When Words Failed Me

[JamesDJIII]

Last night we played Exalted, and I had the hardest time coming up with "cool" ways to describe what I wanted to do. (A lot like games like Sorcerer, Exalted has a mechanic that rewards people for describing their actions in neat ways, and the better the reaction from the  group, the bigger the reard. At least that's my understanding.)

Example: faced with a horde of undead minions, the GM looks to me and asks, "How are you going about your attack?" For the life of me, I couldn't really think of way to make my attack interesting enough to warrant a bonus. This bothers me because it seems like a pretty important part of what makes that game fun.

I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem/issue. Am I suffering from game incoherence? Any tips? Suggestions? _OR_ maybe I'm just BORING?!!? (Don't think so...)

[Ben Lehman]

I prescribe a twelve hour marathon of Shonen Anime and Wushu movies.
Do not be afraid to plagarize.

yrs--
--Dr. Ben

[rafial]

I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem/issue.

This certainly resonates with me.  While I enjoy the intent behind such mechanics, I've had less than satisfying experiences with them in the past.  Such hiccups break down into a couple of scenarios:

1) Just not being "on":  Some nights, you just aren't feeling inspired.  All you can come up with is "I hit the guy".

2) Encounters that drag: All parties are coming up with cool manuevers, but the game effect in each case is very minimal.  After about the 5th or 6th time you whack the same bad guy, you kind of feel like you are "out of material."  I ran into this problem in the little bit of Exalted I've played... Also Feng Shui

3) Frustration: You think of something way cool and stylish, garner your bonus, and the boff the roll.  Sort of adds an extra sting to the failure, and makes it hard to feel motivated to think up new cool stuff.  This has bitten me repeatedly in Sorcerer.

[jdagna]

I've had that problem too, so I don't think it's just you.  In fact, I tend to avoid games that give bonuses for cool descriptions because the performance anxiety almost makes it harder to give the descriptions than in systems that don't care what you do.

One thing I do is look to other players for suggestions.  You can really increase the coolness factor when multiple characters start doing things together.

This observation is a little unrelated, but sometimes it seems like the cool thing isn't necessarily so cool.  For example: the scene in Indiana Jones where the guy is flourishing his sword and Indy just shoots him.  I feel like "I hit him" is sometimes the most appropriately cool thing to do in certain situations.

[Ben Lehman]

This observation is a little unrelated, but sometimes it seems like the cool thing isn't necessarily so cool.  For example: the scene in Indiana Jones where the guy is flourishing his sword and Indy just shoots him.  I feel like "I hit him" is sometimes the most appropriately cool thing to do in certain situations.

BL>  I agree.  However, this can be handled under such systems too.  "After staring at his impressive display, I raise one eyebrow incredulously, pull out my gun, and shoot him."

Which carries the same tone but makes sure it gets it across to all the other participants, too.

yrs--
--Ben

[John Harper]

Well... this may sound flippant but, if you can't come up with descriptions for cool stunts and fighting moves, then don't play a game that almost entirely depends on the players being able to do just that.

I have run lots and lots of Feng Shui. I would not want to play that game with people who say "I hit him." The cinematic descriptions are why I play. There are plenty of other very fun roleplaying games out there that don't depend on this kind of descriptive ability. If it's not your thing, I say play something else.

Now, if you want to *develop* the ability to describe cool moves, then take Ben's advice: watch Kung Fu movies and anime. Steal. Tell your GM that you're not yet comfortable coming up with cool stunts, but you're willing to try if she bears with you.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

These days, I tend to focus on group reactions as my basis for awarding the bonus dice, as GM. No matter what it is, if a person or two at the table goes "Uh!" or otherwise reacts positively, there's the die.

People often interpret the rule as meaning, "flowery" or "lengthy," but I really don't understand that. Indiana Jones' shot (note his facial expression just before drawing) earns a whopping bonus, in my view. You see, Indy doesn't "just shoot him." He gives him an exasperated "Oh, come on" look. He makes a statement with that look. He tells the movie-goer something about himself with that statement. That's what's exciting, not his (for instance) marksmanship.

