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CVA
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri 02 Jul 2021, 23:01

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 03 Jul 2021, 09:48

While I like the ideas in this thread, I find the concept of the council itself too restrictive.
I did like to use the old social encounter mechanic in hostile situations as well, and that seems rather unfitting for the new rules. I don‘t think they would work for bargaining with stone trolls, or trading words with a dragon.
Once, my players held down a ford against a horde of orcs. When they had repelled the first wave of attackers, the orc boss came and offered to spare a couple of humans if all defenders would just throw down their weapons and flee. And he described in grisly detail what would happen to those that would resist him. The companions were pressed to match his words, or the morale of their fellow soldiers would have faltered.
That doesn‘t work with the Council rules anymore, I‘m afraid.
 
Randombias
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu 01 Jul 2021, 10:53

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 03 Jul 2021, 11:31

Once, my players held down a ford against a horde of orcs. When they had repelled the first wave of attackers, the orc boss came and offered to spare a couple of humans if all defenders would just throw down their weapons and flee. And he described in grisly detail what would happen to those that would resist him. The companions were pressed to match his words, or the morale of their fellow soldiers would have faltered.
That doesn‘t work with the Council rules anymore, I‘m afraid.
Why not? To me, it seems like that one might work quite well (albeit with the little trick of switching up the subjects of introduction and interaction).
1. Set Resistance: The purpose of this council is to raise morale of the troops, so the resistance depends on the disposition of their fellow soldiers. If the opposing forces are equally matched and a victory is within reach, continuing fighting is a reasonable request, provided that the players will be fighting side by side with the troops. If they are outmatched and the players are basically asking the soldiers to put their lives on the line for a dubious chance of victory, the request may be bold or even outrageous.
2. Introduction: The players need to face the orc chieftain. Here, we may want to restrict the applicable skills to something like Awe rather than Courtesy because the orc will not be impressed by nice words. Awe, however, would be ideal insofar as it represents a bodily imposition, aka the strongest fighter of the company stepping forward and intimidating the enemy.
3. Interaction: After standing up to the orc boss, players can now put on a good show for their fellow soldiers, thereby rallying their troops for the next part of the battle. Enhearten clearly stands out as the skill of choice to achieve that, and here it represents the kind of pep talk needed for convincing discomforted tropps to hold the line even in the face of great peril.
End of a council: Whether the council was successful or not determines the morale of the troops. If the players successfully stood up to the enemy, the soldiers reject the orc's preposterous proposal and continue fighting together with the heroes; if the players botched the interaction, some or even all soldiers may desert them.
 
Sebastian
Posts: 246
Joined: Thu 01 Oct 2020, 04:58

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 03 Jul 2021, 12:55

I like the new approach. Councils were a bit clumsy in 1e. Never used the rules as written. Now it is more about actual roleplaying. You even get a bonus success, if your tactic fits. Theoretically you could skip the die rolls and just give every player one success if they played it out really good.

For the outcome I don’t need a list. It all depends on what was actually talked about during the council.
 
CVA
Posts: 15
Joined: Fri 02 Jul 2021, 23:01

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 03 Jul 2021, 22:00

Thanks a lot Randombias, that‘s great advice. It absolutely makes sense to me when you break it down like that. I guess I just have to separate the rules from the image of a literal council in my head some more.
 
MDuckworth83
Posts: 73
Joined: Tue 06 Jul 2021, 03:32

Re: Councils too simple?

Fri 23 Jul 2021, 21:03

I think the part that bothers me the most about councils is the now binary nature of them. You come up with a goal from the council and it's a yes/no answer, no more degrees of success (or "un"success). This seems to make councils quite a bit less interesting and, a disturbing theme I'm noticing, makes social skills equitable to each other and thus diluted. Are you persuading or enheartening? Who cares, just go for the highest chance of success. This reminds me a bit of the Journey rules equating hunting/athletics, explore/craft, etc... skills get diluted to all having the same mechanical effect with fluff description being the only difference.

This has the feel of a system that got oversimplified when it didn't really need to be and thus loses a lot of the richness of it. I suppose one quick and easy fix that could atleast introduce degrees of success back in is to keep rolling skills until you hit time (vs stopping when you overcome resistance) and count up how many bonus successes you have to apply results.
 
Dorjcal
Posts: 81
Joined: Sun 11 Jul 2021, 10:22

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 10:32

I think the part that bothers me the most about councils is the now binary nature of them. You come up with a goal from the council and it's a yes/no answer, no more degrees of success (or "un"success). This seems to make councils quite a bit less interesting and, a disturbing theme I'm noticing, makes social skills equitable to each other and thus diluted. Are you persuading or enheartening? Who cares, just go for the highest chance of success. This reminds me a bit of the Journey rules equating hunting/athletics, explore/craft, etc... skills get diluted to all having the same mechanical effect with fluff description being the only difference.

This has the feel of a system that got oversimplified when it didn't really need to be and thus loses a lot of the richness of it. I suppose one quick and easy fix that could atleast introduce degrees of success back in is to keep rolling skills until you hit time (vs stopping when you overcome resistance) and count up how many bonus successes you have to apply results.
I think the problem here is that people are playing journeys and councils without descriptions and motivations. Just like a set of rolls, what it is even the point?
There is even a BOX that says that if you argument well your intentions and what you want you get an extra success!

In the councils you are not supposed to use your ability randomly. It is not a part of the game that works forgetting all the other rules before. If you want to attempt something that makes no sense the LM is free to make it an automatic failure.

Journey offer more diversity, it does not dilute the options. An event that requires hunting, might also be solved by athletics.. but you need to explain how. Same for the reverse.

