Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Peaking Behind the pbp Curtain

I've had some questions about how I handle dice rolling, so I figure the easiest thing to do would be to post from the game I'm currently running. As I said in an earlier post, when I'm running a game I make all of the rolls. Players state their intentions, and then I resolve the round based on those. I am a believer in transparency. At the end of each post (or round, if I'm posting multiple rounds within a single post) I put all of my rolls, notes, etc. in a spoiler. Some of my players don't look behind the curtain, some do. It doesn't matter to me. We're all experienced gamers, and I trust everyone to separate in game and out of game knowledge. I find that it is helpful when my players *do* look, because they often spot mistakes that I have made. Plus, from a player's perspective, I think it is pretty neat to see how different DMs resolve things differently. So, with no further ado, here's a post from a random combat I ran recently:

Round Two
Cyr fires another arrow, but it clatters off a breastplate harmlessly as Malgrim withdraws and Konrad moves forward to take his place. Konrad and Jack wait for the skeletons to advance. Jack destroys another one, but both he and Konrad suffer minor cuts from the spears. The skeletal knight steps forward, raises its flaming blade, and in a hollow, sepulchral tone intones several words. A wave of green energy emanates from it, and the adventurers are suddenly aware of the almost overwhelming oppresion of the grave. "I can't deal with this," Brugar says, backing up down the hallway, "its my dream, brought to life! We're all going to die here! I'm too young to die!" He doesn't turn and flee, but he's definitely backing the fuck out of there.

The rest of the post is hidden behind a spoiler (note that the forum where I'm running this formats the bbcode automatically):

[url=http://orokos.com/roll/634911]Initiative, PCs first, then skeletal knight:[/url]: [u]3#1d6[/u] [b]4[/b] [b]2[/b] [b]3[/b]
Cyr fires arrow: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634912][/url]: [u]3#1d20+4[/u] [b]15[/b] [b]15[/b] [b]17[/b] [u]3#1d8+2[/u] [b]6[/b] [b]8[/b] [b]7[/b] That just misses.Malgrim retreats, Konrad advances (I'm assuming you'll want to do this as Konrad has a better AC.Jack: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634914][/url]: [u]2#1d20+5[/u] [b]17[/b] [b]7[/b] [u]2#1d8+3[/u] [b]6[/b] [b]4[/b] Jack destroys another skeleton!Konrad: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634915][/url]: [u]3#1d2+4[/u] [b]5[/b] [b]6[/b] [b]6[/b] [u]3#1d8+3[/u] [b]11[/b] [b]8[/b] [b]9[/b]Since Jack and Konrad held their actions, the third skeleton still gets its attack:Three skeletons: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634917]First attacking Jack, second attacking Konrad, third attacking one or the other:[/url]: [u]3#1d20+1[/u] [b]6[/b] [b]20[/b] [b]17[/b] [u]3#1d6[/u] [b]5[/b] [b]3[/b] [b]5[/b] [u]1d2[/u] [b]1[/b]
[B]Konrad takes 3 hp, Jack takes 5 hp.[/B]
Skeleton knight casts a reversed [I]bless[/I] spell. Interestingly, it doesn't state if those affected have a Save, so I'm going to go ahead and say they don't. The adventurers are at -1 to hit and damage, and Brugar must make a morale check: [url=http://orokos.com/roll/634919][/url]: [u]3d6-1[/u] [b]7[/b]

As you can see, I've linked all of my dice rolls, and explained what's going on with each roll. If the players are curious (or wanting to check my honesty) they can follow the link back to my orokos account and see all of the rolls that I have made. If any PCs are injured I summarize those injuries and then call them out in bold. Typically what I will do is compose the second post first (the mechanical stuff) and then use that information to flesh out a description of what happens during the round. I used to post much more detailed, flowery descriptions of combat, but at this point I've kinda ended up shooting for simplicity rather than a description of each dodge, parry and riposte.

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