When to make them roll...

[Gauntlet]

When a player is using a skill, when is the best time to make them roll it. Would there be times that you could just give it to them without a roll, or should they always be rolling.

 

So hey GMs, what are your thoughts.

[Doc Democracy]

If failing the roll makes the game less enjoyable, why are you making them roll it?

 

If failing the roll prevents the adventure moving forward, why are you making them roll it?

 

If you are asking for so many rolls that it is statistically probably they will fail, why are you asking for those rolls?

[unclevlad]

Make them roll only when failure is meaningful...when missing the roll will have a cost.  Quite often, this also means time matters;  it's not during down-time, when the characters generally have time to go "ok, that didn't work, let's try this."  There are exceptions;  say Stark's upgrading the Iron Man armor.  You figure it'll take 5 successes, where each roll represents 4 hours of work...down-time.  Ultimately he'll succeed, it might just take a few days longer.  The cost here might be that you've got an event that'll happen on day 6...so will he have the upgrade ready or not???  

 

It's similar to an old question going back to D&D 3.5.  What is an encounter?  An encounter is an interaction whereby not achieving success, as defined by the interaction, costs the characters in some manner.  Time, information, money, reputation...any of these can be costs.

[Gauntlet]

But what about times when the skill is out of combat but could have a consequence for failing? Such as using conversation to get information out of people. 

[unclevlad]

6 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

But what about times when the skill is out of combat but could have a consequence for failing? Such as using conversation to get information out of people. 

 

An encounter means more than combat.  If the conversation has useful game info as a result, and if you decide the players *may not* get it, then it's an encounter, and a roll is in order.  Intel gathering is not down-time...not very often, anyway.  The PCs don't really have unlimited retries...after a time or two, if they fail, the target will likely go defensive, in the "I TOLD YOU, I don't know anything about that!!" manner.  And quite often, everything else.  People don't like being badgered.   

 

The social skills are always a bit tricky, as...how much, as a GM, do you use role playing...and how much roll playing?  Conversation can be a good one...let the role play go on a bit, but if things are being vague, then a Conversation roll..."he's nervous about last night."  The roll play lets the GM target the role play.

[Hugh Neilson]

I fall back on a person with an 8- skill roil being sufficiently proficient to work in the area.  Even if we assume enough extra time for +3, he should not be failing to accomplish a mundane task over a third of the time. Under ordinary circumstances, he should have auto-success.  Perhaps a "take 11" analogous to the D20 "take 10".

 

If Tarzan leaps out of the hotel window to climb a lamppost, then swings across the street, climbing to the roof of that building, should he have a chance of failure?  If he has Tarzan- level skills, he's Effing Tarzan and he can perform such a legendary feat with ease.  MAYBE he needs to roll if he's trying to dodge gunfire at the same time.

Edited July 27 by Hugh Neilson

[unclevlad]

Also note the sidebar, 6E1 57, that is directly on point.

 

Also, 6E1 56:

 

Quote

Competent: The character can perform routine tasks easily, and difficult tasks with a little effort. He’s qualified to get a job using the Skill

 

This is at 11-, tho.  

[Hugh Neilson]

"Routine tasks easily" feels like "no extra time". "Difficult with a little effort" seems like harder tasks taking some Extra Time. 

 

An 8- Familiarity feels like "entry level position" skill.  Guidance and supervision is still required, and their role is the routine stuff.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

When a player is using a skill, when is the best time to make them roll it. Would there be times that you could just give it to them without a roll, or should they always be rolling.

 

The rules specifically state that if the skill is being used in a non-stressful and non-critical situation, you don't even need a roll.  And they say that if an attempt is trivial, it doesn't need a roll unless its combat impactful.  And, it also states that if someone has a skill, and fails, they still do at least as well as someone without the skill in most cases.

 

For example: Our Hero has Acrobatics.  They attempt to jump through an open window and land stylishly on their feet, with a flip.  An ordinary person can jump through a window, even if the GM decides it takes a DEX roll.  Because Our Hero spent points to be really good at this stuff, they can get through the window even if they fail their roll, but don't do it acrobatically: they kick the windowsill and land on their face.  But they get through.

[Ninja-Bear]

One concept that Matt Colville talked about and I’d like to try is that depending on the situation, certain players with a high skill automatically succeed while a person with a low or no skill has to make the roll. His example is sneaking pass the guards. If your stealth (and I’ll use Hero numbers here) is a 16- you sneak pass fine. But another player didn’t bother with Stealth? Make the roll. If they have stealth but 8-? Make the roll. It rewards players who bought up skills and can help mitigate the noob outperforming the expert. (I think they have a name for this now but I can’t recall).

[Sean Waters]

Pathfinder uses 'take 10 and take 20'.

 

Take 10 means that, if you are not in immediate danger (in combat, for example) then you can just use 10 as your roll, so you can always do stuff you can normally do (Pathfinder uses d20, but the average of that is 10.5, just like 3d6).  If you've got no pressure and all the time you need, you can take 20, which means you get your maximum possible result, but it takes 20 times longer than a single roll.  It just cuts out the silliness - eventually you are going to roll well.

 

Hero's probability curve is a bit different: I'd say if you have a 14- after any penalties, you can just assume that you've rolled a 10 and not bother rolling, so long as you're not in combat.  If you have all the time in the world and no negative consequences for a bad roll, you can assume you've rolled a 5 (which is about a 5% chance).

 

So decoding a really complex code you can take a few hours and assume you rolled 5.  Defusing a bomb, you can't.

