Advancement Questions

[Tywin Lannister]

Ok got a few more questions, specifically about advancement:

1) Whenever you use a skill, you compare the total dice rolled against the obstacle to determine if the Test is Routine, Difficult, or Challenging. I get that. What I'm a little shaky on is that skills go up reguardless of the passing or failing of the test (page 50). This means that a player with a very low skill or attribute that trys something above their ability will automatically get points towards advancement. This seems a bit strange to me.

Just because I might have a basic knowledge of History (say skill level 3) and I try to recall the name of the sister of the uncle that was the friend of the man who killed the brother of the stable boy who had a crush on the princess that didn't want to marry Baron XX (say, obstacle 6 test), I get a Challenging mark noted next to the history skill, reguardless if I pass or fail the test? Am I missing something?

2) How do you determine the obstacle of a versus skill (just your enemy's roll, or his overall skill?)

John

[SirEktar]

1) You should only record an advancement if the failure actually results in the character learning something. A similar principle is already used in the special case of Perception advancing (i.e. only sucessful tests count toward advancement). If the failure doesn't teach you anything (e.g. what NOT to do), then you haven't learned anything hence the skill has no justification to improve.

2) I've taken this to be the sucesses generated by your opponent. Note that you'd only record the most challenging test for advancement in any single scene.

[Tom B]

Just because I might have a basic knowledge of History (say skill level 3) and I try to recall the name of the sister of the uncle that was the friend of the man who killed the brother of the stable boy who had a crush on the princess that didn't want to marry Baron XX (say, obstacle 6 test), I get a Challenging mark noted next to the history skill, reguardless if I pass or fail the test? Am I missing something?


I'm new to BW as well, but I have a thought on this from other systems with similar advancement schemes. The way you describe it above, the character is really testing his memory skill. A knowledge of history is not just whether you know a particular historical fact, but if you have a chance of deducing it from what you do know, or if you know how to find it due to your skill. In the above example, you would know what types of books to check to find that answer. Just not knowing the answer off the top of your head wouldn't be sufficient to count it as a valid test. He would have to try and use his history skill to find the answer. If he fails, he still probably learned something from the attempt.

Tom B.

[luke]

Tom's the big winner today at BWHQ.

History, in that case, might be used if the character wanted to describe the relationship of Baron Harkonnen to the current Emperor Muad'dib.

Remembering his name, if it was a History test at all, would be a very low obstacle and hence a Routine test.

-L

[Kublai]

1) Whenever you use a skill, you compare the total dice rolled against the obstacle to determine if the Test is Routine, Difficult, or Challenging. I get that. What I'm a little shaky on is that skills go up reguardless of the passing or failing of the test (page 50). This means that a player with a very low skill or attribute that trys something above their ability will automatically get points towards advancement. This seems a bit strange to me.

It works wonderfully as is, I feel. Low skills (Exponent 1-3) will rise quickly and, to me, that makes a lot of sense. As a GM and a player, it feels really good to see a player advance that low skill. Making it harder for players to advance skills may create resentment.


Just because I might have a basic knowledge of History (say skill level 3) and I try to recall the name of the sister of the uncle that was the friend of the man who killed the brother of the stable boy who had a crush on the princess that didn't want to marry Baron XX (say, obstacle 6 test), I get a Challenging mark noted next to the history skill, reguardless if I pass or fail the test? Am I missing something?

I agree with TomB on this one. There should be more to this than just memory recall. Also, I feel that even though it may seem bumpy in this specific case, making failures count towards advancement keeps the game much smoother as a whole .


2) How do you determine the obstacle of a versus skill (just your enemy's roll, or his overall skill?)

The number of successes your opponent gets determines your Obstacle.

[Blackberry]

Just because I might have a basic knowledge of History (say skill level 3) and I try to recall the name of the sister of the uncle that was the friend of the man who killed the brother of the stable boy who had a crush on the princess that didn't want to marry Baron XX (say, obstacle 6 test), I get a Challenging mark noted next to the history skill, reguardless if I pass or fail the test? Am I missing something?

In most cases, you're always going to learn something that will help you next time.

While doing your research to find this person's name, you stumble across a connection between family histories of that area that you didn't know existed before. Next time you need to research a family history, you can start with that newly synthesized knowledge. That's represented mechanically as a check mark because it's not enough knowledge to increase your skill on its own, but it helps. And the fact that you found that information is totally unrelated to whether or not you found the name (made your roll).

[eruditus]

Using my own Passive/Active die pools idea often helps me to ascertain what the character knows or does not know. For such information I will set an obstacle. If the root of a skill does not meet the obstacle then a roll is required. Thus if the PC doesn't have the info off the top of his head then he needs to do something that will allow him a roll (sheer memory doesn't require a roll.)

Here is an example of how I would adjudicate this:
Lets say I determine that to find out the name of the third uncle's wife of some noble is a ob4 general History test. The PC does not have an 8 History so normally the player would have to do some research to earn a test. However, if the Skill he's rolling is Noble-wise, I may drop the ob to 3. If he's a member of the family then I may drop the ob to 2. Thus with a 4 noble-wise skill the name of the third uncle's wife, is just something he generally knows.