UNDER THE HOUSE OF THE THREE SQUIRES SPOILER ALERT
I finally got to test Torchbearer yesterday! I always suck with applying rules on the first try, so we were checking the book every five seconds, aside from that we had a great time. But I stumbled upon a problem that I think has more to do with criteria that with hard rules, here’s the situation:
The adventurers were delving into the natural caves under the House of the Three Squires and heard the loud screams of Joerg from area 8, and without second thought run to slay whatever creature is torturing the poor man. They trigger the tripwire and sound the alarm in area 7, and clash with the kobold guards sword and dagger on hand.
The thing is I didnt knew WHAT conflict should I declare because the players were obviously going for a Kill conflict, but they had sounded the alarm, basically failing the Scout test to detect the trip wire and jumping to the twist, so my first impulse was to choose from the listed conflicts in the kobold stats BUT it wasn’t a twist because there never was a test!
Anyway I decided for a Kill conflict, it was the most logical thing in the fiction, but it got me thinking: what do you do when characters take a course of action that takes them to failure without test. Do you, as GM, introduce the twist/condition anyway? What to do when a Wandering monster is on the line, and a clearly benefical Comflict can be triggered?
What do you guys think about it? How would you play out the situation?
Stay cool