[LoL] No one using Luck

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I've run two sessions (about 5 hours of gaming, no combat so far) and none of the characters have used luck. Even when an NPC informed them they were being followed, they did not use luck when they rolled their awareness checks.
  Mechanic:
Players start with beterrn 4 and 9 Luck points usually, Luck can be spent before or after the roll is made and is replinished to the full original total when XPs are awarded.

  The campaign is about a Mage, Priestess, Warrior and a Paladin-like (The players get to name their professions whatever they like and this player picked paladin) character investigating allegations that one country is raiding the border towns of another. So far they are in the city that is under siege by the accusers and are just getting ready to leave it to try and make it to the border and figure out what the truth is.

  Possible factors:
Playeers forgot to use luck
Players are saving luck for more life threatening situations
I was discouraging the use of Luck by hiding the NPCs skill roll totals
Luck system is not properly promoted in my game

  I don't know why I felt I had to hide the NPC Skill roll totals. The die roller in the system we are using makes all rolls public, so I thought I'd hide the totals so the players wouldn't start guesing what the skill level is of the NPCs. It made sense at the time, but after I started thinking about it afterwards, it seemed to be defeating the Luck Mechanic.
  This is an on-line, play by chat campaign and the first time I have seriously RP'd in a virtual form. Usually it is only across the table. I realise I was pretty nervous and fell back into old DM'ing habits of hiding rolls and hiding stuff the player would know. I have to work on that, but is this Luck issue is a real issue or just a matter of Players waiting for a life threatening situations to use Luck?

[Callan S.]

What rules do your players make a lot of use of?

Do the players ever try to get through various situations without using certain resources, in part to show they have enough skill to do that? Perhaps their not using luck is a way of showing it - which means they are using luck, by the way they show how they don't need it.

Do they talk about how they can get through this or that tight part of the game without using resources?

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I am not sure, it seems like they are still learning the system. Maybe I just need to remind them that they CAN and then they can make better decisions based on their desires.
  I know one of them seems to be more reole playing centered and the other seems to be more survival oriented. I asked them what they thought the reaons was and she said she was saving them to save her life.

[Eero Tuovinen]

In my experience optional systems are only used if you promote them actively ("You know, you could use Luck here!") or they're really useful. So did you tell the players about the possibility or remind them now and then? That's something you probably should do while waiting for the knowledge to sink in. Later on they've internalized the idea and will readily use it themselves.

Another factor is the intensity of play. It's possible that your players simply didn't confront any situations where they couldn't live with the results of failure. If you raise the stakes, the play will become more intense and the players will be more motivated to use their limited resources now, instead of later. Especially note: if your players are traditional adventure gamers (as it seems from the characters and such), they probably don't consider anything outside combat intense enough to warrant expenditure of resources. So take them into combat and see if they'd rather spend their Luck in attack rolls. Whether you should reschool them into appreciating non-combat roleplaying is a separate topic.

What does Luck exactly do? If it's usefulness is situation-dependent (for instance, it's only useful against slightly stronger opponents), it's possible that the players thought that the current opposition is too strong/weak/mexican to use Luck on. Hiding a part of the game mechanics might have an impact on that.

Whether this is important for the design: does the Luck mechanic tie to anything else in the overall game? What would happen if you'd remove it? In chargen, do players have to invest in Luck specifically, or does it come packaged with something else? If it's a totally separate thing with no special value apart from character differentiation, then you probably don't need to worry; the players who want it will take it, others manage without. Apart from that it's a bit difficult to say whether this is significant, as I don't completely grasp your goals with the design.

By the by: this is a good thread topic, I'm glad you're finding your pace.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Good point, I didn't mention it to the players. I didn't realize it was getting passed over til after the end of the last session. Players start with between 2 and 10 Luck, the Luck is automatically replinished to it's original total when they are awarded XPs. If you want a better total, you can trade in a luck, before or after the roll, to add one to your roll for each point spent, no limits.

[mutex]

Hi!
  Good point, I didn't mention it to the players. I didn't realize it was getting passed over til after the end of the last session. Players start with between 2 and 10 Luck, the Luck is automatically replinished to it's original total when they are awarded XPs. If you want a better total, you can trade in a luck, before or after the roll, to add one to your roll for each point spent, no limits.

If you allow them to trade in luck after the roll, they'll only ever use it if they fail badly enough to be endangered.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Yeah, that's intentional. The idea is to allow players to succeed when it matters to them.
  So, should I be telling them Skill roll totals or hiding them or..?

[Sydney Freedberg]

So, should I be telling them Skill roll totals or hiding them or..?

Don't hide them if you weren't hiding them before! Keeping players in the dark like that is lying by omission, which leads you into the whole disfunctional-GM trap of "I must lie to my players to protect them from themselves; only by taking away their ability to make real choices can I prevent them from making bad choices that ruin my beautiful, beautiful story!" When of course it should be their story too, not just yours, which means they have to have the power to change it.

If they have this Luck resource to save themselves from disaster, and they're not using it, then, as Eero said, you're probably not threatening them enough -- either because you're not hitting hard enough as the bad guys, or you're not hitting things they really care about, or both. Either way the not-using-Luck thing is just a symptom: The real disease is that play isn't intense enough.