QUERYING YOUR PLAYERS
When you have presented the scene to the players it is time to find out what they want to do next (query them). The easiest way is to simply ask. “What do you want to do?” is a perfectly satisfactory way to begin eliciting the actions your players want to carry out. You are interested in two things in particular and, until you have them, you may need to ask a few clarifying questions.
Firstly you are interested in what the player wants to achieve – “get over the fence” – “convince the mayor to release the prisoners” – “smash the mind control device”.
Secondly, you are interested in how the player aims to achieve this – “using a rope and grappling hook” – “using threats and intimidation” – “hitting it with a hammer”.
Without both of these bits of information, it is impossible to adjudicate the outcome. Without both pieces of information, you will not be able to determine how to adjudicate the outcome.
You have to know how the player is going to attempt to get over a fence before you can call for the appropriate dice roll (or even decide if a dice roll is necessary). You have to know what the player is going to use the hammer for before you can decide whether the action is successful or not.
If the player is being ambiguous, keep asking questions until you are confident you know what they want to do and how they are going to go about doing it.
Don’t allow players to simply call for a skill check (e.g. “I want to roll my psychology skill”). Always explore further and determine what they hope to achieve and how they hope to achieve (e.g. “I want to determine if the Mayor is lying by closely watching his body language”). The players tell you what it is they want to do and how, but it is up to you to determine what skill check(s) may be involved.
There’s no hard and fast rule about who gets to go first declaring their actions in a game. You can simply go round the circle asking players to state their actions one at a time, or you can ask them according to some kind of marching order. You can deal with one group of players first, and then another. You can let players volunteer their actions on a first come – first served basis. In combat, the order is determined on the basis of an initiative roll. So long as everyone gets their say, it really doesn’t matter.
Don’t worry if players start to modify their actions in light of what the other players are doing, even after they have told you what they wish to do. No action is ever really set in concrete until the dice are rolled or you declare a result. Just keep going until everyone is satisfied that what they wish to achieve and how they wish to achieve it has been communicated and understood.
Generally speaking, you will want to resolve actions as soon as they are clearly identified rather than waiting for everyone at the table to state their actions before beginning adjudication.
ADJUDICATING ACTIONS
IS IT POSSIBLE?
Is the outcome that the player is looking for possible? The first thing to work out is whether, given the result of your query, the constraints of the world you are playing in, the action the player wishes to undertake is even possible. A lot of things impact this. Generally, you will want to err on the side of treating most actions as possible. The world of radio drama is (and I am aware of the irony of using this term) cinematic. This means that the action is heightened for greater excitement. Players can crash through glass windows without being cut to ribbons. They can swing on chandeliers without the apparatus giving way under their weight. They can smash a chair or bottle over the head of an opponent. All these things are actually fairly implausible in the real world but are commonplace in cinema and radio drama. Be careful to be consistent in the way you bring your world to life. If you decide magical fire can be put out, be consistent and don’t arbitrarily decide on another occasion that magical fire is magical and therefore can’t be put out.
Next, determine whether the method the player wishes to use could actually work. It might be possible to get across the chasm, but it may not be possible to simply jump it (a rope, bridge or other means may be required). If it is clear that the action being attempted, or the method the player chooses to use to attempt it, can’t possibly succeed then the action fails.
When an action the player is attempting is impossible, there is good reason to believe that a misunderstanding has occurred.
“I want to leap over the edge and attack the spear throwers in the riverbed.”
“You leap over the edge and are killed by the fall”.
“Wait, what? How big a drop is it?”
“Two hundred feet”.
“But I thought it was just a low embankment”.
Don’t let situations like the above happen. If a player attempts an impossible action, probe a bit further to make sure they understand why the situation is impossible.
“I want to leap over the edge and attack the spear throwers in the riverbed.”
“The embankment you are standing on is nearly 200 feet above them. Are you sure that’s what you want to do?
“What, no. I thought it was just a low embankment. I get my rifle out and sight it at one of the spear throwers who looks in charge”.
Sometimes a simple clarification is enough.
“I try to jump the chasm.”
“You can see that the chasm is too wide for that to be possible. You’ll need to find another way over”.
Sometimes the player doesn’t know an action is impossible because they have encountered something new. In such cases it is fine to play out the consequences, just make sure you explain the reason to the player.
“I try to put out the magical fire by smothering it with a blanket”.
“You try to smother the fire, but, try as you might, it keeps burning. The magical nature of the fire makes it impossible to smother.”
