I'm new to the narrative dice system, and definitely I'm liking it so far. I've run a few mock combats to get a feel for the system, and they generally go pretty smoothly. My main question is, how do you handle a lot of Advantage if the attack misses or lots of Threat if the attack succeeds?

For example, the barbarian swings his axe at an orc minion and achieves 4 Advantage and a Triumph. Since the attack wasn't successful, I cannot apply a critical hit or special weapon properties. I suppose I could have him disarm the orc and knock it prone. Does that make sense?

Similarly, what if the attack hits but generates 3 or 4 threat? Would you narrate that the attack did damage, but the attacker is off balance or something (takes strain and opponents get a blue die to attack).

I'm coming from a D&D background, so maybe I have to get the binary results of that game out of my head.

On 12/17/2017 at 11:00 AM, Fogemort said:

For example, the barbarian swings his axe at an orc minion and achieves 4 Advantage and a Triumph. Since the attack wasn't successful, I cannot apply a critical hit or special weapon properties. I suppose I could have him disarm the orc and knock it prone. Does that make sense?

You are on the right track. Also remember that one roll does not equal one swing or one arrow fired.

When I get unusual results, I tend to try and think about the current scene, and stuff going on around the fight and use that to add complications and enhance the encounter.

On 12/17/2017 at 0:00 PM, Fogemort said:

I'm new to the narrative dice system, and definitely I'm liking it so far. I've run a few mock combats to get a feel for the system, and they generally go pretty smoothly. My main question is, how do you handle a lot of Advantage if the attack misses or lots of Threat if the attack succeeds?

For example, the barbarian swings his axe at an orc minion and achieves 4 Advantage and a Triumph. Since the attack wasn't successful, I cannot apply a critical hit or special weapon properties. I suppose I could have him disarm the orc and knock it prone. Does that make sense?

Similarly, what if the attack hits but generates 3 or 4 threat? Would you narrate that the attack did damage, but the attacker is off balance or something (takes strain and opponents get a blue die to attack).

I'm coming from a D&D background, so maybe I have to get the binary results of that game out of my head.

For starters, remember that a Triumph is also a success (think of it as two results). So the barbarian would hit if his net is 4 advantage and a triumph, unless you already offset the success of the triumph with a rolled failure. Assuming you missed, I'd definitely allow that much advantage and triumph to deck and disarm the orc.

For 3-4 threat on a hit, I'd consider narrating it that the orc takes the axe right in the shoulder, but then twists away to try to flee and wrenches the axe out of the barbarian's hand (if a disarm is too much, what I just described could be the barbarian having to lose his balance in an effort to hold onto the axe, and therefore also taking strain.

Also, make the symbol spending collaborative. Sometimes players can be complete bastards to each other by suggesting nasty results, and also great allies for suggesting good ones.

I would also allow the PC to try a social check with the Triumph to try and take the Adversary out of the fight if they used the 4 advantages to disarm or knock down the bad guy. So the Barbarian can try to cow the weaponless/knocked-down bad guy with a coercion check. "If I were you Orc... I would stay down. Before you get me really angry!"

Thanks for the suggestions! I really like the idea of allowing a Coercion check to cause the orc to quit the fight. Technically, he still can defeat the Orc, but it happens in a narratively interesting way. I like that.

That is the glory of this system in my mind.... the way you are empowered as a GM and player to make things more cinematic!

I as a GM am always looking for "outside of the box" uses for the negative die results as well.

I think it's awesome that they list out a despair can be used to make a gun/weapon run out of ammo.... and sometimes this is a good use of it.

But in my last session I used it to say that the shot went wide, clipping the ships nearby viewport... which began to crack and spiderweb slowly but surely! ?

... and left it up to my Players to decide if they wanted to chance sticking around to meet their goals, or head off to safety!

I also use my "Deathstar Dial" I got from the FFG Star Wars LCG as a counter... clicking it up every once in a while.... to let them know that time is running short, but they never knew exactly when the viewport was going to give out.

On 2017-12-17 at 11:00 AM, Fogemort said:

For example, the barbarian swings his axe at an orc minion and achieves 4 Advantage and a Triumph. Since the attack wasn't successful, I cannot apply a critical hit or special weapon properties. I suppose I could have him disarm the orc and knock it prone. Does that make sense?

The most common use of non-successful combat-related narrative results is to pass the benefits on to another ally. The charts on page 104 are useful, not just for combat, but also as a way to get a handle on the scale of the result so you can apply it in any situation. You need 1A to pass a boost die to the next ally, for example; and you need 2A to pass one to any ally... so that's 3 used up and if the barbarian needs to recover Strain, use 1A to recover. Spend the Triumph to upgrade an ally's next action, and you're done.

I do prefer when my players are inventive in their use of the narrative results (eg, using a social skill as described above), but if they can't think of anything within a short pause, we default to the chart and move on.

The Failure plus Triumph can be difficult to manage but it can easily be turned into the "happy accident". In your example with the Barbarian swinging the axe, the orc slides back out of the way and the Barbarian misses but hits the rope holding the chandelier that then crashes down on the orc trapping him. You can decide if it does damage or if it just gives the Barbarian a moment of respite before getting back into the fight.

4 minutes ago, whafrog said:

I do prefer when my players are inventive in their use of the narrative results (eg, using a social skill as described above), but if they can't think of anything within a short pause, we default to the chart and move on.

I agree with this 100%!!

It would be awesome if every single roll could be well thought out and narrated by our players and GM's... but lets be honest, they all wont be!

I'll still take the 50% or so I get from my group over the simple pass/fail of D20 games anytime.