In Sorcerer, at least, there are lots more ways to get bonus dice than how the action is described. An action which changes the nature of the conflict, or illustrates a new take on the situation on the part of the character ... a tactical move ... the player using face, voice, or body motions to emphasize the announcement ... all count, as listed in the rules.

What I'm not sympathetic to, on the other hand, is the person who's just running through the motions of being there, either not engaged at all or perhaps waiting for the system to deliver kewlness for him.

But that issue cannot be allowed to rest with a single person. I'm thinking back to the game Peter, Jake, and Jason played with me at GenCon 2002, and you know something? That game lacked bite. Jake's final duel with the sword-demon was flat ... because conflict was absent, and hence so was engagement. Trying to whip up bonus dice when that applies is just a chore. The absence of the conflict was a failure of the group, not of any one person.

Best,
Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

I was wondering if anyone else has had a similar problem/issue. Am I suffering from game incoherence? Any tips? Suggestions? _OR_ maybe I'm just BORING?!!? (Don't think so...)

Two advices, I think. Let's see how it lays down:

First, why not stop worrying and love the failure? Seriously, the Exalted rules are build so that the extra dice aren't necessary for quite passable superheroics. The rules are build so that you need roughly double the number of dice to double the effectiveness. Means that if your character has only one die in some task, you can quadruple it by the bonus dice! On the other hand, if your character has fifteen dice (not impossible for fighting-oriented starting characters), the bonus is much smaller.

For general erudition, here follows a roughly eyeballed list of frequencies for garnering one success (counting one die as a half success, which is close enough with tens doubling):
No. of dice:     frequency of at least one success:
0                    .5
1                    .75
2                    .88
3                    .94
4                    .97
5                    .98
6                    .99
7                    1
8                    1
9                    1
10                  1

What this means? It means that the bonus dice only have a meaningful impact when your character is bad at something. I'd say that five dice is an expected minimum you'll have to throw (usually characters won't have to test their specific weaknesses), and one bonus die gives you a whoppin' one percent better chance of getting at least one success. So don't bother.

The above is of course a little counterintuitive - you get the best game benefit from doing stunts in challenges your character is bad at. But then, who said that ST-system was very story oriented to begin with?

If you are worried simply about game effectiveness when fighting zombies, getting a good weapon or one more combat charms more than balances the tongue-tiedness. In addition the system is so designed, that gaining experience will quickly make a combat expert so ridiculously powerful that the stunts are quite pointless. They say it in their own book:

... there will undoubtedly be groups who find Arad the Hunter, Mother Bog or the Five-Metal Shrike very underpowered. These statistics were set with the assumption that Storytellers and players developed their characters for roleplaying and not purely for combat.

where Arad and his homies are what passes for Turbonium Dragon in the Creation. The text goes on to recommend in a true WW style that the ST correct this lack by upping the statistics of such monsters to such a level that they *do* provide a challenge for such powermongering players...

The point of the first advice: you don't have to sacrifice your vision of a zombie-kickin' Zenith-caste Solar simply because your grounding in the genre is a little rusty or you don't like inventing fight coreography. You'll do quite fine without, the rules take care of that.

The second advice, on the other hand: what if describing action is socially expected? If your playing buddies look badly on not participating in the choreography (as they well should, if they happen to be visual oriented wushia fans or something), you'll just have to get better at it. The Exalted rules system tends to drag down at times and provide too long battles, but that can also be surmounted if you look at it from the right perspective.

The point of describing fights is not in getting the dice, it's in quite simply playing the game. If the descriptions are a prominent part of the game, it's actually a good sign. I'd at least be a little taken aback if an Exalted game was full of fighting and nobody described interesting stunts! This playing style promotes the battle as an aesthetic experience in itself. Think of the movie Matrix: the exactly same enjoyment the movie provides is provided by the visual stunts some Exalted-players think are de rigueur for the game. Matrix is mainly just a string of stunts, at which the audience can go "Ooh!". If you don't participate in this creation, you are perhaps not participating in the main activity at all. If you don't enjoy it, you might be playing the wrong game (or at least the fighting emphasis isn't for you).

