Reaction Rolls || Rules You Missed
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- Опубліковано 13 жов 2024
- Welcome to another Rules You Missed partners! We've got a special way to spice up encounters and your adventuring day as a whole, AND special mechanics for handling the loyalty of your companions!
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Reaction tables keep the game as interesting and surprising for me as the DM as it is for the players. I like a surprise, too
I've simplified the reaction roll to 1d6, I find it simpler to read at the table. But nice video! 👍🏻
Oftentimes as a player, I will sometimes roll dice against my game stats to determine if I take a specific action. Like if I have decided to make my character a dwarf with a short temper, and popping off at the person would be a bad idea, then I might give myself a Wisdom check to decide. What it does it make the character slightly more their own person with their own personality and not just a clone of me. Doing reaction or loyalty or morale checks as a DM is very similar, and when you are portraying the whole world, getting out of your own head is honestly that much more important.
Wasn't aware of this mechanic when I first played AD&D. Once I was, in retrospect, I was certain I benefited from it. My third character ever I wanted to make a paladin. I'd rolled 18s-17s across the board. But the party was already a Fighter and two Rangers so to make up the balance difference I was encouraged to make a Cleric-Thief. I was certainly down that character for not being what I thought would be cooler initially, feeling like it took longer to matter in fights, I disliked the minutia of fumbling at a door and having to fight with nothing but a shield to protect me since I'd need to remove my banded mail to even try skullduggery. But, I did notably stumble into more agreeable people than you would think you'd get from people finding out some strangers were spying on them.
The creme of this crop was when this character went through the Ghost Tower of Invernes, even though the Conjurer accompanied us because we didn't have a Magic-User. On the first floor, after the standard 8 rolls at a locked door I swung it open to reveal... a life long friend of mine heretofore unmentioned who'd been studying wizardry.
aaaaaand THIS is why I love these mechanics. Conventional play CAN NOT COMPETE
Genuinely agree with 95% of this video. Currently writing about reaction rolls and social mechanics and this came up as the first result in UA-cam search. Will be responding to the 5% disagreement in the post and it should be up within the week.
Looking forward to it (and I bet I know which 5% that is!)
I've long thought Gygax was simply incorrect about not applying morale rules to PCs. It's a long established fact in the wargaming community the player estimation of their relative strength and odds is insufficient to adequately mod how troops react during stress. Not even to mention that players who aren't actually being wounded themselves will commit their troops into desperate situations far more zealously than the most fanatic of soldiers.
Same with PCs. Morale should apply to PCs because it will add more variety to situations and will provide more opportunity to role play . The player with a fighter who broke now has to deal with that situation to create a variety of possible effects. And, some rpgs do apply a variety of morale type rules to PCs. These are often games that deal with modern combat but there is no reason why older forms of combat shouldn't also feature morale rules applied to PCs. All the arguments in favor of applying these rules to NPCs also make sense for PCs as well. IMO, the main reason they were not applied in AD&D is player's hated losing that autonomy. But total player autonomy does not mean everything is up to the players.
I really like that idea, especially as a casual wargamer.
Question: would you have it work the other way too? As in they want to flee but moral check says their character stays and fights?
@@Stygard Yes, but with modifiers for class. Thief might run. Paladin probably not.
@@Stygard One needs to be careful not to interfere with player plans. They should be able to try to carry out strategies. For example, if they want to do a fighting retreat to lure enemies into an ambush I'd just let them try. Morale is for when it gets truly desperate.
Interesting thought! I think Gary had good reason to preserve the edge cases of players not retreating where morale would otherwise dictate; there's something extremely attractive at allowing players (even at severe disadvantage, with the rest of their companions fleeing) attempt a heroic last stand among monsters. In other words, if they're likely to flee anyways, *but* letting them stay occasionally produces neat experiences, I understand not applying morale to PCs. Just my two cents :D
@@gelatinousrube I get the argument. Though, I think the long history of players complaining about TPKs makes it less convincing. If anything heroic last stands are too common.
2d6 Reaction/morale table is the single most important table in the game.
EDIT: percentile! Pfft
hey I came across that same post about the mentzer chart from YUMDM! That was my introduction to the concept, if y'all can believe it