thegrimace
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 45
Preferred Game Systems: Anything
Currently Playing: D&D 5.0, Pathfinder, L5R
Currently Running: L5R
Favorite Species of Monkey: Evil
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Post by thegrimace on Aug 18, 2014 10:20:49 GMT -8
Ok, so just got back from Gencon where GoudaWeapon and the rest of my group finally got to actually play some L5R. Exciting, though sorry that we didn't get to meet up with SirGuido or whoever was around. In any case, some of the discussions we had during and after the games brought up some confusion on the use of Raises outside of combat/spellcasting. I found one thread over on the Alderac forum that had a couple good examples of places outside of combat where raises would be appropriate (paraphrased below) but I wanted to get some other opinions on how you all use raises outside of their pre-defined role. AEG forum example: You want to set up a meeting with someone who doesn't want to meet with you - Normal Courtier roll (TN = whatever) but a success means that they schedule a meeting next month. Alternately, you want to set up a meeting with that person this afternoon, which means you have to call X raises (presumably determined by the GM) because if you take this more aggressive approach you are more likely to overreach and just fail at the whole thing. Additionally in the first Heroes of Rokugan module we played in there were a few things like: calling a raise on this run skill check means that your TN for the next skill check (which is a climb) is reduced because you got a nice running leap start. That makes sense to me, especially when you've kinda scoped out the set of skill checks that are going to be coming up. That being said, I still feel like most of the time I'd just lean towards a more Savage Worlds style of success determination where your 16 Courtier roll was enough to make someone friendly, while your 46 Courtier roll really wowed him and now he's both friendly and invites you over to dinner, or whatnot. So I guess in summary: How often do you or your players call raises on non-combat die rolls and can you give me any examples where you do that rather than just give more info or better results depending on how much they beat the TN by?
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SirGuido
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Posts: 2,127
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, Traveller, Fate Accelerated, Masks
Currently Playing: Nothing.
Currently Running: Nothing.
Favorite Species of Monkey: Anything in a Cage.
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Post by SirGuido on Aug 18, 2014 13:19:02 GMT -8
Generally if its something thats simple or almost passive like a notice roll, something that the character could be expected to have better than average knowledge of(etiquette for a Crane, Battle for a Lion, etc) then I do it "Savage Worlds" style as you mentioned. But if its pretty important for the game/story, or against active opposition then there needs to be raises called. Thats how I do it.
tl,dr: Passive opposition=dice as rolled, Active opposition=called raises.
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Post by moirdryd on Sept 26, 2014 11:03:46 GMT -8
It's good with things like Investigation and questioning people etc, where the role takes a set length of time by the GM (10 minutes, 1 hour etc)and success gets you 1 answer. Each additional raise gets you 1 extra answer. Meaning you can either take time on something with a series of easier rolls or you can accelerate your progress by making raises. Likewise some of the Crafting rules have fancy things that can be achieved in Quality via raises too.
On the concept of the "Savage World" style, several of the PreWritten adventures out there also feature that as a method too with varying degrees of information available with how good a role you get but with extra bits available on making a raise (Example: The TN starts at 15 for a certain Lore role but with extra info at TN 20 and 25. If a character makes a Raise then there are some extra details that may be recalled).
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Sept 26, 2014 12:42:52 GMT -8
It's an interesting subject, especially if you've played Savage Worlds or CoC/BRP.
Personally, I only require raises to be called if it's important to the characters. I've had players call raises during Kite battles, falconry displays, sailing through a storm, court negotiations, spell-casting, horse-riding, and dozens of other situations as well. However, I do tell them the required TN up front, so they usually make a calculated decision on whether to call raises or not.
