Schrödinger's Well

[Earendil]

Yeah it could be a prisoner's dilemma sort of situation: the possible outcomes are thirsty, poisoned, thirsty and poisoned, none of the above.

So how about this: your fellowship is dangerously low on water and if some is not found soon you will all gain 1 point of Fatigue. You find some water with an odd color...is it safe to drink? If you passed your skill test you can roll to find out if it's poisoned before you drink it; otherwise you'll just have to drink it to find out. Or not, if you so choose.

Looks good! Perhaps the water, although slightly foul, will still quench your thirst. So if you drink it you won't gain fatigue but will become temporarily Weary due to illness for a day or two. (That information could be given to the player on a great/extraordinary success.)

[Glorelendil]

Yeah it could be a prisoner's dilemma sort of situation: the possible outcomes are thirsty, poisoned, thirsty and poisoned, none of the above.

So how about this: your fellowship is dangerously low on water and if some is not found soon you will all gain 1 point of Fatigue. You find some water with an odd color...is it safe to drink? If you passed your skill test you can roll to find out if it's poisoned before you drink it; otherwise you'll just have to drink it to find out. Or not, if you so choose.

Looks good! Perhaps the water, although slightly foul, will still quench your thirst. So if you drink it you won't gain fatigue but will become temporarily Weary due to illness for a day or two. (That information could be given to the player on a great/extraordinary success.)

Game theoretically that's tough, because presumably it's the whole party that is suffering from thirst. So relieving the thirst as a consolation prize for the one player is fine, but for that to be useful to the rest of the fellowship would require that the malus for drinking the bad water is less bad than the malus for being thirsty, in which case it's not really a hard decision whether or not to drink the water.

[Glorelendil]

Maybe the only way to make this work as a one-time (non-iterated) Hazard is to assume the failed skill test means you also failed to determine the water's quality:

Your fellowship is low on water and if some isn't found soon they will be weak from thirst, increasing everybody's next Fatigue test by 2. On a failed test (e.g. Explore if this is a Scout hazard) the only thing you find is a brownish trickle with an unpleasant odor. If you drink it, roll 1 Success die: on a 0 to 2 you are Poisoned, on a 3 to 6 it tastes bad but is fine to drink.

I think this works because it's really a 2nd chance to recover from a failed roll, in the form of a risk you take rather than a skill you roll. If you decide to not try it then it's just a normal Hazard: you had your chance and failed the roll. All it does is combine the "find" and "evaluate" steps into a single roll. Either you find water and know it's good, or you don't find good water and what you do find you aren't sure about. (You could allow for a second roll to assess the water if you really wanted to.)

[Earendil]

Yeah it could be a prisoner's dilemma sort of situation: the possible outcomes are thirsty, poisoned, thirsty and poisoned, none of the above.

So how about this: your fellowship is dangerously low on water and if some is not found soon you will all gain 1 point of Fatigue. You find some water with an odd color...is it safe to drink? If you passed your skill test you can roll to find out if it's poisoned before you drink it; otherwise you'll just have to drink it to find out. Or not, if you so choose.

Looks good! Perhaps the water, although slightly foul, will still quench your thirst. So if you drink it you won't gain fatigue but will become temporarily Weary due to illness for a day or two. (That information could be given to the player on a great/extraordinary success.)

Game theoretically that's tough, because presumably it's the whole party that is suffering from thirst. So relieving the thirst as a consolation prize for the one player is fine, but for that to be useful to the rest of the fellowship would require that the malus for drinking the bad water is less bad than the malus for being thirsty, in which case it's not really a hard decision whether or not to drink the water.

I'm not quite sure what you mean about the whole party. The character who gets that information will, of course be free to tell the rest of them about it (obviously you'd couch it in game-world terminology rather than Fatigue points etc, but I'm fine with letting players know what the terminology means in game-mechanical effects).

As for the choice being easy or hard, it depends how close to Weary you already are. Maybe one solid blow will make you Weary anyway. And if there's still quite a bit of the adventure to go, being temporarily Weary for one relatively easy combat could well be less bad than gaining a Fatigue point for the whole of the adventure. So for some of the characters, quenching their thirst might be worth the stomach-ache!

(The reason I thought of this was mainly that I just think the players shouldn't be doubly penalised for drinking the water: it seems a bit harsh to say they gain the Fatigue either way, and become Weary if they drink.)

[Earendil]

Another possibility is that, rather than the penalty for drinking the water being automatic, the player needs to roll a feat die and add their Body (favoured Body if they have a trait that might apply, like Hardy or Robust) and achieve a certain TN (maybe 10), or they become Weary. Again, that might make it worth the risk for some but not others.

[cuthalion]

Maybe the only way to make this work as a one-time (non-iterated) Hazard is to assume the failed skill test means you also failed to determine the water's quality:

Your fellowship is low on water and if some isn't found soon they will be weak from thirst, increasing everybody's next Fatigue test by 2. On a failed test (e.g. Explore if this is a Scout hazard) the only thing you find is a brownish trickle with an unpleasant odor. If you drink it, roll 1 Success die: on a 0 to 2 you are Poisoned, on a 3 to 6 it tastes bad but is fine to drink.

I think this works because it's really a 2nd chance to recover from a failed roll, in the form of a risk you take rather than a skill you roll. If you decide to not try it then it's just a normal Hazard: you had your chance and failed the roll. All it does is combine the "find" and "evaluate" steps into a single roll. Either you find water and know it's good, or you don't find good water and what you do find you aren't sure about. (You could allow for a second roll to assess the water if you really wanted to.)

This seems pretty elegant to me--and seems to tackle the issues narrative and meta knowledge that were bothering you. It also reads very much like one of the hazards from the books, if that's what you were going for. By increasing the fatigue test by 2, I suppose you mean +2 to the TN? I think that fits. The only thing that might bring it even more in line would be to make the poisoning the result of an eye rolled on the original test--but I suppose you don't like those odds?

[Glorelendil]

Really the best Eye result would be that the water looks and tastes great (less filling!), so that the whole fellowship ends up poisoned, not just the scout. But that is tricky from a meta standpoint:

LM: "Let's see, you failed with an Eye of Sauron....oh, look, you found a fresh spring!"
Player: "Umm...."