Automatic success

[blackstaff67]

This situation sometimes develops in my games: PC has a Skill of 7 and is making a Declaration.  Since the default number is almost always Good (+3) to make, this means that an Aspect is almost automatically placed on a a scene or opponent. I'm thinking of house ruling that a die roll of -4 before modifications always fails, just to avoid automatic success ("There's no such thing as a 'sure thing' at my table, folks!").  Has this come up at your tables and if so, how do you deal with it? 

[dragoonbuster]

This situation sometimes develops in my games: PC has a Skill of 7 and is making a Declaration.  Since the default number is almost always Good (+3) to make, this means that an Aspect is almost automatically placed on a a scene or opponent. I'm thinking of house ruling that a die roll of -4 before modifications always fails, just to avoid automatic success ("There's no such thing as a 'sure thing' at my table, folks!").  Has this come up at your tables and if so, how do you deal with it?

- First, a skill cap of 7 is too high for PCs IMO, even in high-powered games, and is the main reason your issue comes up, but since you're mid-game:

- Good (+3) is never "automatic" in my book. Every declaration has to be weighed whether it is truly new and interesting to the scene before I even think about difficulty. My standard for what is interesting goes up as more declarations are made and/or Power Level/Skill Cap gets higher. A holy terror of a PC with a power level of 20 refresh and a bazillion skill points will have to work harder to find interesting enough things to come up with than a Chest-Deep character will.

- When you get into high power levels, forget the book's ruling on how to come up with difficulties. It's scaled to a different level. Ask yourself the likelihood of that declaration being true in that instance, and come up with a number based on that, then you can scale that up or down a point or three based on how interesting or funny it really is. If your likelihood of it being true is very high, and so you're coming up with numbers -4 and -5 from your players' skill cap...ask yourself again how interesting it really is.



- I actually don't like the Declaration mechanic. I liked it at first: "Cool, I get rewarded for being creative." Then I realized that what really happens is it gives less creative players a handicap. In my game, Declarations as a free action no longer provide a free tag unless you spend a FP to create them. If you spend a full action like you would with a maneuver, you get a free tag. Solved all my Declaration problems. This doesn't affect Thaumaturgy because outside of conflicts there's no practical difference between a "full" and "free" action.

[Mr. Death]

Also remember that as GM you have the full right to just say no once in a while. I don't care if he rolls an 11, some things are just not going to make sense ("We're in the Nevernever, there is no way an old Detroit-steel Chevy is sitting there with the keys in the ignition.").

[Haru]

An easy way to go about this is to simply not have an easy task like that lying around. Instead, get things to where the real meat is. Turn things to eleven, as it where. If a single opponent would be no threat, lump them together into groups of 5 and suddenly they become a threat again. Sure, it's going to look much more spectacular as well, when you mow down 5 guys with one strike, but hey, that's what we're here for.

Look at the novels. In the beginning, Harry tells us about his tracking spell numerous times, how he draws the circle, how he needs this and that. In later novels, he basically does a dozen or so of them in one sentence. They simply aren't interesting anymore, so it gets skipped. That's pretty much what's happening in your example as well. If the outcome is all but certain, just go ahead and either take it for granted or throw a wrench into it to make it interesting again, upping the numbers into levels where failure is possible again.

You can also just go for a "you can't do this here" sort of compel. Force the player to go through a problem addressing his lower skills, before he can do something with his apex skills again. Because showing those off occasionally is simply a lot of fun.

[Sanctaphrax]

When I'm GMing, I set Declaration difficulties based on a combination of plausibility, interesting-ness, how many Declarations the player's made lately, and my own whims. I find it works well, and avoids a number of problems.

Making -4 an automatic failure might make a philosophical point about certainty and your gaming philosophy, but it won't affect the game a whole lot. So I guess it might be a good idea if you're aiming for symbolism.

- First, a skill cap of 7 is too high for PCs IMO, even in high-powered games...

But even at Chest Deep, a Stunt can easily make someone Epic at some variety of Declaration. So the issue can arise in normal games.

[Taran]

A few things:

I don't let players declare things about opponents very often:  "I declare that guy is distracted!"

O.k, sure he's distracted...make an empathy assessment to see if  you notice.

remember too that, sometimes, opponents can oppose declarations with a skill check.

"I declare the opponents shoe-lace is untied!"

That's a common trope, so I might make that an easy declaration OR I might have the opponent role Discipline to resist with the justification "what are the odds that he'd double check all his gear before coming to a fight?"

Even with scene aspects, I might allow opposed defense rolls, "I declare the area is shadowy so I can use my Cloak of Shadows"
-I might think, "this is the bad-guy's turf and he's fought the PC's before.  What are the odds he remembers to make sure the area is "well lit"?  *roll appropriate skill to defend*

My point is that you don't have to have a set difficulty - that, sometimes, the opposition sets the difficulty.

[TheMoxiousOne]

Making -4 an automatic failure might make a philosophical point about certainty and your gaming philosophy, but it won't affect the game a whole lot. So I guess it might be a good idea if you're aiming for symbolism.

But even at Chest Deep, a Stunt can easily make someone Epic at some variety of Declaration. So the issue can arise in normal games.

I personally feel a game that is designed around telling a story should have that very principle taken to heart. Turning this story-driven game into a game of gimping a balanced rolling system is not the answer: As Sanctaphrax pointed out, it won't affect the game a whole lot, but what it will do is change balance that could've been avoided by making them describe their declaration before the GM gives them a difficulty. Because by making four minuses an automatic fail without making four pluses an automatic success, you're punishing your players for bad rolls without rewarding them for good ones.

Judgement should be used, as a GM, to say no for the sake of preventing powergaming, as aforementioned by dragoonbuster by simply increasing the difficulty based on likelihood of that declaration happening, or a whim for the sake of making the game challenging. This is, after all, a game we all play to enjoy; not to struggle and be frustrated with. There will always be roleplaying dilemmas that make our character's very core tried and tested; that shouldn't be left up to dice rolls for a story-driven RPG, in my honest opinion.