Regardless, if the goal or the method used to achieve it are impossible then the action fails.
CAN IT FAIL WITH CONSEQUENCE?
If the action that the player wishes to undertake (the result of your query) is possible, then you need to decide if there is a chance it can fail or not. Actions that are possible without any chance of failure just happen.
Actions which can be repeated indefinitely until they succeed (even if there is a chance of failure in any given attempt) also just happen. The exception to this is where the action that is repeated is likely to draw attention that will interrupt further attempts or where there is a specific time limit (ticking clock) in place.
For example, there is no reason you should ask players to continually attempt to open a door if there is nothing to stop them from eventually succeeding in opening it after repeated tries. In such a case the attempt should simply succeed. If however, a regular guard patrol is likely to interrupt them if they don’t succeed quickly, or if their chosen method of opening the door (say, breaking it down with an axe) is likely to attract unwanted attention, then there is a good reason to treat the attempt at the action (opening the door) as uncertain.
Once you know whether the action is uncertain and failure could occur, you need to determine whether there are significant consequences that follow from the failure. For example, leaping a pit that opens onto a 30-foot drop onto razor-sharp spikes has a significant consequence if the player fails. A leap across a pit that is only two feet deep and can be simply climbed out of on the other side with ease, has no significant consequence attached to it, even if the leap itself might prove unsuccessful.
Don’t call for a dice roll where there is no chance of failure, where repeated attempts can be undertaken freely without interruption, or where the failure is inconsequential. In any of these cases, the action should automatically succeed.
CONSEQUENCES
It’s only worth calling for a dice roll when there are consequences, so it is essential you have a clear idea of what those consequences will be before you call for a roll.
Sometimes the consequences of success and failure are obvious. “You negotiate for a good price on the shotgun and manage to get it for way under cost.” “You fire your rifle at the villain and miss”.
At other times you will want to have consequences that are dependent on the extent of the success or failure. In this game, this is determined by the use of a consequence roll. The consequence roll for a success is the difference between uncovering all the information you were looking for and getting some nice hints. The consequence of a failure is the difference between simply being unable to open the door, and tripping the silent alarm, or bringing the automated countermeasures online. Beware, however, of ridiculous consequences. Remember that, in as much as the guideline is important for player actions and reactions, it is equally important when considering the behavior of a piece of the world (a non-player character, item, or element within your world) that you determine whether the action being taken is possible. You may be tempted to treat a catastrophic consequence roll in such a way that it results in a particularly humorous or ludicrous result, but, if the result you determine is impossible, it will break the verisimilitude of your world. Don’t do this.
The consequences of an action, whether successful or not, alter the world in some significant way. They can be immediate or long term with regard to how the players experience them.
Consequences are usually attendant on the method used by the players to achieve the goal. Smashing a door down, rather than picking the lock, is noisy and may alert guards or the inhabitants of the room being entered etc. (an immediate consequence). Threatening a well-liked shopkeeper to get information might result in the animosity of the town’s entire Chamber of Commerce, making future interactions very difficult (a longer term consequence).
Successful actions can have negative consequences and failures can be beneficial. Threatening the shopkeeper can gather the information being sought but makes it more difficult to gain cooperation elsewhere in town. Failing to pick the lock may mean the guards remain unaware of the players’ presence in the complex.
The important thing is that you have decided on the consequences and that they flow from the method used by the players to achieve their goals.
Tip: It can be useful to think of outcomes in terms of, what some people refer to as, a hierarchy of consequences;
- Yes, and: the action succeeds and a positive consequence applies.
- Yes, but: the action succeeds and a negative consequence applies.
- No, and : the action fails and a negative consequence applies.
- No, but : the action fails and a positive consequence applies.
DOES THE ACTION NEED TO BE BROKEN DOWN INTO SUB-ACTIONS?
Actions are generally simple – fire a gun, jump a crevice, climb a wall, throw a punch. As such they don’t take much time. In combat, this is built into the system. Sometimes, however, it is tempting to break the action down into a number of dice rolls. While this is perfectly allowable, I would recommend against it most of the time. If the player expresses what they want to achieve and how they want to achieve it, you should only need a single dice roll to resolve it. However, if you feel the action being attempted is complex you can break it down into multiple actions.
For example, the player might say they wish to fire on the enemy from the cover of a nearby cliff. It would be perfectly reasonable to ask how they wish to reach that cover (as an action) before resolving the shot (in the next round if reaching the cliff is successful).
