I have to agree with Sparrow, but Gruntl (and others) have the right of it too.

It really should be

a) Up to the player to state their intention to try to draw an enemy's attention

b) Up to the GM to decide how much an enemy is disposed to being influenced.

c) Sometimes a check, whether an action card or skill, to determine how effective the "taunting" is.

For example, a mindless giant slug might only attack the closest, so trying to taunt it off might not work. An evil bull might charge someone in red (like the BW) regardless of anything else. A very smart opponent might choose the most tactical enemy. Many others, however, could be influenced by intimidation, arm-waving, yelling, etc.

I'm actually not opposed to roleplaying it, just posted a possible solution for people to use who wants a slightly more mechanical way of dealing with it. The player would still have to roleplay the attempt at getting attention, and the GM still decide how to treat it (or how the monsters are affected).

The reason why I think it could be important to let the players do things like that is that squishy characters in whfrp are really squishy. If you play your monsters as killing machines as a GM and the players are a mixed group of combat and non-combat characters you will easily kill off the non-combat ones if you focus on them. This makes sense for the monsters (why go for the heavily armored dangerous soldier, when there's plenty of weak meat to go around), but will be seriously unfun for the players.

I agree fully with your abc items dvang.

There are already two actions that taunt to some extent . Saga of Grugni forces you to target the guy performing it & My Life for Yours lets you take half of an allies damage (or boost their defences). The latter is a real world bodyguard role while the former seems more gamey but is powered by ancestors & is I guess somewhat magical.

The more control I can give my players the better it is. IF some player dies because a monster decides to attack him I want to give them options to prevent this from happening. That also means that IF the taunting fails, the players have decided their own fate instead of the GM just deciding to kill or not to kill a character.

The more control you can give to your players, the more alive the world can become, the more involved the players can get because they have a greater degree of control over their fate. Let go of control and go with the flow created by the players.

Gallows said:

The players don't control results on the dices, so that isn't really THEIR choice. So, really, if they dies, it's not from their decision (but it isn't either the GM's).

I do agree the more control you give to them, the more alive and the better the game.

Mal Reynolds said:

The Perform A Stunt action card, using Guile would be an typical PC choice. Maybe opposed by monster Discipline, or Intuition ?

Good gaming.

James Sparrow said:

Hi Sparrow (who was not as patronizing as I thought) I agree with you on the basic principle of roleplaying, that roleplaying is about playing a role and things you cannot do in the game such as your examples will need rules.

But it can be too simplifying in some cases. What about players who want to be talkative and have lot of social skills, but in real life lack those? than you will need rules for that as well. so in warhammer`s case the social combat rule is excellent.

And by saying that you should roleplay monsters descisions who to attack in combat, it comes down to GM`s call. But I`ve found out that the more control you give the players of the game the better it is. The less "real" descisions a GM will have to take, the better. Let the players be in charge (at least let them think so)

Therefore the idea of some sort of rule or a way to let the players have a say. Not of course let them take complete control, but at least have a chance of influencing the monsters and thus maybe save the life of those who do not tdress their character up into combat-machines, I will think is a good idea.

And I will implement such a rule in my games to give them more choices and directions, but it wil be simple and easy.

and as i mentioned before i got lot of response, and many good ideas. And I will like to thank everyone who contributed to this thread, even those who didn`t see my point of view

Good gaming Sparrow

Silverwave said:

I didn't mean that they can decide their fate. But they do have a degree of control over it. Just like you have control over a ship... in harsh weather this control may become limited, but it's still there. You have a choice of things to do. I also believe it's more healthy for the group if they know that the dice decide their fate rather than the whim of the GM. It goes both ways... they know the game is fair, because the GM won't cheat them... they also know the world is harsh because the GM won't save them.