Anyway. In this second case, you'll evidently have to learn to do the stunts. The best advice has already been given: saturate your mind with fight coreography. Postmodern action movies do the trick (not the brutal Stallone-Schwartchenegger ones, but ones like the abovementioned Matrix, the new Spiderman and Daredevil, all movies with beautiful violence-balette. Also other action of good taste, like Indiana Jones already mentioned or Kill Bill, the only beautiful movie from that director). This should be self-evident: write what you know, and play what you know. Know what works on the screen good enough, and you can create pastiches and eventually your own content. This is an useful skill, because Exalted isn't the only game consisting of significant fighting.

For the actual play, I suggest good consentration. Keep a visual picture of the scene right from the start. Where you are, what the surroundings are like, who else is there (both PCs and NPCs). Let your mind free-associate from the motivations for the battle, from what you know of the world, what you know of fight coreography. Find a visual style, whether anime or film, that fits with the scene.

When the fighting starts, keep a picture of the situation. Where you are, where others are. Pinpoint things in your mind that make the scene real: the scowl of the villain, the clinking jewelry of the dancer-ninja. Change your focus, imagining the best shots for a camera. Keep the picture static at first, but when the suggestions (that is, movements) start coming in, scroll them in your chosen style in your mind's-view-camera, upgrading the situation. It should so happen, that when it's your turn, you just know instinctively, from the same place writers or choreographers know, what is coming next.

For the above to work, you have to have the imagination. That is a shortened form of the above phrase about learning the genre. If you have enough of it in your head, a suitable piece /will/ come to you. If you are the intellectual type, use forms: analyze good fights, note how the dynamics of the scene change, isolate the actual thematic content from the color, and so on. You'll begin to see the forms: the stare-down, the exhange-of-blows (and it's specific form, the samurai duel), the one-against-many, the "Hah! You think that hurt?" and many others. These general vignettes can be applied just as fast as intuition to format your part of the grand scene.

Use the rules, don't let rules use you, is the last part of the second advice. Let rules point you toward themes. If neither you or the opponent make any headway, start describing the sweat, the tiredness, the luggish sweep of the great big dastardly klaives (or whatever those swords are called, I forget). Make an epic confrontation out of it, regardless of actual story importance of the opponent. If the fight goes against you, describe the villains smirk. If you are on a roll, make a blood-balette out of your description. /Don't/ try to futilely think of cool moves in advance, or to try to apply any general stunts. The "my sword wooshes through the air, it's arc flashing in pure golden colors" shtick just doesn't cut it. Always think what a movie would make of the scene, and use the dice for an inspiration (actually, roll the dice first, and describe the action after that. More sensible): If the fight takes place in a smithy (like the duel in the Pirates of the Caribbean), do you think a director worth his salt would make it a general clobberfest like the one in the end of the Matrix Revolutions? No! He'd put in jumping in the rafters, circling the anvil, using tools as improvised weapons, putting fire on the place and other such shenanigans. Don't bother with the general stunt.

All in all, no fight should be non-important in a heroic fantasy. It's almost always a mark of blatant dysfunction if you start going to fights just hoping that they were over. Someone is playing in a style incompatible, as they'd say if Moore's Supreme was named "Incompatible". Embrace the fight and think of it as the most important content in your game right then. If your heart cannot get in it, discuss reducing the number of fight scenes in favor of less but more important.

Hope that helped.

[John Burdick]

Last night we played Exalted, and I had the hardest time coming up with "cool" ways to describe what I wanted to do. (A lot like games like Sorcerer, Exalted has a mechanic that rewards people for describing their actions in neat ways, and the better the reaction from the  group, the bigger the reard. At least that's my understanding.)

Read carefully the rules for stunts. One and two die stunts are actually pretty straight forward. Three die stunts are the only ones that have to be highly exciting.

One die stunts describe your action in a manner that affects the senses. "His sword crashes into mine with a clang and a shower of sparks."

Two die stunts involve improvised props and terrain. "I dodge behind a wine barrel."

Bottom of page 267: "Most one- and two-die stunts will end up exploiting visual cliches. They're entertaining, but they're not surprising or unexpected."