When a declared action is more of a process made up of smaller actions, work backward from the goal to arrive at each of the steps;
Fire on the enemy <— Get behind cover <— Climb to the ledge <— Run to the cliff wall.
Clearly communicate the steps you believe must be completed to achieve the goal to the player. It is possible they expected the action to be much simpler and may wish to alter their declaration accordingly. That is fine and the player should be allowed to change their action. No action is set in stone until the dice are rolled. And no player should ever be forced to undertake an action that was not genuinely their intent.
Successes here count as progress towards the goal. Failures interrupt that progress and demand that the player adjust either the method they are using or the goal itself.
Remember there should be consequences attendant on success or failure, otherwise, the step should be treated as an automatic success (or possibly shouldn’t exist at all).
If the player who wishes to do fire from the cliff-face is setting up an ambush and there are no opponents or other reasons why they are likely to be interrupted, then the process of getting into position on the ledge should probably be treated as a simple action with an automatic success. If, however, there are obstacles in the way or the scene is dynamic and changing in such a way that new factors are constantly intruding upon the action (lava is flowing across the floor, or a pitched battle is occurring in the space the player must cross), or the enemy is approaching such that getting into position is a race against time, then treating the action as a process requiring multiple dice rolls with consequences attendant on each success or failure is totally appropriate.
HOW HARD IS THE ACTION?
Generally speaking, most attempted actions can be assumed to be easy. That is, while it is possible to fail at them, they can be attempted and completed by anyone.
Player characters within the world of radio are considered to be exceptional by default and so they attempt most actions with their action-bonuses unaffected.
Despite this, even actions deemed possible by the GM can vary in terms of their difficulty. Difficult actions are harder to complete and attract a penalty to dice rolls (applied after any other bonuses have been added).
There are a total of 11 grades of difficulty that can be applied to actions. Most of the time, actions are standard and require little effort to identify, but sometimes you may want to think a bit more deeply about the level of challenge that the action your players wish to undertake presents.
Below is a chart that can be used as a guide to the penalties to be applied for different levels of challenge.
The chart isn’t exhaustive, but merely a guide. You will have to estimate the amount of challenge that different activities present – BUT if you define the majority of challenges as easy, then you won’t go too far wrong.
Easy: This action can be completed by anyone (running, playing chess etc.): no penalty.
Standard: A typical physical or mental challenge (outrunning pursuit, solving a logic puzzle): – 1 to dice rolls.
Difficult: All difficult physical or mental challenges (winning a championship sprint, beating a chess champion): -2 to dice rolls.
Challenging: Some very difficult physical or mental challenges (placing in an Olympic sprint, achieving grandmaster rank in chess) : -3 to dice rolls.
Very Difficult (levels 1 to 3): All very difficult physical or mental challenges (winning an Olympic sprint, beating the world champion at chess): from -4 to -6 to dice rolls.
Extreme (levels 1 to 3): Some extreme physical or mental challenges (winning an Olympic sprint by half the length of the field, beating the world champion at chess in the minimum possible moves while blindfolded): from -7 to -9 to dice rolls.
Titanic: All extreme physical or mental challenges (outrunning, on foot, a car full of Tommy-gun wielding gangsters while snatching bullets out of the air with your bare hands, beating 5 grandmasters at chess while blindfolded and at the same time deciphering an alien language): -10 to dice rolls.
PASSIVE SKILLS
One class of skills requires some special explanation. These have come to be known as passive skills and relate to things the characters passively know already rather than actively learn. The characters that the players assume for the purposes of the game often know things the players themselves do not. A player might play a chemist with a grasp of six languages and the ability to differentiate seventeen different types of tobacco ash even though in the real world he or she never engages in science, can barely speak the mother tongue, and doesn’t smoke. When such a player encounters a letter written in French it is typical to ask for a skill roll to determine if it can be read. However, you might want to handle it quite differently. You wouldn’t ask players to roll the dice to determine if they can read their mother tongue (it is assumed they can), neither does it make sense to call for a roll of the dice to determine whether they know things they have already learned as part and parcel of gaining a particular skill – and a dice roll always impedes the flow of the story. Instead, you might rather assign the knowledge a specific difficulty (from 0 to 10 based on how common or archaic the dialect etc.). On the basis of the character’s skill in French, as represented by the number of dots they have put into the skill, you can determine whether they can read the letter simply be comparing their skill with that of the difficulty you have assigned to it. So long as you have the characters’ ability scores written down in front of you, there is no need to roll the dice.
