I’m curious, when playing the game, how stringent are people letting players call their action skill?
It seems like every session there’s a point where a player does something along these lines:
“I jump across the rooftops silently and jump on the guard when his back is turned.”
“ok, let’s roll for that. What skill are you using.”
“Uh, I have three dots under Consort. I’m doing that.”
“That’s not really a Consort.”
“Then why did you let me pick it?”
We keep reverting back to the GM (me) calling out a preferred Skill ( “that sounds like a skirmish to me”) with a logical player override if it makes sense (“I think I’m being a bit more finesse-y than skirmish-y”, “ok, fine, how are you being finesse-y about it” ), and things seem to flow a lot better.
Part of it might be because our background are much more boardgame than rpg, and therefore are more sticklers for following the rules to the letter.
Anyway, I was just wondering if people actually follow that rule to the letter, or if they play it with more negotiation.
They told you their action when they said they were running and jumping. That’s Prowl. The player doesn’t get to roll any action they want to — they get to perform any action they want to, then roll the dice that go with that action.
So, if they’re like, “Nah, I’m Consorting instead,” that’s fine, but then they’re not running and jumping, they’re talking to the guy.
… unless they have Rook’s Gambit: “I totally used to know this cat burglar called Hobs, and we used to hang out on the rooftops.” “Okay, roll your Consort while Prowling and take 2 stress.”
The way I run things (making no claims as to how it should work – just at my table)a player could they make an argument for:
– Prowl
– Study (I’m going to watch the guard carefully to gauge his routine, to ensure I reach him as his back is turned),
– Skirmish (the important part here is how vicious and quick the takedown is so I want to roll Skirmish), or
– Wreck (I’m not trying to hurt him, I’m using him to break my fall and cause a distraction so everyone is looking at me. I want the takedown to be loud and attention grabbing)
Prowl is the logical choice and would probably have the best position and effect (although see Wreck below).
Study sounds pretty desperate to me. People often do unexpected things, so studying a guard may not be the most reliable things (worse position). Also I’d question how effective it’s going to be, so I might reduce effect too.
Skirmish, I would definitely reduce the position. The character is putting limited effort into being stealthy, concentrating solely on the finish.
Wreck is interesting. The player is taking the same overall action, but with a different intent. They’re leaping on him to cause a distraction, not to harm him. This sounds really risky, but it is likely to work at its intended effect. I might call this one desperate, standard effect, but the stated effect is a disturbance, not harm to the guard.
Ah, ok. It’s not really “asking for a a roll.” Yeah, we were working off the short numbered flowchart on page 18. We tried (falsely) doing it 1. “I’m hopping around the roofs, sneaking around to get in the building.” 2. “Ok, choose what you want to roll to see if you succeed.”
Whereas the longer description of each “chapter” in the flow chart is 2.”ok, you want to get in the building. Choose your action skill, then describe you doing that.” Which makes more sense.
( boardgame-y literal-rules following translator on )
Well…except that it seems to explicitly contradict the idea of “fiction first” on page 161 ( say what you are doing, then figure out the best way to resolve it ) and seems more “fiction last” ( figure out how you want to resolve it, then tell what you character is doing based on that ).
( literal-rules following translator off )
Anyway, we realize the whole game is really just a toolbox-for-a-world with very fluid choices as to how to resolve things. It’s just that our last session we tried to run things by a strict “letter of the law” to see what would happen, and interpreted the flow chart wrong.
“Fiction first” means that everything should flow from the fiction. Concretely, it means here that the word “Consort” has a defined meaning in the fiction, as does “Prowl”, and what you’re rolling (in the rules) should follow from the fiction (what the character is doing). The mechanics for Consorting only come into play when Consorting happens in the fiction!
The precise text on p. 18 is “The player chooses which action rating to roll, following from what their character is doing on-screen. If you want to roll your Skirmish action, then get in a fight. If you want to roll your Command action, then order someone around. You can’t roll a given action rating unless your character is presently performing that action in the fiction.” (emphasis mine)
You can describe as choosing the action first, but it actually flows more naturally if you decide what you are doing first and then pick a matching action. You’re not choosing Prowl and then deciding that you are jumping across rooftops. You are jumping across rooftops, and the matching action is Prowl, so you are rolling Prowl. Of course, not every action is that clear, but that’s when the table can discuss which action (from the sheet) fits the fiction best.
This is in fact following the letter of the law, but I can see how you might interpret it the other way around if you’re coming from a board game background, since board games are clearly mechanics first.
And then of course there’s the whole “Don’t be a weasel” thing, the example you cite being a pretty good example of.
scott slomiany
Some people absorb information differently and that’s OK.
(board gamey translator for action rolls)
1.) The player describes what their character is doing.
2.) The GM asks the player what their character’s goal is.
3.) The player chooses the action rating that MATCHES the goal they just told the GM about.
3b) If the action rating chosen doesn’t match the goal, the PC can either revise their goal to match the action rating or they can choose another action that actually matches the original goal.
4) GM sets the position
5) GM sets the effect level
6) Add bonus dice
7) Role the dice and judge the result
Omari Brooks See, we’ve been doing it a little differently.
1) GM asks the player what the goal is.
2) Player describes how they will achieve that goal
3) Player chooses the action that might lead to that goal
4) GM describes Position/Effect for that action for that goal
5) Player adds bonuses to affect Position/Effect
6) Player either accepts that or loops back to 2 with a different approach
7) If player accepts, roll dice and judge the result
Frequently we were getting caught up in describing what we were going to do that both players and GM were losing track of what the goal really was. That’s why we moved it to step 1.
Arne Jamtgaard
Depends on the table; the fictional description of what the character does and the intended goal are so closely related the order of declaration doesn’t matter as long as everybody can keep track of both.
Jakob Oesinghaus I mean, yeah, we pretty started with “oh, I’m jumpy around on roofs, let’s roll prowl.” It’s only when we decided “ok, we’ve got the basic structure of the game, let’s get persnickety following the exact wording of things” things ( and misreading them) started to fall apart, and then went back to ‘well, it feels more natural to do it the way before.”
Cool, so you were actually doing it correctly at the start!
As they say in Apocalypse World: “to do the thing, do the thing.”