And me and my p[layers will be constantly working out those narrative dice muscles to boost our narrative skills to rank 3 and upward as we go!

4 minutes ago, Palomarus said:

It would be awesome if every single roll could be well thought out and narrated by our players and GM's... but lets be honest, they all wont be!

Honestly, I'm kind of glad they aren't. It makes the inventive ones that much more memorable. Like the time through a whole turn, nobody could hit the last group of minions hiding behind a crate...except they kept passing boost dice and upgrades to the real shooter, who went last...

...so when she rolled she got several successes, 9A, and 1T...and blew apart the crate, took out several minions with damage and crits, dropped the cave ceiling on the remaining one and blocked a passage to prevent more reinforcements...

That's where I hope Genesys hits the sweet spot.

In Shadowrun and D&D the group was always just : 'I attack it', no flavor at all. When we tried systems that awarded bonuses for narration it was a whole (cheesy) action movie condensed into every single action. That gets old VERY fast. The fact that the dice give the narrative hooks could lead to a solid middle ground and the tables help out for the less innovative moments.

Lots of interesting ideas... It does sound like you can either do something mechanically or something related to the plot. I have to think more about the latter, as this is very different than what I'm used to doing.

OOC, do you pre-plan things and use results to trigger them? Or do you just kind of go with the flow? Maybe the Triumph/Despair triggers something to happen early, such as reinforcements arriving or fire spreading or something like that.

4 minutes ago, Fogemort said:

OOC, do you pre-plan things and use results to trigger them? Or do you just kind of go with the flow? Maybe the Triumph/Despair triggers something to happen early, such as reinforcements arriving or fire spreading or something like that.

As GM I will definitely do both. If I have a set piece/encounter set up I will make notes about how the various narrative results could be used, whether there's a gas line that could be breached on a triumph, or an NPC reveals their susceptibility to flattery (so the PCs might switch to Charm, which might have a lower difficulty than Coercion). Calling reinforcements is (almost) a standard use of a Despair, especially if the PCs are doing well...too well...

But I'll also wing it. Players can use their positive narrative results to bring in all kinds of new elements, simple example: they might breach that gas line and cause an explosion, and later I could use a couple Threat to create "difficult terrain" in that area.

Anything goes, just keep in mind the scaling on page 104 and it's less likely to get out of hand.

22 minutes ago, Fogemort said:

OOC, do you pre-plan things and use results to trigger them? Or do you just kind of go with the flow? Maybe the Triumph/Despair triggers something to happen early, such as reinforcements arriving or fire spreading or something like that.

Much the same as @whafrog says... I do both.

Here is one that I did lay out the results for...

Going “EV”

In order to go EV and attempt to make repairs, one of the PC’s is going to have to “suit up” in order to do so. Which is going to be made a bit more difficult given the fact that the (4) Tagge Company STD-X Space Suits are all in the airlock compartment, and the outer airlock door was damaged when the Action V freighter ripped clean off the Sitting Duck in order to get away.

There is one other suit available, which is tucked away in the Engineering Bay. But it looks to be pretty rough worn, and was probably taken out of rotation due to the number of patches and repairs that have been done to it over the years of use, which look to be many.

Suit will pass a function test, and will pressurize and hold O2 levels and temp. But the only tank they can find is a “back-up” tank. So will only give 30-45 mins of EV time.

Challenge Timer :

For the purposes of this skill challenge set the Timer to 6, and reduce the timer accordingly to the results of the following checks as below. If the Timer reaches 0 at any point, the suits O2 tank has run out of fresh supply air, and will begin to recycle the suits air.

Once at 0, anytime it is called to “reduce” the timer in the future, you will instead “increase” the timer by the same amount. The timers new setting will represent the number of difficulty die that are added to the PC’s Resiliency Check for working in lower and lower levels of O2.

Each Failure of a Resiliency Check will result in 4 strain to the PC, plus 1 additional strain for each uncancelled Threat. If a PC reaches their strain threshold, they will fall unconscious and set off the monitoring alarms on the ship.

Another PC can then remotely activate the motor on the retrieval safety strap and haul the unconscious PC back into the upper hatch airlock chamber for rescue.

Checks Needed to Repair (Either the Shields or Thrusters) :

1. Average Athletics check with 1 Upgrade and 1 Setback to move onto the hull in order to access the damaged cables through access panel. ( Upgrade for no knowledge of where the actual Access Panel is located at, and Setback for a lack of Magnetic Boots/Equipment to aid in space walking )

   1. 0 Threats - Reduce the Timer by 1.

   2. 1-2 Threats - Reduce the Timer by 2.

   3. 3+ Threats - Reduce the Timer by 3.

   4. Despair - Suit springs a small leak, Reduce Timer by +1/ additional check.

2. Difficult Mechanics Check with 2 Setbacks ( Cutting and Splicing Cables while in EV suit, and cutting cables next to other “live” cables ).

   1. 0 Threats - Reduce the Timer by 2.

   2. 1-2 Threats - Reduce the Timer by 3.

   3. 3+ Threats - Reduce the Timer by 4.

   4. Despair - Fusion Cutter gets to close and damages another cable, Ship now has no sensors.

3. Repeat Check #1 from above to head back into the Ship, same threat consequences apply.

That's really cool!

I assume that the goal of the encounter is that the PCs have to make three successful checks before time runs out. Failures simply reduce the time. And presumably an Advantage in one check helps with the next check.

Indeed... the timer was the amount of Oxygen left in the suit, once it was out.

After reaching 0 on the timer they had to do progressively harder resilience checks each round to not pass out.