Played my 2nd Beginner Box game with a different group.

During the starport control scene, the droid tried to slice the console to unlock the docking clamps.

4 greens vs 2 purples

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Success.

There were also 2 times were he had to roll his cool vs a technician's and the overseer's vigilance while his buddies were making a distraction. He passed both of these.

By about the third dice roll, he was annoyed and in complete disbelief. At the end of it he couldn't have cared less to play this game anymore. He said it was unbelievable to him that he'd be sitting there for about 6 minutes trying to hack into a console.

I can't disagree with him.

Where did this whole notion that 1 roll is about 1 minute come from? I haven't seen it in the core book yet.

While I agree that one roll isn't 1 pull of the trigger, I think "1 minute" is too long. Perhaps setting a hard time on a roll isn't really reasonable.

Your thoughts?

There isn't a hard time on any rolls. A round takes as long as it takes for everyone to do what they need to do. It can be anything from 2 seconds to a minute, as dictated by everyone's actions (and the GM).

Also, did you make sure to let him spend Advantage during those rolls? I find it hard to believe that he not only scored a net fail five consecutive rolls in a row, but also that he didn't get any Advantage.

Core Book, p198, under "Structured Gameplay Overview", second paragraph:

"Rounds can last roughly a minute or so in time, although the elapsed time is deliberately not specified. Players should keep in mind that a round lasts long enough for their characters to move to a new location and perform an important action".

so it's all just a rough guide and, as Krieger22 has already stated, the round can last as long as the GM feels it should.

Played my 2nd Beginner Box game with a different group.

During the starport control scene, the droid tried to slice the console to unlock the docking clamps.

4 greens vs 2 purples

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Success.

There were also 2 times were he had to roll his cool vs a technician's and the overseer's vigilance while his buddies were making a distraction. He passed both of these.

By about the third dice roll, he was annoyed and in complete disbelief. At the end of it he couldn't have cared less to play this game anymore. He said it was unbelievable to him that he'd be sitting there for about 6 minutes trying to hack into a console.

I can't disagree with him.

Where did this whole notion that 1 roll is about 1 minute come from? I haven't seen it in the core book yet.

While I agree that one roll isn't 1 pull of the trigger, I think "1 minute" is too long. Perhaps setting a hard time on a roll isn't really reasonable.

Your thoughts?

Always remember this when you GM: KEEP THE GAME EXCITING. If time isnt an issue during the scene then just focus the action being a success or a failure (still narrating advantages and disadvantages ofcourse) and move on, if time is an issue, explain to the player he needs at least 2 or 3 success's this roll to complete it in time before X happens.

Your thoughts?

Always remember this when you GM: KEEP THE GAME EXCITING.

If what you want to know is how long it would take him to hack in, set an expected time, ROLL ONCE, and allow successes to reduce the time, and failures to increase it. There is no point to rolling multiple times if time is not important. If hacking is a required plot point, or you want them to hack in, there's no reason to make each micro-action dependent on a roll.

If the player is hacking during combat, and you're trying to keep all the players busy and involved each turn, that could be different, but I think after the second failure it would be worth changing the scene, eg: failed twice, and the access port closes. Now the character has to use mechanics to jimmy the port open, or even resort to a blaster to blow a hole (toss in a Red die to represent the danger of ruining the port entirely). This changes things up and forces the player to think about alternatives, rather than waiting for their chance to hack-and-fail.

And ultimately I would think the important part of the narrative is what they do once they're in. Did they find some or all of the information? Did they take over the gun turrets to help their friends? Did they open doors, put the video on a loop, transfer the credits? If those are the important things in your story, then don't even bother making them roll to hack in. Edit: an alternative here is to take away the purple dice, and just say the character needs 4 total successes before they're in. That way each roll represents progress.

If I tried something twice and failed, there's a good chance I would decide to try something different rather than try a third time. Players can take a little responsibility for keeping things fun, too.

Lol, have you ever tried to hack a computer? Just a basic brute force password hack, the simplistic hack, can take a lot longer than 6 minutes. If not in combat I normally rule each roll is 5 or 10 minutes.

You are talking hacking, not typing in a password. Looks more like your player isn't skilled correctly for hacking and had some bad rolls.

I'm a big opponent of rolling more than once to attempt the same challenge using the same skill/method in a scene. Breaking into secure system, searching a room or using Knowledge to recall information should be covered by s single skill roll; advantage or threat can help determine time taken on a success. A failed result is a definitive failure to accomplish the task attempted, though advantages can be used to enable other options (you can't unlock a door but you can cause a distraction elsewhere, you fail to repair the shield generator but you determine it just needs a common replacement part, you don't find any blasters for sale but a merchant tells you where you could buy one, etc).