I feel like people look at the rules and only think about probabilities and min/maxing, forgetting that this is a role playing game where NARRATION is the most important part
 
RichKarp
Posts: 120
Joined: Tue 29 Jun 2021, 19:37

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 14:42

Nobody is forgetting narration. What they’re saying is that the mix of skills that can be employed shouldn’t always be equalized. Obviously the LM is meant to tailor a hazard or a council to the events being discussed and a certain skill may therefore be inappropriate situationally.

I think what’s particularly disappointing is the lack of guidance about how and when skills can be employed to achieve interesting and branching results. The fact that it is pass/fail rather than degrees of success is an entirely legitimate criticism.

Other games have better accomplished rules for “social combat” with different rolls associated with motivations, gaining your objectives, and/or suffering consequences/fallout. A better system for councils would provide some methodology for obtaining interesting results in negotiations with a single or multiple parties / antagonists. Rather than merely featuring players running down a list of their strong skills, it would provide some sort of meaningful impact for each apart from merely contributing to success. So for example again, if enheartening an ally or NPC provided a bonus to a subsequent roll within the council, or if over Awing an opponent penalized or forced them to withdraw an objection, that would be more interesting than the current setup, which is something I think players will ultimately come to ignore entirely (just as I did to the 1e rules!) in the service of weaving a more personalized and interesting story.
 
gyrovague
Topic Author
Posts: 591
Joined: Tue 28 Apr 2020, 16:52

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 16:09

An argument I've seen multiple times in this forum, not just in this thread, is some variant of "it's ok if the rules are simplistic; make it richer with roleplaying!"

I'm sorry, but I don't really find that very persuasive. Sure, if playing an RPG with overly simplistic rules that's what I'll do, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to discuss about the rules.

As I've said elsewhere, I think it all comes down to "interesting decisions", which essentially means that which action you take, using the rules, is a non-obvious choice. A trade-off. And making a trade-off can be roleplayed just as easily as a non-interesting dice roll, so why not design games that have the best of both worlds?

The problem with councils, in my opinion, is that it's obvious which action to take: you always use your highest remaining skill. Sure, the LM might give you additional information that changes which skill that is, but all that really means is that you move down the list.

Journeys, according to RAW, are also played out without decision-making: the LM rolls two dice to determine the Event and the Target, the Target rolls a Skill, and consequences are determined. No decision-making. However, what I will undoubtedly do is turn the actual events into decision points: the target(s) won't just be told to roll some dice (with narrative elements wrapped around it) but will have to choose from multiple courses of action, with risk:reward that makes either choice valid. It's going to be some work to build out those options.

Councils are a bit trickier. I'm honestly not sure what to do with them. Yet.
 
Dunheved
Posts: 494
Joined: Wed 11 Mar 2020, 02:07
Location: UK

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 19:19

A good point. Are Councils binary? and isn't that bad?

From Gyrovague: An argument I've seen multiple times in this forum, not just in this thread, is some variant of "it's ok if the rules are simplistic; make it richer with roleplaying!"
I'm sorry, but I don't really find that very persuasive. Sure, if playing an RPG with overly simplistic rules that's what I'll do, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to discuss about the rules.
"
and although I probably didn't read that with the correct TONE inside my head, (so it jarred a fair bit - my bad!): I continue to find myself at a loss to understand the mechanics and purposes of Councils.

Plus points: I am happy to expand the older TOR1e idea of Encounters, so that serious and story-driving scenes are now included and are called Councils. I first read this idea as meaning an important situation or chapter where the main/fundamental aims of the Company are realised. An agreement between LM and players is being specifically voiced and role-played: i.e. - what are we really trying to do (and who we are doing it for). In TOR1e I sometimes treated Encounters as a non violent way to garner AP - useful for newbie PCs btw - but a low risk and sometimes tedious exercise. TOR2e does not actually remove these sorts of meetings, but non-Council Encounters are ... for information I guess, now we don't directly earn each AP / Skill point.

Negative points: I am unsure or confused, or I just don't get it. The Resistance of a Council is the target number of successful rolls your Company has to roll to 'win' the Council (?) AND also the number of attempts you can make to reach that target? I must have this wrong, because for every failed skill roll, somebody in the Company HAS to get a Great Success or better to make up for that. Sometimes the dice don't roll like that. And currently I am thinking that Failure in a Council means that the Company just don't get to learn what to do for that adventure. If that is essentially it, {and I can no longer spend Hope after a roll to recover such a social faux-pas} then it looks like Elrond kicks the Fellowship out, because Samwise interrupted too soon. This seems to be the binary issue Success/Failure mentioned upthread. Councils seem so significant to me that some degree of Success is needed to be able to progress with the story. But in ALPHA rules TOR2e there is only Total Success.

Now I cannot believe this is the intent of the game: So I concede that my understanding MUST BE at fault. Which makes me agree that a simplistic binary result needs more refinement. (see quote above) It is really harsh to expect your PCs to have the experience to get through all this with "rich roleplaying". There will be people will be roleplaying this game for their first time, and in their group one of those people might be the LM for the first time as well. Is my only advice going to be - Hey, buy the Starter set as well. or do I say, yeah, you failed, end of game, shut the door on your way out.

Hopefully any explanation somebody needs to use to get through my thick skull will be added to the Core Rules.
 
User avatar
Harlath
Posts: 518
Joined: Sun 19 Jul 2020, 10:40

Re: Councils too simple?

Sat 24 Jul 2021, 21:40

Sympathise with a lot of the points here - I quite liked 1e's sliding scale for successes in similar scenes.

Perhaps a combination of in character play and mechanics could work here:

- Player's making the specific requests that were part of 1e's sliding scale and rolling the appropriate skill? Encourages a range of skills being used too.
- Completing the council faster (more time on time limit) = stronger reward?
- Or use the reasonable/bold/outrageous request thresholds for a sliding scale?
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