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Judgement calls vs "railroading"
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7096155" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>But the absence of a secret door isn't the only possible failure narration for a failed check to find a secret door. It depends on the skill tested, on the framing of the check, on the motivations/goals that lie behind the check, etc.</p><p></p><p>Here's the example I was referring to (Adventure Burner, pp 304-5; Codex, pp 210-11):</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Pete: "I'm going to find a secret entrance into the Citadel of the Unconquered Sun."</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">Thor (as GM): "No way. We already established that this keep is the strongest in the entire kingdom. You failed that Citadel-wise test way back at the start of the campaign. . . ."</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px">[O]nce it's established that the Citadel of the Unconquered Sun has no secret entrances and the only means of ingress is the front gate, that remains true until the players dig their own tunnel or the GM introduces a situatio in which a foreign army lays siege to the place and sends in sappers.</p><p></p><p>But establishing that there are no secret entrances, because it's the strongest keep in the kingdom, isn't the only possible failure result. It makes sense as a failure result for Citadel-wise; but what if the attempt, at the start of the campaign, had been a test on Rumour-wise (to learn rumours of secret entrances)?</p><p></p><p>Or suppose that a player delcares a Perception check to look for a secret door at a dead end. And s/he declares that s/he (in character) is searching carefully (so as to get a bonus die). And the check fails, meaning that the GM is licensed to introduce a significant time-based complication: so the GM might narrate, "As you are carefully tapping the wall, listening for hollow places, you hear boots coming along the corridor - it sounds like the iron-shod boots of goblins! And then the wall in front of you opens - there <em>is</em> a secret door, with goblins on the other side of it. It looks like you're just in time for a rendezvous of forces!"</p><p></p><p>As I said, a failure to find <em>X</em> can be for any number of reasons other than the absence of <em>X</em>. Upthread, for instance, I noted that a possible failure for a check to find a vessel to catch blood in might be that the character notices the vessel just in time to see it knocked to the ground by the other struggling characters, and smash on the floor.</p><p></p><p>It depends on the context and significance of the check (and the GM's imagination, obviously).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7096155, member: 42582"] But the absence of a secret door isn't the only possible failure narration for a failed check to find a secret door. It depends on the skill tested, on the framing of the check, on the motivations/goals that lie behind the check, etc. Here's the example I was referring to (Adventure Burner, pp 304-5; Codex, pp 210-11): [indent]Pete: "I'm going to find a secret entrance into the Citadel of the Unconquered Sun." Thor (as GM): "No way. We already established that this keep is the strongest in the entire kingdom. You failed that Citadel-wise test way back at the start of the campaign. . . ." [O]nce it's established that the Citadel of the Unconquered Sun has no secret entrances and the only means of ingress is the front gate, that remains true until the players dig their own tunnel or the GM introduces a situatio in which a foreign army lays siege to the place and sends in sappers.[/indent] But establishing that there are no secret entrances, because it's the strongest keep in the kingdom, isn't the only possible failure result. It makes sense as a failure result for Citadel-wise; but what if the attempt, at the start of the campaign, had been a test on Rumour-wise (to learn rumours of secret entrances)? Or suppose that a player delcares a Perception check to look for a secret door at a dead end. And s/he declares that s/he (in character) is searching carefully (so as to get a bonus die). And the check fails, meaning that the GM is licensed to introduce a significant time-based complication: so the GM might narrate, "As you are carefully tapping the wall, listening for hollow places, you hear boots coming along the corridor - it sounds like the iron-shod boots of goblins! And then the wall in front of you opens - there [I]is[/I] a secret door, with goblins on the other side of it. It looks like you're just in time for a rendezvous of forces!" As I said, a failure to find [I]X[/I] can be for any number of reasons other than the absence of [I]X[/I]. Upthread, for instance, I noted that a possible failure for a check to find a vessel to catch blood in might be that the character notices the vessel just in time to see it knocked to the ground by the other struggling characters, and smash on the floor. It depends on the context and significance of the check (and the GM's imagination, obviously). [/QUOTE]
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