Opinions sought on new HR considered

[Mad Ainsel]

As a new poster, I thank you all for having me on board.

It has been a number of years (10+) since I've GM'd RQ3, but I recently ran one for the family as my future son-in-law has an interest in RPGs. Having rolled a bunch of beginning characters and put them through the Rainbow Mounds, the party was thoroughly routed by Whiteeye's gang, particularly after a number of memorable fumbles. It put me in mind to implement an experience change that I've been considering over the years.

It has been said that we learn more from our failures than our successes. In that spirit I have been considering changing the eligibility of experience checks from one of rolling experience when a skill is successfully used to that of an experience check when one fails. Early characters fail a lot and they might learn what NOT to do next time.

It seems me that this would advance beginning PCs to a level of decent competency early, and from then on make it harder to achieve additional skill. Thereby aiding the survivability of young inexperienced PCs. It could help new PCs play catch up to some extent.

I look forward to any thoughts, pro and con, on how this might work on game balance.

[Joerg]

1 minute ago, Mad Ainsel said:

As a new poster, I thank you all for having me on board.

Welcome to the snake pit.

1 minute ago, Mad Ainsel said:

It has been said that we learn more from our failures than our successes. In that spirit I have been considering changing the eligibility of experience checks from one of rolling experience when a skill is successfully used to that of an experience check when one fails. Early characters fail a lot and they might learn what NOT to do next time.

The RQ experience system requires that you succeed at your skill in a meaningful challenge, and then that you "fail" when you check that experience tick. Skill category bonus used to be counted in your favour for both rolls - raising the skill for success, and lowering it for experience gain rolls.

It may be harder to get a skill checked at low skill levels, but getting experience from a skill check is extremely likely when your skill is low. Awarding skill failure for a "how not to do it" check should then be balanced by a success roll when contemplating the outcome of a certain action. If you want to be generous, you can award two checks - one for success, one for failure, at least for low skill levels.

 

[g33k]

I allow a check for a crit or a fumble, over and above the check normally-available for success -- so you can get TWO skill-checks for a given skill.  I don't like a check for an "ordinary" failure, but YGMV -- Your Glorantha May Vary.  As I already admitted here, mine does!

[Mad Ainsel]

2 minutes ago, g33k said:

I allow a check for a crit or a fumble, over and above the check normally-available for success -- so you can get TWO skill-checks for a given skill.  I don't like a check for an "ordinary" failure, but YGMV -- Your Glorantha May Vary.  As I already admitted here, mine does!

I hadn't thought of that approach. That might be a better solution, giving beginning PCs, who fumble more often, a decent chance to advance while maintaining the balance that Joerg mentioned.

[styopa]

48 minutes ago, g33k said:

I allow a check for a crit or a fumble, over and above the check normally-available for success -- so you can get TWO skill-checks for a given skill.  I don't like a check for an "ordinary" failure, but YGMV -- Your Glorantha May Vary.  As I already admitted here, mine does!

Ha ha, I find it amusing how many similar house rules we seem to have adopted.  Here's the section from our houserules on checks, "ticks" and improving skills.

(Checks, Ticks, and improving skills): If you succeed at an ability, put 1 check by it; if you get a fumble or special success, 2 checks; if critical success, 3 checks.  These checks will be used later for one experience roll on that skill, for each check.  Further successes/fumbles/specials/criticals (s/f/s/c) add checks only if it’s an increase to what you had already.  Otherwise, if you roll a (s/f/s/c) and already have checks to the appropriate quantity, you get the number of ‘ticks’ instead.  Ticks will be used to enhance your experience rolls, so there is always a good reason to keep using a skill, even if you already have checks.  All checks and ticks are cleared after the 'experience check' process; you cannot save them for later.

