Legends and Lore: Out of Bounds

[pemerton]

Thewok's example was a poetry contest, so I assume the judges are poetry lovers. You wrote that if the player "composes and recites some beautiful poetry, than that's what has happened in the game". So now in the fiction, we have an actual beautiful piece of poetry produced by the PC. There's now a face-off against the quality of the poetry of the NPC. You can roll a random die to see whose is better, or the DM can decide that the NPC's poetry is inferior (and whose to say one way or another?). It's not that one way is wrong or right. It's just that one way is in-bounds and the other is out-of-bounds. Part of that, I think, is reliance (perhaps over-reliance) on die rolls and application of the rules *all the time*. In this case, I would probably just give the player an automatic success or a big modifier. Because it's a game, and I feel it inspires the player to roleplay more. A dinky +2 bonus just isn't enough motivation for everyone.

My approach here would be to let the player decide whether they wanted to play it out. If they did, and produced great stuff, it would be inappropriate to make a 'how good is your poetry' roll; but there might be a case for making 'what is the impact of your poetry' check, eg Diplomacy or Bluff.

I'll admit I wasn't really thinking about the context of a poetry contest. (Why not, given what I was responding to? Dunno - my brain got switched to a different track between reading the posts and typing replies.) I was thinking of the production of poetry in a broader context (eg wooing, or otherwise impressing).

But I tend to think along S'mon's lines. (And I'm also influenced a bit by BW's Duel of Wits mechanics.) The real question in the scene seems to be "Who do the judges favour?". And that's something for which there are action resolution mechanics, which I tend to favour engaging. If the contest was being resolved as a skill challenge (the default 4e approach if something is at stake - if nothing is at stake, then free roleplaying will produce the result that a player who produces some tolerable poetry wins) then I'd be happy to treat a beautiful piece of poetry as one success in the challenge. (I've never done this with poetry before, but have done it with combat - ie winning a duel, in a certain context, has counted as a success in a skill challenge.) But other successes would be needed. And of course, if a PC produces the best poetry, but nevertheless (for some reason) loses the contest, that seems potentially interesting in itself. What was going on behind the scenes?

This also goes to bigger issues of scene framing. In the poetry competition, how do the other PCs (and players) fit in? I would likely have framed the scene so that the need to compose a poem is only one element of the overall situation. Which again means that a real life beautiful composition is contributing to resolution of only one component of the total situation.

 

[S'mon]

In my game one PC is trained in Bluff but not Diplomacy, and another vice versa. But sometimes the player of the first uses Diplomacy rather than lying because he doesn't want the consequences, in the fiction, of lying. And sometimes the player of the second lies rather than uses Diplomacy because he doesn't want the consequences, in the fiction, of being nice and/or telling the truth.

I don't think it's a good idea to only allow Bluff rolls where the PC is actually lying! You get these strange results where a PC can make the NPC believe any lie, but not the truth! Much better IMO to treat it as a broader "Fast Talk" or "Patter" skill, which is not grounded in the necessary falsehood of the statement. I see it as the 'Salesman' skill - it's the skill that lets me enter negotiations with the car salesman for a car listed at £6,000, and walk out having paid £6,500 for the car + some useless junk which at that moment he persuaded me was a fantastic bargain. Whether the salesman actually believed the junk was worth £500 is irrelevant - in fact at that moment he probably did believe - part of being a great Bluffer is Bluffing yourself!

 

[S'mon]

Thewok's example was a poetry contest, so I assume the judges are poetry lovers. You wrote that if the player "composes and recites some beautiful poetry, than that's what has happened in the game". So now in the fiction, we have an actual beautiful piece of poetry produced by the PC. There's now a face-off against the quality of the poetry of the NPC. You can roll a random die to see whose is better, or the DM can decide that the NPC's poetry is inferior (and whose to say one way or another?). It's not that one way is wrong or right. It's just that one way is in-bounds and the other is out-of-bounds. Part of that, I think, is reliance (perhaps over-reliance) on die rolls and application of the rules *all the time*. In this case, I would probably just give the player an automatic success or a big modifier. Because it's a game, and I feel it inspires the player to roleplay more. A dinky +2 bonus just isn't enough motivation for everyone.

One way to handle it would be to treat the PC as having rolled 20 on a Diplomacy, Bluff or Insight check (whichever is best - I'm not into forcing players t to use suboptimal skills if at all possible) then have the NPC make their own opposed roll against the target DC. This is similar in effect to giving the PC a +9 or +10 bonus on their own roll.

