Demons run when a good monkey goes to war?
Skill Monkey
Skill Monkey takes the ultimate >hic< challenge.
http://www.madadventurers.com/skill-monkey-three-sheets-to-the-wind/
Would it be possible to talk about how you could potentially mix good and bad results in one roll? Success with disadvantage, TRIUMPH!!, but failing, but with advantage...etc??
Would it be possible to talk about how you could potentially mix good and bad results in one roll? Success with disadvantage, TRIUMPH!!, but failing, but with advantage...etc??
This is one of the hardest things for newcomers to grasp. Especially as the nature of the dice mean that most failures will generate a lot of advantages.
Skill Monkey handles a listener question. About cooking.
http://www.madadventurers.com/skill-monkey-iron-chef/
Regarding an episode about mixed die results: It's a possibility. It won't be a regular feature of the show, but more like a special episode just dealing with that one thing. Otherwise, the episodes balloon up considerably in length and become confusing in the extreme (a byproduct of the listening experience and trying to track all the options) and, actually, much less fun to listen to (same reasons). 30 minutes of explanation about the potential possibilities for each and every episode is a bit much, in my opinion, since the initial intent of Skill Monkey was to be a fun, short, informative segment for those who need quick help in understanding how it is meant to work rather than in-depth explanations.
Regarding an episode about mixed die results: It's a possibility. It won't be a regular feature of the show, but more like a special episode just dealing with that one thing.
I think that's all anybody is hoping for. The Triumph and Despair is the biggie for me, since they don't cancel. A couple of Advantage or Threat with Failure or Success (respectively) is relatively easy because the Strain mechanic is so useful. But over 2 and I often have trouble thinking of things when the situation is not pre-planned and I want to keep the game flowing.
Here it is, the episode you've been waiting for. Certainly at least since the last episode you were waiting for.
Hrrmmm.
But in the example he walks us through, the final narrative he chose, not only completely dismissed the triumph result he previously suggested, but strain damage was tacked on as a result. So much for both results being applied...
Not sure I get it, but I guess it was cool in general. <shrug>
He does a good job of narrating the examples but doesn't really explain the mechanical effects much, which I think is the main issue for most people.
Well, the triumph could have dictated that he crossed undetected and unharmed, but the despair means that the route is no longer accessable to the others of the party (or as a return trip, should one be needed).
Actually, this might be a good separate thread idea. I'll be right back. . . .
Really? We're not clear on how it shakes out?
Triumph has got him across in a fairly awesome manner in spite of having to deal with the despair of the rope breaking.
As for the strain, take it or leave it, up to you and your table.
And Skill Monkey has never been about pure mechanical effects. I don't know where that impression comes from but it certainly isn't one I encourage. It's about narrative and story telling.
Edited by FiddlebackReally? We're not clear on how it shakes out?
Triumph has got him across in a fairly awesome manner in spite of having to deal with the despair of the rope breaking.
As for the strain, take it or leave it, up to you and your table.
I disagree. The rope breaking is despair. Fine. I get that. But success or failure should determine whether he got across or not. Plain and simple. So the triumph did what exactly? Make it "epic near-failure"? But there was no failure if he made it across. Then somehow he suffers strain? I can only figure that was a result of slamming into the side of the wall after leaping for it (the triumph).
Unless the implication is that the roll resulted in a net failure, but with a triumph and despair. But I don't recall that ever being stated.
Right, the scene is not fully set-up at any point nor entirely detailed. Nor have they ever been. The idea is not to construct a fully functional scene that you can take right to the table top. Since the focus for this particular episode was how to mix multiple varieties of results, the mix was made in the simplest manner possible in order to illustrate the points, not provide perfect solutions and results to every case.
Hopefully you 'get' the idea that it is about creative thinking and that assigning the dice to particular aspects makes that easier. Which was the point of the entire thing for those who had trouble understanding how to do that from a story point of view.
Really? We're not clear on how it shakes out?
Triumph has got him across in a fairly awesome manner in spite of having to deal with the despair of the rope breaking.
As for the strain, take it or leave it, up to you and your table.
I disagree. The rope breaking is despair. Fine. I get that. But success or failure should determine whether he got across or not. Plain and simple. So the triumph did what exactly? Make it "epic near-failure"? But there was no failure if he made it across. Then somehow he suffers strain? I can only figure that was a result of slamming into the side of the wall after leaping for it (the triumph).
Unless the implication is that the roll resulted in a net failure, but with a triumph and despair. But I don't recall that ever being stated.
It really depends more on what the GM wants the stakes to be. It doesn't HAVE to be that a failure on the roll means "he doesn't get across at all".
A failure COULD mean that it's a tricky crossing, he takes some strain or it takes longer than he hoped, or that there are other complications.
There is a lot of GM discretion in this system, and there's hardly ever only one possible outcome for anything. It depends on what's happening at your table.
It really depends more on what the GM wants the stakes to be. It doesn't HAVE to be that a failure on the roll means "he doesn't get across at all".