If the GM feels a task *should* be doable given enough time/attempts, the difficulty should be simple (no difficulty dice) or not have any roll. Rolling when you're just going to let them eventually succeed is redundant.

How wrong would it be to use real life as an example? I know I've gotten better results from trying again than from my first attempt. There are some things I have to try to do more than once every time I try to do them till I get them right!

Depends on how soon the second attempt occurs or if anything changes in the meantime; trying multiple times in a row ultimately isn't different than trying once but taking a long time. Coming back to do it later after a number of things could have changed would be reasonable. But my point is to avoid presenting challenges where a valid solution would be to just keep rolling until success.

How wrong would it be to use real life as an example? I know I've gotten better results from trying again than from my first attempt. There are some things I have to try to do more than once every time I try to do them till I get them right!

Yes, but the game isn't supposed to model reality, at least not to that level of detail, it's simply a framework upon which to hang a story. If you want to account for someone try-try-trying until they succeed, set a target time, roll once, and have successes/failures decrease/increase the actual time. This represents what you're referring to (with the GM and player embellishing the narrative appropriately), moves the story along, and avoids the tedium of having to roll until it happens.

Also note that you are talking about someone with no skill ranks in the skill attempting a feat, as it says in the core book,1 skill rank is a massive difference(hence proficiency dice lend a much bigger contribution to success), couldnt he also have flipped a destiny point to upgrade, also you could have added bonus dice to represent that his failures added to his knowledge about the system.

Someone could have aided him (as per rules) to add another die. Alternatively they could also have looked at other options open because iirc there was more than just using that method to forward the plot.

I find it unusual that advantage wasnt rolled also, as this can lead to success also, just not through the way expected.

Of course if its just a case of time isnt an problem, then successi s guaranteed eventually, then the roll isnt to determine sucess but time taken as other people say, which you could then use to 'narrate in other problems' eg if it takes too long, then guards show up as they succeed.

As a general guideline players shouldn't roll more than once for any activity that takes minutes, hours or days consecutively. In the case of the OP the GM should have only determined one roll unless the situation changes. Re-rolling until success often results in poor experience overall. The model of re-rolling devalues fictional based play, cinematic based play, fun, value of the skill, value of the task at hand, value of the story, creativity of the player.

Players when challenged with a task that's too difficult will often rise to the challenge. By letting him roll 6 times the player was put in a position of only being of importance of a die roller rather than taking a more active roll.

Also while it mentions that 1 round maybe 1 minute, it doesn't really lock down explicitly a combat round. instead think of it as an adventure round of tension. My experience that defining a round into a solid slice of time in a more role play centric game often causes more problems that removes them. Just use what ever amount of time feels appropriate based on the series of actions.

I personally like the 1 minute == 1 round in the system. It suggests that "multiple things" are occurring in the attempt.

The PC is trying to get their mac to see the network. Is the ADSL plugged in? Is sharing enabled? Is the WIFI on? Do you know the password? Are you using AFP or SMB protocols to connect to the network? Why is it still not picking up the **** laptop? Have you restarted? Is the network enabled? You can see the drive but cannot write to it... what permissions do you have? etcetera... 6 minutes spent faffing at a terminal to try and break in is not unrealistic to my mind's eye, it can take me longer in the real world to see the stupid printer on the office network.

That said, the advice in the above posts is perhaps more useful in that it's more game-related. If the player is rolling 6 times to eventually succeed it's terribly boring. It's the GM's job to prevent that by either: a) allowing an automatic success because it doesn't matter how long it takes. say, "You spend 10 minutes and eventually gain entry by a brute force hack".... or b) "Your second attempt and fail must've triggered a silent alarm because before you can try again, a bunch of guards run around the corner..." or "On the third failed attempt the system shuts down and tells you to find a network administrator."

You should only roll dice when it matters. If the GM is just winging it and says make a roll, s/he should be winging the consequences of a failure (or if you can see that the situation allows for multiple attempts; failures). The Average (2 purple) difficulty tells me that the terminal isn't wired to any alarm system as there isn't a challenge die with the dreaded despair symbol. The player can fail, but there's no chance of things going really awry. So hacking in isn't that risky. perhaps its just a regular terminal in the workplace and you're trying to hack in to check that employees email... the PC fails. "Nope you cannot try this terminal again, you've exhausted your attempts, but maybe you can try another employee's terminal... look around their desk for clues as to a password. (Perception check) Ah, there it is on a yellow post-it note, "Pass = 1234. You type that in and you're in."