Mal Reynolds said:

I wasn't trying to be patronizing, but my previous post did come out a little more harshly than I intended. However, this is because I am genuinely frustrated by the sentiment held by more and more gamers I meet, that there needs to be a mechanic for everything. I have been gaming for close to thirty years now, and this attitude at the expense of telling a good story has quite simply become more and more prevalent. There is nothing inherently wrong with having a lot of mechanics - though having a flexible, internally consistent set of rules is more important than having a lot of them - but when they start interfering with a group's ability to tell a story together, or require some absurd assumptions about the game world, then I start having issues. Fortunately, WH3E has yet to let me down on those last two criteria.

I should probably have approached my argument from another angle. As I indicated in my earlier post, WH3E seems to be combining streamlined mechanics with a style of roleplaying in which the GM and players improvise many of the modifiers and the implementation of many of the mechanics (e.g. party tension, stress). The desire to have a taunt mechanism strikes me as inconsistent with the style of play that the new system is trying to promote.

Haggard said:

Perhaps, but when some GMs want these rules it's a good idea to discuss how to handle it. There are also rules in the core set that can be used to that effect.

I like more non combat options for combat and taunting/intimidating is one of them.

Hi Haggard

No, you don`t have to change the angle of your previous post or anything, and you weren`t as patronizing as you where strongly opinionated. I used the word in a wrong context. And you don`t have to excuse yourself for simply saying what you mean.

As we have seen on this thread alot of ideas concering the topic have been raised, everything from implementing new mechanics and cards, like Taunt action card, to simply expand on existing rules. And I was looking for ideas to use a form of mechanics with whfrp combat, since for me the abstract part of it added som extra challenge.

I feel that too many rules and mechanics depend too much on a GM decision. like laying everything on him to decide when some of it could be solved by a simple fluid rule. And with that I mean rules that he can guide his story by.

I agree with you that a strong set of basic rules are better than rules for everything. And so fare WHFRP have mostly delivered.

I wanted a way for the rules to tell me how something like taunt would work. its about giving my players more choices in the story and reducing the GM`s lonely role as arbitrator. As many forumites have said roleplaying is about collaborating a story together. So why should the GM always be the one to decide? I find no inconsistency in this, but rather a step in the right direction. old-school rpgs is all about enforcing the GM`s authority, while storytelling games (and whfrp?) is about sharing that power to better create a story. You see my angle?

good gaming

Gallows said:

This is precisely why I avoid the House Rules forum unless I am looking for something specific. :-) I do like the suggestions you've made for interpreting use of the Influence mechanic in combat, I should say. I'm mostly opposed to the need for a taunt effect that is based on fighting prowess - maximizing combat potential is already its own advantage in Warhammer (has been in every edition) and would eliminate the need for those characters to broaden their skills, attribute builds, and action sets if they really want access to those tools.

Mal Reynolds said:

Curse my inability to locate a multiquote option. :-P

I have to admit that I hadn't considered the railroad vs consensus spectrum of storytelling as part of the discussion. I've been pretty lucky with GMs over the years (including more than a few stints in the seat myself) and while each of our GMs has different methods of making the targeting call, one thing that is consistent is that we've all tended to explain the opposition's reasoning when targeting a PC, particularly if that PC is already in a vulnerable state (low on hp/wounds etc). Unintelligent creatures tend to simply lash back at whoever hit them last or particularly hard, while disciplined opposition that likes a tight defense targets flankers and skirmishers first, that sort of thing.

While it's good for players to be able to influence the decision, I'm also don't think that a taunt-style action can account for all the variables in opposition without reducing them to cardboard targets for the PCs. I'm far more in favor of the earlier suggestions regarding using existing actions.

It's probably a matter of semantics, to be honest. "Influencing" a target to attack a given PC first sounds to me like "Take this into consideration when selecting a target," which as I said is basically what our gaming group does anyways. "Taunt," due to the MMO connotations, sounds to me like "Ignore any kind of reason and sense, you *must* attack me first even though I'm basically tickling you with a stick while 24 of my closest friends, who you can easily dispatch with one or two blows each, absolutely destroy you and your minions."

