A leader without checks.

The party had earned some checks. 1 players had 1, another had 2 and the third (the party leader) had none.

I rolled on the camp events table. A monster shows up. I describe it, “No sooner as you’ve lit your campfire it attracts the attention of a burley lizardman who’s now found food… (the food is you)”

Party leader with no checks starts describing how he stands infront of the others and starts to parlay with it.

I ask the players if anyone would donate a check to him to have him do that. But they thought that a display of violence was a better idea and would not use their checks for parlay. But the player with no checks reminded them that he was the party leader.

In the end I went with the player that had the checks to spend. I described the lizardman being unwilling to even talk with anyone meaning that they’d need to respond with the violence.

Would you have done differently?

So, these camp events are weird because they occur in a gray area between camp and adventure phase. I assume you rolled the minor inconvenience result, rather than the disaster (since that would end the camp phase immediately).

We did have this in play, but I can’t remember what we did. I’d be inclined to treat the monster’s appearance as a delay to the start of camp phase proper, and have it cost no checks to attempt to drive away the monster. On the other hand, it would be yet another turn in the adventuring phase, and would use up light and calories.

Yes it was the minor inconvenience. I read the accompanying note on the table to mean that it would consume a check to deal with.

Party leader is really for adventuring phase. Once a conflict starts the combat captain takes over. In camp, every man (with a check) for himself! The only real important rules governing player behavior is you need an instinct to act without a check and that you can’t act twice in a row.

I think you were right to make them spend a check. You could have pushed at his checklessness by telling him the lizard man ignored him and pushed past toward one of the characters with checks. Party leader is a nice title and all, but there’s no guarantee you’re effective.