe roll, he would likely sit back and not participate in the encounters.

I was playing D&D with my nephews at Christmas...12 and 8 at the time...and the younger one failed a climbing check on a mausoleum in an old graveyard (one of the great things about playing RPGs with kids is that even the most tired trope is brand new to them). He was really disappointed that he had failed the roll. I suggested, "Why don't you tell us why you failed the roll?" He thought about it for a second, then his face lit up and he said, "Oh...oh...because there was wet moss on the rock, and my feet kept slipping on it!"

A minute later he was still thinking about it and said, "That was fun."

Of course, 15 minutes later he rolled a critical sneak attack on a ghoul, then rolled 6, 6, 6, 5, 4 for the damage dice*, basically exploding the ghoul. "Ok, that was even more fun than the moss thing," he said. ("Mom, Mom...I rolled a critical on a ghoul and cut him in half with one hit and black blood sprayed over everybody else it was SO COOL!!!")

*Yes, I applied the crit rule wrong. It should have been 8 dice total. Think how much fun that would have been for him...

[Stormcrow]

On the other hand, one would expect a character with poor social skills to fail more often than a glib-tongued player, and vice versa. In a game without social skills it's fine to just talk, but for a game that includes them you need to use them. So it comes down to your preference: roll, then narrate; or narrate, then roll. If you choose the former, you're just going to be saying things the dice tell you to say. If the latter, you have to accept that the player's skill at speaking will not be reflected in the chance to succeed.

I would ignore a player's ability to improvise, but set the difficulty of any roll based on the merits of the player's approach. If a player comes up with a clever idea and speaks it in character, the difficulty of the subsequent roll will reflect the good idea. "Ums," "uhs," giggling, stuttering, and the like would not be factored in at all.

[doctheweasel]

I like what I'm reading so far, but the main thing is that I have at least one player who doesn't really think it's fair if they manage to speak well, only to have that taken away by a bad roll.

That's on the GM. If a player hits some good notes and makes a good argument, then lower the difficulty – or don't make them roll and just give them a success.

[zedturtle]

I like what I'm reading so far, but the main thing is that I have at least one player who doesn't really think it's fair if they manage to speak well, only to have that taken away by a bad roll.

That's on the GM. If a player hits some good notes and makes a good argument, then lower the difficulty – or don't make them roll and just give them a success.

+1

[Stormcrow]

If a player hits some good notes and makes a good argument, then lower the difficulty – or don't make them roll and just give them a success.

Agreed. The game is there to support you, not the other way round. Don't bother rolling for things that are easy or inconsequential. If a player comes up with good ideas during encounters that ought to succeed, they succeed.

[Wbweather]

I also don't strictly follow a policy of one dice roll per statement in my games. If a player succeeds, I often will engage in a little back and forth with the player via the NPC. Often there is information that the players are trying to gain from an NPC during the encounter and it is during these exchanges that I give up that information. Sometimes I have the NPC ask questions to prompt the players to think about things theyy might be missing. Sometimes I just ask them to tell me about themselves and encourage them to think about their back story and how they want to incorporate that into the current encounter. I try to let the conversations flow naturally between the players and the NPC. If someone fails a roll, I will play the NPC as brusk or unamused if not irritated. If they have an extraordinary success, I will allow several questions or statements from the player, hopefully indicating that the NPC was sufficiently impressed with the PC's presentation to allow him more attention than usual.

[windsurfjunkie]

Roleplaying in Encounters: Rolling after
• The LM adds a player’s Wisdom level for a clever ‘take’ on the discussion/interaction during an encounter; the particular ‘take’ would include one or more brilliant ideas in relation to the intention (persuade, inspire, awe, etc.) of the encounter, and the way it supports the characters’ goals.
• The quality of the roleplaying acting should not add bonuses. This is to be fair to those players who have good ideas but are not that expressive in their speech or who cannot proficiently act out an extensive roleplay. But for those that can act, it will be for fun!
• After the one player’s roleplaying/presentation of his particular ‘take’ during the encounter, he is or is not assigned a Wisdom level bonus based on if the LM feels there was a brilliant idea(s) that will help contribute to the group’s or character’s goals, and this idea would be hard to argue against by the opposing personalities in the encounter.
• If the outcome of the roll is still a failure, then the LM has to play out why the opposing personalities were unimpressed in the end; but at least the characters were given the chance in the encounter to present original ideas and get a bonus for them during the actual encounter, not for their personal ability to act. Moreover, they are not playing to the result of the dice, taking away their chance to develop their own original ‘takes’ that contribute to the group’s goals, during an encounter.
• The Wisdom level bonus can be cumulative with using Hope to invoke an attribute bonus - a brilliant idea by the player with a little Hope thrown in should have a high chance for success!

Hope this gives you a perspective you can work with. Have fun!

[aramis]

I simply adjust the TN for the RP...

Provide an excellent in character dialogue, I'll pull 2-4 points off of the TN.

Provide totally compelling dialogue, and I might even make the TN as low as a 6...

Be totally lame with irrelevant data, and I'll add a couple points. As in, trying to get locals to help fight the coming orcs, and the RP is absent, and the description is "I am rolling persuade" and I'll up the difficulty, possibly even up to Heroic.

[Glorelendil]

I simply adjust the TN for the RP...

Provide an excellent in character dialogue, I'll pull 2-4 points off of the TN.

Provide totally compelling dialogue, and I might even make the TN as low as a 6...

Be totally lame with irrelevant data, and I'll add a couple points. As in, trying to get locals to help fight the coming orcs, and the RP is absent, and the description is "I am rolling persuade" and I'll up the difficulty, possibly even up to Heroic.

Do you do the same thing for combat rolls? If I just say, "I attack the orc" without adding some descriptive color, does the TN get raised?

How about Fatigue rolls during a Journey?

Sometimes when I'm playing I do just say, "I'll roll persuade" because I can't think of anything interesting/unique. And I believe my job, as is everybody's while participating in communal storytelling, is to entertain my fellow players. I don't want to waste their precious table time with boring filler. I don't want to be on the spot to RP every time it's my turn to roll the dice, because most of it's going to be uninteresting and repetitive.

That's why I'm a firm believer in "roll first, then narrate." Changing the TN based on the input, whether it's the strength of the idea or the quality of the acting, encourages players to waste time trying to come up with something that will modify the roll. If they've got something good they can share it after the dice roll; if it's good, the reaction of the other players will be worth the effort.

That said, sometimes I do narrate first, or describe my strategy before rolling, not to modify the roll but only to add to the story. To entertain others.

But I don't think the fact that social encounters seem like low-hanging fruit for RP means they should have different rules to force the RP.

[robert_pat]

In my games, I allow my players to narrate either before or after their rolls. I give narrate-after-rolls, i.e. "I roll to persuade" the baseline difficulty. I give narrate-before-rolls, i.e. "Here's why you should help us defend this town. . ." a modifier depending on what the player says.

The modifier can go either way, allowing me to reward good role-playing and curb bad role-playing. A Dwarf with Stone-craft Riddling with "I am but a stone mason travelling on business! Why ever would you want to apprehend such a benign traveler?" might get a mild bonus. A character wanting to Sing their way out of imprisonment might get a hefty penalty.

I don't penalize people who just want to throw some dice and have things happen, but I also want to reward creativity and a good in-character mindset. And, while I enjoy a bit of silliness at the table now and then, I've seen enough time-wasting and absurd interactions and plans that I want to discourage them. Want to use Craft to build a trebuchet to fling yourself over the walls of Dol Guldur? You're welcome to try. . .