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Old 07-30-2009, 08:51 AM   #1
Extrarius
 
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Default Role-Playing Poor Attempts

There have been many threads on these forums about the idea of giving characters bonuses based on player actions (such as giving a bonus to social skills when a player role-plays the skill well, or is entertaining, etc). While there is much disagreement on whether and how such an idea should be implemented, there seems to be a general consensus that players should role-play successful skill use. Almost no thought seems to be given to the idea of skillfully role-playing poor attempts at skill/ability use.

For example: If a character wants to fast-talk a guard, the player is expected or encouraged to think up a reasonable approach, role-play to the best of their ability fast-talking the guard (through the GM). Sometime during role-playing the encounter (IME generally at the point where the guard would choose to believe the character or not, which is after the character has stated his/her approach), the player rolls and the dice (with bonus, malus, or neither) dictate the outcome.

The key parts here are that (1) the approach should be reasonable, (2) that the player does their best to fast-talk, (3) the dice dictate the outcome after significant role-playing (where the player has the character use the chosen approach), and (4) the character's skill level at the task does not change points 1-3.

In one of the many threads on player ability vs character ability [here], I suggested the idea of rolling before role-playing a situation in order to allow the role-playing match the dice-dictated outcome and encourage a wider range of role-playing.

My questions to all of you are:
How often do you intentionally role-play a poor attempt at a task, such as intentionally having a poor approach to fast-talking somebody?
Under what circumstances do you intentionally role-play a poor attempt?
What methods do you use to make the role-playing match the rolling?
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Old 07-30-2009, 09:01 AM   #2
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

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Originally Posted by Extrarius View Post
The key parts here are that (1) the approach should be reasonable, (2) that the player does their best to fast-talk, (3) the dice dictate the outcome after significant role-playing (where the player has the character use the chosen approach), and (4) the character's skill level at the task does not change points 1-3.

<snip>

My questions to all of you are:
How often do you intentionally role-play a poor attempt at a task, such as intentionally having a poor approach to fast-talking somebody?
Under what circumstances do you intentionally role-play a poor attempt?
What methods do you use to make the role-playing match the rolling?
I'm a little hard pressed to think of a set of circumstances under which this might arise. Has this come up for you, and if so why?

Anyway, it sounds like you're describing a failure of your key points #1 or #2. If that's the case, I might apply a penalty to the roll. At that point, it's just a question of playing out the result, which is likely to be a failure.
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Old 07-30-2009, 09:16 AM   #3
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

Quote:
Originally Posted by Extrarius View Post
My questions to all of you are:
How often do you intentionally role-play a poor attempt at a task, such as intentionally having a poor approach to fast-talking somebody?
Under what circumstances do you intentionally role-play a poor attempt?
What methods do you use to make the role-playing match the rolling?
I'm usually on the other side of the screen. So when I get a chance to play, I like to try to play my character as best I can. Thus, in our recent GURPS Heroes game my character, who has the disad Squeamishness, has run off to blow chunks more than once when confronted by yucky stuff. And I have made him do this without even bothering to roll, just for the fun of it. Because it seemed like good roleplaying.
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Old 07-30-2009, 09:18 AM   #4
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

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Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company View Post
I'm a little hard pressed to think of a set of circumstances under which this might arise. Has this come up for you, and if so why?[...]
If you role-play a very good attempt at fast-talk, and then roll a critical failure, there is a disconnect between the mechanics and the role-playing and the story becomes less plausible and disbelief becomes more difficult to suspend.

Alternately, if your character is not at all skilled at a task, role-playing a poor attempt matches your character's ability. If failure is the more likely outcome, role-playing a poor attempt matches the probable result.

If you're always role-playing quality attempts, then a problem arises any time the dice dictate failure - the outcome doesn't match the role-playing and suspension of disbelief is damaged (even if the damage is only minor).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company View Post
[...]Anyway, it sounds like you're describing a failure of your key points #1 or #2. If that's the case, I might apply a penalty to the roll. At that point, it's just a question of playing out the result, which is likely to be a failure.
My belief is that the numbered key points (especially point #4) are not appropriate expectations because they remove an entire range of role-playing possibilities and cause disconnects between the role-playing and the roll-playing. I apologize for not making this explicit.

Last edited by Extrarius; 07-30-2009 at 09:23 AM.
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Old 07-30-2009, 09:49 AM   #5
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

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Originally Posted by Extrarius View Post
If you're always role-playing quality attempts, then a problem arises any time the dice dictate failure - the outcome doesn't match the role-playing and suspension of disbelief is damaged (even if the damage is only minor).
Ah, I see. You're asking about reconciling pure roleplaying activities with the game result of the dice, which may suggest conflict. What's going on is that good roleplaying enhances the chances of success by the PC in question. The dice represent how well that attempt plays against the rest of the universe. The former influences the latter, but good roleplaying only influences outcomes. It does not determine them, because even the best efforts may be foiled by circumstance. This means, of course, that a "roll before the encounter" approach is bogus.

