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Post by Stu Venable on Nov 16, 2017 11:10:21 GMT -8
Yup. Players love when you lawyer the language during game play.
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Nov 16, 2017 12:15:50 GMT -8
The thing is, Steven, shouldn’t the players roll if they want to? If nothing has changed, or there’s nothing to see, what’s the harm? Unless your players are asking to roll for something every couple of minutes, does it really slow your game down that much?
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Post by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE on Nov 16, 2017 15:32:42 GMT -8
@yojimbohawkins To me, if I've told the players all they're going to see and they still want to roll then the roll determines whether they get a clue-by-four beyond the obvious clue that was given. If the matches found at the scene belong to the club and has the dame's name in it with a cryptic message and the player still wants to roll for something they're missing in the room and they roll "well" then, hey, don't they remember that the gangster Johnny Irons frequents the club the matches belong to? This is where it pays to keep your prep simple with locations, people who are at those locations, and what's going on because you can just grab that information and run with it.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2017 22:30:42 GMT -8
The thing is, Steven, shouldn’t the players roll if they want to? If nothing has changed, or there’s nothing to see, what’s the harm? Unless your players are asking to roll for something every couple of minutes, does it really slow your game down that much? Honestly, its less of an issue of time and more of an issue of the number of times we have to stop what we are doing to deal with this kind of thing. It’s a major immersion break to have everything stop constantly or constantly be having someone asking if they learn anything because they rolled a <insert number here>. I mean, that’s partially why the GM tells you when to roll in narrative time to begin with. I’m very much a ‘your rights end at my nose’ person. The right of the individual to roll does not give them the right to be a disruptive nuisance. It’s everyone’s play experiance, not just theirs. Further, I don’t believe in allowing rolls that can’t result in success or failure. If there is nothing to see, you can’t succeed. Unless the game in question allows rolling to create story details, if there is nothing for me to give out I won’t ask for a roll. Likewise, if you can’t fail I’ll just give out the info instead of asking for a roll. Stu Venable Point taken. Honestly, either word is fine so long as it follows some kind of action instead of standing alone.
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Nov 17, 2017 2:34:08 GMT -8
The thing is, Steven, shouldn’t the players roll if they want to? If nothing has changed, or there’s nothing to see, what’s the harm? Unless your players are asking to roll for something every couple of minutes, does it really slow your game down that much? Honestly, its less of an issue of time and more of an issue of the number of times we have to stop what we are doing to deal with this kind of thing. It’s a major immersion break to have everything stop constantly or constantly be having someone asking if they learn anything because they rolled a <insert number here>. I mean, that’s partially why the GM tells you when to roll in narrative time to begin with. I’m very much a ‘your rights end at my nose’ person. The right of the individual to roll does not give them the right to be a disruptive nuisance. It’s everyone’s play experiance, not just theirs. Further, I don’t believe in allowing rolls that can’t result in success or failure. If there is nothing to see, you can’t succeed. Unless the game in question allows rolling to create story details, if there is nothing for me to give out I won’t ask for a roll. Likewise, if you can’t fail I’ll just give out the info instead of asking for a roll. Stu Venable Point taken. Honestly, either word is fine so long as it follows some kind of action instead of standing alone. Sure, but if I read your meaning here correctly, don't the player's also have the same 'rights' as you? Don't your rights end at their nose? I'm totally with you on the immersion thing. No-one likes a disruptive player at the table except for the disruptive player; RPG's are a collaborative creative medium, after all, and that's what I assume we all want from the games we run. I see where you coming from about why roll if there's nothing to roll for; on the other hand, how does the player know that unless you tell him? And every roll results in success or failure, but in the case of there being nothing to see or find, if the character succeeds, they know there's nothing to see or find, but if they fail, they don't know that, and have to adjust their following actions accordingly. If you only call for rolls when something has changed or about to change, that's an indicator to the players to concentrate of this thing. There's something to find, something is about to go off, and they need to be ready. Both approaches are equally valid, I think; we all run our games differently, although I suspect our regular players probably get used to us and know what's up generally. I think I'm pretty lucky with the players in my groups, because this generally isn't a thing. They tend to reach for the dice when they want to affect the game-world or when they have a specific thing they're looking for, but I also think there's been a bit of guidance on my part by asking follow-up questions so we all know exactly what they want to achieve. I think that's why I like the PbtA approach I outlined before in this thread. We all know where we stand and what we want from the die roll. The thing I usually have a lot of is 'Can I help?' when a player is about to roll his check, to which the answer is 'Sure. How?'. I dislike characters trying to aid another when they are not trained for that test; for example, I can't see how someone making a computer hacking check can be aided by someone who, on their character sheet, knows nothing about it, but I will also allow it if they can make a reasonable justification on how their aid makes the check easier. I want the players to succeed and be awesome because that's fun for everyone, and I think we all want that.
