DMs, GMs, STs: Do you fudge rolls?
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@Tat What I do is I still call for an investigation or power roll, but I will give them enough to progress the story regardless if they succeed or fail, if they succeed then they get /more/ that could be helpful down the line. Maybe it makes it easier to connect the dots, or suss out the bad guys plans, etc.
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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Easier sometimes than others, I think. Sometimes they just really need that bit of information, and now.
Most of the time, investigation is something I'd rather just reward if people are RPing it (or around it).
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@Tat If people don't get to use it (aka rolling the dice) then they don't know if their character is actually being /good/ at it or not in that instance. There are sides both for and against it, but without a dice roll it could be construed that no matter what, they were going to get the information anyways and thus the character taking the non-combat skill is just wasting the points to begin with.
That's why I will always allow a roll if there is a possibility of differing amounts of information. You want the story to progress, yes, but you also want the investigator to feel just as engaged and useful as the combat monster in their field of expertise.
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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I also find it fun when I'm running a scene if someone does something uniquely cool and has an applicable skill on their +sheet, I'll ask them to +roll it, and then I'll add their successes as a modifier to the combat roll -- so for example, if you have acrobatics on your sheet and you do a cool flip while you're shooting at people, I'll give you the acrobatics roll's mod on the combat roll. This is a dumb example because acrobatics doesn't actually help you shoot at people, but generally I just want to find ways to use code toys to actively reward players who are posing creatively.
This feeds back into the one time I played Seventh Sea and it was amazing -- I just love being able to give players a little something extra back if they give me a little something extra first.
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@Lithium said:
@Tat If people don't get to use it (aka rolling the dice) then they don't know if their character is actually being /good/ at it or not in that instance. There are sides both for and against it, but without a dice roll it could be construed that no matter what, they were going to get the information anyways and thus the character taking the non-combat skill is just wasting the points to begin with.
That's why I will always allow a roll if there is a possibility of differing amounts of information. You want the story to progress, yes, but you also want the investigator to feel just as engaged and useful as the combat monster in their field of expertise.
I suspect we play on very different sorts of games. I don't generally think that investigatey characters feel less useful than combaty characters because neither one is the meat of the games I run - and people frequently play characters who are designed to fail sort of miserably at some aspect or another quite happily. It's pretty low-competition, which is a thing that I enjoy greatly about it.
On a game which relies more heavily on dice and stats measured against a common system, I take your point.
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@Tat Could be very likely. I tend to play on crunchier games. The lightest game system I play is FATE, and maybe FS3 (If I ever figure it out, and can make a concept to fit the power level of the game, right now I am neck deep in code. Enjoying writing this bit because it is coming together so smoothly)
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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@Lithium said:
Because as soon as you play favorites one way, it will bite you on the ass eventually once drama hits. Around a gaming table drama is less an issue, people will just say: Shut up Diana, or Bob, or whatever and the game will move on. In a MU* it's a whole different environment.
I think, as @Tat mentioned in a later post, that we play on different kinds of games. My combat code will never kill/maim you in the first place, so the stakes are different. Also there's no PvP and I strive for an atmosphere of trust like one would find in a tabletop setting. (Sometimes it works better than others.)
If skewing results to help players have fun causes drama occasionally, I'll take it.
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@faraday said:
@Lithium said:
Because as soon as you play favorites one way, it will bite you on the ass eventually once drama hits. Around a gaming table drama is less an issue, people will just say: Shut up Diana, or Bob, or whatever and the game will move on. In a MU* it's a whole different environment.
I think, as @Tat mentioned in a later post, that we play on different kinds of games. My combat code will never kill/maim you in the first place, so the stakes are different. Also there's no PvP and I strive for an atmosphere of trust like one would find in a tabletop setting. (Sometimes it works better than others.)
If skewing results to help players have fun causes drama occasionally, I'll take it.
There's always PvP, even if it's not always PK. Players don't always get along, they will undermine each other, one will attempt to do something, another will attempt to counter it. Even if it's just in interpersonal relationships. There's always PvP.
'Fun' is also a subjective term, each person has their own meanings. To some people it is letting the dice fall where they may, seeing how this character they've built performs in adversity by virtue of design or luck.
To others it's all about the story.
To some they're not mutually exclusive.
I think what it comes down to is that in the games I run, and play, risk has to be an element. If there is no risk, there is no reward. That's just how I feel but then, I cut my teeth on some pretty crunchy game systems, where death was always a very real possibility... and I /liked/ it. So for me being fair is of utmost priority, because people's characters survival may very well be at stake.
