Infodump:Types of roleplay

Orphaned Skill Checks

Trying to use skill checks or other actions without justification or context can be problematic.

An example I ran into a lot one time:

• A friend has a sneaky archer type in a Skyrim type game. He really liked to sneak around and shoot people with the bow for bonus sneak attack damage.
  • All cool, I love those play styles too. That's been like 85% of my Breath of the Wild playthrough.
  • But in skyrim, you can just... crouch down and be "sneaking" then get the bonus damage if nobody is actively looking at you.
• So he would, in mid-combat, say "okay so I sneak, then I'm going to shoot my bow at the guy." His character would basically be standing out in the open, crouch down, and somehow be considered stealthy and somehow that would generate bonus damage?
• I'd have to keep asking him "but what are you doing to sneak around?" His response was generally "I'm crouched low to the ground behind this guy's back". In combat there really isn't directional facing, so the only way to do something like that is through magic/invisibility. Generally you'd need to justify sneaking around by means of finding cover and concealment.
  • It took him a while to break that habit/pattern of trying to replicate a gameplay loop from one game into the gameplay loop of another. It's understandable given how video games are set up, but there needs to be some more narrative support being it in tabletop play
• Similarly, just coming out of the gate saying "okay I roll for perception" and look at the GM to wait for a response, is usually going to be met with "okay, but what are you doing? Are you listening carefully, or scanning the horizon, or what?" The DC of the check and the type of information you get would depend on how you are trying to perceive and how you are going about it.

Failing Forward

I will have stitched out a general plot direction for the scene, but no details are typically set in stone. If they are, it'll be a fairly obvious macguffin.

I want a like-amount of roleplay and forward momentum to happen from both successes and failures. It's kinda bummer to have successes be cool moments of plot momentum and failures being the buzzkill of a stanky fart in an elevator.

Failures can easily have a farce-like quality or ironic humor about them. Descriptive roleplaying the schadenfreude can be a fun way of humanizing our characters for some extra depth but without having to act through something awkward to act.

An example:

Scene: You want to bring the groceries into the house, you bought ice cream and also got paper bags. Your dog always demands a walk to the park within minutes of you getting home.

Intent: Load it all up in one trip and get inside quickly so the ice cream doesn't melt.

Success of the Roll	What the result means	Our roleplay target / the check's endpoint	Possible ideas to roleplay, explaining your result in the scene
Critical Success	Do it in one trip, and it goes super fast	The ice cream gets put away and everything else is super easy to put away, which gives you a chance to surprise your dog with the leash	you had loaded your cart and then the conveyor belt to group items you had someone in the house ready there to help the kitchen counters were clear for landing
Success	You do it in one trip	The ice cream is put away just fine, but the rest takes longer. Your dog comes to find you right as you finish	You had to sort out the front door keys by feel your fingers were straining at all the bags the sound of your dog waking up
Failure	One of the bag handles start to rip as you pick it up, forcing two trips	You take the ice cream in first and it is put away just fine, the rest goes very slow. Your dog judges you all through the second trip.	which bag's handle ripped what your character's "aw shit" reaction was how your dog came to find you the crushing weight of your dog's judgemental eyes as your put stuff away.
Critical Failure	One of the bags rips open in the trunk, it needs reinforcement or repacking into a new bag	The ice cream goes in too late and it's texture is weird since it's partly refrozen. You need to deal with loose groceries.	which bag ripped open, what spilled how you repaired the rip your character's reaction to it

In this skill check:

The bag ripping would just mean more steps are needed, significantly delaying your efforts to the ice cream inside. The arc of the scene is the ice cream getting inside but the skill check actually has nothing directly to do about the ice cream, and more about the way you load up the groceries.

Consider: A lot of people might build the skill check with a more surface level approach of: failure is the ice cream melts and is ruined, and a crit fail is all the bags rip and all the groceries are ruined because the fell into the mud.

That approach would completely derail the arc of the "get the ice cream inside" scene, because crit success and crit fail would make the character's situation go in two different directions. The simpler approach might be more appropriate if the arc of the scene was "get through this crazy afternoon in one piece", since the ruined groceries only complicate the day, instead of ruining the entire task.

They key here is the resolution of time. Is the context of this scene the 10 minute task of getting the bags inside? or the 4 hours of this crazy afternoon? What is the context of the skill check?

Key Takeaway: The GM and Player should both agree on what the main thrust of the scene/encounter is before the die is even cast. The degrees of success don't really need to be planned out ahead of time (though it can help), but Gm and player should both have a quick back and forth about what they think would happen that made that result. Then the player should decide what they want to put their character through that leads them to the result.

The player rolls a fail, the GM says it takes two trips, both agree the dog definitely judges them. The player would rather explore the handle ripping and the colorful reaction the character has, the dog's judgement is just the icing on the cake. A different player might decide the focus on their character's internalizing of the dog's judgement, the bag ripping is simply the set-up to the gag.

There's plenty to roleplay off of a failure, and thus the plot is still driven forward!

Lessons Learned from Fate

I learned a lot in playing Fate Accelerated a while ago, that system focuses a lot on narrative description. Anyone can create an advantage as their action, which if the rolls are successful, will generate some boons for others to use. You are the GM and players need to figure out a narrative explanation for those boons, and then if they are used they need to be able to be used.

An example is a warehouse brawl scene:

The Barbarian might be the best at punching, and the Wizard might usually be int he support role. But the Goons are about to rush the Wizard, so the Barbarian might decide to Create an Advantage by [Knocking Over Some Crates], and is successful on the roll. The Wizard can then use the [Fallen Crates] to boost his attempt at [Evading the Goons], by describing the Goons being slowed down by them. There is no "nope, the goons are too far from the crates" unless the scene has substantially progressed past the warehouse brawl.

I really liked this approach, where advantages can be generated left and right. You can sacrifice one of your actions to generate some boosts for others to succeed on theirs. It's a net gain for the party at the expense of part of your turn, the definition of teamwork. I also liked that it gave everyone the ability to do SOMETHING on their turn, and that something was legit useful and never felt like a last resort. There's nothing fun about being forced to waste your turn because there's nothing available for you to do.

Fate also had a fail forward concept. Failing a roll meant you still achieve the action, it just came with increasing degrees of complications to the narrative (usually via [Bad Stuff] happening alongside your action). It made your upcoming rolls harder, or added steps, and enough of them over a long time might alter the trajectory of the plot, but never grind things to a halt.

The only problem with Fate was it all demanded a high degree of narrative/idea generation, compared to something like Pathfinder that had more adjudication in it's ruleset. While Fate was great in that way it also created a high barrier of entry in some ways, since some of the things happening were so freeform it was hard to connect it to other ideas. I can see that with the right play group it'd be an absolute blast, but I know for myself I want something with more structure.

The lesson learned: Failure just means complication.

It just means something else was introduced that you'll have to deal with later - whether that is later in the same scene or many chapters later. Dealing with it might range anywhere from a few lines of dialog without any rolls to an entire sidequest. It felt like a friendlier more fun and satisfying method of dealing with failed skill checks.