Haggard said:

Hi When I wrote this post it was from a very Dragon age like perspective, and kinda geared up for creating some new and revolutionary rules. (I even thought about creating threatlevel points on armour and weapons and spells) however many sensible forumites gave me ideas to "why not use rules that excist allready? So my perspective and angle as well have changed, a fine thing about most discussions.

about attracting monsters, many excellent GMs have incorporated "taunt" into their decision making, and it is an almost automatic thing to do. So that is a passive thing, Foes tries to take out the thougher oppoents first, like the dwarfen shieldbreaker and such. But If a a player wants to attract a monster, what then? lets say he yell and tries get the big baddie`s attention, does he succeeds? How to adress that problem? I think with a taunt rule. But even if you succeeds there should be other factors that decides who the monster will attack. And if you are a weak and not threatening it should be hard to even influence the target, so taunt should always be strength /intimidate against uintelligible monsters.

If you are going to create or elaborate on a rules, make it easy, so the idea as using a skill test as a manouver to try to attract a monster away from someone, seems like a reasonable rule expansion.

reading your last sentences on, I do see that the rule can be a problem or even abused, so the taunt rule cannot be made too strong. But more along the lines that if "two foes wounded you last round and you`re a big stupid troll, who to attack? hmm oh, one of them did also taunt me, making obscene gestures and yelling. I swing my large trunk at him". rather than " I am a big troll and have to attack that dodging, swirling and taunting almost impossible to hit elf, and have to ignore the dwarf sitting on my shoulder and digging a hole trough my skull"

But I see your side of the argument as well. I will post my idea about the taunt rule in a few days. got a lot of good ideas from forumites.

good gaming

Aggro / taunt already exists in WHFRP 3rd. This is from an existing card in the Adventurer's toolkit called "Saga of Grungni":

"Effect: While this card is recharing, allies with whom you are engaged may not be targeted by any hostile effect that could target you instead."

The reckless side does something completely different (keeps enemies from taking actions if they disengage from you) which is I believe the reason why none of us thought of it in this thread. There's your precedent, though, the game already has something like what people here have been debating.

Oh nice, and if I'm not mistaken, you could buy that card even if you're not an Ironbreaker (though you couldn't take advantage of some of the Ironbreaker key words like Ancestor and Saga).

gruntl said:

The rulebook does say that skill use is a maneuver, but that only makes sense for some skills. Many skills (First Aid, for example) are clearly Actions.

Of course shouting "Oi! Ugly!" doesn't take much time, but then again, I don't think it's enough to get someone to disengage from the weakling and engage with you instead. Especially if the weakling is a spellcaster or archer that just hit him for a ton of damage.

Here's another rule suggestion that might help a bit: You know that you can use a maneuver to give someone an assist (1 fortune die on his next action), right? How about extending this with some more options? Instead of giving an ally a fortune die, why not give an enemy a misfortune die? So here's two more options for using maneuvers in combat:

Protect an ally in the same engagement: the first enemy to attack the ally you're trying to protect, gets extra 1 misfortune die in his pool. (Effect probably ends when the ally is attacked, when he leaves the engagement, when you leave the engagement, or at the start of your next turn.)

Obstruct an enemy in the same engagement: the enemy you're obstructing gets 1 misfortune on his next die roll if he attacks anyone other than you. (Effect probably ends if he leaves the engagement, you leave the engagement, after he's done his next action, or at the start of your next turn.)

Whether this is done by physically moving in the way or taunting someone is up to the player. The mechanism should be basically the same as for assists, but turned around.

mcv said:

According to the rule book, any skill check is a manouevre. There's no exception noted for First Aid. By RAW there are no Actions that don't have a corresponding card. Feel free to play it that way though, I guess you could say that you require the person to Perform a stunt to use First aid in combat. The First aid action (Splint and Bandages is the name of it I think) is better than a standard first aid check, which makes it "action-worthy". In my opinion it's perfectly fine as a manouevre (it's only once per act anwyay).

