Obstacles and advancement

[trial]

It says that in most tests even if one failed the test he still gains to record he tried an obstacle of a certain difficulty.
What if a character then tries to lift up a huge boulder which he has no chance of lifting up? lets say an obstacle 8. Will he still get a challenging test checked?
Perhaps for failing a challenging test you will only get a routine test, or perhaps it depends on how well you did with the roll.
What do you say?

[Mickeroo]

It has to be an applicable situation. He had to have a chance to pass it also, at least that's what I do. He has to either put artha into it, or have it as an open ended test already. By applicable situation, that means that there has to be an ingame reason for needing to lift the boulder, like, to save the person beneath it. To have a chance, that means that, with artha/open-endedness, he has to have a chance of rolling 8 dice, practically. So if he has a b2 power and plans on open ending it, then no. But a b6, maybe. But a test is a test, so if you fail or pass, it was still challenging.

To try to prevent test-whoring, just throw in consequences, like the charcter thows his back out when he tries to lift it.

[Redoid]

The GM decides when test are in order. If a character tries to lift a boulder to show off, with no discernable purpose, he'll at most get a training time for Power, but not a test. If a character, even with B2 power, tries to throw a boulder on an enemy, requiring eight success, I would say that it's an automatic failure and doesn't require a test. If he was trying to prevent a boulder from rolling (ala Indiana Jones) over his friends would get a test for Power. And for Squishiness.

[Angaros]

I'm with Redoid. IMC all tests that I call for as GM count towards advancement. Previously I tested the "only in campaign-relevant situations" approach and found that the numbers barely moved and that it also led to me allowing (or requiring) the players to make a whole lot of unneccesary tests. Somewhere else on the forum Luke made the point that the advancement systems forces the GM and players to find a balance between "rolling to see if tasks fail" and "interpreting numbers to see what a character can reasonably do" (or at least that's how I interpreted what he said). This has forced me to think how rolling dice in a specific situation affects the story.

If the knightly characters go around the village scaring the shit out of poor peasants just for fun it's not a situation I'll hand over to the dice (by rolling Intimidation tests). It's more reasonable to just look at their sheets, assess the situation and describe a sensible outcome. The villagers will probably get really scared by their behaviour, especially if they're mounted on friggin destriers and wielding large swords and axes. On the other hand, if they're turning the village upside down trying to scare people into giving up the location of the local Robin Hood whose men has killed one of their squires tests are in order since they can help push the story forward. Requiring the players to roll dice in every situation that their characters are in only slows the game down. It's better that I as a GM focus on making the game flow better.

When using this approach it is of course important that the GM is fair and honest when judging what kind of impact the characters have on the setting. It's easy to slip and try to compete with the characters using NPCs and that isn't going to lead anywhere fun.

[luke]

The GM decides when test are in order. If a character tries to lift a boulder to show off, with no discernable purpose, he'll at most get a training time for Power, but not a test. If a character, even with B2 power, tries to throw a boulder on an enemy, requiring eight success, I would say that it's an automatic failure and doesn't require a test. If he was trying to prevent a boulder from rolling (ala Indiana Jones) over his friends would get a test for Power. And for Squishiness.

Spot on in the first bit, my friend. Just make sure, in the second bit, that you don't squash heroic intent with GM fiat. Auto-failing tests is bad. It ususally better to let them suffer the consequences of a poorly planned or preposterous action: "While noodling with the boulder (aka testmongering), you're friends are overrun."

But it's almost always always always better to let the player test his ability. Rolling the dice is what it's all about, so long as there is a conflict. If there is no conflict, if there's nothing at stake in a scene, there are no tests to be given. Why? Because those scenes aren't played out! Describe the color and move on to the important stuff.

-L

[Redoid]

[
Spot on in the first bit, my friend. Just make sure, in the second bit, that you don't squash heroic intent with GM fiat. Auto-failing tests is bad. It ususally better to let them suffer the consequences of a poorly planned or preposterous action: "While noodling with the boulder (aka testmongering), you're friends are overrun."


Yes, you're right, introducing complications due to this failed test is better than auto-failing the test, as it's more interesting from a story point of view and empowers the characters.

However, I sometimes prefer to describe scenes without having the player roll (like, the boulder is 5 tons, there is no way you can move it) rather than say: roll, "you need eight successess to push the boulder in the right direction..." unless I was sure the player was begging for tests. I had in the past made rather obscure descriptions of scenes, leading to PC taking a stupid course of actions, totally justified because I just didn't explain well, so now I am making sure there's no misunderstanding :) Of course, if after being warned, the player persists in wanting to attempt something over the top, he won't complain if he sprains his ankle while lifting the boulder.

[Redoid]

[
Spot on in the first bit, my friend. Just make sure, in the second bit, that you don't squash heroic intent with GM fiat. Auto-failing tests is bad. It ususally better to let them suffer the consequences of a poorly planned or preposterous action: "While noodling with the boulder (aka testmongering), you're friends are overrun."


Yes, you're right, introducing complications due to this failed test is better than auto-failing the test, as it's more interesting from a story point of view and empowers the characters.

However, I sometimes prefer to describe scenes without having the player roll (like, the boulder is 5 tons, there is no way you can move it) rather than say: roll, "you need eight successess to push the boulder in the right direction..." unless I was sure the player was begging for tests. I had in the past made rather obscure descriptions of scenes, leading to PC taking a stupid course of actions, totally justified because I just didn't explain well, so now I am making sure there's no misunderstanding :) Of course, if after being warned, the player persists in wanting to attempt something over the top, he won't complain if he sprains his ankle while lifting the boulder.

[trial]

I still think that even if the test was related to advancing the story and even if it was possible for the character to successed in the test, you still need to give the character a test according to how well he rolled.
If he tries with a skill of B5 to pass an ob4, but he fails and rolls only 1 success then he should get only routine test.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Nah. People learn from failure all the time. Believe me. The Advancement system really works. I suggest you try playing with it a few times.

[trial]

It wasnt just a failure, it was a really bad failure. Only 1 success.
I think it says that if you have a very low success then you realize you have failed and give up so it doesnt take you a lot of time. So in this case you also dont learn much.

[trial]

It wasnt just a failure, it was a really bad failure. Only 1 success.
I think it says that if you have a very low success then you realize you have failed and give up so it doesnt take you a lot of time. So in this case you also dont learn much.

[Redoid]

Yeah, you learn as much from failure than success. In fact, most of our knowledge has been discovered by trial and error. How do you think we now which mushrooms are OK to eat and which are not? Some poor fool missed its Mycology roll. And he learnt afterward.

No experience system is realistic, of course, but learning by failure is balanced. And that's the key : do you want to make it harder for the characters to learn skills esp. if they need successful challenging tests?