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Old 05-21-2023, 11:27 PM   #41
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Wet torch

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Originally Posted by seycyrus View Post
How many GMs take their player's to task when they swim or ford across a small river, (let alone dive underwater) with wet bowstrings?
Less of a problem since, while they are made of linen (at least medieval European strings), bowstrings are commonly waxed.

A long soak might mess up a self-bow, however, and can mess with bowstring/crossbow strings if they get completely soaked. Any degree of wet will cause all kinds of trouble for a traditional composite bow or crossbow due to the water-soluble glues used to glue the laminates together.
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Old 05-21-2023, 11:40 PM   #42
mburr0003
 
Join Date: Jun 2022
Default Re: Wet torch

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Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
This seems like a place where a SOP perk would be handy (call it "Keep Your Powder Dry" or equivalent). An equivalent quirk might be "careless with gear."
Eventually PCs will stop taking SOP Perks, take Common Sense, and then start smacking the GM over the head they pull this sort of nonsense.



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Originally Posted by RGTraynor View Post
If a player doesn't explicitly tell me what he's doing to keep his gear dry when he fords the river, then there may be consequences ...
Do they need to tell they're character is breathing? Or how they turn a door knob?

If a PC fords a river, I presume they are taking precautions. If there is a meaningful decision they need to make, like "Are you taking off your armor?" or "You have too much to carry in your pack, what are you letting get submerged?", I'll ask.

But I'm not going to penalize someone who expects their characters to act competently, unless they have Disadvantages (or extreme lack of skill or no time) that would impede simple common sense.

Quote:
...the same way as if he uses his sword to poke at the fire or to cut down firewood, the same way as if he just grabs and drinks any old potion bottle in his belt without checking which one it is.
If a Player declares their Character is using equipment improperly and knows this, that's one thing. If they've loaded up their potion belt with random found potions, that's also another thing. Neither of those situations are remotely sensible.

And no, I wouldn't require a skill roll to take common sense actions for which the PC has skills. That just smells to me of adversarial GMing.
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Old 05-22-2023, 12:58 AM   #43
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Default Re: Wet torch

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Originally Posted by RGTraynor View Post
If a player doesn't explicitly tell me what he's doing to keep his gear dry when he fords the river, then there may be consequences ...
It is reasonable to ask the player what they are going to do to keep their equipment dry. It's not reasonable to just assume that, absent them saying anything, they'll be stupid.
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Old 05-22-2023, 08:46 AM   #44
malloyd
 
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Default Re: Wet torch

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
It is reasonable to ask the player what they are going to do to keep their equipment dry. It's not reasonable to just assume that, absent them saying anything, they'll be stupid.
And note that "I have no idea, but my character would" is a perfectly valid answer, and should work unless you have telegraphed something about this crossing is different - say an by having an NPC offer to show them the safe ford for a small fee. You don't ask the players how they are preparing each dinner and assume they die of food poisoning if they can't tell you how to safely cook the particular imaginary food they are carrying either. Or rule their weapons are stuck in the sheathe because they neglecting to spontaneously tell you how they cleaned them after that last fight with the Glue Slime. There is a point at which you have to assume the characters know what they are doing.

If crossing this river is supposed to be an important challenge, then maybe, but even then since much of the "action" is likely to consist of the players proposing something followed by a dice roll resulting in the GM telling them their characters know that plan won't work before they try it, and even that's subject to falling apart unless the GM actually knows more about river crossings than any of the players, it may not have been the best choice for the highlight of tonight's game session.
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Old 05-22-2023, 09:25 AM   #45
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Default Re: Wet torch

I think "a super screw-top tinderbox lined with water-repellant substances" could be something dwarves or gnomes or cyborgs offer for enough G$ in a dungeon fantasy setting. And maybe elves or centaurs offer a rain-proof backpack.

