Another Gameplay question

[lostsoul336]

Ok so i have posted a few times about gameplay and such and thought a new topic would be best for this one. I started role playing in highschool and it was a homebrew game that was fun. I then found Rifts and played that (GM'd it) and then stopped and played D&D for about 8 years. I finally am around people who like different games and like Rifts/Palladium games. I need help in explaining things to them in D20 speak if you will. For instance very common things that occur are i want to search this room what do i roll? Find contraband or concealment i would say but if they dont have it obviously anybody can search for something do i just arbitrarily assign a percent that they have to roll under? Do i have them use perception? i guess any would work and whatever works for me seems to be the palladium way i just want other opinions. Mainly for things such as:

Searching rooms/bodies
diplomacy
bluff
Sense Motive

[Alrik Vas]

D&D is a wonderful game, honestly, it really is. It has rules for EVERYTHING.

That can be a problem sometimes. You do roll after roll and the GM has to translate these really ridiculous outcomes into some kind of workable story. It's a pain sometimes. In palladium people often just tend to say what happens and let each other deal with it. Sometimes there are very few dice rolled in a game. People actually lie, or they explain how they want to do something in such a way that the GM just allows it, rather than forcing a roll.

However, not everyone likes this style of play, so I'll go into how i've started doing things mechanically below.

For Social Skills, it's generally you have a high Mental Affinity. That is the basic roll. However, what i did is a little different (and it works with most any % type thing). It works similar to another section in Rifts Ultimate Edition where it covers contested skills. My way is a little different, so i'll explain here.

I pretty much make everything based off a D20, in the end. Anyone can make any roll to do any sort of "untrained" skill, it's just...well, the suck. If you have a 35% prowl roll and you succeeded at being sneaky, for instance, and the guard on watch has Detect Concealment or in the case of you taking him out, Detect Ambush, he would roll that. Now, you succeeded on being a sneak, but he is very aware. So he gets to roll a d20 for perception, you roll one to not be seen. You get +3 because your skill is between 30 and 40 (you take the 10's digit of a skill as your bonus to contested rolls), he just rolls his normal perception in this case.

It works for social skills as well. If you're interrogating someong and you both have interrogation techniques, or you have interrogate and the other guy's got resist torture, and you both succeeded at your skill check, you roll off with D20's using the 10's digit.

Now...i've asked myself many times, why don't i just use the 10's digit with a D20 in the first place? Because not everyone will succeed at using a skill. If you screw up the skill in the first place, it's very clear what happens.

Now, you can just use perception for a lot of things. Like, if you want to see if someone is lying to you, roll perception. Your opponent would get their MA 10's digit as a bonus to their contested roll.

Anyway, this is just how i do it. I just started my group on it when we started palladium (i'm an old vet, they're mostly new) so it was an easy transition for them, as they understand D20 games as well.

[Nekira Sudacne]

Ok so i have posted a few times about gameplay and such and thought a new topic would be best for this one. I started role playing in highschool and it was a homebrew game that was fun. I then found Rifts and played that (GM'd it) and then stopped and played D&D for about 8 years. I finally am around people who like different games and like Rifts/Palladium games. I need help in explaining things to them in D20 speak if you will. For instance very common things that occur are i want to search this room what do i roll? Find contraband or concealment i would say but if they dont have it obviously anybody can search for something do i just arbitrarily assign a percent that they have to roll under? Do i have them use perception? i guess any would work and whatever works for me seems to be the palladium way i just want other opinions. Mainly for things such as:

Concealment/Detect concealment at least has an easy mechanic. you roll detect concelment and compare it to the roll of the one who concealed it via their concealment check, by under.

So say you say an NPC hid it, you judge his level, OCC and Int bonus, calculate his skill, and say it's 65%. he rolls....60. that's a 5% difference.

so the PC has to roll detect concealment by his target by more than 5%

Searching rooms/bodies

This is best done by arbitrarly assinging numbers.

diplomacy
bluff
Sense Motive

Are not skills at all. with the current rules, these can only be roleplayed and depend entirely on the actual social skill and talent of the player.

[Noon]

Find contraband or concealment i would say but if they dont have it obviously anybody can search for something do i just arbitrarily assign a percent that they have to roll under?

You could have them use their IQ as a percentage and attempt to roll under it on percentile dice.

That's not an official rule, though.

Really I'd ask WHY you have them roll to search a room anyway? Is it interesting for them to miss out on stuff? Or do they just like rolling but really you want them to find whatever it is and they want to see who rolls the highest and finds it first?

[lostsoul336]

O' how far i've fallen...we play role playing games to role play and instead we end up roll playing...I am definently going to be getting back into role playing and have people actually role play things out instead of "my character comes up with something clever to say to the guard to get past". Thanks everybody for the advice and bringing me back to my roots.

[Warwolf]

O' how far i've fallen...we play role playing games to role play and instead we end up roll playing...I am definently going to be getting back into role playing and have people actually role play things out instead of "my character comes up with something clever to say to the guard to get past". Thanks everybody for the advice and bringing me back to my roots.

Certainly do so with the latter 3, though certain skills and stats will help (like having Invoke Trust/Intimidate or Charm/Impress when bluffing). As for searching rooms, take a look at the Perception rules that were ported from Nightbane to Rifts Ultimate Edition.

Really I'd ask WHY you have them roll to search a room anyway? Is it interesting for them to miss out on stuff? Or do they just like rolling but really you want them to find whatever it is and they want to see who rolls the highest and finds it first?

It CAN be fun to have players miss things, actually. Characters aren't perfect and life isn't an episode of CSI where the good guys find all the pieces of the puzzle and just have to put it together. Finding an important clue or a bit of hidden loot can be a reward for being thorough (player decides to tap around on the wall and finds a hidden safe) or just blind luck (player rolls a high Perception roll and notices a painting hanging askew that covers said safe). Of course you also don't want to make progressing in the plot contingent on the roll of a die, but Perception can be yet another tool used to enhance game-play and give players and G.M.s more options if you use it right.

[Alrik Vas]

Yeah, I think the numbers do play an interesting role in games. It's that moment when the guy who is a total pro messes it up and causes a complete calamity that makes the GM cackle with the maddening possibilities.

[Myrrhibis]

Yeah, I think the numbers do play an interesting role in games. It's that moment when the guy who is a total pro messes it up and causes a complete calamity that makes the GM cackle with the maddening possibilities.

+1

[Killer Cyborg]

obviously anybody can search for something do i just arbitrarily assign a percent that they have to roll under?

If a character doesn't have the right skill, but it it a task that they could logically attempt, then have them try to roll under the most applicable Attribute, using percentile dice.
Situational bonuses/penalties apply at GM discretion, just like with skill checks.

I'm on close to the same page as Noon, though. Unless something is really well-hidden and/or the search is an absolute rush-job, it's probably often better to just have the PCs find whatever objects are in the room.

Do i have them use perception?

That would also probably work.

[kamikazzijoe]

I'd use perception for a lot of those skills. Also, rather than rolling for searches, you may just a have a prepared scale, quick glance gets object 1, searching thoroughly gets 1,2,3 and tearing the place apart gets 1,2,3,4. Anyone with infrared sees 5. etc.