What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

[phookz]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

If you can't get a minor, temporary sprain from a botched skill roll, when can you get it? Only in combat? I think it's a way to add dramatic tension and would be perfectly suitable for the genre. I would love for a GM to do it to my character in a horror game. I love it when I'm brought to the edge of my seat in anticipation of what is going to happen next.

 

I would agree that fatality is overly harsh.

[McCoy]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

Well' date=' if there was something evil in the forest, it found him.[/quote']

 

He falls into a trap' date=' or simply falls due the naturally difficult (and ominously treacherous) terrain of the forest floor, injuring himself. He has to limp/crawl back to the group (who hopefully will start to look for him when he takes longer than he should) while something stalks him from the shadows....[/quote']

What they said, hunter becomes the hunted.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

Assuming that a minor' date=' temporary sprain is a reasonable result for rolling an 18 to hit in combat, it seems equally reasonable for the survival skill.[/quote']

 

I like this idea and with it being horror, why not have he poisoned? The posion though is an halluigen. And it messes with his head for awhile. He thinks his copanions are really werewolves in disgue or demons maybe. I would allow a con roll after a couple of minutes of roleplay and a bonus with healing roll.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

If you can't get a minor' date=' temporary sprain from a botched skill roll, when can you get it? Only in combat? [/quote']

 

I don't know how the game in question handles critical fumbles, so I don't know when the characters would get a minor, temporary sprain. I see no problem with this being a result in combat or from a failed skill roll, but I would expect some consistency in the level of effect from a botched roll.

 

I like this idea and with it being horror' date=' why not have he poisoned? The posion though is an halluigen. And it messes with his head for awhile. He thinks his copanions are really werewolves in disgue or demons maybe. I would allow a con roll after a couple of minutes of roleplay and a bonus with healing roll.[/quote']

 

Accidental poisoning seems a reasonable result for a failed Survival check looking for food. Again, I would expect the impact to be similar to a combat roll failed to similar extent.

 

It's important to remember that, without adding a "verification check", a critical fumble will be at least one in 216 rolls. "Lethal" seems like creating an assembly line of PC's. 4 SPD, three turns of combat likely = 10+ rolls to hit; I don't want a lethal fumble for each character every 20 - 25 combats. Similarly, in a 5 PC group, loss of a limb for one character every 4 - 5 combats seems excessive. A minor impairing result with this frequency seems much more reasonable. Of course, one can always add a second roll to determine whether severity is greater than the norm, but now we're adding more rolls, charts, etc.

[Moondrake]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

I'm the GM for the Season of the Witch game. I saw the movie before anyone else and mentioned it would be a good game, and the group agreed not to see it if I would run it. I generally only run one annual Halloween game, I prefer to play. But I agreed to run the movie as a one month game, which will conclude next week. Although I am only loosely following the movie I'd prefer the stuff I use to remain fresh to my players so no spoilers for the finale, please! The tradesmen in the party were spending the day working to shore up a dilapidated suspension bridge to enable the heavy prison wagon to cross, and the Crusaders were standing guard. The huntsman set off into the (rumored haunted) woods to bag some dinner. He was just coming to the conclusion that there was nothing living in these woods when he rolled an 18 on his survival roll. I did consider having him bring back poisonous berries or something like that but it didn't serve my plot, I wanted the characters to keep moving, not be debilitated by illness. Instead he poked his head into a bough-cave, provoking an extra-large bear that chased him to the cliff edge but declined to follow him out of the forest. A couple of days later the same character was scouting ahead looking for a defensible position to make camp (the party had a deadly encounter with demon wolves the night before) when he rolled a 17 on his survival roll and literally stumbled over a crumbling old fort. He sprained his ankle falling into a shallow cistern and suffered a 25% movement penalty for the next few days. Normally I wouldn't assess a penalty for a 17, but between the pattern of unlucky rolls and the fact that the environment itself is out to get them, it seemed appropriate and the player accepted it as a reasonable occurence. Horror is my genre when GMing, and the "game contract" when I run is that there is no script-immunity but mortality will be cinematic and the result of actions the characters choose to make. Events are never dice-driven, but character, plot and setting-driven. Other GMs in our group have a different dice philosophy, and our players all understand that each GM has a different play style and adapt as needed.

