Skilling carefully

Burning Wheel First Reading
1

So in my last session, after negotiating a minor treaty between two parties, a character wanted to write up a contract for both parties to sign. So the player said “I am going to use my write skill to write up a contract based upon what we just agreed upon and I would like to do this Carefully as I only have a write skill of B3.”

So, in order to make sure I am running the game correctly I have some questions on how you all would have run the die rolling.

First, would everyone have let the player test their write skill in order to complete this task? I know the write skill would be used, but as the actual writing of the contract would not have really added much that was not already taken care of via negotiating, it seems like testing the skill was not as important. Now I did have the player test the skill since i was “saying yes”, but am i being a bit too easy going on the tests?

Second, I decided that the OB was 5 as this was supposed to be a legal document using very precise language to legal hold the two parties to particular courses of action. The player, as i mentioned above, wanted to work carefully in order to give themselves a better chance or succeeding. I said sure so instead of rolling 3 dice because their write skill was B3, they rolled 4 dice. They got one success and “failed”. Now on page 29 the BWG book states that if a player is working carefully and they fail, they must run out of time. It doesn’t seem like in this situation there are any complications to be added because of running out of time. I said it would take 6 hours to write up a complete contract, so with working carefully it should take 9 hours. I ended up making the failure end up being that the player who wrote the contact wrote the language fine, but forgot to let the ink dry so after the contract was signed and he rolled it up the ink smudged so badly the contract cannot be read. So the complication is that if they ever need to actually show the contract they will be in trouble as it is illegible, though both sides are working within the terms agreed upon. Does this complication seem appropriate in terms of failure?

Thoughts?

2

For composing a legally binding contract without wierd loopholes or technicalities, I probably would have gone with either Rule Of Law or Bureauocracy; Write is for physically writing out characters on a page that other people can read.

As for whether or not you should have just Said Yes, well, that depends on whether or not navigating the intacacies of contract law is something that you and your players are interested in having in your game.

[One idea that I had while reading this for a fun consequence of failure was that if the test is failed, then you accidentally invoke some old, obscure law meaning that in order to seal the contract, one of the parties must marry the other’s eldest child.]

3

Yeah, Write is what we learn in elementary school: what the letters are and how to write them legibly. I second Rule of Law.

4

Saying Yes involves NOT having the player test the skill.
It sounds to me like a situation where it would have been appropriate to just let the player write the contract and to not roll the dice - that’s Say Yes. Save the dice for when there’s pretty clearly something important at stake and you have some interesting consequence for failure in mind. Don’t base the decision on whether the player wants to earn a test. If they want a test but there’s nothing really at stake, that’s just too bad for them.
The real conflict was the negotiations, right? Not the writing of the contract afterward.

5

Remember to state failure consequences up front…

In the case of someone working carefully, I always add some sort of second clause to the failure conditions related to the fact that they are taking more time—missing meeting up with allies in the next scene or whatever.

6

You used the Carefully rule correctly.

Why did you have the player test if you felt it was inconsequential?

7

Now that the players actually got to roll and you didn’t just Say Yes, failure should have cost something. Sure, they ran out of time - but that could’ve meant, just as an example, that they forgot to write the footnotes or simply didn’t finish, leaving the contract with a couple of serious flaws or loopholes.

It sounds to me like you didn’t specify exactly what consequences failure would have before they rolled?

8

A good failure is that they ended up signing a contract with another party while you took too long.

From personal experience, I know that a simple contract that should take a few hours can explode into a days’ or weeks’ long process as negotiations go back and forth and one side decides to bring in legal advice. Yeeeesh! That’s a time failure for sure!

9

Thanks all for responding.

  1. Taelor, Hirram-I guess I got it into my head that writing was not just being a copiest, but being able to write well. Higher difficulties indicate being able to clearly and correctly state ones ideas with the written form, like oration in written form. But after reading the responses and going back and looking at the skill i see i was wrong. Whoops! Thanks for clarifying that for me.

2.SeaWyrm - I agree with you about not letting players get tests just because they want one. I guess as i am having trouble envisioning many situations where the actual writing or a letter/document would have an effect on the story. The negotiations were the heart of the conflict. I guess I allowed it in the moment because a player was trying to use a skill that they spent points on. So I guess a question is, what kind of tests has everyone used write for in their games? I want to help players feel like the points they spent in skills were “worth it”.