Games will vary in how much attention they pay to basic outdoorsmanship, from "everyone's template has points in Survival, Hiking, or Soldier so you are good" to very seriously choosing between fire pistons and strikealights and linen and woollen underwear. In some games, always keeping your fire source well protected from rain and humidity could be a Park.

But the scenario in the OP is such an extreme challenge to low-tech firestarters and light sources that I would treat it as a problem for the players to solve not as a routine application of skills.
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Old 05-22-2023, 11:16 AM   #46
Celjabba
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Luxembourg
Default Re: Wet torch

On one hand, I have been soaked 'to the bone' while hiking without actually going in water, just from rain, and even with modern gear, if something isn't waterproof but just water-resistant, water *will* get into it sooner or later.

So big items, like spell tomes, weapons, clothes and armor, rations,... barring magic, if you go underwater, they will get wet or worse unless you take specific, cumbersome and likely expensive precautions beforehand and you will need material and skill for barrels, for putting a lead lining inside a box, ...

On the other hand, tinder, bow strings or similar small things, I have no problem assuming these will stay dry even when submerged if stored in an hollowed horn or calabash with a cork plug sealed with wax, and I would expect anyone with at least one point in a relevant skill (hiking, soldier, most survival skills, alchemy, ...) to do so with no reminder needed (unless they are dead broke or have some other relevant disadvantage).

Finding dry tinder (or drying some) to resupply in the wild if/when you run out, that's another story.

Torches, they will get wet like any other big item if you travel underwater, unless stored in a barrel or such.
For most torches (birch bark, tissue soaked in pitch/oil, ..), drying them afterward will take time and heat (assuming the immersion did not just destroy them, for cheap ones). But waxed-clothe torches like I described in a post above, I suspect they would survive immersion and light up after a quick wipe and maybe a couple small knife cut to expose an inner layer.

Last edited by Celjabba; 05-22-2023 at 11:20 AM.
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Old 05-22-2023, 03:35 PM   #47
RGTraynor
 
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Default Re: Wet torch

Some of you folks seem to have been blessed with universally sensible players, who always do the right things and always make the right decisions. (That, or you just don't give a damn about resource management, which is of course your right.)

The simple fact that GURPS has advantages like Common Sense and the various SOP perks indicates that the game system makes no such automatic, universal presumptions. But heck, how far do you take your presumptions that the players always know how to operate? Do you just assume that they take the optimum battle stances, with optimal facings and equipment, or do you ask them to tell you how they're arraying ... however experienced they may be?
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Last edited by RGTraynor; 05-22-2023 at 03:50 PM.
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Old 05-22-2023, 03:46 PM   #48
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Default Re: Wet torch

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Originally Posted by RGTraynor View Post
Some of you folks seem to have been blessed with universally sensible players, who always do the right things and always make the right decisions.
No, we assume that the characters may have skills that the players lack, and also have a perspective that the characters lack. There are a lot of things that would be obvious to the characters that may not be obvious to the players, either because they lack the relevant skills, or because the GM is not providing a ten thousand word essay describing every scene.

SOP is for situations where there's a real reason the characters might not do something, typically because it's a practice that is boring, tedious, and rarely necessary. Common Sense is a bad advantage.
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Old 05-23-2023, 12:01 AM   #49
mburr0003
 
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Default Re: Wet torch

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Originally Posted by RGTraynor View Post
Some of you folks seem to have been blessed with universally sensible players, who always do the right things and always make the right decisions. (That, or you just don't give a damn about resource management, which is of course your right.)
Neither.

However, I grew up playing original and BECM D&D, where you had to Rp your social skills, and as a very socially awkward and tongue tied and shy kid, I was hamstrung to never be able to play the noble Knight who made courageous speeches - because I couldn't do that in real life. One of the things that soured me to D&D early on, and though I grew out of that phase (and into a shrewish and socially savvy political schemer in LARPs), that sourness for that style of play always stuck with me.