[Sketchpad]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

All I was picturing was something like you'd see in Evil Dead/Army of Darkness. Huntsman wanders off to find food for the party and runs into something following the witch (also read "Deadite"). When he returns, the huntsman has no food or anything ... other than a chilling message as he steps into the clearing: "I'll swallow your soul!" Now the others must defend themselves from their possessed friend, while also maintaining the witch's cell and not die in the process.

[baronspam]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

I hope this doesn't come off negative, but it might.

 

First, are the players too stupid to bring some food along? If you are transporting a prisoner, you probably don't want to take time to hunt. Hunting is a time consuming activity that would seriously cut into travel time. The odds of walking out of camp for a quarter of an hour and coming back with a haunch of venison are pretty small. Hard biscuit and salt pork, and keep moving.

 

Second, its the haunted evil forest. Players are too stupid to not stay together?

 

Third, the character was rolling to find some food. How do you get from there to having them possessed by an evil spirit? A failure should be no food, or perhaps some harmful/tainted food, or a minor injury (stepped in a hole and twisted your knee shooting at said food. -1 body). Something like that. Possessed is a whole different issue. Unless that was something I was planning for the story to start with, I certainly would not come up with that over a botched survival roll, especially one that seems unjustified in calling for in the first place.

 

If I had been the player, I would feel like that was a excessivly harsh result from a botched roll.

[phookz]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

Second' date=' its [i']the haunted evil forest.[/i] Players are too stupid to not stay together?

 

The OP did state that it was a horror campaign. I'd say splitting up, stupid or not, is part of the genre

 

Third, the character was rolling to find some food. How do you get from there to having them possessed by an evil spirit? A failure should be no food, or perhaps some harmful/tainted food, or a minor injury (stepped in a hole and twisted your knee shooting at said food. -1 body). Something like that. Possessed is a whole different issue. Unless that was something I was planning for the story to start with, I certainly would not come up with that over a botched survival roll, especially one that seems unjustified in calling for in the first place.

 

If I had been the player, I would feel like that was a excessivly harsh result from a botched roll.

 

I think in the context of a horror game the roll and possible ill effects are completely justified. I think using the roll mechanic presents an opportunity for the GM to have something interesting happen outside of the standard encounter plan. I'm not suggesting that the campaign should be ruled by dice rolls, but I think using a critically botched roll (OP did state they used critical hits and fumbles) as a catalyst for something interesting can add spontaneity to the game.

[AlHazred]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

I've thought about it some more, and disagree that an 18 rolled on a Survival skill should have equivalent effects to an 18 rolled during combat.

 

My reasoning goes like this: combat in Hero is not very abstracted. You roll an average of fifteen times per minute in Game Time. Given the huge number of dice rolled, we can expect 18s to come up with frequency -- that one-in-216 chance seems more likely to occur every session or two when you're rolling several dozen times each game session.

 

On the other hand, Skill Rolls are extremely abstracted. You roll once, and the result determines the success or failure of a hunting expedition that might last anywhere from an hour to six hours in Game Time. You probably won't see more than one or two of those 18s for any particularly common Skill Roll during the course of a campaign.

 

Therefore, the 18s rolled in Skill Rolls should definitely have a more serious impact than a similar failed roll during combat.

[stuartlaird]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

Fantasy Horror...

Fumbled Survival Roll...

How Evil...

Barely Evil - Steps in Trap, gets maimed/poisoned, -DEX/CON/STR for duration

Kinda Evil - Attracts attention of local semi-intelligent evil forest dwelling furries and brings them back to the party. Battle, possibly ongong ensues.

Quite Evil - Brings back disease carrying game for dinner. Entire party gets -ve stats for the duration.

Really Evil - Contracts Lycanthropy... or Rabies, and comes back empty handed.

Just Plain Evil - Is knocked out in the forest and wakes up 48 hours later. Forbid the player from talking to the other players until they meet again.

[LordGhee]

Re: What would you do as GM when our intrepid . . . . . .

 

Thanks everyone for their answers!

 

Baronspam,

 

this is a what we call a realistic horror game. We are Medieval knights who believe in the supernatural ect but as in the real world have never really seen any magic or mystical stuff.

 

The forester left when we enter the woods and realized that the trip would take much longer and food could be a pressing issue. The woods are scary and that is where he goes, out into the scary woods and get food.

 

Now once we came under attack, we reacted as under attack and stuck together.

 

Lord Ghee