[Sorcerer] Training run: London, June 1966
John S:
Thanks for the guidance-- I think I'm almost there.
Quote from: jburneko on September 08, 2010, 11:38:13 AM
Telltales completely change the dynamics of a scene. A to characters meet and interact if Telltales are spotted the scene is "charged" very differently than if they aren't. Notice I'm talking about real interaction that was going to happen anyway. Not something like do you spot the woman casually passing you on the street has a telltale.
This bit, along with the "roll when something's going to happen model", seems key. I'm not sure I grok the second sentence: What is narrated if Fenster rolls Lore vs. the demon's Cover on p102 and he fails? The context is "negotiating some scummy narcotics deal". Since the text says he has two chances to notice something is amiss, it doesn't seem right to go into complex conflict resolution: "Dude has a forked tongue-- does Fenster notice in time? (In time for what?)"
Quote from: jburneko on September 08, 2010, 11:38:13 AM
If you find yourself in a "does he spot something" and if the No answer results in "nothing happens", then the answer is an automatic Yes.
That sounds like a good heuristic, but it also sounds like the Fenster example in the book. No consequences are indicated if the demon's Telltale fails to catch Fenster's attention-- do you apply the demon's victories as a penalty on Fenster for the scene, X for next action and 1 lasting?
I like the "automatic Yes" rule: the GM's job is to give the players relevant information rather than withhold it.
Quote from: jburneko on September 08, 2010, 11:38:13 AM
If it's a question of timing, like "Huh. If he spots the guy then he will have chance to do something but if he fails then X happens before he can react...." Then don't think in terms of perception. Go straight to the "combat" rules. Let the hidden thing announce whatever action. Let the player announce whatever action they'd do in response assuming they spot it in time. If the player's action goes first then they saw it in time. If not then they didn't.
Thanks, that's makes a lot of sense.
Quote from: jburneko on September 08, 2010, 11:38:13 AM
The only time I ever roll "Perception" in the classic sense of the word is when it's an active activity by the player. Like if you have Cloaked guy throwing around Psychic Forces and the player wants to take an action to hone in the source. Then we roll, and if successful the player then rolls those victories over into his next action now that he has a bead on the target.
That's helpful too.
I guess my trouble is thinking about it in terms of task resolution: "If the character succeeds on skill check Y, feed the player information piece Z." It's easy to see how the last two examples fall into narrative conflict resolution: when the dice hit the table something happens in the fiction. I'm just not there yet with spotting Telltales. I'm thinking that some example narration of a failed Lore roll might help me get it.
Quote from: The Dragon Master on September 08, 2010, 11:36:52 AM
I'd stick with the basic "roll when something's going to happen" model. If he fails the roll, then he doesn't see the big slobbery toothed Demon with an axe sneaking up on him. If he does, then he notices it and can act accordingly, but then I've never played (any system) any other way.
What instances are you thinking of these perception rolls coming up in? What would happen if he were to succeed on them?
Well, it came up a couple times in the Training Run: I figure a sorcerer has any number of chances to spot Yzor's Telltale, when inside the house. I also asked the player to roll Lore when interacting with "Yvonne" (in my setting, she's called Violet), to spot her Telltale, and later he succeeded in spotting the spawn's Telltale. Each time he failed, I told him eye-catching details about the environment or characters instead of saying "nothing happens", but I had a hunch that the dice should be bringing about starker changes in the situation.
John S:
Quote from: John Paul on September 09, 2010, 05:09:14 AM
What is narrated if Fenster rolls Lore vs. the demon's Cover on p102 and he fails? The context is "negotiating some scummy narcotics deal".
To put the question more concisely:
In a system where rolls force the situation to CHANGE and victories describe the DIRECTION OF CHANGE, how does the situation change if Fenster fails to notice the demon's Telltale? It's easy to see how spotting a Telltale changes the situation, but how do you narrate it when the pendulum swings the other way?
Paiku:
Maybe what changes, when the perception roll is failed, is that Fenster decides on his next course of action assuming that he's talking to a harmless/helpless "normal". And the demon has that many victories to roll into any further deception of Fenster.
Perception rolls have been sticky for my group, too. Early in our first game, a PC sorcerer met an NPC sorcerer, both had inconspicuous Demons. We rolled to see if the PC spots the NPC's telltale. We rolled to see if he spots the NPC's Demon's telltale. Etc. Between the two humans and the two demons, we rolled eight perception checks! It seemed a little excessive. Were eight rolls really necessary? Is there a more elegant way to handle this type of situation?
(and again, I don't think we were thinking about every roll forcing the situation to change).
-J
jburneko:
John,
Think of telltale spot situation less of a change but an extremely significant branch. Two Sorcerers meet (or demon, whatever). Again not in a passing way but for some reason of significance already. There are four outcomes.
...Neither spot each other's telltale.
...One spots it but the other does not
...vice versa
...they both spot.
Those are four completely different scenes that deeply color and inform the interaction. You don't need to narrate anything beyond simply playing out the scene with regard to that polarization.
Jesse
John S:
Thanks Jesse. I get how the roll impacts the fiction. I guess what I'm curious about is what happens at the table between the real people. Let's say you are the GM and I'm a sorcerer player, and you know that there's a demon present and I don't. Then my character is beginning a serious interaction with the demon. How do call for the Lore vs. Cover roll?
Let's say the situation doesn't call for a complex conflict, and I haven't announced that I'm looking for Telltales.
[*]Do you look at my Lore score and say "Roll X dice", where X is my Lore?
[*]Or do you just say "Roll your Lore"?
[*]Or do you narrate something, like "There's something fishy here, roll your Lore." Or "Your sorcerer-sense is tingling."
[*]Or do you keep it as quiet as possible until the roll succeeds, by rolling secretly or something?
[*]Is spotting a Telltale entirely passive, or can a player get roleplaying bonuses from p19?
[/list]
And how do you reverse it, for when a demon or sorcerer is spotting my sorcerer's Telltale?
Here's what I did in the actual play: I told the Steve to roll Nitro's Lore, and I rolled Yvonne's (Violet's) Cover. The dice were out on the table for everyone to see. The player didn't get any victories, so I changed the subject, mentioning some suggestive details about the environment. Later, Nitro was in conversation with the spawn. I told Steve to roll Lore again, and I rolled the spawn's Cover. Everyone could see the dice, and this time Steve got some victories, so I narrated the demon's telltale.
I guess that worked fine-- they were completely different scenes --I just wondered if I was missing something.
Quote from: Paiku on September 09, 2010, 12:37:45 PM
We rolled to see if the PC spots the NPC's telltale. We rolled to see if he spots the NPC's Demon's telltale. Etc. Between the two humans and the two demons, we rolled eight perception checks! It seemed a little excessive. Were eight rolls really necessary? Is there a more elegant way to handle this type of situation?
I'm interested in that question too. I didn't roll to check if anyone spotted Nitro's Telltale yet, because the Kicker made it clear that they somehow knew he was a sorcerer-- but when the time comes for a four-way Telltale check, I'd like to know the best practice. It sounds like a lot of rolling for the GM.
Maybe the key is to jump right into "combat" rules when a bunch of sorcerers and demons meet up for some meaningful interaction, everybody rolling Lore, and then making Cover rolls in defense based on the normal initiative order. At least that has some relation to the rules, right?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page