Rich H wrote:Stormcrow wrote:So... a character who doesn't get tired avoiding the rules for getting tired is unfun? My definition of fun does not include grind through the rules because they're there.
Well, in summary, this one's back to you not being a fan of the Journey mechanics and how they apply and me being otherwise. I don't think they're a grind at all
You misunderstand. I don't mean I think the journey rules are "a grind"; I mean I don't feel obligated to use a rule when a character has a perfectly reasonable way to avoid it. Becoming fatigued is not something that
has to happen to each and every character to make journeys a worthwhile part of the game.
Consider this situation: a party of four is journeying through the Wild. One of them is Hardy. For each fatigue test along the journey, three players roll; the fourth invokes his Hardy trait. Hazards still occur, characters still tire, but the Hardy character is, well, hardy, and doesn't become fatigued by the journey. How is this unbalanced?
Similarly, I would allow Merry characters to invoke an automatic action in cases of corruption tests due to oppressive places. It only makes sense: the character is naturally predisposed to avoiding being brought low by depressing situations.
I do still disagree on this. My experience is that it is the case. It's been a very important part of the campaign I've been running where travel, and the challenges that come with it, are a key element. Becoming Wearied being one of them.
I don't understand why you'd want to veto a player who wanted to handle the threat of Weariness by being Hardy.
Stormcrow wrote: And let's not forget that a character with Smoking can use that trait to automatically sneak out of each and every social gathering he chooses.
Generally, that would mean them missing out on interesting things (ie, leaving a social gathering) whereas avoiding fatigue is missing out on something debilitating. I don't think the two are really comparable due to them affecting the gameplay in very different ways.
Eh? In both cases it's the player who chooses whether or not to invoke the automatic action. The difference isn't whether one is important and the other isn't—I claim that social gatherings are just as important as combat or physical feats in a game like
The One Ring. The difference is that the Smoking example is a task initiated by the player for a purpose, whereas the traveling example is a test forced upon the player. But in both cases the player retains the right to invoke his trait.
Stormcrow wrote: A character with Keen-eyed can automatically detect signs of an ambush in each and every situation there is one.
That's a much better example, thanks. I don't so much have an issue with that one, and I'm not sure why. Perhaps because ambushes aren't as frequent as Travel/Fatigue tests?
They're as frequent as the referee makes them. You should examine further why this one seems different to you.
I still think I'm within the RAW:
The Loremaster may agree with a Trait invocation to speed up play, especially if failing at the roll would not lead
to dramatically relevant consequences, or if the action wasn’t difficult.
To me its clear from the above that the Loremaster can disagree with an invocation if the action has dramatically relevant consequences upon failure and/or it is difficult. Granted, it allows for both, but the final word is with the LM.
It is indeed! And since you're not the loremaster for other gamers posting here, you shouldn't be judging their trait invocations.
Automatic actions describe two uses: when the player wants to automatically succeed at an action and when the loremaster wants to find a way to skip past an action because it's inconsequential. You've eliminated the first use and you're telling people that the second use is the only correct one.
Looking at the examples, on page 95, they warn of a possible ambush (ie, the keen-eyed PC spots goblin tracks) but they don't directly spot an ambush.
This is just a quibble. Ambushers aren't visible or their ambush fails, naturally. In no way does this make the roll inconsequential.
The other allows a casket to be opened.
This is the usage you're advocating. Sooner or later the casket will be opened, and there's no point in slowing down the game because the party has to figure out how to open it. The loremaster asks, "Anybody have a trait that will help you open it?" Someone says he's a woodwright, so the loremaster says, "Okay, you open it." There was no need to set a difficulty and make a roll, because doing so would not have made any real difference to the game.
Later in the book, Trotter sneaks out using Smoking but that doesn't seem to be driven by any dramatic consequences - ie, if he gets spotted he isn't going to be attacked so that also seems to fit in with how I'd adjudicate things.
You seem to consider fights to be dramatic and everything else to be inconsequential. I assure you this is not the focus of the game. We don't know much about that social gathering. Trotter has some reason to be unobserved; we just don't know what it is. It would be unfair and somewhat ridiculous to say that, depending on how dramatic the reason, the action either succeeds or doesn't succeed. The player would be quite justified in complaining that, in last week's social gathering when he decided to go for a Smoke, you let him slip away automatically because you didn't think he was doing something important, but now that he has a good reason you're making him roll.
I take on board what you mean by Smoking and that it can have more imaginative uses *but* in the pressure of a session, having to come up with such descriptions in the middle of a game can be really difficult for many players, even if they are imaginative under other circumstances - it's not just being imaginative, it also requires spontaneity.
Call it what you will; it's the same phenomenon.
In my game, the players have often stated that looking at the traits some are better than others.
Naturally, since you rule them to be that way.
I do like traits like Smoking because my experience of them is that they build atmosphere in the game and often have to be imaginatively applied so things like that are interesting and grab my attention and make me smile.
That's sweet and all, but that's not the point of traits. They're there to give players a role-playing hook into the mechanics of the game, not just to create narrative decorations. As a player if I were told that Smoking only enhanced the atmosphere of the game I wouldn't bother taking it—I'd want something practical. But if I were told that Smoking could be as useful as anything else, as in the example with Trotter, then I'd be interested in taking it. And that's how the game works: all the traits are useful, because when you use them they're not just pretty effects for "atmosphere."
I think the problem I have with traits such as Hardy and the like is that my experience of them is that at best they just lead to slightly differing versions on a theme when they get described in order to invoke them.
If you require players to compose literary passages on the spot whenever they invoke a trait, no wonder that gets boring. I would be quite satisfied with "I have the Smoking trait, so I will use it for an automatic action. Trotter heads to the door as if he were going to light his pipe from the torch hanging there, but then he'll slip out unnoticed." Players shouldn't have to be poesy, they should just be inventive.
if we assume that an LM cannot stop a trait being invoked for an auto success,
Who's assuming that? Of course the loremaster can veto a trait invocation. So can the players, in fact. But "It's too central to the plot" is not a good reason to do so.
Do you ever *not* allow auto-successes, Stormcrow? If so, what/when? I'm genuinely interested because I'm finding this discussion really useful as it's challenging my previous views and revisiting something in a new light.
Sure. If the link between the trait and the situation were not substantial, I'd veto it. Say, a player wants to put a sleeping draught in a guard's mug and says, "I have Cooking, so I spice the wine so wonderfully that the guard can't resist drinking it." That's a bogus line of reasoning, and I'd say no.
If you're interested in how I'd rule, why not come up with a concrete example of what a player might try?
