Author Topic: I make a Lore Roll so I know...  (Read 2707 times)

Offline Richard_Chilton

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I make a Lore Roll so I know...
« on: September 23, 2010, 04:20:25 AM »
Hi.

I'm new to running the FATE system, running for a group that is also new to FATE.  Since we're getting our feet wet we are playing up to our waists until we get a handle on the system.

Something came up, something that I didn't expect.  Someone tagged a couple of aspects of a library, made a Lore roll, then wanted his PC (a sorcerer) to know the inner secrets of things.  How the White Court reproduce, the role the Gatekeeper fills on the council, things like that.

My response that he would have to check with sources that were dedicated to the subjects.  After all, Harry (in theory) was given the average Lore that the White Council had and only knew facts about two Courts of Vampires (the Red and Black) and didn't know much about the White Court until he started hanging around with one of them.

So, was that the right call? Or should I have just nodded and said "Sure, you know everything that's in the books"?

Yes, I'm getting a feel for this system.  At least it's less math intensive than Rolemaster.

Richard

Offline mostlyawake

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Re: I make a Lore Roll so I know...
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2010, 04:50:11 AM »
Lore (and even scholarship) can be hard to determine what to do with when your pc pulls off a more-than-legendary success.  I had the same thing happen when my group went to an occult library one afternoon to learn the true facts about Zombies, someone got like a 9 on the roll.  Fortunately, it was only zombies, so not much there that's too secret, and I just read the entry out of the book to them.

First, you have to determine what the library would have available... can it really be helpful in sussing out secrets of WCVs?  Probably not, unless that tag was WCV related.  

Hrm.. I'd probably run this more as a long term goal, assigning a difficulty of 20, 30, 40, 50 successes on cumulative lore checks to reveal more and more info about a specific thing, with a re-roll time of 1-2 weeks.  And, ultimately, perhaps you're just not going to know from a book-source stuff like "the gatekeeper's roll on the White Council."

Then again, if the character takes an occult stunt with a focus on that group, I'd be pretty generous as to what I revealed, and might let those rolls count for a little more than just allowed by the stunt bonus.

Offline luminos

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Re: I make a Lore Roll so I know...
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2010, 04:56:35 AM »
Give the arcane library a rating beforehand.  This rating determines the greatest difficulty of a question that can be answered here.  So if it only has a rating of say, Good (+3) then it won't say much if anything about the Gatekeeper.  Extra shifts above a +3 will just go towards reducing the time for getting the answer from the library, not towards increasing the quality of the answers available.

Make sure the person specifies what question they are trying to find an answer to.  "The inner secret of things" is not an appropriate question, but "What is the Gatekeeper all about" is.  You can then assign the difficulty for the answer sought before the aspects are tagged and the roll is made.  And you can more easily warn someone if the quality of the answer is beyond the quality of the library, if they make to spend a lot of Fate points for it.

If the PC does find themselves in a position to get this kind of uber-knowledge, make a full blown conflict out of it, with some shadowy agent looking to hide the knowledge.  Scholarship can be rolled as an attack, investigation can be used against the opponents deceit attacks, other skills can be brought in as appropriate.  You can make a whole thing about it if thats what seems cool.

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Offline mostlyawake

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Re: I make a Lore Roll so I know...
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2010, 05:19:42 AM »

And you can more easily warn someone if the quality of the answer is beyond the quality of the library, if they make to spend a lot of Fate points for it.


Yeah, I really like the line (for physical immunity i think) that says if the PCs blow a lot of fate points on something that is actually just impossible, the GM should refund all but one of the spent points.  I'd use that here, instead of necessarily telling them the rating of the library. Though I would hint at that rating through descriptions, and if they went to the bestest, bestest library and the question difficulty was still above that research level, then I would simply tell them that this question probably isn't answerable by a library and suggest that they try complimenting their lore rolls with contacts to see if they can find help from someone else.

Offline Todjaeger

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Re: I make a Lore Roll so I know...
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2010, 05:30:16 AM »
The way I would handle a situation like this, would be that a player thinks up a single, fairly specific question, then rolls and factors in the character's Lore skill as well as applicable Arcane Library and character Aspects to determine the number of successes.  The more successes the character has, then the more detailed the information the player gets with regards to the question, or perhaps the more quickly they collect the information.

A very good example of this sort of situation is from the second novel, Fool Moon.

(click to show/hide)

In the case of a PC having access to a library...  Unless the library was functioning as an Arcane Library, then the materials would be applicable to Scholarship, not Lore, which means that a number of potential 'bonus' Aspect tags likely would not have even applied.  Further complicating that is that use of a Library (Arcane or mundane) means searching through references to find specific information.  In the case of a sorcerer attempting to find out the role of the Gatekeeper...  The sorcerer would first need to find out that the White Council even exists, or that it is led by a Senior Council, or that there is a member of the Senior Council who is known as the Gatekeeper.  As it is, the novels still haven't stated yet whether or not the Gatekeeper is a title, or just a nickname for a particular wizard.  

