Balancing Role-Play and Rolls in Encounters

[Rich H]

I agree with Glorelendil and Stormcrow

... But not me? Well then, in that case:



Don't say I don't put effort into my insults; I picked one with a Tolkien appropriate font just for ya.

[zedturtle]

And I appreciate that.

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( I probably agree with Rich too. In fact, I agree with Glorelendil when he said Rich was right about roll first and then narrate. )

[Stormcrow]

I agree with Glorelendil and Stormcrow (though I confess that I'm still tempted to lower difficulties if a hero engages with the game world...

You should. If convincing a Loremaster character to do something is moderate difficulty (TN 14), then convincing the same character while handing over a bag of gold (if the character appreciates that sort of thing) should lower the difficulty. I just don't think that smooth-talking players should get lower difficulties than less verbose players.

[kdresser]

Thank you for the replies! Yes, Zedturtle thank you for clarifying. I think I was rolling "acting ability" and "clever ideas" into one category when they are clearly different. So, most of you rarely (if ever) reward good acting...but are likely to reward a clever idea, rouse, careful choice of wording, etc by decreasing the difficulty of the target number? Did I hear that correctly? Does anyone ever reward automatic successes for incredibly clever ideas (i.e. a brilliant rouse to trick a troll spelled out in detail that you could easily see working in ME...or a clever choice of words to get a King to agree to let you free without killing you on the way out...etc)?

I fully understand I have the freedom to do whatever I want, but I've never LM'd before so I'm curious to know what experienced Loremaster's choose to do.

[Glorelendil]

I agree with Glorelendil and Stormcrow (though I confess that I'm still tempted to lower difficulties if a hero engages with the game world...

You should.

...on occasion, and as a reward for truly excellent ideas. I assume that if the player says, "I try to persuade the guard" he means that his character is going to try as hard as he can. So if the player wants to actually modify the TN he's going to have to come up with something pretty compelling. (And, yes, forking over Treasure might count.)

What I'm wary of is signaling to players that they should expect a modifier just for coming up with *any* sort of plan. They should be doing that anyway, and the motivation should be the storytelling, not the +2.

[Indur Dawndeath]

Thank you for the replies! Yes, Zedturtle thank you for clarifying. I think I was rolling "acting ability" and "clever ideas" into one category when they are clearly different. So, most of you rarely (if ever) reward good acting...but are likely to reward a clever idea, rouse, careful choice of wording, etc by decreasing the difficulty of the target number? Did I hear that correctly? Does anyone ever reward automatic successes for incredibly clever ideas (i.e. a brilliant rouse to trick a troll spelled out in detail that you could easily see working in ME...or a clever choice of words to get a King to agree to let you free without killing you on the way out...etc)?

I fully understand I have the freedom to do whatever I want, but I've never LM'd before so I'm curious to know what experienced Loremaster's choose to do.

I would grant autosuccess on some tests if the hero trigger some predetermined key words. Like mentioning Gandalf when asking Bilbo for advice. But never on the fly. I prepare a few keywords for each encounter. Some are autofailures, some are autosuccesses. The same with specific skills, such as Awe to impress Raenar will autofail.

For this reason I always ask the players act out the scene, this works well for our group...

[Stormcrow]

I'm not suggesting "rewarding" players who come up with elaborate plans, as opposed to players who go straight for the roll. I'm saying that if a player's good idea changes the situation so that the task is easier than it otherwise would have been, my evaluation of the Target Number will be different.

So if one player says, "I try to persuade the guard," I might decide that's a moderate (TN14) Persuade task. That's the baseline for difficulty. If that player instead says, "I persuade the guard, while offering him a bag of gold," and I believe this guard would be susceptible to a bribe, then the task is obviously easier than when NOT offering gold. Hence I declare this task easy (TN 12).

It's moderately difficult to persuade a guard to do something he's not supposed to just by talking to him. It's easy to persuade a guard to do something he's not supposed to do by handing him a bag of gold and THEN talking to him.

All I'm doing is taking the player's actions into account when deciding the difficulty. I'm not rewarding them for having clever ideas OR for being astounding thespians.

I assume that if the player says, "I try to persuade the guard" he means that his character is going to try as hard as he can.

Player characters try as hard as they can to perform the action the player has declared they perform. They don't have clever ideas on their own. If a player doesn't declare that his character offers the guard a bribe, then his character doesn't offer the guard a bribe, no matter how much that would help the roll.

[Glorelendil]

I'm not disagreeing about the bribe, but I'm also not really putting that in the category of "clever idea" because it's resource constrained. (Presumably they can't go around paying off everybody that have an Encounter with.)

I'm talking about something like, "I'll explain to the guard that we're friends of the King's and suggest that inconveniencing us would be bad for his career." I don't give that a lower TN than a "I'll use Persuade"* unless the relationship with the King is somehow part of this story and it's already been determined that TNs are really high otherwise. Does that make sense? Simply narrating your actions should be done for roleplaying and don't necessarily get bonuses, but reacting to the plot/scene/story might.

*(On the other hand, maybe I...and the OP of this thread...should start telling players that if they don't narrate *how* they use their skills, the TNs increase by 2.)

[Stormcrow]

I would never allow player to just say "I Persuade the guard." Your basic argument has to be given; it can't be abstracted into a roll. I'd argue that that's the "description" called for in the rules.

[Rich H]

I would never allow player to just say "I Persuade the guard." Your basic argument has to be given; it can't be abstracted into a roll. I'd argue that that's the "description" called for in the rules.

Agreed. The gaming group is setting out the approach and/or what's at stake. The skill(s) to be used and the TN is then derived from that. Rolls are made and the results are then role-played*.

* Which can be describing the outcome, acting it out, or whatever the players involved feel confortable with.