 

[S'mon]

And of course, if a PC produces the best poetry, but nevertheless (for some reason) loses the contest, that seems potentially interesting in itself. What was going on behind the scenes?

I agree 100%.

Bad DM: "OK Maya, you thought you were reciting beautiful poetry, but actually it came out all wrong! The judges hated it."

Good DM: "OK Maya, your beautiful poetry brings tears to the eyes of the judges. Yet... they award the prize to Wormtongue! What is going on?!"

Disclaimer: I am not saying whether Maya Angelou actually writes good poetry.

Edit: Mediocre DM says: "OK Maya, sorry but it doesn't matter what your poetry was like, the adventure says the judges decide for Wormtongue". - I had this happen to me recently.

 

[LurkAway]

Good DM: "OK Maya, your beautiful poetry brings tears to the eyes of the judges. Yet... they award the prize to Wormtongue! What is going on?!"

I also agree. I assumed that the poetry contest was not something of significant stake. The dangers of a theoretical example, I guess. In this case, the player still feels well-inspired to roleplay; it was just bad luck that he was up against Wormtongue, or the contest was rigged!

So did the PC lose the poetry contest because the contest was rigged, or was the contest rigged because the PC lost the poetry contest? *

* Yes I know it's the latter, but it's not in the spirit of out-of-bounds roleplaying when the fiction is determined by the luck of the mechanics, hmph!

 

[pemerton]

Mediocre DM says: "OK Maya, sorry but it doesn't matter what your poetry was like, the adventure says the judges decide for Wormtongue". - I had this happen to me recently.

That kinda sucks.

At least Bad DM has the decency to override your colour, rather than to create this strange disconnect between player-contributed colour and railroaded plot.

But a week or so ago I remember reading a post where someone endorsed Bad DM's approach - that is, a poor skill roll means that the PC's words are spoken differently from what the player said. Which just goes to show that everyone's bad GM is someone else's good GM!

 

[pemerton]

So did the PC lose the poetry contest because the contest was rigged, or was the contest rigged because the PC lost the poetry contest? *

* Yes I know it's the latter, but it's not in the spirit of out-of-bounds roleplaying when the fiction is determined by the luck of the mechanics, hmph!

I think you're right, at least about the spirit of Monte's out-of-bounds roleplaying. I don't think he's a "say yes or roll the dice" guy!

But now, to try and turn the tables: the fiction wasn't determined solely by the luck of the mechanics. It's because the player did something out-of-bounds (composed a beautiful poem) that, given the luck of the mechanics, it turns out to be narrated as a rigged contest. So the player choice still mattered - quite importantly - to the fiction.

Compare Monte-style out-of-bounds play - a player comes up with a zany scheme, the GM assign a % chance of success, and then the die is rolled and its result, in combination with the player choice to pursue the crazy scheme, determines the fictional outcome.

I think that there is a difference between these two ways of player choice mattering, but interacting with the dice rolls to produce a final fictional outcome. I know the labels for that difference - the poetry contest is "fortune in the middle", whereas the zany scheme is "fortune at the end". But I'd be interested to hear what others have to say that goes beyond those labels. Why are these such different approaches to play, even though they both make the fiction be a consequence of choice interacting with fortune?

 

[LurkAway]

But now, to try and turn the tables: the fiction wasn't determined solely by the luck of the mechanics. It's because the player did something out-of-bounds (composed a beautiful poem) that, given the luck of the mechanics, it turns out to be narrated as a rigged contest. So the player choice still mattered - quite importantly - to the fiction.

Yes, that's true, which leads me to think that...

Compare Monte-style out-of-bounds play - a player comes up with a zany scheme, the GM assign a % chance of success, and then the die is rolled and its result, in combination with the player choice to pursue the crazy scheme, determines the fictional outcome.

...it's not necessarily so delineated. Firstly, I think your generic example above is incomplete because "Monte-style" might mean not rolling a die at all.

Also, the playstyle difference between in-bounds and out-of-bounds is a spectrum. Near one end, the player recites beautiful poetry but his average Cha/Int fighter gets zero bonus. At the other end, he gets an automatic success (or failure!?). Our rigged contest must fall somewhere in the middle.

EDIT: In our working example, the player made 2 attempts at out-of-bounds roleplaying:
1) he recited beautiful poetry (no poetry skill on his character sheet)
2) if/when asked to justify how his average Int/Cha figher recites poetry, he suggested the dunce fighter was fey-touched or has the soul of an ancient poet (no rules supporting this)

The DM can then choose how to roleplay (in ascending order of in-bounds to out-of-bounds)
1) sorry, no modifier
2) max +2 modifier
3) equivalent to rolling a 20 against the DC, or one auto-success in a skill challenge
4) automatic success

So I think our rigged contest is the product of out-of-bounds by the player and semi-out-of-bounds by the DM.