A failure COULD mean that it's a tricky crossing, he takes some strain or it takes longer than he hoped, or that there are other complications.
There is a lot of GM discretion in this system, and there's hardly ever only one possible outcome for anything. It depends on what's happening at your table.
I understand all that. I merely based my point on the lead-up he set forth as his specific example and what he was doing with the results as presented. In this case, it wasn't "there are always so many possibilities and options available". But rather, what happened to that specific guy, crossing that rope, under those circumstances, and who rolled those results. And further, what the GM in that instance did with those results. The way I felt the walk-through went, the triumph was marginalized/ignored in the climactic narrative sum up.
That's all I ever said.
I'd have to quibble with the entire premise of "knowing where the dice come from to inform the results". First, when cancelling results to get the net, the choice of which dice to put aside is arbitrary. If I get a Success+Advantage on both a yellow and blue die, and a Failure+Threat on a purple, do I cancel the blue or the yellow? In practice I'd just grab whichever are closest and most similar, but this doesn't "inform the narrative", unless I actually want to derive a narrative with what is accidentally left over...which I guess could work but it just doesn't feel right.
Second, as skills are developed, native ability has less and less to do with it. If someone has Agility 3 and Coordination 4, technically all the dice are proficiency dice, and none of it has to to with that decent above-average Agility. It will never be narrated about again...poor sad lonely Agility... 
I'd have to quibble with the entire premise of "knowing where the dice come from to inform the results". First, when cancelling results to get the net, the choice of which dice to put aside is arbitrary. If I get a Success+Advantage on both a yellow and blue die, and a Failure+Threat on a purple, do I cancel the blue or the yellow? In practice I'd just grab whichever are closest and most similar, but this doesn't "inform the narrative", unless I actually want to derive a narrative with what is accidentally left over...which I guess could work but it just doesn't feel right.
Second, as skills are developed, native ability has less and less to do with it. If someone has Agility 3 and Coordination 4, technically all the dice are proficiency dice, and none of it has to to with that decent above-average Agility. It will never be narrated about again...poor sad lonely Agility...
As I said at the beginning of the segment, if you as the GM or player are already comfortable with narrative dice resolution and you can do it on the fly as things go along, cool. You don't really need this segment, though there is something there to take from it. As with every Skill Monkey, it is intended to help those who are new to the system, or who are having difficulty figuring out how to narrate the results. If you are looking at a pile of rolled and cancelled die results and don't know what they mean to the story, this is certainly a viable way to work it out. As your fluency with the system increases, you need Skill Monkey's hints and tips much less, hopefully.
And sure, you should make adjustments to this basic suggestion to account for character growth, play styles, evolving understanding of the game and it's processes, etc. Please, don't rely exclusively on Skill Monkey to tell you how a thing MUST be done. Feel free to elaborate and expand on the suggestions given. Or to ignore them completly and do things your own way. It's all cool. Skill Monkey has, generally speaking, ten minutes or less to get an idea or concept across and explain it as well as he can. It's not like it is a three hour podcast built expressly to discuss rules minutiea, game mechanics, and preferred methods of play.
Skill Monkey has returned. This time he's mucking about with guns in fairly unusual ways.
Hilarious! "...three shots or less."
Good times!
The Skill Monkey returns a bit early.
And he's been watching those dubbed Martial Arts movies so popular in the mid-rim.
Couldn't possibly be anything wrong with that, could there?
Also, if one were to take some time to look around the site, one might find something else rather interesting was posted up today.
You know, if...
Clearly this thread needs more Monkey King!
Two things:
- That clip, and many others like it, is every reason this particular Skill Monkey installment should have been at least 30 minutes long and may yet see the first two part Skill Monkey. Reason: Every time they switch from bare handed fighting to using something else, like the staff, is a switch from Brawl to Melee and back again in the R.A.W. and there are a couple of interesting points to talk about when doing that. There are a few other elements I'd like to discuss as well, but that's the major one.
- How amazingly narrative is that fight sequence? Pretty darned. If you think about it in terms of dice pools, you can practically see the boost and setback dice flowing between the two of them with each swing, kick, jump, etc. Just thinking about the starting dice pools you would give Jackie or Jet is enough to really start wondering how you can pump up your own combat scenes to that level.
Dang it. Now I just need to figure out how to represent this:
- That clip, and many others like it, is every reason this particular Skill Monkey installment should have been at least 30 minutes long and may yet see the first two part Skill Monkey. Reason: Every time they switch from bare handed fighting to using something else, like the staff, is a switch from Brawl to Melee and back again in the R.A.W. and there are a couple of interesting points to talk about when doing that.
Not only that, by RAW the fight would be over much more quickly...it seems much easier to build your dice pool to hit and do damage (whether strain or wounds) than it is to buy talents to prevent it.
Absolutely love Skill Monkey Fiddleback. Thanks for doing this it is such a great resource.