[LoneWolf]

I have to agree with @uncleavlad about being encounter being more than just combat.  Anytime the character is in a situation where the result of the check has significant repercussion on the game should be considered as being equivalent to a combat encounter.  This is especially true if the encounter has any kind of time limits.  

 

As to out of combat rolls, the roll does not have to be just about success or failure.  When out of combat it can also be used to determine how long the skill takes, or the quality of the results.   Someone who makes their knowledge skill roll may know the answer immediately, but if they fail the roll they have to actually stop and think about it for a while before coming up with the answer.  If they make the roll by more than needed, they should be given more information on the subject.   
 

[Gauntlet]

Of course there would be times that you would not need them to roll at all. Rolling too much can cause a game to run rather slow. I have found that many out of combat skills a roll is not required, especially if it a yes/no answer or a simple answer. I guess it just has to be played by ear.

[LoneWolf]

If the out of combat roll is just about success and failure and the characters have a good roll, then rolling is probably not needed.  A 12 or less roll will succeed about 74% of the time, even an 11 or less means about a 63% chance of success.   Bellow 10 the chance of success starts to really drop off, with a 9 or less having a 38% chance of success.   This of course assumes that there are no negative consequences for failure.  If failure is going to result in something bad happening, I would roll it.

 

Another thing to consider is that every step down the time chart gives a +1 to skill rolls.   Assuming a skill takes 1 turn that means that anyone with a base 13 or less on a skill will always make it if they take an hour.  If they have a 14 or less they will always succeed if they take 20 minutes.  If the character is willing to take time all you need to do use the above method to determine how long it takes.  
 

[Gauntlet]

One thing I have done in the past is list how long something takes based on the roll. If you make it then the standard time, but if you miss it then the time interval increases based on how much you missed it by. So if it normally would take a turn and you miss by one, then it is a minute, if you miss by two then it is five minutes, and so on so forth.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I have made players roll as a way to break up a sequence or to add drama to a scene.  Sure, you don't necessarily need to make a roll when you're interviewing suspects, but after talking a while, its good to break the rhythm of the game and give the players something uncertain to wonder about, some drama.

[Gauntlet]

30 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I have made players roll as a way to break up a sequence or to add drama to a scene.  Sure, you don't necessarily need to make a roll when you're interviewing suspects, but after talking a while, its good to break the rhythm of the game and give the players something uncertain to wonder about, some drama.

 

Similar to that sometimes I have had players make a roll for hints when they weren't sure where to go.

[Sean Waters]

If the aim is (and it should be) to heighten tension and create peril then you roll when things could go well or badly and the GM doesn't want to take responsibility for things going badly.

 

If the aim is to progress the game, I'm probably not going to make players roll dice, I'm going to make them role play.

 

Say you are a cop interrogating a suspect.  You've got Interrogation 13-.  there's a couple of different approaches you could take.

 

1. Roll the dice yourself.  You know what the result is, you know whether you've succeeded, or at least you know how well you've done.  This is fine in combat where the result is immediately perceivable, not so good where it isn't. 

 

2. The GM rolls in secret.  You've seen The Usual Suspects, right?  Dave Kujan thinks he's getting to the truth.  He does not know that Kint is taking him for a joyride.  There is no mechanic for that, not really.  Hero forgot to put in rules for playing opposed social skills.  You can cobble something together as some sort of Skill v Skill contest, but a lot more time should have been devoted to this.  Even D&D has Insight and Deception.  We've got a lot more skills but nothing quite like that.

 

3. You don't roll.  You've got Interrogation 13-, which is a +2 (the 'standard' roll being 11-).  The guy you're interrogating. Mick, has a resistance of 6, which is a GM call but you can work it out: he has 13 PRE, which is +1.  You want him to make admissions and tell you where the rest of the gang is hiding and where the money they stole is.  He's involved in a criminal enterprise and doesn't want to admit that as he'll get in trouble, which is a +2 and he does not want to get a name as a grass, which is +1 and one of the gang members told him that if he does grass them up, they'll pay a visit to his girlfriend Mandy, which is another +2.  You bring in a partner to help with the interrogation.  They've only got Interrogate 12-, which is +1, so we'll use half that and round up, so you get your +2 and +1 from your buddy.  Still not enough.  Mick knows you can only keep him 24 hours without more evidence so his plan is to sit it out.  Nonetheless sitting in a cell gets to you and if you sweat him for a few hours he takes -1 on his resistance, so that's 5 now.  Still too high.  You get talking to Mick, off the record and learn that he's worried about being a grass, going to jail and what might happen to his girlfriend.  That's just Conversation - that does not tell you what you want to know but tells you how you might get closer.  You go see the DA and agree to cut a deal - reduced jail time - that reduces Mick's resistance by a further point to 4.  Almost there.  Now you offer to take his girlfriend into protective custody until the rest of the gang is locked up.  That removes the worry about Mandy.  His resistance is now 2, and you have and interrogation total of 3, so he cracks.  The more points you have his resistance beaten by the more he tells you.  If he'd lawyered up that would have increased his resistance and you would have had to agree a better deal and maybe some ruse to make it look like you'd got the information elsewhere.  No rolls, still uses the skill system but makes a skill test a mini role playing adventure.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

There is no mechanic for that, not really.  Hero forgot to put in rules for playing opposed social skills.

 

That's not exactly true.  I mean, they presumed that you would role play out social interaction rather than roll dice for it, but there are actually rules for using opposed skill rolls and concepts like Resistance which assumes you get an Ego roll to resist interrogation, etc