What I meant by allowing a skill check manouevre to be used as a taunt is to actually add one black die if the opponent attacks someone else (giving the GM even less incentive to do so). So I agree with you on that, even though I would probably allow the skill check result to scale up that modifier slightly (comet forcing the attack, chaos stars meaning additional damage taken, boons/banes giving additional stuff). I think it's quite natural to let maneouvres affect things with giving fortune/misfortune to the actions of one opponent. Anything more than that and you risk making the manouevres too similar to actions.

Doing manouvres to obstruct is a nice concept, and something we have used in our games. Requiring a skill check for this just makes it slightly more complicated, but could be used by GM's that feel more taunt mechanics is needed in the game. My point was mostly that you can interpret and use the existing rules to cover a lot of situations which many people feel are missing rules.

gruntl said:

Exactly. And that's a mistake in the rules. Some skills make sense as maneuver, others do not. Performing First Aid in the middle of a fight while also attacking someone? I think not. Also consider that Splints & Bandages (which does practically the same thing, only marginally better), is suddenly an action. It doesn't look like the designers have given much thought to this, or assumed it would be obvious that not everything you need a skill for can actually be done in the middle of combat.

In the end, the real problem here is that skills just don't get much attention from the rules, except when the skill roll is part of an action. The majority of skills is rather badly defined. Using skills relies on using common sense, rather than sticking to the letter of the rules.

gruntl said:

That's also a problem. Realistically, there shouldn't be much of a limit to what you can at least try to do, but according to RAW, you either need an action card (and then you can only do it once), or you can do it without a card as a maneuver, and suddenly you can do a lot of things in a single turn. Just spend fatigue for extra maneuvers, right? This just doesn't make sense.

gruntl said:

It's only slightly better. And it replaces another action, like an attack. If I can perform First Aid for free in between my attacks, why would I pay a point to be able to sacrifice an action to do pretty much the same thing? It doesn't make sense.

gruntl said:

I agree there. Maneuvers should support actions. Put you in the right position to perform your action, let you draw the weapon you need for your action, give someone else an assist for his action, that sort of thing. So I don't disagree with using a maneuver for a taunt. However, there are many different ways to taunt and many different possible effects. Do you taunt someone in the same engagement? Do you or the tauntee need to be unengaged? What if the tauntee is unengaged but just received a lot of damage from a spellcaster, should that not force him to go after the spellcaster? And if the tauntee is in a different engagement, would he really disengage and spend extra fatigue in order to engage with you?

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but there are a lot of issues to work out. And considering the ease of the mechanism for assists, I figured my "protect" and "obstruct" maneuvers would give a lot of players a very useful option for representing a lot of situations without requiring a lot of on-the-spot judgement from the GM. And because assists don't need a skill check, I think it'd be perfectly balanced to allow protects and obstructs also without skill check. Only a single roll per player turn keeps the action flowing.

(In fact, for that reason I feel a bit inclined to require anything that requires a roll to be an action rather than a maneuver. But that might be too restrictive, and also completely the opposite of the RAW. As much as I love to tweak, and as much as this system deserves and encourages tweaking, maybe I should give the RAW a chance first.)

Haggard said:

Actually it's the other way around. When those social cards work effectively in combat, the fighting careers will buy them and make a more well rounded character.

Gallows said:

I think we're agreeing conceptually but not linguistically. :-) I completely agree with you; but to clarify, when I said, "A taunt effect that is based on fighting prowess," I was referring to any proposed taunt that was based on a Strength/Weapon Skill roll or any other combination that a fighting character would likely have maxed to begin with.

Using social cards in combat and interpreting the results appropriately is something I completely support. Since there are also already social actions in the game, I also think that adding another specifically for taunting is unnecessary, particularly if it would discourage fighting characters from branching out and obtaining the preexisting social cards, which obviously would be of use in noncombat situations as well where a taunt action might not be.

Hope that makes my position a little clearer.

r_b_bergstrom said:

Except me on page 2.

Still intimidate which is STR based & a relatively common skill for fighting men would seem the free form skill to use.