System Sez

Some quick scenarios to try out. Relatively easy to try out with others, if your willing to be GM. Since you'll be feeling the brunt of the exercises purpose, not your volunteer.

** The first scenario involves an opponent in front of your PC, and the only method of surviving is to kill him with telekinesis. Add situational narration to taste.
The rules for telekinesis are as follows: One can attack with telekinesis by hurling an object around the room, even aiming the thrown object. The range of possibilities is extensive when you stop and think about it.

Special note for the GM: After this scenario and every following one, just before you declare the result, secretly roll percentile. If the result is 50% or lower, then if the player survives, you lose!!! Write down how you feel at this moment, how you feel just before you state the result, as you say it and how you feel after.

** The second situation uses these rules. The GM decides a percentile chance of success for survival. For fairly ordinary things, like dodging a missile, it should be a high chance. For tremendous things, like escaping a burning house with archers primed to pick you off outside, it should be low (at least 20% or less!).
In the scenario the character, a hobbit, is facing a giant. The only way to survive the giant is to hamstring him straight away. Player adds narration, GM determines percentile and the player rolls.

Remember: Roll that 50%. Again, write down how you feel now, how you feel as you say it and how you feel after.

** Third situation: Your PC is caught in a deathtrap of a room and has just opened up the panel to its inner workings. Many intricate wires, cogs and mechanisms are inside. The player should ask questions and narrate their actions. They should do so until the GM is happy with the results.

Remember: Roll that 50%. Again, write down how you feel now, how you feel as you say it and how you feel after.

** Fourth Situation: Your PC is in one of the above situations. He has a hard 80% chance of success/survival, plus the GM can give up to +10% bonus based on the players narration. The GM declares the bonus.

Remember: Roll that 50% in advance to determine if a player win means the GM loses. Again, write down how you feel now and how you feel as you give the bonus percentage. And in this example, how you feel after rolling the players percentile check.

The point of this exercise is to contrast resolution techniques and most importantly, how the GM feels when he knows the result goes against his expectations. The final situation may contrast greatly - likely you will feel no clash of expections, because you didn't resolve the event that could make you lose, you just resolved part of it.

The second exercise involves the same scenarios, but instead of the 50% chance of a player win meaning the GM fails, there is instead a 50% chance that the player fails regardless of the GMs decision. Go through the situations again.

In this case the early situations will probably grate with both GM and player. That's because it directly contradicts what the GM (and player) have agreed to. I hypothesize it's like a rule that prompts the play group to work out who pays for pizza. And then a second rule saying the GM doesn't have to pay. That wont work. Book rules can prompt a social contract rule to be made, but the book rules can not countermand those SC rules once they exist. Social contract rules have a higher rank that book rules, so what the social contract sez, wins out over book rules. Such book rules essentially make themselves irrelevant to further play.

The final scenario probably doesn't grate, as it doesn't involve any agreement being contradicted (the rules don't contradict the GMs choice in that 10% bonus). It doesn't prompt the creation of a SC rule for it to compete with.