Lanefan
Victoria Rules
"Sometimes nothings lead to the best somethings." - Winnie the Pooh.holding your tongue isn’t an action. It’s doing nothing.
"Sometimes nothings lead to the best somethings." - Winnie the Pooh.holding your tongue isn’t an action. It’s doing nothing.
If they are at 1, they are friendly. Anywhere in between is indifferent. They start at a predetermined attitude (possibly random), say, 4. At this point I raise various objections or tough questions by the NPC during the conversation that the PCs can try to overcome or answer. If they do, then the slider moves toward friendly. If they don't, it moves toward hostile. Once I'm out of objections or questions, that's the final attitude of the NPC and now we can get to the PCs' ask.
Roger that about the success with setback. I probably should have phrased it with 'you succeed or you fail.' The complaint wasn't that you couldn't fail forward with the DMG method, but that it either results in a success or a failure, there's no real way for it to end in a more complex situation where you might overall succeed at the goal but have lasting consequences from failures along the way, or fail at your goal but still have some lasting consequences from your successes. The roll-up to the final check leaves the outcome of the whole situation up to the GM's end narration rather than accruing as you go.One thing to bear in mind is that if you use the social interaction rules as written, the ask at the end is still an ability check (if there's an ability check at all) which means a botched roll can be resolved into failure or progress combined with a setback. So it doesn't have to be "you get it or you don't." Progress combined with a setback is generally how I do it.
It sounds like we may do something similar with multiple steps during the conversation piece. What I often do is have a slider on the screen or at the table that is labeled 1 to 6. If the NPC is at 6, they are hostile. If they are at 1, they are friendly. Anywhere in between is indifferent. They start at a predetermined attitude (possibly random), say, 4. At this point I raise various objections or tough questions by the NPC during the conversation that the PCs can try to overcome or answer. If they do, then the slider moves toward friendly. If they don't, it moves toward hostile. Once I'm out of objections or questions, that's the final attitude of the NPC and now we can get to the PCs' ask.
I genuinely don't think there's a bad answer here, but I'm curious: Is that slider visible to the players?
Yes, it's visible to the players. Visually moving that slider toward hostile reinforces the failure and increases the tension.
Roger that about the success with setback. I probably should have phrased it with 'you succeed or you fail.' The complaint wasn't that you couldn't fail forward with the DMG method, but that it either results in a success or a failure, there's no real way for it to end in a more complex situation where you might overall succeed at the goal but have lasting consequences from failures along the way, or fail at your goal but still have some lasting consequences from your successes. The roll-up to the final check leaves the outcome of the whole situation up to the GM's end narration rather than accruing as you go.
I mean, there was a turtle (the baron), and then another turtle (the Captain) and according to you the Captain's failure state wasn't discussed, so there could be another turtle under him and so forth.Turtles all the way down isn't a compelling argument, no. Of course, no one has suggested that it's turtles all the way down, so....
For soem reason I'm reminded of a situation in the game I play in, from a few years back:Sure. In instances when the a party has all been dealing with someone like that, it's usually been because all the party wanted to be there--and I've let the PCs who wanted to speak, speak, and not beaten up on someone for having a low CHA. So far, no one has tried insulting their way to social success, so I haven't had to deal with this precise problem.
I don't mind it. The structure is that every check along the way changes the fiction in a substantial way, but doesn't individually result in overall success of failure. So, yes, it is transactional in that each check has an independent pay-off, but it's also cumulative, in that the total number of successes and failures determines the overall result.I see. It does seem to be very transactional in that regard for lack of a better word.
Massive disconnect here.
The PC is being retired by the player thus is (for now or forever) no longer adventuring; but the player still controls what it does in its retirement. This can be as simple as saying "I stay in town and do spell research for a few years." (which really needs little if any further input from anyone until those few years are up) or as complex as "I hire a ship and a crew and where the map is blank, I go." (which probably means a night in the pub sometime where you and the player determine what becomes of this voyage).
Reprise his ownership? Ownership never left the player in the first place!
Ah...something's beginning to dawn on me here - are you coming from a strict standpoint of "a player may only ever have one PC in the campaign world at a time"? Because if this is so, there's another big disconnect: as both player and DM I expect players to end up with several (or more!) PCs out there in the game world, of whom one or two are active at any given time.
In the game I play in, I currently have nine. One is in the party we'll (I think) be playing tonight. Another three are in three other active parties, each currently on hold while we play this one. One is retired for now; one is retired probably forever, but they are both still mine. One has in effect made herself a hench to another player's PC and if asked I'd hand her over either to that player or the DM. And two who I had thought were long-term dead were recently found and rescued (one) and revived (the other), so in that party I'll have three active PCs if-when we get back to it, at least for the remainder of that adventure. (I've good in-character reasons to split 'em up afterwards)
Retiring my PC from adventuring is my choice, and a common enough occurrence. Retiring my control over that PC - particularly if I'm still otherwise in the game - is also my choice and mine alone, and is an extremely rare occurrence. The two choices are not tied together.
That, and often I'm retiring one PC in order to cycle another back in; and in a year I might reverse the process. Gets boring playing the same one all the time.
If that PC's player is still in the game the PC is the player's to control.
If that PC's player has left the game I'll only use it with the player's permission (if I can contact said player) or I won't use it at all. The exceptions to this are a) having old characters reappear in something like a dream sequence, that has no lasting impact on anything or b) active PCs touching base with retired characters to keep up friendships, exchange info, and the like.
Even if that player is still sitting there at the table?
This touches on a whole different can o' worms, that being adventuring NPCs and their status within the party. I treat 'em just like PCs, as do the players; mostly because the PCs in the fiction would treat them as just one of the team.
Again a hard one-PC-per-player stance; I'd almost always allow the player to run both; even more so in this case because it's the other players (as PCs) seeking out that character.