From: +Mark Abbott (abbott%dean.Berkeley.EDU@berkeley.edu)
Date: Sat 18 Aug 1990 - 09:56:33 EEST
One thing I do, albeit not terribly formal, is to let the first person who tries unknowingly have an effect on the difficulty of the task for the next person. My that sounds incoherent. Example: Calli, Orlanth Initiate tries to pick a lock and fails. (Calli's fair to middling at lockpicking) I ask Calli's player how badly she failed. Since the lock was clearly too complex for her, how badly she failed will give me some idea as to just how hard the lock really is. In other words, if she missed by 5%, the lock is slightly tougher than normal. If she missed by 40%, the lock is quite difficult. So, when the next PC tries, I mentally apply a modifier to his/her roll. If the PC makes his/her skill, I ask how far under the skill he/she rolled. If the roll + my mental modifier is greater than the PC's skill, the PC fails to pick the lock. If the roll + my mental modifier is less than the PC's skill, the PC picked the lock.
Clearly, this is just a guideline, not a system, but it does help the "let's everybody try and pick the lock". Also, this obviously is only for the run of the mill lock. Special locks will have special modifiers which I've assigned before the game starts.
On a different topic, how many of you use computers to help you gm and how do you use them? Our 4 local gms all use a program I wrote a couple of years ago for the Macintosh. It has two uses: 1. it keeps track of who goes when in melee, 2. it makes certain skill rolls where I don't want the players to be rolling the dice, ie Spot Hidden, Worldlore, Track, etc. We have found that having the players not roll the dice on some skills really adds. No more "I specialed my Worldlore, what do I know?" while somebody else says "I fumbled, what misinformation do I have?". I just look at the results of the rolls, and tell each player what info his character has.
We also have programs to compute bonuses and to run long training or practice sessions (for those times when you hole up with a good teacher for all of Storm Season).
Mark
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