Only one of the 4 players in the game I run attempts stunts, but the game still works for players that are coasting in that respect. The player least likely to stunt was also the first to build a combo.

John

[JamesDJIII]

Ron said:

People often interpret the rule as meaning, "flowery" or "lengthy," but I really don't understand that. Indiana Jones' shot (note his facial expression just before drawing) earns a whopping bonus, in my view. You see, Indy doesn't "just shoot him." He gives him an exasperated "Oh, come on" look. He makes a statement with that look. He tells the movie-goer something about himself with that statement. That's what's exciting, not his (for instance) marksmanship.

In Sorcerer, at least, there are lots more ways to get bonus dice than how the action is described. An action which changes the nature of the conflict, or illustrates a new take on the situation on the part of the character ... a tactical move ... the player using face, voice, or body motions to emphasize the announcement ... all count, as listed in the rules.

Bingo.

That's what I was looking for. The GM explictly explained the rule (Exalted, not Sorcerer) as the action described must be over the top to count. I don't think Ron's given definition fits what my GM was thinking, but I like it a lot better,

You know, I've spoken to another good RPG buddy of mine and he said he never felt right playing games that have this sort of mechanic for exactly the reason I described. That included Sorcerer, for him. Armed with this new look, maybe he'll feel less intimidated by the idea, and try again.

I'll try to clarify with my Exalted pal if this definition is just as valid for his game.


Many Thanks!

[greyorm]

3) Frustration: You think of something way cool and stylish, garner your bonus, and the boff the roll.  Sort of adds an extra sting to the failure, and makes it hard to feel motivated to think up new cool stuff.  This has bitten me repeatedly in Sorcerer.

Been mulling this over a bit, and realized something while driving around today regarding the idea of "lost dice" and Sorcerer specifically, because something bothered me about getting bit by it in Sorcerer.

It occurred to me that this isn't supposed to happen in Sorcerer, you aren't supposed to be bitten by failure. Why that was escaped me momentarily, until I recalled the "No-Whiff" factor. That is, in Sorcerer, your action may fail, but your character doesn't.

For example, "Quan-vu does a spinning kick, legs twirling through the air like helicopter blades...we watch in slow motion as he twists over his surprised enemies, cracking jaws and skulls before dropping in a swift motion into a defensive stance, challenge written in his eyes."

The GM and players are wowed by your word-smithery and now you get a couple bonus dice to roll. Unfortunately, you suck and fail the roll. Crap, all that effort was wasted and your character doesn't pull off the described stunt...

Well, wait, that's where we diverge in our understanding of the mechanic. The STUNT STILL WORKS...but there's a problem. The opponents shake off the blows and rush you again, or one of them grabs you and flips you just as you land. You still get the "I'm fuckin' cool" deal even though, at that instant, you don't get the purely mechanical benefits of being "fuckin' cool."

Take a look at pages 67-68 in "Sorcerer & Sword", paying specific attention to the last sentence of that whole section, for it is intimately telling: "...this approach to interpreting failed rolls is precisely the basis for the Binding rolls, which are of course among the most important dice-driven events in the game."

What happens when you fail a Binding roll?
Nothing, you don't fail. The demon is Bound. It has an edge over the sorcerer now, though.

Now take that methodology into other situations, as a rather loose and probably weak example:

Let's say your character is attempting to cross a vast chasm in the underworld, in the pursuit of an enemy he believes to have a vast head-start on him. This, of course, was the "short cut" -- but there's no going back now...

"You leap across the black chasm, arms and legs windmilling...<dice rolled -- failure>...and just barely managed to grab ahold of the opposite ledge. A brief prayer of thanks to whatever gods are watching over you for your good luck and then you glance up...Trezamaine, the evil albino drow lord is there of all places! He smiles down at you with his beautiful, cruel face and raises a clawed hand..."

As with the Binding, why not roll those successes over to the opponent's next roll? That's the logical place to put them, even if the player wasn't rolling against the opponent at that instance, the opponent definitely has the tactical advantage produced by the failed roll.