  1. Deliverator/ Storapan - Oh i did set up the failure for rolling poorly before hand.

I ended up making the failure end up being that the player who wrote the contact wrote the language fine, but forgot to let the ink dry so after the contract was signed and he rolled it up the ink smudged so badly the contract cannot be read. So the complication is that if they ever need to actually show the contract they will be in trouble as it is illegible, though both sides are working within the terms agreed upon.

  1. Luke - I guess it felt inconsequential upon my reflecting on the session afterwards. In the moment I got excited that a player was trying to use their write skill and it seemed like the reasoning behind it was viable. But after the session when i thought about it further it seemed like the roll might have been if not inconsequential at least very minorly consequential in regards to the story.

This does bring up a basic difficulty I am having in regards to GMing the system. The difficulty arises from my history running other games so i know its on me and not on the system. In previous systems I have used skill rolls as one of many tools in which to help create a specific atmosphere or tension within a game. A very basic example is calling for perception rolls from the group while they characters are walking down the dark forested road at midnight. I sometimes use these calls for rolls to reinforce the atmosphere (by calling for these perception rolls I reinforce in a slightly more subtle way that the characters might be being watched by hidden foes without just stating “you feel like you are being watched”). I know its not that subtle nor original method, but it has been a useful tool. I am having trouble switching over to the “let the players know the consequences of failure beforehand” rule as it seems to take this tool out of my toolkit. It takes away the ability to have the surprise consequences of a failed roll from making itself known in a more tense moment. For example with my above stated failure, It doesn’t “make sense” that the player knows the ink is smudged until they unroll the contract and chances are they would only unroll it when they were going to refer to it when a party breaks the contract (i.e. “didn’t you sign this contract agreeing not to do this”). Since the player is aware of the smudging of the contract, this seems to take away a potentially fun role-playing moment when the player finds out in an important moment how exactly they messed up their contract.

Have other people had trouble switching their GMing mindset when they started running BW?

10

Nice idea for a failure! that makes sense and i feel embarrassed not to have thought of that.

11

The difficulty arises from my history running other games so i know its on me and not on the system. In previous systems I have used skill rolls as one of many tools in which to help create a specific atmosphere or tension within a game. A very basic example is calling for perception rolls from the group while they characters are walking down the dark forested road at midnight. I sometimes use these calls for rolls to reinforce the atmosphere (by calling for these perception rolls I reinforce in a slightly more subtle way that the characters might be being watched by hidden foes without just stating “you feel like you are being watched”)

You need to change the way it is solved during the game. Notice as well that you don’t ‘have’ to state the consequences on every single roll. It is a tool that you can use to put more pressure on the players, but for the rolls where the result is quite obvious (you see the danger, you don’t see the danger) you might not have to specify the stakes. However, look at it this way : if you ask for Perception roll, that means that there is something to be spotted near the PC. If you ask for a roll, but there is nothing to be seen, then it doesn’t really make sense in Burning Wheel : you ask for roll only if there is something important happening, if there is a stake involved. So going from that, you ask for roll only if there is something. Which means that as soon as you ask “Roll for Perception” the PC know that something is gonna happen. However, you don’t have to reveal everything. If you really want to make the consequences explicit, you can say “If you win, you will spot the danger and be able to have one action before something happens. If you loose, you will not have time to do anything before dangers come to you.” Saying that, you don’t reveal what is going on. But clearly once you ask for Perception, the PC knows that something will happen.

You still need to set up the tone and the atmosphere, but you can’t really use multiple repeated dice roll to do so. You ll need to clarify the descriptions, the narration and make them as evocative as possible. And then the dice will be used to put pressure on the players, in terms of assuming the consequences of their choices.

12

Players aren’t allowed to “cheat” to minimize the consequences of their failures: in this case, the smudging wouldn’t be discovered until the moment came to consult the contract, some months down the road. That’s included in your failure consequences.

13

Write is a skill that sees endless use in my games as a FoRK. Whenever you’re communicating by writing you can FoRK it.

