05-26-2019, 05:18 PM | #41 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
[QUOTE=Stormcrow;2265348]Precisely. Suppose my party is exploring a dungeon, searching for the Magic Thingy. As we explore Room 32, the GM calls for Perception rolls, and we fail them. But we've now explored the entire dungeon and just can't find the Magic Thingy. "Hey," says one of the players, "Let's go look at Room 32 again."/QUOTE]
When you enter room 1, you ask, "Is the Magic Thingy here?" The GM says, "Roll Per." When you enter room 2, you ask, "Is the Magic Thingy here?" . . . Or you skipped past some rooms, and then your first step is to look there, right?
__________________
Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
05-26-2019, 05:41 PM | #42 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Quote:
Let's say you're searching a room and the GM gives you a description of what you find. Assuming the exact same description in all three cases, in a certain style of game you should in principle play the same way whether you rolled a three, you rolled an eighteen, or the GM rolled behind his screen, but IME it's hard to actually do so. In other styles of game, it's considered perfectly acceptable for your actions to differ, and people will cheerfully provide suggestions for unexpected discoveries in the first case, unexpected disasters in the second case. |
|
05-26-2019, 05:45 PM | #43 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Quote:
Say the modifier is Very Hard (a -6 or -7) then the player above actually missed their roll. Their character thinks he knows where he is going but in reality he doesn't. |
|
05-26-2019, 05:48 PM | #44 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Quote:
In general you use either MoS or TDM, not both; if a task has a difficulty and you're using MoS, the GM just compares MoS to the difficulty. |
|
05-26-2019, 05:54 PM | #45 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Quote:
Task Difficulty also changes this. Perhaps the room has an Easy modifier (+4 or +5 to effective skill) which the player doesn't know about and actually succeeded in their perception roll (unless it was a 17 or 18). |
|
05-26-2019, 05:59 PM | #46 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Quote:
|
|
05-26-2019, 06:12 PM | #47 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Sure it does. It tells you that you performed well enough to succeed at a task with a difficulty equal to the amount by which you succeeded. Now, it doesn't tell you if you actually succeeded at the task the GM called for (assuming it was a binary succeed/fail task), but that doesn't mean it gives you zero information.
|
05-26-2019, 06:22 PM | #48 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Quote:
As an article in Dragon #99 states "Don't let your players have a continuous commune spell." Letting players know upfront what the Task Modifier is effectively ignoring this advice. Last edited by maximara; 05-26-2019 at 06:30 PM. |
|
05-26-2019, 06:30 PM | #49 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Quote:
You have demonstrated a group where hidden knowledge rolls are essential to prevent abuse. I, for one, don't even make Perception rolls like this, precisely because such rolls amount to "Does something happen to me based on my stats?" rather than "Can I figure out what I need to do to succeed at what I want?" |
|
05-26-2019, 06:50 PM | #50 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
|
Re: Player knowledge and hidden rolls
Quote:
GM: (rolls dice and refers to notes on PCs): One of you fells something doesn't isn't quite right about this room. The players know something is up but they don't know what triggered this reaction. Was it somebody's Danger Sense going off? Perhaps Tactics suggests that the room is a perfect place for an ambush. Then everybody start rolling vs skills (with no knowledge of any Task Modifiers...including fi there are any). In the case of the Magic thingy example perhaps the item has a spell that hides the fact it is magical or several items have "junk" enchantments to throw off would be searchers. If the magical thingy is clerical in nature then you can look with magery based magic until the lower realms freeze over into an Ice Age and not find it because no one in the party belongs to that deity and detect magic doesn't work on clerical items. Perhaps the item is working according to Clark's Law as with the "Staff of Destruction" in The Familiar of Zero. Remember, this is GURPS not AD&D1 or 2. ;-) Last edited by maximara; 05-26-2019 at 07:09 PM. |
|
Tags |
gm rolls, hidden rolls, player rolls |
|
|