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jpk
Apprentice Douchebag
Posts: 58
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Post by jpk on Oct 12, 2014 7:58:55 GMT -8
I actually get pretty annoyed as a player when a 46 roll gets a better result than a 16 roll for a skill check. Raises are supposed to be called beforehand. If you don't actually use those rules, then a few things start to break down around the edges. The value of your Void gets less as it no longer limits the number of raises you can all. Your skill becomes less important in the face of your luck with dice. Your judgement as a player and character as to what you can accomplish and what failure you're willing to risk gets set aside. And the raise mechanic starts to bifurcate, with it behaving differently (usually) for combat effects versus noncombat effects.
But I'm stuffy like that.
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Oct 12, 2014 11:22:44 GMT -8
I actually get pretty annoyed as a player when a 46 roll gets a better result than a 16 roll for a skill check. Raises are supposed to be called beforehand. If you don't actually use those rules, then a few things start to break down around the edges. The value of your Void gets less as it no longer limits the number of raises you can all. Your skill becomes less important in the face of your luck with dice. Your judgement as a player and character as to what you can accomplish and what failure you're willing to risk gets set aside. And the raise mechanic starts to bifurcate, with it behaving differently (usually) for combat effects versus noncombat effects. But I'm stuffy like that. That's a really good point, fella. I actually only have one player who calls raises, and then only if he's reasonably sure he can make it, which is of course your whole point. While I'm not one to stick to the rules in every case, you've made a compelling case.
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Post by joecrak on Oct 14, 2014 17:33:52 GMT -8
Yea, I had a GM that made you call raises for most everything.
And I knew players that would willingly call them, asking for certain effects, like To impress others, or shorten time.
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Post by moirdryd on Nov 5, 2014 4:05:40 GMT -8
The big trick with raises outside of combat is making them count but not to the point where a regular success is deemed useless. If its part of the current story or adventure that the roll is being made for (ie: a planned investigation roll, etiquette (bureaucracy) roll etc) then i work out what it is that success or failure contributes, then I look at the success and either add a few defining details or extra hooks that come in with Raises, so the players don't have to raise to do what they're trying to do, but those raises add benefits to their desired objectives. Doing this when writing my adventures/session notes makes it a lot easier to adjudicate raises on rolls where they would be beneficial but I haven't preplanned. My group now often asks a simple question "Any point in raising?" when they make a roll, if I've got or have improvised any extra detail in the situation then I go with "Yes, certainly" if the task at hand is more straightforward then I go with "They're not needed, but you can if you like", if they raise on the latter (and succeed) then I'll let them suggest what theyd like from that raise and adjudicate accordingly.
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grimm
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 28
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Post by grimm on Jan 31, 2015 5:05:50 GMT -8
I agree completely with JPK. Raises are integral to the L5R mechanics. It's kind of unfortunate that the GM materials in the Core book don't offer suggestions of how raises should be used in situations other than combat.
Personally, I like to use raises outside of combat in the same way they are used IN combat - to create specific effects that the PCs want that go above and beyond what a normal success would supply. I think the key to doing this well is setting a clear expectation of what a basic "success" at a particular skill looks like universally, so that the players know what this skill looks like in normal use. Standardizing common rolls (up to and including a base TN) can be a good way to encourage players to take raises seriously on skills other than attack skills.
In Court, for example, a successful Courtier Skill roll to locate gossip should probably provide one nominally useful rumour about someone (determined randomly) at court. This is a basic level success. Raises might allow you to either find a larger number of popular gossip topics, to find out one piece of especially juicy gossip that only a few people have heard, or to locate gossip pertaining to a particular character specifically. Failure on their roll results in them being noticed gossiping around the court, resulting in a glory loss (or possibly even an honour loss). Players can opt for the basic success, or aim at something more specific or useful, as they like.
Putting Raise mechanics into things like courtly activities is a great way to remind players that court is also a battlefield, and just as much attention should be paid to their courtly actions as their combat actions.
(I admit that I also believe that massive over-rolls deserve a little special consideration, even in L5R. Generally speaking, I grant a free raise to any roll that results in triple the base TN.)
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