Captain Obvious Posted May 14, 2008 Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 And no, I'm not talking about a player making an awesome to-hit and/or damage roll on a head-butt and getting his face lodged in his enemy's shattered skull, drowning slowly in the cerebral fluids. I was reading Fair Blows the Wind by Louis L'amour today, and there's a part in the story where the main character writes a play exposing the thievery and extortion of the main enemy. Rather than creating a public outrage and a call for the racketeer's head, as was the main character's intention, other thieves, fences, and extortioners came to believe that the enemy guy was more powerful than he really was, and rather than fight him, they wanted to join up with him. Being a gamer, I started thinking of ways to do this sort of thing in-game, but in a way that is interesting for the players rather than infuriating. Actually now that I think about it, maybe the best way would be to use this sort of thing as a failure result rather than a super-success. Any comments? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnTaber Posted May 14, 2008 Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 Re: TOO much success Too funny. I think this is a great result for a failed skill test...especially an 18 roll or something like that...[adding to my bag of GM tricks]... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted May 14, 2008 Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 Re: TOO much success I think you should call it failure. In the example you cite, the message he was trying to convey was lost. Any writer I know would call that a failure. Going beyond the example, though, as a player, I'd deeply resent finally having made a good roll, only to have it blow up in my face. My dice are rarely kind (unless I'm GMing), so it's galling enough when I roll a 3 to activate a power, or something, and it goes to waste. So I think the "you succeed so well you fail epically" effect should be reserved for rolling 18's on skills one bought up high enough that it only fails on an 18. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrosshairCollie Posted May 14, 2008 Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 Re: TOO much success I agree, that's definitely a failure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Obvious Posted May 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 Re: TOO much success ...as a player, I'd deeply resent finally having made a good roll, only to have it blow up in my face. Yeah, as I typed that first post, I started thinking more about this. There have been several GM horror stories posted around where a character makes a phenomenal roll in combat and the GM rules that they suffer horribly for it...usually ending up dying. That's where my head-butt image came from (not directly...exaggeration is fun). I guess I was thinking more along the lines of a not-too-important roll with an amusingly frustrating outcome (discrediting the enemy would have been nice for the character in the book, but like most L'amour protagonists, he knows he'll have to kill the guy some day). The more I think about it, though, it's still a failure. I guess with the right player you could turn a super-success into this kind of failure, but the player would have to have a good sense of humor and be in a good mood at the time, and the outcome would have to be amusing and not too much of a monkey wrench to the players' efforts in the main story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted May 14, 2008 Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 Re: TOO much success The only way you should use a Success to create this situation is if a scenario is based around the success with the ultimate outcome being an actual success. A sort of Comedy-Of-Errors with the classic All-Ends-Up-Right ending. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliceTheOwl Posted May 14, 2008 Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 Re: TOO much success Yeah, I can see situations where it might enhance the game, or at least produce a lot of laughs and make for a possibly memorable session. One would have to play it by ear, though; some players take even the little things quite seriously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Obvious Posted May 14, 2008 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 Re: TOO much success The only way you should use a Success to create this situation is if a scenario is based around the success with the ultimate outcome being an actual success. A sort of Comedy-Of-Errors with the classic All-Ends-Up-Right ending. Hmm...that's not a bad idea... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BNakagawa Posted May 14, 2008 Report Share Posted May 14, 2008 Re: TOO much success Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch? that's what flashed in my head when I read the thread title. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted May 16, 2008 Report Share Posted May 16, 2008 Re: TOO much success I agree that it would be a failure to well....fail like that... Though I guess if you had a massive sucsess and that happened you might come to suspect that the villian has 3 or more dice of Luck.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NestorDRod Posted May 16, 2008 Report Share Posted May 16, 2008 Re: TOO much success I'll add my voice to the chorus. The result you described would be best described as the classic critical failure scenario. The person's effort not only failed to punish the evildoer for his actions, he actually benefited from it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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