Now if the PC was already aware of the existence of the White Council, and stated that they were doing research on the composition of the White Council and rolled particularly well, then perhaps they could find out the names/titles of the Senior Council, or a general idea of which members fulfil what roles.  For a PC wanting to know the 'inner secrets of things' that would generally indicate that the player should have a high Lore skill, and a very good Arcane library.  A single roll of the dice shouldn't determine that PC always knows whatever Lore they want in any situation.  If that were the case, there would be neither need or point to having the Lore skill.

So first, determine what the character is attempting to find out and assign it a difficulty appropriate to how obscure or restricted the information is.  Then determine the value and relevance (or lack thereof) of any sources which are checked.  Then have the player make a roll and add the character's Lore skill to the result, allowing for any relevant Aspects from an Arcane Library for re-rolls or bonuses to the roll result.

As a side note, in order for a library to be useful, there needs to be some correlation between the Resources of the library and the difficulty of the question.  A character with Resources of Mediocre (0) and taking an Arcane Library at Terrible (-2) as the free Workspace is really not much better off answering Lore questions than someone with a higher Lore skill but no Arcane Library.  Now when people have an Arcane Library of Resources equal to a decent Lore skill (Good or better) and/or equal to the difficulty of the question being asked, then they can really make a difference.
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Offline crusher_bob

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Re: I make a Lore Roll so I know...
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2010, 05:47:28 AM »
A lot of room for interpretation and related aspects here.

I'd make the following assumptions about the lore skill

1 Without related aspects that characters knowledge is both general and accurate.
So a lore role with produce information that is at least partially correct (or a misapprehension shared by many of those who are otherwise in the know) and not outright erroneous information.
If you want your character to have a bunch of incorrect lore related knowledge, this should be a character aspect.

Next, you have no particular specialist knowledge.  So what you know about 'stuff' is as limited or as in depth as your lore skill indicated.
If you want more knowledge in a particular area, this is either a stunt or as aspect.

Note that aspects that don't seem to be directly related to knowing stuff can still be invoked or compelled here.  For example, if Harry has Black Sheep of the White Council, then the GM could compel this aspect to have Harry know less than his lore score would indicate about something.

While Harry could invoke his My brother, Tomas Raith aspect to know more about White Court vampires than his lore score would indicate.

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The character wanting to know 'more about everything' means that they want a higher lore.  Or, if they have a high lore already, they know a lot about everything.

Or he can just change one of his aspects to be something knowledge related, so he can spend a fate point to know more than he ought to.

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Another thing to help gauge lore related stuff can be found in the catches section.  For example, the catches of White Court Vampires are rated at +0.  Which is normally defined as you have to know them personally to find out what the catch is.  Harry finds out because, surprise, he knows a lot of WCVs personally.  But the average wizard probably doesn't, even though the average wizard has pretty high lore.

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Also remember that a lot of magical lore is controlled.  Because it can be the equivalent of publishing, not 'How to build an atom bomb' which can be safely published because the resources required to build the bomb aren't common.  But instead, "How to build and atom bomb in your basement, using stuff you can buy at radio shack.'

That's why other wizards are shown as worried about some of Harry's initiatives like teaching the alphas stuff, and distributing lore over the paranet.  Because all it takes is some idiot (warlock) teenager with some talent (and that kind of knowledge) to depopulate small towns.

So almost all 'serious' lore will be distributed from person to person (or spirit to person) and not written down.  
« Last Edit: September 23, 2010, 05:52:42 AM by crusher_bob »

Offline Richard_Chilton

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Re: I make a Lore Roll so I know...
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2010, 06:44:23 PM »
Thanks for the advice - it's useful.

I think part of the problem is some of the players are thinking of Lore role results as 3.5 D&D type DC rolls where if you roll knowledge (blah) high enough you know practically any fact you want - including those that your PC would have no way of knowing.

Working with the FATE is interesting.  I keep prompting players to make declarations and they keep asking me for the plot info.  And I think we are having too many dice rolls; some of the players are used to rolling for everything so they do it by instinct.  The idea that each thaum spell is its own story is another one that is slowly sinking in...

which is why the first part of the game is set in the mid 90s at waist deep.  The idea is once we learn the rules we'll either reset the game or advance it to a later date.  Why mid 90s? Because the first book came out in 2000 and we want to be able to play before the Red Court War.

Richard

Offline luminos

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Re: I make a Lore Roll so I know...
« Reply #7 on: September 23, 2010, 08:03:06 PM »

Working with the FATE is interesting.  I keep prompting players to make declarations and they keep asking me for the plot info.  And I think we are having too many dice rolls; some of the players are used to rolling for everything so they do it by instinct.  The idea that each thaum spell is its own story is another one that is slowly sinking in...


Try telling them the plot is whatever they do, and that they are in charge of the plot.  As for rolling dice, just keep repeating that if a failed roll doesn't change the situation, don't roll.  They'll get used to it over time.  Hopefully they'll even like it more than what they are used to.
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