DMs, GMs, STs: Do you fudge rolls?
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One thing I do not do is leave a player hanging when I ask them for an explanation of their approach. Especially with non cut and dried actions like investigations and the like. I do not ask professional PCs to roll for basic competancy in a crime scene investigation, for example, unless for some reason there's a strong chance they might miss something (active interference, a professional cover up, they've been affected by something else that might impair them). Yes, I respect when people have social skills that they've purchased rather than just bullshitting through them.
I favor those PCs myself!However, if they want to check for /more/ than their level of competency, or outside of the box thinking (and certain PCs want to do that all the time, because they may not fit the stereotypical mold but would still like to take a chance to find something), if they want a check of "I have this nuts idea, could I make it work," and it's something that I wouldn't usually think would occur but it's not totally impossible, but unusual--then I feel that they should be allowed to roll.
Also, and this is usually something that happens in group scenes, there will be someone who says "I can't do anything" because they don't have the precise Investigation skill. Will they be able to uncover the same kind or perhaps quality info as the person who does? No--but they can retrieve different info, depending upon the scene and if the investigator shares that info within the party, or clarify it, with occult, empathy, science, medicine, ect.
I find a ST who just says "tell me how" to be just as annoying as the ones that say "gimme a roll. Oh, you don't have the exact stat+skill I am looking for/used to? Nah sorry, you're out of luck." I have a gut-level aversion to making people play "guess what the ST is thinking to solve things" games. Not fun for me. Though if someone does enjoy that type of scene (which there's nothing wrong with), then probably our styles aren't going to mesh. If someone was struggling with that, I'd adapt for them. That's part of the role of a GM, IMO, you're responsible for the group enjoyment but also the /individual/ enjoyment of the players (unless they are being Brat Princesses Me First ME ME ME Only people). This may also be why for real STing scenes I prefer groups of 5 or less, so that I can give adequate personal attention to each person and keep things moving in a timely manner.
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People who can't RP in accordance with their character's skills is a pet peeve of mine. It's like if I read a crime novel and the writer hasn't bothered to do any research to get any of the police procedural details right. I'm not saying you have to be an expert, you just have to be good enough to fake it. And if you can't fake it, be vague. Don't pose details that make no sense. Or maybe consider that this isn't the best character concept for you.
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@mietze As usual there's a flipside to that - players who're playing PCs specialized in the same thing they (think they?) are experts at.
Anything can be it. Is the guy a sysadmin? They'll paste the results of nmap right in their poses. Are they a lawyer? It's precedent rulings. Or they'll go on and on with gunsturbatory rifle models for their IC sniping firearms or whatever.
I mean it's not a bad thing unless they go too far or expect others to respond with equal OOC knowledge if they're playing an IC peer.
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And that is the issue. The IC world isn't made of of accurate data in the right amount, nor are the players around you experts on what they do. So the accurate expert player ends up constantly policing the game, or being jarred by how inaccurate it is.
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Sometimes when I am playing a character with a law background (it's the canon's fault not mine I swear) I have requests to translate my poses out of legalese and into English. To everyone that this has happened to, I apologize.
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I think you're more responding to Faraday!
But I agree with you--I think most people are pretty cool when their professions are "fictionalized" (I get twitchy about LMPs and social workers, though there ARE sex worker LMPs no doubt and crappy social workers, but the stereotypes really bug me, but I keep my mouth shut unless someone happens to /ask/), but people who snottily correct or clog up a scene with excessive detail inappropriate to what other folks are doing are annoying.
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@mietze Oh, the number of players who're hacking military sites from their iPhones on a starbucks wifi.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@mietze said:
I think you're more responding to Faraday!
But I agree with you--I think most people are pretty cool when their professions are "fictionalized" (I get twitchy about LMPs and social workers, though there ARE sex worker LMPs no doubt and crappy social workers, but the stereotypes really bug me, but I keep my mouth shut unless someone happens to /ask/), but people who snottily correct or clog up a scene with excessive detail inappropriate to what other folks are doing are annoying.
LMP?
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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However, there is cause for basic knowledge to be known. You should know that probably your grunt soldier would not disobey orders and leave active battle line and endanger their unit to--go rescue a kitten they saw across the way (actually happened). Or maybe you would! But you can't cry about consequences then.
