Rolling Stats and help with Versus test examples.

Hey all!

Got a horrible big pile of questions here and apologies in advance! Basically I’m a little bit confused about situations where you roll stats as…well stats and not because of Beginners Luck. The sections specifically on stats are pretty brief in BWG but it says things like…power is tested in a grapple, speed is tested for lots of movement things etc etc.

Also in scripted things like Duel of Wits, and Range and Cover the book is very specific about when you roll a stat instead of skill. However, I’m just wondering what other situations this is applicable?

There’s an example in the Fight! chapter that got me all confused. It concerns to characters lunging for a sword at the same time and the resolve this with a contested power test. Now, could one of these players say that actually what they’re doing is brawling the opponent. They don’t have brawling as a skill so the test is still a Power vs Power test just they have the option to mark this as test to open Brawling.

This then brings me to the confusion about versus tests where it’s Stat vs Skill and Stat vs Stat. In a normal situation where I haven’t got the skill and my opponent does then the Beginners Luck rules are very obvious. I have a double obstacle penalty so, in effect I need 2 successes for 1 of my opponents. In a situation where we’re both using the Beginners Luck rules then this essentially cancels out right? We now basically go back to a “normal” versus test situation.

But what about in this Power v Power example above. We’re going to grapple over this sword and I say that my intent is to brawl with this guy and get the sword before he does. I’m rolling Power as a stand in for the fact that I don’t have the brawling skill. He is apparently just rolling Power because…well I’m not really sure why to be honest. In this case do I have a double obstacle or, like in other Stat v Stat situations is it just a normal vs roll.

Essentially all of this text can be boiled down into two questions:

  1. Can someone explicitly tell me in what situations stats are rolled, not just in place of a skill but as their stat? (So DoW, R&C, fight, positioning tests and…?)
  2. Is stat vs skill always double ob to the stat and is stat vs stat always devoid of double ob penalties?

This brings me on to the second part of this quite long post (I did warn you!!).

Basically I just think I need a little bit of help grasping Versus tests as a way to simulate simple combat. I need to draw concepts from all sorts of different part of the book and it’s making my brain melt a little bit. Anyway here’s some examples so just wanted advice on whether these make sense, are wrong, or just aren’t the way you’d play this situation.

Lets say one of my players tells me he wants to sneak up on a guard and kill him. So his intent is to kill someone and his task is to do this using stealth. So I tell him to roll his stealth skill (which lets say he has) and I roll the guards observation. Lets say my player succeeds and then he gets to act out his intent. In one roll he sneaks up behind the guard and slits his throat. If my player fails then he gets spotted, the guard draws his sword and then we could shift into a sword vs knife versus test perhaps giving my player a disadvantage because he’s in a crouched sneaky position (or something to that effect).

That’s the simplest way I can envisage that situation but presumably I could do this as a series of Linked versus tests. Test one is the same as above, Stealthy vs Observation. The success or failure of that test then gives him an advantage or disadvantage to the next test - the actual art of killing. Once again lets say my player passes that first test with a few extra successes gaining him +1D on the next test. The next test would be Knife vs…something…here’s where once again I get confused and perhaps it goes back to the stats again. It wouldn’t be knife vs sword because the guard has been taken by surprise. Is it knife vs…power…speed…another skill I can’t think of?

Also of the two examples is one preferable or the other or are both fair ways to play out this situation? How would you play out this without using Bloody Versus or Fight?

Once again sorry for this tirade of questions. I basically feel like at this point I get the gist of Burning Wheel and I really like that gist!! Just the more I think about it and plan what I’ll be doing when I eventually GM it the more questions pop up in my head!

Anyway thanks!!

Any time you take an action that’s governed by a stat but that doesn’t fall neatly into a skill, you’ll roll a stat (or maybe even an attribute like Health). See What Ability Do I Roll? on page 25.

Spot something that’s not obvious/hidden? Perception. Though active stealthy stuff (like someone using the Stealthy, Inconspicuous or Sleight of Hand skills) would call for the Observation skill.

Using physical dexterity to catch an object (say catching a falling vase before it hits the floor) would be Agility.

etc.

In the example from the book, it’s not a brawling test because neither side is trying to strike the other. They’re trying to grab the scimitar and wrest it away from the other person. If one of them had stated an intent of beating the other person down, it would be a Brawling test.

  1. Is stat vs skill always double ob to the stat and is stat vs stat always devoid of double ob penalties?

For the first part, yes, with a few exceptions, which are noted in the book. When you roll Will for an Avoid in the Duel of Wits, it is not at double obstacle. I believe the entry says this. Likewise, Using Steel to Charge in Range & Cover is not double obstacle.

For the second part, correct. You do not apply double ob penalties to stat vs. stat tests.

Basically I just think I need a little bit of help grasping Versus tests as a way to simulate simple combat. I need to draw concepts from all sorts of different part of the book and it’s making my brain melt a little bit. Anyway here’s some examples so just wanted advice on whether these make sense, are wrong, or just aren’t the way you’d play this situation.

