Topic: Are we missing something combat-wise?

[RandalThor]

Group activities always threw me for a loop. Usually I either used the group average of the skill (for when it matter that all were involved - Stalking) or the group highest (for spotting type rolls). Anyone have a preferred method?

My method:

For things like Perception, I will have the individual with the best skill - or the best opportunity/reason* - to make the skill check, though sometimes with a minor bonus granted by the presence and assistance of the other PCs. (Like +5/per individual.) This reflects the fact that if the person with the best senses/perception doesn't notice, then those of poorer ability surely won't. It also does away with what jdale mentioned: the odds. If you have 5 different rolls occurring, then it is much more likely that one will roll high and succeed. While that is not a game-breaker, it surely doesn't encourage a player to sink a lot of points into a skill like that, because they can just rely upon the odds that one of them will roll well.

*Like even though the dwarf's perception skill is not the highest, because of being a dwarf he will be the one with the best chance of noticing unusual aspects of a natural stone wall. Or a ranger would have the best ability to determine if the sounds of the forest are normal or not.

For skills like stalking, I go with the worse individual in the group; there is a reason scouts ranged out away from the main body of the army.

Now, while they sound like good ideas, all the extra rolls that don't actually mean anything and the acting like, "Oooh, that's interesting" when there is really nothing going, all that does is put extra work on for the GM, when they actually can remember to do so at all. I have come to the conclusion that you just have to rely upon the players ability to separate player and character knowledge (or supposition), because all of that extra "I'm gonna fool ya" stuff is just extra baggage that is not necessary, and just cuts into the already limited playtime. Now, I would love to be able to shock/surprise the players a couple of times a session, but I just got to understand that that is not going to happen - unless what I have "behind the next door" is completely different from what they expected.

[Warl]

I keep access to all my players character sheets on my computer, doesn't take long to reference what I need, Depending on whether I want the players to know a Check is being made or not I will have them roll or I will roll.  Though sometimes I will have them roll for no reason.

It Is important for me to have everyone roll, Not just the highest, because even the rube with very little "perception" Might get lucky and succeed or see something others don't.

[dagorhir]

I keep access to all my players character sheets on my computer, doesn't take long to reference what I need, Depending on whether I want the players to know a Check is being made or not I will have them roll or I will roll.  Though sometimes I will have them roll for no reason.

It Is important for me to have everyone roll, Not just the highest, because even the rube with very little "perception" Might get lucky and succeed or see something others don't.

I agree with having everyone roll. I don't generally have my players roll for no reason, but I do have them roll for very very trivial reasons, like noticing a spot of rust on their armor. I also have them roll for things that have absolutely nothing to do with the characters also. So they roll and just "oh, ok". Something happened, they just don't know what.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Exactly. The rolls aren't necessarily meaningless per se, they're just meaningless to them. I'm one of those "build the world as you go" types, at least to some extent. I mean yes, I'll likely have a map, I'll know what the country is like, I'll know why they're there, I'll know what season of the year it is, etc... but there are all kinds of specific little details that get made up and filled in as you go along. If you roll random for those, you'll always need more die rolls. Let the players make them, don't tell them what they're rolling for.

A party of 6 is riding through the woods. The GM has all of them roll "a percentile." Half a dozen d100s give the GM the particulars on the small village they have just come upon.

A PC comes to a small stream, fills his waterskin, allows his horse to drink, looks around.... rolls Perception, fails it miserably. Suddenly the GM includes a fossilized dinosaur footprint on the stream bank that wasn't there before. The PC spends the rest of the day on the lookout for imaginary wyverns.

The height and weight, eye and hair color of the traveling merchant you pass on the road, the reliability of the rock upon which "the clifftop road" you are currently traveling is built, the flood stage of the river at the bottom... little details are what gives the setting depth and make it feel real. "I can't think of all those little details, I'll spend 300 hours doing prep for each 6 hours playing the game!" Of course you can't, that's the point. Let the ongoing chaos of players' dice rolls furnish the details of the scenery as you go. By getting the players to roll them without knowing what they are rolling for (more than in very general terms), most of the die rolls they make become "chaff" for tactical purposes.

"Okay what was that series of rolls you had us make a while back?"

"That was the basics of that dwarf merchant you came across right after."

"Is that all? I had a 95 in those rolls!"

"Yeah I know, that's why you met a dwarf who was only 3 inches shorter than you."

[RandalThor]

GOF, that all sounds great - for those who want to do that - but it presupposes a system in place to handle that method of creation. I don't know of that system. Not that I don't do that a little bit anyway... - just making it up on the fly.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Not that I don't do that a little bit anyway... - just making it up on the fly.

Exactly. The only "system in place" it presupposes (and requires) is the GM's ability to frame questions about the setting in terms of "is/is not" to as great a degree as he can. A d100 not only gives him the "is/is not" he wants, it gives him a broad range of "meh, sort of" to let his imagination work on. It also allows him to conceal what he's doing just by how he frames his questions. If he's asking himself "how solid is the cliff under the party," a 97 is good, but if he asks himself "how badly eroded is the cliff under the party"... not so much.

[RandalThor]

If he's asking himself "how solid is the cliff under the party," a 97 is good, but if he asks himself "how badly eroded is the cliff under the party"... not so much.

Yeah, deciding on the question prior to them rolling is very key, and something I occasionally forget.