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Nov 17, 2017 2:47:48 GMT -8
@yojimbohawkins To me, if I've told the players all they're going to see and they still want to roll then the roll determines whether they get a clue-by-four beyond the obvious clue that was given. If the matches found at the scene belong to the club and has the dame's name in it with a cryptic message and the player still wants to roll for something they're missing in the room and they roll "well" then, hey, don't they remember that the gangster Johnny Irons frequents the club the matches belong to? This is where it pays to keep your prep simple with locations, people who are at those locations, and what's going on because you can just grab that information and run with it. That seems reasonable. It's why I like systems with varying degrees of success and failure, like FFG's narrative dice system. There's plenty of scope for varying amounts of info to be fed to the players, although in your example, I'd hope to have already fed them the info about Johnny Irons (because he's clearly integral to this particular plot) and the matchbook is another clue that points his way. I suppose I might argue that rolling to search for something in the room isn't really the same as recalling something from memory (I guess they also see a scrap of paper with his initials on it?), but if they need the push, who cares? It keeps the game rolling and that's the point. 😊
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2017 3:14:02 GMT -8
yojimbohawkins You’d be right to say I was violating the players rights if I told them what they can and cannot do in character. The player controls the character, not the mechanics of the game. The are certain expections for what mechanics will be in use and when, but the final arbiter for that is almost never the players. The key is to make sure there is no dissonance between the expectation and the reality of the game. I don’t view success and failure in the same way you do. Success to me is more than figuring out there is nothing here to see. Just like the roll is a reward for roleplay, success should be a reward for the choices you made (either at creation or at play in the individual situation). Success should feel good and should never be indistinguishable from failure. If on a success I tell you there is nothing here to see and I could also tell you that on a failure, than either I’m confusing my players or I’m having to clarify out of character if a roll is successful or a failure (at least for games where the player won’t know what the target number was). Really, no roll should ever ideally result in an outcome which consists of a shrug and an ‘eh’. I fall on the side of having rolls be a telegraph is somewhat of a good thing. I don’t want my players ending up on a bear hunt when there are nazi’s they could be fighting. The outcome of the roll should be as much as a clue-by-four as the roll itself. My job as GM isn’t to hide the plot on enable them to open a tavern when we all agreed to play an Indiana Jones themed game. The players will inevitably make things harder for themselves than I ever intended. I don’t need to throw in red herring rolls to further screw up the pace of the session (as most of my games are episodic, and as such must come to a conclusion by the end of the session).
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Post by Deleted on Nov 17, 2017 3:20:49 GMT -8
@yojimbohawkins To me, if I've told the players all they're going to see and they still want to roll then the roll determines whether they get a clue-by-four beyond the obvious clue that was given. If the matches found at the scene belong to the club and has the dame's name in it with a cryptic message and the player still wants to roll for something they're missing in the room and they roll "well" then, hey, don't they remember that the gangster Johnny Irons frequents the club the matches belong to? This is where it pays to keep your prep simple with locations, people who are at those locations, and what's going on because you can just grab that information and run with it. Do you actually change the test in question so they are rolling some kind of memory test instead of an investigation or perception test? Also, couldn’t you accomplish much the same thing by just hinting that maybe if they don’t know whats going on yet that they should investigate further, perhaps by going down to the club in question? I mean, sometimes players need to be hit with a clue-by-four. Anytime you need something to be done though, I find it’s best not to count on dice rolls. If they really need a hint or everything stalls, well it would be a shame if they botched that roll.
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Nov 17, 2017 7:53:12 GMT -8
yojimbohawkins You’d be right to say I was violating the players rights if I told them what they can and cannot do in character. The player controls the character, not the mechanics of the game. The are certain expections for what mechanics will be in use and when, but the final arbiter for that is almost never the players. The key is to make sure there is no dissonance between the expectation and the reality of the game. I don’t view success and failure in the same way you do. Success to me is more than figuring out there is nothing here to see. Just like the roll is a reward for roleplay, success should be a reward for the choices you made (either at creation or at play in the individual situation). Success should feel good and should never be indistinguishable from failure. If on a success I tell you there is nothing here to see and I could also tell you that on a failure, than either I’m confusing my players or I’m having to clarify out of character if a roll is successful or a failure (at least for games where the player won’t know what the target number was). Really, no roll should ever ideally result in an outcome which consists of a shrug and an ‘eh’. I fall on the side of having rolls be a telegraph is somewhat of a good thing. I don’t want my players ending up on a bear hunt when there are nazi’s they could be fighting. The outcome of the roll should be as much as a clue-by-four as the roll itself. My job as GM isn’t to hide the plot on enable them to open a tavern when we all agreed to play an Indiana Jones themed game. The players will inevitably make things harder for themselves than I ever intended. I don’t need to throw in red herring rolls to further screw up the pace of the session (as most of my games are episodic, and as such must come to a conclusion by the end of the session). It felt like that's exactly what you're doing when you say to the players that you didn't tell them to roll, but happy to be wrong about that. We certainly do view success and failure differently but that's ok. Personally, knowing something, even if it's that there's nothing to know, is as valuable as knowing that there is something to know, but that's probably due to my chosen profession. I'm happy to let the players go off on tangents; I feel that letting them go where they want and do what they want to do is preferable to walking them through something step-by-step, but each to their own. I like a more 'sandbox' feel for a campaign, personally.
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Post by chronovore on Nov 18, 2017 23:36:12 GMT -8
Replying before reading the thread, AND before listening to the full podcast, JUST to say that stork 's "page" pun literally made my stomach issue a groan of its own, not under my control. Just this massive, horrid, wet gurgle that I'd usually attribute to a Deep One or Mi-Go. Jesus, way to double down… not only a bad pun, but also pausing to explain the joke. I applaud your audacity.
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