Actually, theoretically, our DM might rule that the rigged contest automatically beats the player's poetry and declares a failure for the PC without ever rolling a die. That's also out-of-bounds roleplaying, so it's not always a good thing!

 

[billd91]

I don't think that anyone's saying that every obstacle has to be solved right then and there with stuff from the character sheet. That's ludicrous.

I actually get the impression that some people are saying that in this conversation.

The expectation, though, is for there to be some way to get past that obstacle at some point, using the character's abilities rather than the player's.

I'm not even sure that's possible, at the end of the day. All RPGs, even if you roll tasks constantly, revolve around the player's ability to manipulate his character effectively and creatively - requiring use of his own knowledge and skills. And I don't think we completely want to remove that from the game either. If the character being played doesn't have some essential spark of the player involved, making an interesting story through individual decision-making, it might as well be a board game governed entirely by rolling dice or some other randomizer like cards in Uncle Wiggly or Candyland.

But if I set up a poetry contest as an obstacle, I'm not going to allow the 10-charisma, 8-int Fighter any bonuses, even if he's played by John Keats or Maya Angelou. What I will do, however, is let the 20-charisma, 16-intelligence bard, played by someone who hates poetry gain a bonus (+2 only, though) if he attempts to write something approximating iambic pentameter. Now, if the poet player wants to help, then he might be able to act as a ghostwriter, but the impact of the poem would come down to the performance of the speaker, which is indicated by a die roll modified by a character skill/ability modifier.

Oh, I'll always give the player a chance to try it in character role play before I roll it. If it's a particularly difficult intellectual challenge (and face it, reciting off the cuff poetry in a typical gamer group is a little ballsy), I'll be inclined to give a +2 circumstance bonus for being game enough to try it. If they do really well, I'll double that bonus. Then we'll roll using the character's inherent abilities and skills.

You'll note that "Poetry Composition" is not a skill on the character sheet. But I will use things like Int, Cha and Insight checks to approximate the actions necessary.

Depends on which edition of the game you're playing. I can think of a few that do have appropriate skills for it that can be directly invested in. My wife played a half-ogre cook in our Shackled City campaign and got into a bake-off challenge for the Flood Festival against the chef of a noble house. She had invested in the right skill and did well against an expert with skill focus in the same skill. She didn't win, but she still made a great impression on the crowd and got quite a bit of reputation.

Or maybe the group will come up with a way to bypass the contest entirely and find some other way of gaining the artifact they need. Even this alternate way will come about as a result of the characters' abilities and not the players'.

See, by doing this, I think the PCs are already making use of the players' abilities. In this case, with no poetry skill, the ability to make a smarter/wiser decision without resorting to some mechanic based on intelligence or wisdom.

I think it's all well and good to rely on a PC's inherent abilities for the bulk of an individual task resolution, but I'm pretty much always going to reward good ideas based on a player's own abilities with bonuses. And if the idea is good enough, I'll skip rolling the dice entirely and just say yes.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

But if I set up a poetry contest as an obstacle, I'm not going to allow the 10-charisma, 8-int Fighter any bonuses, even if he's played by John Keats or Maya Angelou. What I will do, however, is let the 20-charisma, 16-intelligence bard, played by someone who hates poetry gain a bonus (+2 only, though) if he attempts to write something approximating iambic pentameter. Now, if the poet player wants to help, then he might be able to act as a ghostwriter, but the impact of the poem would come down to the performance of the speaker, which is indicated by a die roll modified by a character skill/ability modifier.

I had these kind of discrepancies a lot when I first started playing Basic. What we did then, and I've done ever since, is to allow a high stat to mean that the player gets help from other players at the table. So in your example, the player of that bard can call on the player of the fighter to help with the roleplaying/challenge. In the game, it is the bard that is doing everything. At the metagaming level, having a 20 Cha and a 16 Int for an appropriate challenge means you can get as much help from the rest of the table as you want. (Hey, I lucked into a minor version of "wisdom of crowds" before the term was invented. )

Of course, we also played it the reverse for low stats. Having a 4 Cha meant that your characters' statements would tend to be the worst of whatever was blurted out by the other players. Since I've normally played in groups that didn't mind a certain amount of making other characters look bad, this is not to be dismissed lightly.