As for Drama... Drama happens, there's no avoiding it, but I don't find it fun and I sure as Hades want to minimize it as much as I can.
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@lithium It's just factually untrue that in all MU**s ever there is always PvP. Players can cooperate with each other to create story in a PvE setting where nobody hates each other. Even players who don't like each other that much can still cooperate, not unlike coworkers with a common goal.
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I don't know about factually untrue. In my experience over the past few decades I have never come across a MU* that didn't have PvP in it. Even pure consent games have PvP. Someone always wants to be top dog. Someone always wants to be in charge. Someone always wants to make the choices. Not everyone agrees with that person, and thus, conflict happens.
I'd actually be really interested in what game /doesn't/ have any PvP.
Note: I do not consider PvP to be violent altercation. I consider it to be IC conflict of any type between the characters.
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IC conflict =/= OOC conflict.
You can -- and I do -- RP out conflict with another character while both players are gleefully clutching each other and cackling over how terrible it is. It's not PvP. PvP is when your goals oppose those of another player and you are working against each other's IC goals.
RP without IC conflict is boring. RP without OOC conflict is the only RP I want to have.
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Risk is a really really broad and slippery category. I think it is assumed to mean only chance of death or some other physical removal from play. But I think it's more of a nebulous thing than that. I have had people who bragged and bragged that they love risk totally flip their shit when they were involved in something where a choice they made or were presented with forced a clarity/morality/what have you roll because of the chance their PC might have to change some and have impact beyond the all or nothing of death/life. Or similar situations where maybe they lost a prop important to them or where they couldn't save the day, ect.
I share an enjoyment of risk--all kinds--with an awesome st and opportunity for reward too (not a fan of railroading) but when I'm STing I'm careful now to ask people about risk enjoyment and specifically what kind.
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@saosmash We're using different definitions of PvP.
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@Lithium said:
@saosmash We're using different definitions of PvP.
Yes, I agree. My definition of PvP involves more of the direct, often violent opposition format. Cops vs robbers. Empire vs Rebels. Humans vs Cylons.
Also I was specifically speaking of skewing +combat results in my post. Yes, technically there could be some kind of IC rivalry where they're competing over kills or whatnot, but I'm not terribly concerned about that.
I see more scenarios where the PCs have waited all week for this cool combat plot but bad dice are about to make it over in a single turn. Or the opposite scenario where everyone's like "OMG this combat is dragging on forever, why won't the Cylons just DIE already?!?" and I tune down the badguy skills so they die. Or the aforementioned situation where someone wants to be killed/injured for specific dramatic purpose so I arrange it.
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, just different playstyles.
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@faraday said:
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, just different playstyles.
I would call them different "play preferences."
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@faraday said:
@Lithium said:
@saosmash We're using different definitions of PvP.
Yes, I agree. My definition of PvP involves more of the direct, often violent opposition format. Cops vs robbers. Empire vs Rebels. Humans vs Cylons.
Also I was specifically speaking of skewing +combat results in my post. Yes, technically there could be some kind of IC rivalry where they're competing over kills or whatnot, but I'm not terribly concerned about that.
I see more scenarios where the PCs have waited all week for this cool combat plot but bad dice are about to make it over in a single turn. Or the opposite scenario where everyone's like "OMG this combat is dragging on forever, why won't the Cylons just DIE already?!?" and I tune down the badguy skills so they die. Or the aforementioned situation where someone wants to be killed/injured for specific dramatic purpose so I arrange it.
I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, just different playstyles.
See if I were playing, and the bad guys were winning, or if it was taking forever and it was just handwaved... that'd annoy me because it just negates any achievement we may have had.
I get that it has to happen sometimes, time constraints, scheduling, etc, but I don't /like/ it. Conflict builds character
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Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. If I'm running games that are fanciful and not serious, I'll definitely fudge rolls. If I'm running games that are supposed to be more intense and hardcore I'll never fudge the dice. Depends on the mood of the game I'm running.
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@mietze said:
I don't fudge rolls or ignore them--but I do require when people make them that they include how they're going about doing something (unless it's just a straight up thing). Sometimes this gets me fussing from some players "What? I've never had to tell anyone how I'm going about investigating, I just want to make my roll and then I get information," or "I don't know how I'm going to persuade/intimidate does it matter? I just want to roll and be done with it." Not very often though. Most folks are happy to do that, because it means the response is personal. Creativity is rewarded--if someone can sell me on what they want to try, I'll let them, even if that means that none of my plots ever goes quite to plan.