But you want your vassal to march his men to join you? It’s possible you have a good relationship (and a good Relationship), and your command is sufficient to make it happen. But you’re miles and miles away, and you must pen the missive. Do it poorly and your illegible scratchings are ignored because no one can make heads or tails of them. Write is the skill that scribes use to earn their bread. Write if you must keep a record; fail the test and your records are useless later, meaning you’ve lost critical information.

14

For one, this is of course player and not character knowledge (which others have already pointed out); try to discuss this with your players. The good roleplaying can actually get better if the player is forewarned, but the character is not, and this is an important point in this system.

More importantly, though, it’s serves a purpose in the game that the players know this; they’re supposed to want to trip their own characters up! Trouble, mistakes and danger drives the story forward. If my players (who have gotten to know the system well by now, though) had this knowledge they would be strutting around, waving their contract and making all sorts of silly demands due to it, just begging for the moment when it’s unrolled and they have to start running, fighting, rolling dice and cashing in checks to escape that pickle…

15

Okay, so i think you’re looking at things wrong. Burning Wheel should be expanding your GM arsenal, not restricting it. Allow me to get up on my high horse and make with the pontificatin’

I know its not that subtle nor original method, but it has been a useful tool. I am having trouble switching over to the “let the players know the consequences of failure beforehand” rule as it seems to take this tool out of my toolkit.

First, there’s no rule that says the GM can’t do this. If you think it’s your best move, go for it. I think, though, that you’ll find you have better options for creating tension.

It’s a pretty blunt tool. Call for a Perception roll, they either roll well or poorly, something happens, or nothing happens. I’ve seen this so often since I started gaming in the late 70’s that its lost its luster. I don’t know if the GM is fucking with me or if something’s there, but if I rolled well and nothing happens chances are good that its a ruse. If I roll poorly and nothing happens, well I guess something could be out there, but nothing happening just gets tedious after a while.

It takes away the ability to have the surprise consequences of a failed roll from making itself known in a more tense moment.

See, here’s the thing. You want tension? How’s this?

Player: We’re heading to Gont. You said it was about a week’s journey through the forest right?
GM: Yup, but you don’t know about the hunters the King sent out yesterday. Why don’t you roll your Observation to see if you spot their ambush when you reach it? Failure here means they catch you flat footed and its steel tests, success and you’re able to spot them when they launch their attack. But, be warned, these guys are good. I’m rolling seven dice plus the King is spending a persona.

Now that’s tension. They have to decide a lot of things. Do they spend artha, for starters. How important is this roll exactly? And, win or lose, the GM has announced that they’re holding an ambush in their back pocket.

For example with my above stated failure, It doesn’t “make sense” that the player knows the ink is smudged until they unroll the contract and chances are they would only unroll it when they were going to refer to it when a party breaks the contract (i.e. “didn’t you sign this contract agreeing not to do this”).

Well, the GM has gotta be like Hawkeye in the Avengers. Not every arrow is right for all situations. If you don’t want them to know until they unfurl it, call for a writing test and tell them that will set the ob in the versus test when they try to enforce it later on. Now the players know if they have a strong case or a weak one, but not if they succeeded. Set the failure condition up front when you want the irony of the payers knowing that the characters are walking around with an illegible contract. Maybe, they discover it later that evening and it sends the adventure off in new directions. Maybe, they try to use the contract anyway, showing it but not unfurling it or hoping the other side cant read well. If you know they have to show the contract later no matter what, then setting a roll for whether its inelligible when they unfurl it is golden. Like if they’ve been sent by the prince to get this contract. You set the failure condition that when they present it to the prince, its unusable. Golden! The characters have to bring it and the players know that something interesting is going to happen when they do.

16

Then don’t call for a test until you need to find out how well the contract was written. Then you all will be surprised (the other players and you, the GM too) at the same time.

17

Lots of great advice.

Thanks noclue on the run through. I know the “perception test” is a heavy hammer trope and its great to see how others handle situations like that. Its been years since i have seen how others run games as i am the only person in my group who runs. Its easy to forget alternate ways of doing things when one does not have other GMs to take cues and inspiration from.