(Improving Skills) When the GM determines you’ve had enough rest to contemplate what lessons you may have learned, he may declare that it’s time to perform experience rolls.  For each skill that you have a “check”, you get an experience roll.  An experience roll is a % roll vs your current skill (base+modifiers, but NOT including your category modifier, such as Agility).  Add your category modifier to the roll, if it exceeds your (base+modifiers), you have learned something and you may choose to add 1d6% (or 3%, your choice before rolling) to that skill.  If you have multiple “checks” in a skill, you may perform multiple rolls sequentially.  TICKS are used to improve your experience roll.  Accumulated ticks may be spent:

Tick Cost	Benefit
1 tick	+1% to a specific designated experience roll (i.e. to make failure more likely) allocated before any rolls are made
4 ticks	+1 to a single d6 skill-gain roll, allocated after any experience rolls are made.

(You may buy as many of each as you can afford with the ticks you have in that skill; note that all unspent ticks are cleared anyway…)

For example: Rurik has an attack modifier of +8%, and a sword skill of 82% for a cumulative 90% chance to hit with a sword.  In combat he succeeds, and notes a check on his character sheet next to his Sword skill.  Later, he manages a special success, which would give him two checks, but since he already has one he only gets one additional check (now he has two), the other unapplied check is recorded instead as a tick.  In a subsequent combat, he succeeds two times.  Since he already has two checks, he cannot gain more from ‘simple’ success, so he gets two ticks instead.  Finally, he fumbles – this again would give him two checks (yes, you hopefully learn something from huge mistakes….if you survive) but he already has two checks, so he gets two more ticks.  Finally, when he gets back to town and is enjoying a celebratory ale, the GM rules he’s entitled to take his experience rolls.  He has two checks, so he’ll get to roll twice.  He has five ticks, so he needs to decide how to spend them.  He chooses to spend them all (since he can’t keep them): one as a +1% to fail on his first roll (he must designate which when he spends the ticks, before he rolls), and four as +1 to the d6 for a skill gain roll.  He rolls his first experience check.  He needs to fail against 82% (note his attack modifier is excluded).  He rolls a 76 adds his attack modifier of +8%, and another +1% for the tick spent = 85%, a failure!   When rolling the +d6, he adds that tick skill modifier he bought, and rolls d6+1 for skill gain, rolling a 4+1 = 5.  His Sword skill is now 87.  He rolls a 12 for his second experience check, which is not a failure, and gets no skill gain.  His checks and ticks are all cleared from his character sheet and he’s ready for the next adventure.

 

[Mad Ainsel]

3 hours ago, styopa said:

Ha ha, I find it amusing how many similar house rules we seem to have adopted.  Here's the section from our houserules on checks, "ticks" and improving skills.

(Checks, Ticks, and improving skills): If you succeed at an ability, put 1 check by it; if you get a fumble or special success, 2 checks; if critical success, 3 checks.  These checks will be used later for one experience roll on that skill, for each check.  Further successes/fumbles/specials/criticals (s/f/s/c) add checks only if it’s an increase to what you had already.  Otherwise, if you roll a (s/f/s/c) and already have checks to the appropriate quantity, you get the number of ‘ticks’ instead.  Ticks will be used to enhance your experience rolls, so there is always a good reason to keep using a skill, even if you already have checks.  All checks and ticks are cleared after the 'experience check' process; you cannot save them for later.

(Improving Skills) When the GM determines you’ve had enough rest to contemplate what lessons you may have learned, he may declare that it’s time to perform experience rolls.  For each skill that you have a “check”, you get an experience roll.  An experience roll is a % roll vs your current skill (base+modifiers, but NOT including your category modifier, such as Agility).  Add your category modifier to the roll, if it exceeds your (base+modifiers), you have learned something and you may choose to add 1d6% (or 3%, your choice before rolling) to that skill.  If you have multiple “checks” in a skill, you may perform multiple rolls sequentially.  TICKS are used to improve your experience roll.  Accumulated ticks may be spent:

Tick Cost	Benefit
1 tick	+1% to a specific designated experience roll (i.e. to make failure more likely) allocated before any rolls are made
4 ticks	+1 to a single d6 skill-gain roll, allocated after any experience rolls are made.