Or if he was being chased, for example, the event might be said to not occur -- he's grabbed just before he can leap and a fight scene ensues: roll the dice over to the opponent. Or perhaps he does leap, and you roll the dice over to the opponents across the chasm, who use it with the arrows they start firing at the hero, or the rocks they're chucking.

Regardless, the whole coolness bit isn't wasted.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Raven's right, with one small proviso - when it does seem like the best thing for the character's action literally to fail, in-game, then go with that too.

Failed roll:

= (1) Action pulled off as described, but effects (e.g. defeated opponents) do not occur.

or (2) Action fails all over the place and the character goes ass-over-teakettle into the roadside canal, etc.

Both of these are great things, in the right places as determined by anyone and everyone at the table. The whole point is to have the choice to say which one applies, for a particular instance.

Best,
Ron

[rafial]

It occurred to me that this isn't supposed to happen in Sorcerer, you aren't supposed to be bitten by failure. Why that was escaped me momentarily, until I recalled the "No-Whiff" factor. That is, in Sorcerer, your action may fail, but your character doesn't.

Yes, I am familiar with this way of doing things, and in fact it has been applied in the Sorcerer play in which I have participated.  Unforunately, it didn't do much for my satisfaction index, for two reasons:

1) It leads to what I have tenatively dubbed the "tarot effect", in which free and clear happens, everybody narrates some cool stuff, agrees on what is happening rolls the dice...

...and then proceeds to spend the next 15 minutes "interpreting" the die roll to figure out ways to weasel around the big fat failure sitting out there in the open.  Or

2) In circumstances where there is a big nasty mechanical effect as a result of blowing your roll (i.e. combat) it doesn't feel like you were so cool when you are heading into the next round with a whopping penalty on your head.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Rafial, here's my take.

In Sorcerer, and to a lesser extent HeroQuest, sometimes your hero eats dirt. The key is not to be invested in "I succeed or I suck" thinking. You don't know, when you roll, that your guy is going to succeed or not. Failure (of generalized conflict or of specific task) is hardwired into Sorcerer. You are going to eat dirt periodically, in combats just as often as anything else.

Frankly, I'm rather a fan of heroes doing that. I like adversity.

The dice tell you when - that's part of what they're for. "See this? That means this is the scene where the bad guy kicks your ass soundly." Get committed to that, and enjoy it ... Start going into full defense, and practice evasive tactics, both of which get you bonus dice. Come up with a way to roll any victories from that into a Will roll that'll ramp up some responses.

I think your "Tarot effect" is somewhat wimpy-sounding, in that people are trying to figure out a way for their heroes not to eat dirt. All right, yes, at times that's a good thing. And it's such an unfamiliar thing, in gaming, that I gave great air space to it in Sorcerer & Sword.

But for Pete's sake, it's not definitional for the system! It's an option, which is what I emphasized in response to Raven's post above.

It's kind of weird, though - I can't tell, from your post, what sort of play you would actually enjoy, unless it's when a player-character simply succeeds at all times.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Please correct me if I'm mischaracterizing Rafial,

I think what he's saying is that in a "regular game" failure is not so onerous because you have less intellectually invested in "I swing".

Games that provide a bonus for "cool" mathematically are the same as being penalized for not being "cool" when everyone is being cool except you.  

This can turn the "yippee, you mean I get rewarded just for giving descriptions that in other games are just a waste of time" effect into a "oh great...now I've got to strain my brain to come up with yet another entertaining thing to do or else my character loses effectiveness" chore.  

When it becomes a chore and then you whiff anyway, thats a much bigger let down than whiffing after a routine "I swing".  You don't really give a whip about "I swing", but that 360 degree inverted aerial cartwheel from the chandalier...yeah, you hurt your brain thinking up that one and now you really do care.

I tend to think that the point at which description becomes a chore is probably a good indication that its time to wrap the session up for the evening.  I'm willing to bet that Ron rarely gets to the point where earning and granting bonus dice becomes a drag because he keeps the sessions pretty short, and probably is quick to call it early if people aren't fireing.

But I can certainly see where the idea comes from.  It hard to bring your creative "A Game" to every game session, and when character effectiveness directly depends on having that A-Game then there's a penelty to being off form.