Why should the Player have to have the skills the PC has? Why does the PC have to have these skills if the GM is going to demand the Player detail them with RP?

So, I tossed that adversarial play style right in the circular filing bin.

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But heck, how far do you take your presumptions that the players always know how to operate?
How would their character act in a movie or book or whatever genre the game is emulating if they were competent at their skill?

And then if the Player decides to detail doing something otherwise, that's different. They want to turn their back on a foe in combat? That's on them, but I won't start them facing a corner if an obvious combat breaks out just because they didn't say "I face my foes..."as part of their RP.

In fact, if I think they're making a tactical error that their character would know better than to make (and the other Players aren't saying anything), I'll say something. If they then wish to embrace the 'mistake' (whether it is or not), I'll feel no shame at exploiting it for the NPC's advantage (if the NPCs are tactically smart enough to do so).

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
No, we assume that the characters may have skills that the players lack, and also have a perspective that the characters lack.
Exactly. As the GM we know what the "board" looks like in our mind, down to every element, especailly all the detials we aren't saying. or drawing, or whatever because at some point you have to stop describing and let the Players play.

Quote:
SOP is for situations where there's a real reason the characters might not do something, typically because it's a practice that is boring, tedious, and rarely necessary.
Or it's something they want to never, ever, forget doing. Or is something they actually would have their character do constantly, but don't want to have to detail it every single time it would come up.

For instance I probably have an SOP of "EDC 'go kits' are always prepared", because I have a 'go kit' (several of them actually, for different things). Every month I swap out the meds in my go kits (asthma, allergy meds, and pain relief) and check the lighter in my "fire box" to make sure it still has fuel; once every year or two I change out the bandaids (sooner if I actually buy new boxes for the house more than once a year or two), ointment packets, etc; in the last twenty years I've changed the sewing thread twice and my emergency clothes a few times (I've gotten bigger); etc. If I find a better poncho, it swaps out for the one in my main bag, likewise with gerbers, pocket knife, pens, etc. Occasionally I add to or reduce something. Y'all get the idea.

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Common Sense is a bad advantage.
Agreed. It's likely the worst Disadvantage in GURPS as it subtly encourages adversarial play by it's very existence.
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Old 05-23-2023, 04:04 AM   #50
Inky
 
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: UK
Default Re: Wet torch

It seems like, this is kind of the same question that's been being discussed in the "Shrewd" thread, about to what extent skills can be used "passively" without having to roll, and from the extent to which people are saying different things there as if they took it for granted that that was RAW, the rules don't say much about that.

Possibly, I've seen some people mention that one way to do this is to allow rolling for whether your character has done something - if somebody argues "My character is a forest elf, he'd know to do that, he does this every day", allow them to make an IQ or Survival roll for whether the elf remembered the thing the player forgot or didn't know about, with the difficulty depending on how obvious the thing is - this can also be used for whether the character remembered to stock up on arrows in town, if the players skipped saying at the time exactly what supplies they bought in town.

It seems like, it's a question of a player can either try to work out how to solve a given problem themselves or they can let their character (i.e. character sheet + dice) try to solve it - some GMs insist on particular things being done by the players, e.g. the "you have to RP social skills" rule, some have different rules, e.g. you're allowed to do social skills by dice roll without having to say the whole of the dialogue. It seems like, it's a matter of what your players are interested in - some players are bored by questions about how you make a camp in the wilderness and want to let their characters handle it (or fail to handle it) with a single Survival roll and get back to fighting goblins, others like discussing the details of how it's done and think that that's part of the fun - and even the latter might get bored with it after a while and start just saying "We make camp the same way as we've been doing".

Possibly, if people are specifically saying their characters do something and it's something daft, that's different - in that case, they're trying to take the wheel and solve the problem themselves rather than let their character sheet do it, and if they cut firewood with their swords, they cut firewood with their swords.
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Last edited by Inky; 05-23-2023 at 04:11 AM.
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