 

 

 

I don't know if I could keep it straight (it might require yet another character sheet redesign....), but I like how it would reflect extra experience gleaned from longer, more arduous scenarios. It seems more natural than that first success being the experience "end-all" of the adventure.

[Atgxtg]

21 hours ago, Mad Ainsel said:

It has been said that we learn more from our failures than our successes. In that spirit I have been considering changing the eligibility of experience checks from one of rolling experience when a skill is successfully used to that of an experience check when one fails. Early characters fail a lot and they might learn what NOT to do next time.

I look forward to any thoughts, pro and con, on how this might work on game balance.

One problem he I see with it is that, realistically, we don't always lean from out failures. That is, in game terms, while somebody might fail at a 10% skill over and over, there is no guarantee that they will figure out just what they are doing wrong. For instance somebody working of deciphering some written message could continually fail but those failures won't help him to lean to read.He will need to study the alphabet and words used in that written language. And I just don''t see how that guy who always failed test on a certain subject in school should wind up with the highest skill score. 

Nor does it mean that when they do figure out what they are doing wrong they will know what do about it in order to improve. For example, I know somebody who plays guitar, but can't play the sort of music he wants to play fast enough to do it properly. Technically he is playing the correct notes, but just not fast enough, and he doesn't know how or if he can play them faster. Failure here doesn't really help. Repetition might help here. But if it does doing wrong very fast won't be of as much use as doing it correctly very fast. 

 

So basically, at some point, I think you do need to succeed at something to get better. I think the old adage exists because when someone makes a significant mistake, as opposed to a failure, hindsight is 20/20. A skill check for a fumble is probably more appropriate. 

 

 

As far as game balance and such goes, character would progress much faster early on, and much slower once they get good at something. A really skilled warrior might actually not survive getting an experience check in battle ("the good news is that if you can find somebody to reattach your arm, you'll be better with your shield parry.").

 

I suspect that this method would probably make "skill check hunting" more common, and probably turn in into a problem for those GMs who do not consider it one now (me, for instance). A new character can reliable fail at just about everything. 

[styopa]

23 hours ago, Mad Ainsel said:

I don't know if I could keep it straight (it might require yet another character sheet redesign....), but I like how it would reflect extra experience gleaned from longer, more arduous scenarios. It seems more natural than that first success being the experience "end-all" of the adventure.

We DO have a different character sheet that we use, but without it, we use X as skill checks, and ' as ticks.

Works simply enough.  Lot of words there above for what amounts to a pretty simple concept: players can possibly keep learning how to do something even though they've done it once already.

[Mankcam]

In my BRP house rules, once a skill is higher than 50%, I only award Skill Checks if they roll a Difficult success (half their score). Once a skill is higher than 70% then they need to roll a Special Success to get a Skill Check.

Criticals  Success always grant a Skill Check, and as a bonus a Crit provides 1D8% gain instead of the usual 1D6% gain.

Additionally, only for skills under 50%, if a character fails in a skill, but it's a close call (within 5% of the skill score), then I award the chance for a Skill Check, although its only a 1D3% gain.

This may all sound complex, but its quite simple at the gaming table, and it does allow some reward learning through failure for novices.

I allocate Skill Checks pretty much the same way in all my BRP games and settings, I havd found that it works quite well.

 

Edited August 28, 2017 by Mankcam

[Psullie]

As the GM you are fully equipped to reward or deny experience checks when ever you feel appropriate. For me I only ever allowed a check when the test was relevant or if the adventurer made signifiant efforts in game time to study (long sea voyages or winter breaks are a great time to catch-up on skills). If the combat was quick and not challenging then no check regardless of the rolls, but a hard fought result (even when peppered with failure) is worthy of a check or even automatic increase.

Also don't forget that as the GM you also set the challenges and difficulty levels and the pace at which the PC's advance. Also try to encourage broader use of skills to avoid mono-skilled two-dimensional characters. If players come up with a good strategy that wins the fight apply the check to Battle or Set Traps rather than their weapon skill.