As a trainee or rookie cop, when your supervisor gives you a direct order in the field, probably you should respond to it instead of doing the exact opposite because your player couldn't be assed to read anything anyone else was posing (actually happened) and thus exposed the team to a greater degree of risk. Or at least, not if you're not willing to face the consequences (in that case, there was a redo once it was pointed out).
But for all details being correct all the time or others attacking people, I have a low view of folks that ream folks out. If I can bite my tongue at the degree of inaccuracy I've seen at what CPS and social workers do, or the people who make these PCs with tortured pasts of neglect and sex trafficking with absolutely NO evidence of adaptive behaviors in their RP at all ever, just bouncy happy sex freak, then dammit, RL cops can deal with people getting call signs on, and with occasional annoying TJ Hooker types.
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Licensed Massage Practitioner/Therapist.
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@mietze Ooh! Are you in the child welfare system? I am too! I do parent rep in dependencies. And I find it amazing how little idea people have about how being an orphan actually works in this day and age considering how much they want to app orphans all the time.
I tend to discourage people apping sex workers generally, though, because it's a topic I insist be handled respectfully, and most people in RP don't really do that.
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@mietze said:
Licensed Massage Practitioner/Therapist.
Got it!
@saosmash said:
I tend to discourage people apping sex workers generally, though, because it's a topic I insist be handled respectfully, and most people in RP don't really do that.
Good luck with that!
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin It's a lot easier these days since a lot of my appstaffing is in re: Transformers.
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I did my undergraduate practicums in CPS and public health, I have been a therapeutic foster care parent, and then professionally moved into street outreach in nonprofit orgs, mostly centered on teens and women. Along with a stint in women's corrections. Maybe when surprise toddler is school age I'll finally go for my MSW, I would really love to be back at CPS or public health. I needed a long break though.
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Never fudge in table top. Though I do make a point so stressing that to new players so there is no clash of expectations with the game. The PCs in my game are not guaranteed to win, they are guaranteed to be the center of the story but some stories end bad.
On line I am a bit more lenient cause losing a char is table top means at most you miss the rest of the session and in some cases when the player has an idea and a death happens early in session I can get them back involved before that, online any char death means a minimum of four days out of action waiting for approval, and that is really a best case situation, and that is not counting the time to get all the Hi I ma new here lets be friends scenes that every tabletop I have seen glosses over or just straight out hand waves. So while the PCs can still fail, still have meaningful setbacks I will not put them out of play. -
@skew said:
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.
I like this a lot, and I've seen it often in play. We don't usually roll it (I play on very stat-lite or no stat games), but many times people will simply include in their pose 'She spends several minutes explaining the issue in intricate detail that's likely difficult to follow without a medical degree before turning to sum up, "You'll be in a cast for six weeks." '
Or something of that nature. This to me is an excellent way of acknowledging the gaps in your own knowledge rather than trying to stuff them full of things that don't make sense while still giving a nod to the skills your character has. It's a lot easier to googling treatment and healing times than the full understanding of the impact of a broken bone, because web resources are (largely) written for patients, not doctors, and that's the case in many circumstances.
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@Arkandel and @mietze: Yeah, I agree, you can go too far overboard in the other direction. I know I did that to one of my poor engineer players back on BSP (I still feel bad about that). I think there's a happy middle ground between ignorance and hyper-critical expertise. It only takes a modest amount of effort.
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Back when I played Jack Moore@Devilshire or Eliot Ford@The Reach, I would routinely let them lapse into long diatribes about the law, because they were both smooth-as-fuck lawyers. My diatribes tended to include almost no dialogue. They were something like:
"Look, I need to make the call to get you an appointment in court, but first, take a look at these forms and..." Eliot's words start to get longer, more esoteric, and what they can only assume is legalese. It's like watching a particularly annoying scene in Law & Order except none of it is actually understandable unless the people listening actually know what he's talking about. Did he just say something about jail-time? Oh, shit. That would be bad. But maybe he said "no" jail-time? Interrupting him right now seems like a bad idea. He's kind of on a roll. How long's it been? Only a minute? Holy Jesus. Oh, he's handing John a pen. Oh thank fucking fuck. "Anyway, barebones is that unless everything goes epically sideways and there are literally spinning fans falling into giant piles of manure, you'll be fine. Sign here." Thank god that's over.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