I'm of two minds on this, as a player. Generally, if my character is trying to do something, I'll try to explain how as well as I can, because it's more interesting and fun, and because sometimes I come up with something really good. I really enjoy when thinking through how to approach a thing is rewarded; I especially love when GMs/STs will allow some weird lateral-thinking maneuver a chance to work.
However, sometimes my character has a whole lot more dice in a skill than I would. How is my character going to investigate X? Honestly, much as I wish I did, much as I've mulled it over, maybe I still have NO idea in this particular case. But s/he does. To me that's what having the stat at that level means: s/he will have the talent/training/experience to know and think of ways to do this thing, and to judge whether A or B is more likely to be effective.
I try to play the downsides of characters not knowing things I do (random example: one would have had a decent chance of explaining away a conversation where someone else was heard saying too much as having been about a roleplaying game, but that character has never RPed, knows nothing about RP, and wouldn't see the point if he did, so his actual cover story was decidedly weaker), so I don't think I should be penalized when, even though I do try to research stuff my characters are supposed to be good at but I'm not, I still don't know how to approach doing X. S/he does.
As a benefits-for-creativity/cleverness thing, sure, please do ask me how the character plans to approach it; that's awesome. But if I don't really know? That's part of why the character has a stat. You may only use it in the first form, I don't know, but I've encountered this both ways, and the latter's been frustrating enough that, well... this post now exists.
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@Ninjakitten Yes, yes, yes.
I have moved away from demanding the player tell me Exactly How they're doing something for this reason. I'll happily take an explanation if they want to offer it, but I'm far more interested in clarifying /what/ information they're hoping to find, rather than /how/. Especially since, in my MU* experience, "how" is often used to shut down actions rather than facilitate them, because far too many GMs have this very rigid idea in their head of the "right" way to gather information on a particular thing, and if the player doesn't read their mind and do that thing, it doesn't matter how well their character rolls.
Personally, I've been steadily moving towards a more cinematic form of storytelling, where the whole idea is that you don't keep the PC away from the plot, but instead, failures add risk/complication/reversals. So, if a PC tells me that they want to investigate a murder but doesn't have an idea on how to do that, I first check their sheet to see what their relevant skills are, and then offer a suggestion that's in line with their character's skill. They roll, and a success gives them vital + bonus information, and doesn't alert their enemies. A failure gives them vital info, but creates some sort of threat or complication - why yes, you discover a witness to the crime, but as you arrive, a black car with tinted windows shows up and starts trying to murder you and the witness. Question the witness if you can get them out alive!
It's much more fun, in my opinion, than, "You found nothing. Sorry."
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@Ninjakitten The latest WoD book (or, CofD book, called fittingly called Chronicles of Darkness) features a whole system for "investigations" that's basically meant to cover all the situations where your player is trying to get an answer, unravel a mystery, or otherwise trying to get stuff done. It includes a lot of useful ST tools and suggestions, things like "ask the player what they want to find" and means to let a roll cover what otherwise might be RP'd out. I think it's some really great suggestions and plan to utilize them.
I'll also add that @tragedyjones came up with a pretty great game policy, called "Fake It".
On the opposite end of the spectrum from people ignoring your characters flaws, you should not need to possess every stat your character does. It is perfectly acceptable to fudge reality. If you want to play a doctor, you should not be penalized by a lack of OOC knowledge. Any time a character in a scene wants to fake it, they may declare so OOC and make an appropriate roll. People should endeavor to try and take the results of the roll into the pose. This is not meant to bypass RP, just allow a little fudging of reality. If the Doctor character wants to throw in some medical jargon, don't bite their head off it isn't real world accurate.
This is something I had always factored into my tabletop RP, and I had mostly been trying to use it in my MU RP. I didn't really know it wasn't standard practice, but I'm quite pleased to see it written up clearly. I'd rather see "OOC: Okay, this is where my girl says some really complex medical jargon, then breaks it down to suggest we need antibiotics." than someone telling me how the mitochondria eats the cell to become big and strong (or, you know, something that has no actual medical/scientific backing). I find the former easier to integrate into my RP.
I am also a big fan of doing things like asking OOC. On my previous active MU, my character had a best friend who had very high empathy, but the player seemed to miss the queues in my RP to make sense of the situation. He would simply roll and ask me about it. (And yes, maybe he didn't miss anything and I just suck at RPing queues! either way, we were both better off when he rolled.)
