Hi!
Can a player use his skills with a simple roll to kill, persuade, scare, etc… without having to use a full on conflict procedure? When I read the rules sometimes it feels like the players have to go through the conflict procedure to kill a simple foe or to simply persuade a kobold to get off…Would it be allowed to just use fighter or manipulate as a simple roll?
I’m coming from 2e, so hopefully this apllies.
It is the GM’s call on when and how to implement the mechanics. The players don’t get to do anything with their skills. (That might be an exageration.) The players describe what their characters do and say, “I take a solid grip on my spear and thrust it into the goblin’s heart.” Then then GM decides if/how to process it into the rules. They, presumably, use their oberview of the environment and their sense of aesthetic to make the decision.
So, that could just be a Fighter vs test. It could be a kill conflict, or it could be a Good Idea.
With Kill conflicts, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. The game takes the position, “to take a life puts one’s own life at risk. Cavete Sicarius.”
This is an important distinction from most other games. Ask, “what is the most meaningful decision for the player.” For me, that is the main question I ask myself as a GM to determine how an obstacle should be resolved (no test, good idea, versus test, or conflict).
To enter into a kill conflict is (mostly) a player choice (when they describe trying to take the life of something and it is not an ambush). “Death is on the line.” They choose to go that route.
So, mechanically, if you resolve that with a versus test, the worst condition you could give would be Injured (cannot go directly to dead) and some of the meaningfulness of that decision is lost.
All that said, there are lots of examples of a single versus test for Fighter.
Usually, these are town events or camp events where there is a minor beast or enemy that needs to be dispatched. Anything more, and camp breaks or town phase is halted and drops back out to Adventure Phase.
For example:
Press ganged. You’re cornered by a determined press gang. Test Fighter vs Fighter 3 plus 6D of help. Suggested condition: injured.
or
Defend the walls. The town is attacked just as you enter. Test Fighter vs Fighter 4 to defend the walls against an attacker. If successful, you are granted +1D to Circles during this town phase. If failed, or you decline to take part, you suffer -1 to Precedence during this town phase.
So there is another element of pacing and what is appropriate for each phase. We can see in camp or town that minor inconveniences can be settled with a quick versus so that we get back to the important things in that phase. If it were truly something more significant, we would have to resolve that in Adventure phase.
When things that are not a Kill conflict occur and do not elevate to the level of a conflict, it is okay to treat those with a versus. Context matters, so it really depends.
You might underestimate a single kobold, but they are tricky. They might have a hidden explosive that changes things up, and so it should really be handled in a conflict.
Yes, that could be fine. There are rules for running games without conflicts. But to do so, you mess with the game economy and so to compensate, the rewards need to be adjusted. Otherwise, players might sit on too many banked rewards, or they could be deprived of valuable opportunities to earn checks or spend rewards for advancement. So there is a balance to keep in mind.
One of the things I love most about Torchbearer, Burning Wheel, &c. is the existence of full-on social conflict.
Many RPGs have a vast disparity between physical and emotional/logical conflict: negotiating with the Prince for your lives is one, maybe two, tests; fighting free is several rounds of tests with each participant making more than one test per round. As someone who used to argue cases in court for a living, this treatment of negotiation, disputation, &c. as somehow less difficult/important than physical violence always niggled at me.
So, the major consideration for which of the options to use to represent character’s striving against a challenge is what fits that moment; however, another important consideration is the overall representation of different types of challenge: it is fine to make social conflict less complex if that is the sort of game your table wants but make sure that emphasising one sort of conflict is a conscious decision about your world and the specific bits of it your game is prodding.