For example: a PC is going to make a fast-talk attempt to get into a guarded area. Wearing a convincing disguise, he approaches the guard on duty and makes a plausible pitch that he's come to retrieve some object left behind by Bob, the other guard, which has some sentimental value to his wife and must be returned as quickly as possible to get Bob out of trouble. Say, a good-luck charm in the shape of a hippo in the lucky color of blue, a common item in those parts. Bob would have come himself, but he's busy at home keeping his wife from discovering that the object is missing. The PC has done a bit of research to enhance the plausibility of his story. He knows that Bob was on duty during the last shift, that he is married, etc., etc., etc. Anyway, the PC makes his pitch. This is played out with the PC making his impassioned plea to the guard on duty to help out their mutual friend Bob, perhaps with a few sympathetic noises by the guard on duty. It is only at this point, half-way through the encounter, that the dice are rolled, because it is impossible before this to see just how plausible the approach is and how well it is delivered.

But then the player rolls a critical failure. This does not mean that the pitch was, on its face, unconvincing or implausible. It indicates, rather, some highly improbable, fatal flaw in the plan previously unknown to the PC. Maybe Bob's wife's big family secret is that she's from a cultural minority which holds blue to be unlucky or hippos to be blaspehmous. Maybe Bob's secretly angling for a divorce and would be trying to quietly sequester all of the valuable community property he could before letting his wife know there's something going wrong. At any rate, whatever the problem may be is something which Bob has kept a secret from everybody except his best friend/cousin/secret lover/other flavor of confidant who just happens to be the one on duty to be approached by the PC, and is the only one able to spot the flaw in the story. The PC's "failure" isn't necessarily in an unconvincing manner, but in having incomplete information, and the GM can always come up with a plausible justification for the PC not knowing everything. And at that point, as I say, it's playing out the results of the failure.

Does that help?
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Last edited by Turhan's Bey Company; 07-30-2009 at 10:01 AM.
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Old 07-30-2009, 09:58 AM   #6
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

In a case like that, I would rule that the opposing party doesn't buy it. It's not a matter of player making awesome speech then having the dice roll say "No you didn't." It's more like the player gives the awesome speech, but the NPC is somehow not impressed. Takes nothing away from the player or the dice.
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Old 07-30-2009, 10:12 AM   #7
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

I think there is an important distinction between "role-playing well" and "role-playing a quality attempt". I'd argue that "role-playing well" means role-playing that matches the situation. If a character is trying a skill they're not good at, then "role-playing a poor attempt" would be "role-playing well" on the part of that character's player.

The distinction between character and player is very important as well:

In your example, you say the character did research and the player used the character's knowledge to role-play a skill use, and it fails because the character had incomplete knowledge and thus the player had incomplete knowledge. If the character had the appropriate investigation abilities and used them for research, then used the fast-talk ability, the whole scenario was well played and was character-centric.

My example, on the other hand, was not about the character. The belief system I was outlining includes the belief that the player should always role-play a quality skill use regardless of whether the character is any good at the appropriate skill.

If we make slight modifications to your example, and say the character has no abilities relevant for researching such topics and nobody with such skills to suggest that approach, that approach would be entirely inappropriate for that situation even though it would still be a quality approach. In this case "role-playing a quality attempt" would not be "role-playing well" because the role-playing would not match the character's abilities.

If failures are role-played appropriately, then they'll vary significantly based on the skill of the character. A failure by highly-skilled character might fit your example, where the failure is based on subtle missing information. A failure by a less skilled character would be based on something appropriately less subtle.

There can be just as much skill used to role-play a failure well as used to role-play a success well, and it seems to me that the belief set I outline in my original post prevents that whole area of role-playing from ever coming up in most games.
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Old 07-30-2009, 11:54 AM   #8
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

My players, those that actually engage in roleplaying at all , usually work in their bad rolls into their attempts. If they botch a roll they'll play the stumbler; if they do well they'll make it glib and convincing. If they roll first I usually give a bonus or penalty based on how well they do with their argument. That *usually* makes the RP match the mechanics but not always. We play it off as attitude or I'll find some part of their speech that might have hacked the guy off...or I'll maybe extend the diplomacy across another roll. If they gave a pretty convincing argument but botched a roll to deliver it mechanically I'll sometimes let them roll again at a penalty - "you didn't convince him but he's still listening". Nothing's ever perfect but it seems to work for us.
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Old 07-30-2009, 12:26 PM   #9
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

If someone RPs an interaction, there isn't a roll. The only time there is a roll is when I genuinely don't know how the NPC is going to react, or if they're just barely on the cusp of belief. And I take into account the character's skill levels and any bonuses/penalties they might have. The player doesn't have to roll.

In our first Heavy Gear game, all those years ago, Ziggy asked me for a handful of information before he made an intimidation "attack" against a guard on the other side of a secure door. He took about ten-twenty seconds to get his thoughts together (not an unreasonable request from a player the first time we've actually played the game) and launched into an incredible display of how to use the English language as a weapon. After about five minutes of beratement the guard opened the door. Ziggy had intimidated me, and I was the GM knowing the whole situation was fake. What chance did a lowly guard have?

Now, Ziggy wasn't trying to intimidate me. He was doing this all in character, and his speach was aimed at the guard. This was role-playing at it's most intense.
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Old 07-30-2009, 12:30 PM   #10
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Default Re: Role-Playing Poor Attempts

I've seen groups that would give the basic outline of their argument- get a + or - based on that- roll and then roleplay the result
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