The master of the household has cause to celebrate. He looks to one of his disciples, and asks him to bring the wine. The disciple brings a jug of wine, but no cups. The master looks at his disciple and says:
“My good friend. A man should not drink from a jug, but for want of a cup”
At this point the player of the master looks to his GM and says:
“I have a twofold intent here. Firstly I want this guy to go get a cup, and be mindful of such situations in the future, but I also want him to take away the metaphorical meaning of my lesson: that you should remember to observe what is proper, even when you chase what you want”
What is the task here? Are we looking at a Philosophy test that FoRKs instruction, or an Instruction test that FoRKs Philosophy? What determines which is correct? For the sake of the argument, let’s assume that the situation calls for a test, and that this is not just a “say yes” situation.
It’s intentional that there’s more than one task to fit a given intent, and even that there’s more than one skill for any given task. I think either one is fine here.
I would say that Persuade or even Etiquette would be the main skill itself. Because the playing is trying to get them to go get something that they otherwise not do. But they are forking in Philosophy and Instruction to teach them a lesson through persuading them to get the cup and also learn something from it.
But honestly it is hard to know what to roll when you don’t particularly say how they are doing it. Are they engaging them in philosophical debate? Are they persuading them to get their own things? Are they wording it more of a lesson like they are teaching someone? Are they saying that this is not courtly behavior to ask such a request? It is less about the intent but more about what they are doing to make the intent happen. These are the things that tell you to know what skill to roll. Think of it the same way like inconspicuous and stealth are in this game. One is to pretend your just an average person doing nothing suspicious and another is that they don’t see you at all. They fill the same roll, but are roleplayed in different ways. You need to see how they are role playing it then you can say which skill it should be, the intent does not tell you what skill to role, the role playing does.
Interesting. And much obliged. The point about multiple skills accomplishing an intent is exactly what I’m curious about.
So another hypothetical:
The Knight character wants to convince the Order of Vermillion to join forces with the characters, to slay the dragon.
The Knight, being completely inept at Persuasion, gives it his best effort, but at the end of the day, he fails to produce the necessary 8 successes on his 4 Will dice, to convince the master of the order.
Instead of stonewalling the player and saying “nope, can’t do it” the GM has the player fail forwards and adds some form of complication. Let’s say the head of the order is not convinced the Knight is worthy of this challenge, and he will not send his order to die in vain. The Knight, in response, draws the magic dragon-killing sword the group located to slay the dragon, and seeks to impress the head of the order with a display of skill, so he will agree to join their quest to slay the dragon.
What are we looking at here? Can the player make a Sword test to convince the head of the order? Is he making another unopened persuasion test with Sword as a linked test? Taking advantage for having the magic dragon-killing sword?
Although there is a Persuasion skill that is the cleanest fit for an intent to “convince someone to come around to your point of view”, how far (if at all) should we as GMs be willing to stray from this Skill, while letting it achieve a similar result?
Well that one wouldn’t work because of Let it Ride would apply to the second roll and I don’t see much change so basically that is up to the GM whether to say if they will accept the player riding off instead.
Let’s assume the pressence of the sword would be enough of a change. The gist of the question is more of how much we should weigh the description vs the intent, when we consider skill substitution for tasks, as the GM.
Ignoring Let It Ride, this is what I think. You could go ahead and use Intimidate/Ugly Truth/Etiquette(or maybe even rule of law wise if you present well) if you do it correctly. You could scare the king that his best knight will die, send a lesser one(yourself) so his life won’t go to waste. That this sword is the dragon slayer sword and without it they would just die. Or your the one that brought the problem up so you must fix it yourself.
If you really want to use sword you could make it interesting. Challenge the King’s Knight who would be sent on the quest to a duel. If you win you have proved your right to go on the quest, if you lose the Knight takes your Dragon Killing Sword.
To stop arguing, let’s say the failure of the Persuasion test is that the king is unconvinced and demands evidence that the knight is worthy. (It’s not a great failure, but bear with me.) So the intent is to demonstrate worthiness and get the king to fall in line. The failure consequence here is a little toothless, but it’s fine to reattempt something you failed with a different task; it’s just that failure usually means other problems come up. The task that goes along with the intent is a separate decision. The player can announce any task and the GM has to figure out if it’s reasonable, and help figure out what the roll would be.
So the task is… impressing someone by waving around a sword? That’s not much of a task. The knight pulls out the sword and then says or does what to make it clear that he’s worthy after all?
Does he hold it towards the heavens and let its fame awe everyone? That’s probably Conspicuous. Is he trying to frighten the king? Intimidate. Making it clear that they’re all going to die if they don’t go with him and his cools sword? Maybe Ugly Truth. If he gives a rousing speech to the court he’s using Oratory. If he wants to show his martial prowess he could pick a duel with someone and use Sword, sure, but what that’s showing is his skill as a swordsman; that’s not necessarily the point in question.
You’ll note that the skills being listed are mostly social. That’s because while there’s not just one skill that matches the task of convincing someone to do something, there are definitely ways you can’t convince someone. Using Sword (or other weapon skills) is one of them, because those are for swinging dangerous tools around, not winning hearts and minds.
Yes. Even if he challenged another Knight to a duel in order to prove himself, I’d likely say "Okay describe how you trounce this guy, because you win the duel. The question is whether or not your prowess compels the King to act. Let’s figure out what skill that is, maybe conspicuous or etiquette or some religious skill showing your faith.
If anything, I would allow the Dragon Slayer sword as an advantage dice, maybe two if it was a well known, hard won quest that won the fabled sword (but such a quest would almost certainly have granted some kind of reputation bonus).