OK.
Upthread you asked what leads to the game producing intimate moments; what I could also describe as a type of intense focus on particular details of the characters. Here's a thing that I once posted:
To me, that's the answer to a number of your questions.
Nope.
See, I can understand why you would consider that to be an intimate moment. It's quite likely I would as well.
It's when you say that BW
is better than other games at doing it, and this intimate moment is caused through dice rolls which determine who "won" a particular argument or discussion--that's where I have the problem. Because I've had or witnessed
many such intimate moments in many different RPGs, all of which involve the player(s) discussing things without a single die roll involved.
The fact that BW does not gloss over small things when they matter (which is a function of the priorities that the player has established for their PC) is part of what enables it to generate the sort of feel that I describe. The "not glossing over" further depends on particular details of design - eg that the game has a rule for resolving the action declaration "I look for a vessel to catch the cup".
Except that you have said you don't need to roll for every single thing the player does. And not everything a player does is going to be equally important.
I've played RPGs that don't have a rule for that, other than the GM just deciding whether or not a vessel is present, or perhaps rolling on a random table for room contents; but that takes the focus away from the character's situation and what they are experiencing -
No it doesn't. It puts the focus on the things that are actually important and interesting to the player, like the action of getting the blood to the naga, dealing with the assassin, or potentially even gathering the blood in the first place.
OK, sure. I'm sure there are some people who find rolling perception checks for things that should be readily visible to them to be fun. I'm not one of them, and I don't know anyone IRL who is.
This is why I say that I don't think you are really following the rules and principles that govern the game. The "horror story" you've just described is al about the GM keeping stakes secret, and springing consequences on the players that don't pertain to whether they succeed or fail at their declared actions.
Yes. And that's the vibe that I get from your game.
I don't mean the mechanics. I mean the vibe. You've even said it yourself: there's no vessel in the room because you didn't say there was one there when you described the room; there's no social agreement and everything has to be resolved with dice. It's that sort of rigid nitpickiness that puts me in mind of those sort of GMs.
That's the exact opposite of BW, as I've been explaining and illustrating over many posts now.
OK? Those sound more like games that focus on logistics, or planning, or problem/puzzle-solving. That's really not what BW aspires to - logistics, or the solving of puzzles/problems, are incidental matters, means to the end of focusing in detail on these characters and whether or not they are succeeding in their struggles. You can't do that if the GM just decides that they succeed.
Likewise, you can't do what I just said BW aims to do if the player can just decide that they succeed.
OK,
here you're proving you're not actually understanding anything that I've been writing. Like, at all.
"You need to bring blood to the naga, but there's an assassin there who killed the guy whose blood you need." Now, I can't remember what
exactly you said so I will say that for this version of the example, the naga said
get me blood right now, you measly biped, or you will learn first-hand how far my jaw can dislocate!, meaning the PC has to hurry. Let's break down the tasks involved here:
Task 1: Getting to the sick room in time.
Task 2: Seeing a cup.
Task 3: Getting to the cup while avoiding the assassin,
or Fighting the assassin, then getting to the cup.
Task 4: Getting to the corpse while avoiding the assassin,
or Fighting the assassin, then getting to the corpse.
Task 5: Getting the blood
in the cup and
not all over you.
Task 6: Getting the blood
back to the naga in time
while keeping onlookers, guards, etc. from seeing you're carrying blood in a cup.
I think that's all of it. Any tasks I missed?
Now, lets resolve them:
Part 1: The PC has to both hurry
and walk casual
and possibly avoid people who are trying to get his attention. I can see any of a couple of different rolls being called here. Some sort of skill for the running, some sort of skill for the faux-casual walk (you know he's sweating bullets), some sort of skill to avoid having to deal with people who would delay him, and maybe even some sort of skill to talk his way into the area where the wounded guy is getting killed. This is dramatic, even possibly cinematic. Anywhere from 1-4 skills can be rolled here.
Part 2: The PC then gets to the sick room, which is laid out like any other sick room and thus has cups, bowls, jugs, and jars. Except you didn't describe them. So a perception-type check. +1 skill check.
Part 3 and Part 4: We'll combine the resolution of these steps as follows:
- If the PC decides to fight or try to drive off the assassin, that's combat. This is dramatic.
- If the PC tries to dodge around the assassin (whether the assassin is fleeing or lunging towards the PC), this calls for one or two dodge/acrobatics-type rolls. This is dramatic.
- If the assassin decides to flee and the PC lets them, then this calls for no rolls for them to then walk across the room and grab the cup--unless BW requires you to roll to walk across a room. This is not dramatic.
- I don't know how long combat in BW normally takes or how many die rolls are involved; quick research brought up a "simple martial conflict" and a "bloody versus test" and "full fight rules," my gods, with the idea that the latter two are for more important combats and holy crap this game has weapon speeds and does different damage depending on the armor worn what is this AD&D? Ahem. You can decide how important this combat is. But in D&D, let's say this would last, oh, three rounds, so we'll say a maximum of six die rolls. At least you don't need to roll for damage in BW. So anywhere from +0 to +6 checks.
Part 5 probably requires nothing more than a manual dexterity-type roll. +1 skill check.
Part 6 is going to be a redux of Part 1, only maybe harder depending on if they did badly in Part 5 and got blood all over them and also because they are carrying a cup with blood in it. +1 to +4 skill checks. Did you know that redux isn't in firefox's dictionary?
So, in my version of these events, there's anywhere from four to sixteen skill checks. Assuming you're going with a basic type of combat that's over quickly. It could actually be a much higher number.
Of course, that's me listing out the skills one by one and having combat. There are other methods of doing all these things, of course. I could do it as a skill challenge and require X successes before Y failures, like in D&D 4e. I could do it as a variant of an exploration challenge in Level Up. I could use the heist rules from BitD. And before you say anything, I'm actually quite good at converting things from one system to another. Assuming BW doesn't already have rules for these things.
So anywhere from four to sixteen rolls or more--and you think that the player is just deciding they succeed at this task if I get rid of
one of those rolls as unnecessary?