Lets say one of my players tells me he wants to sneak up on a guard and kill him. So his intent is to kill someone and his task is to do this using stealth. So I tell him to roll his stealth skill (which lets say he has) and I roll the guards observation. Lets say my player succeeds and then he gets to act out his intent. In one roll he sneaks up behind the guard and slits his throat. If my player fails then he gets spotted, the guard draws his sword and then we could shift into a sword vs knife versus test perhaps giving my player a disadvantage because he’s in a crouched sneaky position (or something to that effect).

Technically, his intent is to kill the guard and his task is to sneak up behind him and slit his throat. As the GM, it’s your job to adjudicate which skill or set of skills best fit the stated task. As you intuited, Stealthy would be what I would call for, and a Knife FoRK would be appropriate.

Note, however, that the character only gets spotted on a failure if that’s the failure consequence you, as the GM, put forward. It would certainly make sense, but you could, for instance, have a second guard join him and start chatting, or something similar that stymies his attempt. Maybe he slits the guard’s throat but a maid walks in while he’s doing the act.

Otherwise you’re exactly correct.

That’s the simplest way I can envisage that situation but presumably I could do this as a series of Linked versus tests. Test one is the same as above, Stealthy vs Observation. The success or failure of that test then gives him an advantage or disadvantage to the next test - the actual art of killing. Once again lets say my player passes that first test with a few extra successes gaining him +1D on the next test. The next test would be Knife vs…something…here’s where once again I get confused and perhaps it goes back to the stats again. It wouldn’t be knife vs sword because the guard has been taken by surprise. Is it knife vs…power…speed…another skill I can’t think of?

Yes, Linked tests are also an option. The guard might test Brawling or Knife. In general, though, if you’re uncertain what one of the parties would roll in the subsequent test, it’s a good sign that you should do a single versus test rather than a Linked test.

Also of the two examples is one preferable or the other or are both fair ways to play out this situation? How would you play out this without using Bloody Versus or Fight?

Both are fair ways to play it out. In general, I favor single tests unless I really want to focus in on the action that’s happening. Spending Artha is more potent on a single test. Higher skill will be more decisive in Linked tests.

You’re the best Thor!! Thanks for the speedy and seriously detailed reply. The part about Linked tests is particularly helpful - when it’s unclear what test to use then use a single test sounds like a good rule of thumb.

Also regarding consequence of failures how open are you to your players? I get you don’t want to screw them over but how much would you tell them about the ramifications of a failed roll. In the stealth situation I used would you let the players know exactly what would happen (e.g. the guard will attack you) or do you prefer to leave things somewhat vague. I guess it’s a fine line between not screwing over the players and having some element of surprise in the story - such as the shock of another guard appearing due to a failed stealth roll.

The intent needs to be explicit, and I also always make the failure consequences explicit. “If you succeed you kill the guard. If you fail you still kill the guard, but not before another guard comes by and catches you red-handed.” The surprise should be in how changed circumstances play out, not in what failure does. Having failure consequences that are tricks is not good; players then can’t trust the failure consequences you state to be the failure consequences you mean.

Deciding how many tests and how to connect them is a big part of the art of running BW. It’s the directorial way to zoom in or out on the narrative. If it’s an incidental task or not interesting, make it a single roll. If it’s more important, make it a few. Obviously, if the task is in fact the entire point of the campaign, or a big arc, it’s going to be many rolls, maybe over many sessions. (“I want to topple the Dark Lord!” should probably not get, “Okay, roll Command to gather allies, lead the army, siege his fortress, storm the gates, and stab him through his black and shriveled heart.”)

Agreed. Be explicit with the consequences of failure. I don’t think you’ll regret it.

Wow that is gonna be different from other systems I’ve played. I’ll give it a shot though.

How do you handle that with traps and other suprises?

“If you fail this roll to unlock this chest a poison trap will activate”

Literally that explicit?

What about things (like traps) that trigger not through tests but simply through players opening the wrong door? Or is that not really a done thing in BWG?

If you fail this roll, you trigger the poison needle trap in the door knob.

The bandit ambush you along the road. Roll Observation versus their Stealth to see if you can spot them before they get the drop on you.

Especially for surprises you need to be clear about failure because otherwise intent and task become incoherent. Why roll at all? The failure makes the stakes clear. That’s also important for deciding whether to spend artha. A delay in opening the door, an alarm, and a deadly trap may get different decisions!

You can, of course, inflict bad things on characters without a warning or a roll. I’d be very cautious about doing it with traps or other time when there’s a decision but it’s not clearly linked (except in hindsight) to what happens. BW is about making decisions based on Beliefs, not on dungeon crawl best practices. You can turn your game into a miserable crawl not driven by Beliefs if you go down this road.

BW isn’t very D&D-like. Although maybe some of the Burnin THAC0 players can weigh in more.

Absolutely! You can also give a complication to the action that the player is trying to solve, “If you fail the roll, you open the safe, but a poisoned dart lodges in your neck” I really like these moments when the DM can give information to players regardless of whether they succeed or not. Complications “twist” makes the story go, and most of the time, this creates situations where even the DM is taken by surprise, which is great fun!