Reduced Effect on rolls with Limited Effect: Do you do this?

Reduced Effect on rolls with Limited Effect: Do you do this?

Reduced Effect on rolls with Limited Effect: Do you do this?

It’s a debate I had with a buddy and it got me wondering if others inflicted this consequence on such rolls. Personally, I’m not a fan as it turns success into failure or, if one wishes to look at it a different way in the fiction, a Lost Opportunity.

11 thoughts on “Reduced Effect on rolls with Limited Effect: Do you do this?”

  1. I was going to say an outright no, since if they’ve rolled a success, you’re changing that to essentially a failure.

    However, I suppose the one difference between downgrading it to no effect and it being a failure is that you aren’t getting an additional complication, which may be preferable to the player, especially in high stress situations. They have to try again, sure, but they don’t have to resist anything.

    That said, it’s probably one of the less interesting things you could do. No complications means less mishaps to battle against. It’s essentially just missing your attack in D&D; nothing good or bad happens, you just have to try again.

  2. i’m a little biased… but I always like that something happens on a dice roll… I always think a success means that the character got something positive… (even if there are negative side effects)

  3. I’d say no: If I feel that only a solid success would grant some effect, I tell the players that they start with zero effect, so they can decide if they really want to roll, spend stress for effect and/or try to go for a critical. In all the other cases, I wouldn’t bring a limited effect to zero.

  4. I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s a risk it’ll happen when acting with limited effect and a benefit that it won’t when acting with better effect. If you’re concerned about nothing happening, you can always throw in another consequence or two; depending how mean you feel ;D

  5. I would definitely not hit a player with Reduced Effect if the pushed from no effect to limited. That’s just mean. I’d sooner make Scurlock develop a crush on them.

  6. Ben Liepis do players push before or after the roll? Theres an example in the book where after all evaluations for a roll are done a player decides to push. Hence I figured a player would never push from no to limited, and then get it consequenced back to no.

    Also why I’d still consider it, because a player could always choose to push or resist. Though I agree with the general consensus that the roll should mean something, so at least an update to the fiction or positioning seems important. I.e. You fail to do harm but push into a better position

  7. Yes – sometimes having less of an effect will be a more fun story. But only when “getting less” means something happens.

    Researching how to kill a particular demon? Instead of telling them outright, what about a reduced effect where they find the name of a scholar who will know – but that scholar is in prison. Now I can encourage the players to do a score that might not be their usual style, and the end result is they still find how to kill that demon.

    It shouldn’t be nothing – it should still be something, just not everything the players are after.

  8. If we reduce the roll to having no effect but there are no other repercussions, nothing has changed. Do this and you aren’t playing Blades anymore; every roll changes the game in some way. No “nothing happens.”

  9. Today we tried the opposite and well, it worked. It occupied a hazy space between a 1-3 and 4/5 where the only repercussion was the barest hint of victory was snatched away at the cusp. What’s truly great is that, as I’ve mentioned before, the system isn’t so tightly wound that it snaps under adjustment so exploring this didn’t ruin anything.

  10. I know this will sound like the same old same old but I’d follow the fiction. Why did they have limited effect in the first place? Is it likely that those factors would make a less than perfect attempt moot altogether? Are you trying to damage an armored hull with a convention weapon? Trying to win the sympathy of a hardened Leviathan Hunter? Trying to sneak across the grounds monitored by Lady Slane’s personal bodyguard? All of those seem like cases where your blade could bounce off harmlessly, the Hunter might laugh at you, or you would be frozen in place, sure the vigilant guard would spot you if you moved.

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