Likewise, on entering a location, you could call for a perception roll to uncover anything the players notice that is out of the ordinary. Alternatively, you could simply compare the players’ perception skill to a predetermined difficulty score in order to determine what they see. What they see could then be incorporated into the scene setting exposition without the need for a dice roll.
WHAT SKILL WILL THE PLAYER NEED TO EMPLOY TO COMPLETE THE ACTION?
You should make sure you have a list of the players’ skills and abilities in front of you throughout the game. Because players invent their own skills (if you are not using pre-generated characters) it is essential you know what they are and how they work. It is also important that you have discussed them (and their limitations) with your players prior to play.
Most of the time, the skill needed to accomplish an action will be fairly obvious. In fact, characters in a game set in the world of radio drama are assumed to be able to do most things unless they require specialist training, even if they haven’t listed those things as specific skills. All characters can, for example, try to pick a lock, hot-wire a car, or improvise a bow and arrow. If they haven’t listed such a skill then simply assume they can attempt it as if they have a single dot in it.
Skills that require specific and lengthy training need to be listed specifically if they are to be attempted. While anyone can be expected to know how to maintain a car, and while heroes in the world of radio drama can be expected to be able to conduct basic repairs (at one dot), they probably can’t build a car from the ground up using parts found at the scrap yard without a suitable skill being explicitly listed on their character sheet.
Part of determining whether the action is possible is figuring out whether the character wanting to take the action actually has the skill to accomplish it. You should already know if the action is possible, if the skill is one the character can use, and, where the skill is not part of the character’s explicit skill list, how difficult it is.
But what if there is more than one relevant skill to choose from? In this case, choose the skill that will give the player the highest chance of success. In deciding to call for a dice roll you should always err in the character’s favor.
Sometimes a player will suggest a skill they wish to use. This is okay, in so far as it goes, but ultimately it is your role as the GM to decide which skill is the most appropriate to be used to achieve a specific goal via a specific method. If the player says “can I make a perception check to see if there are any hidden compartments in the cupboard?” they’ve indicated the goal (find hidden compartments) but not really a method of achieving the goal. By asking what method the player wants to use (“I smash it open with an ax”) you can assess whether the dice roll they wish to use is appropriate or not – “Okay, I don’t think perception is what you want here, roll the dice using your ax-manship skill”.
This volume relies heavily on the work of Scott Rehm, Justin Alexander, Brian Christopher Misiaszek, Mike Bourke, Blair Ramage, Saxon Brenton, Robin Laws, John Wick, Wolfgang Baur, Ken Hite, Monte Cooke, Kevin Crawford, Phil Vecchione, and Walt Ciechanowski.
This chapter of the Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama RPG and all associated content (except where noted above) is © copyright weirdworldstudios.com and Philip Craig Robotham 2016 and may not be reproduced or distributed without the written permission of the author.
HYOOTRD Roleplaying Game – Game Master’s Guide – Part 1 – Running a Game
- Chapter 1: The Job of the GM (gathering a table, player types, and ensuring fun)
- Chapter 2: Preliminaries (the three fundamental skills, and your first session)
- Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 1 (the opening scene and narration)
- Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 2 (querying and adjudication)
- Chapter 3: Advanced skills – Part 3 (resolving actions, managing tropes, transitioning, concluding, and preparing future sessions)
- Chapter 4: Managing the Mini-Games (combat, chases, and social actions)
- Chapter 5: Maintaining Pace and Tone (managing time and policing the tone)
- Chapter 6: Improvising (improvising the story and the rules – for all the times the players do something unexpected)
- Chapter 7 & 8: Getting Feedback and Conclusion (improving your game)
HYOOTRD Roleplaying Game – Game Master’s Guide – Part 2 – Designing Games
- Chapter 9: Scene Design
- Chapter 10: NPC, Monster, Faction, and Villain Design
- Chapter 11: Dilemmas, Obstacles, Exits, and Clues
- Chapter 12: Plot (scenario, sandbox, critical path, and the interaction between story and choice)
- Chapter 13: Structures: The five-room dungeon (and variations)
- Chapter 14: Structures: The sandbox (the town or city)
- Chapter 15: Structures: The sandbox (the wilderness)
- Chapter 16: Structures: The Scenario
- Chapter 17: Structures: The Campaign