My rule of thumb is one attempt for a specific set of circumstances. So, if a PC in my group was trying to hack a computer and got a fail result then any further attempt right then an there doing the exact same thing that just failed will fail again. If however, he rolled net advantages on the failed attempt, I could point out that even though he couldn't brute force the password he noticed *some technobabble term as I'm not a hacker* and perhaps if he tried exploiting that he might have better luck. If didn't roll any advantages, but decided to go away and do some research on the system (time required depends on the story) perhaps then he has gained sufficient insight into the OS / program that he can attempt again, and maybe even a boost dice.

Couple thoughts here:

One round = one minute is a pretty ridiculous guideline from either or real world or a cinematic standpoint.

Short of a police officer or soldier stepping in, it's tough to find a real world analog for combat, but consider an open-ended sport like football, basketball, or soccer. Think about how much can happen in full, uninterrupted minute of game time.

In a cinematic sense, action often takes place MUCH faster than the audience realizes. For example, if I recall correctly, the entire screen time for the Darth Maul fight at the end of Episode I is less than two minutes. In screenwriting, 1 page = 1 minute of screentime, and in a good script, there will be AT LEAST 4-6 (probably closer to 8-10) reversals during a single page of an action sequence.

As for the idea of a player failing the same roll a half dozen times in a row... Well, EotE is a narrative game, which doesn't lend itself well to "I roll again." With that in mind, in a situation like that, both the GM and the PC could have done more to help avoid it. In a game like d20, success/failure is generally a binary situation, but here, there are a bunch of options. HOW and WHY did the attempt fail? Is there a different approach the character could take, perhaps to get an advantage on the next roll?

Rather than:

PC: I rolled. I failed.

GM: Okay, let's repeat that until you succeed or get bored...

PC: I rolled. I failed.

GM: Any advantage or threat?

PC: Nope. Hey, why did I fail? Anything I can do to improve my odds?

GM: Hmmm... It's a software thing. You just can't get in. Maybe if you understood the owner a little better...

PC: Okay. Can I spend a maneuver to make a Perception check to try to get an advantage die on the next roll?

- OR -

PC: I rolled. I failed.

GM: Any advantage or threat?

PC: Nope. Anything I can do to improve my odds?

GM: Yeah, okay. If you take a round of prep time, I'll give you an advantage die... if you can tell me what you're doing.

PC: Yeah, sure, okay. I'll, um, set up a security spike to try to overload the system. And while it's deploying, I'll check the drawers to see if the password is taped somewhere...

I have to agree with the general sentiment of the thread. Unless the character can come up with some real good justification, I probably would only let them take one or two tries. Unlike some, I will often let people try twice. I work in IT, and many times I've failed at a task, sat for just 10 seconds and thought about it, and done the "doh, oh yeh," then done it correctly. If I can't get it on the second try though, it's usually time to hit the books and/or Google to do some research, and come back much later.

I'd apply that same logic here. So after the second failure they either need to back off and try something else, or sneak away and do some research before coming back to try again. I'd then grant a couple boost dice for the research.

Yeah, I could be persuaded to give a second attempt for free depending on the circumstances, but in the real life case where you thought about it and saw your mistake, that could just be an example of rolling a failure with some advantages (Your command didn't work, but as you look at what you entered you spot a syntax error. You correct it and try the command again)

Played my 2nd Beginner Box game with a different group.

During the starport control scene, the droid tried to slice the console to unlock the docking clamps.

4 greens vs 2 purples

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Success.

You probably should have stopped after the first roll. Success with advantage means he was so slick that he got in there, hacked the thing with nobody noticing. Success with threat (or just no advantage) means he unlocked the clamps, but was spotted and the party has to exit while taking fire. Failure with advantage means the first pass was a failure, but not spoted, so can try again (note, this is the only time it makes sense to allow repeated tries -- it also amps-up the tension because how long can that kind of luck hold out? All eyes are on the die roll!) Failure with no advtange means they were spotted and either have to neutralize the droids and NPCs or leave and think of another solution.

Once the NPCs are neutralized, the skill check is superfluous: there's no question they'll get the clamps open and proceed, ergo it happens, they've earne it. Think in terms of scene branching: often a skill check is used to bypass a fight. That is almost always the case when you're trying to do something furtively in a game.

I love the dice system because you can do so much with it.

We never reroll skill checks. You check once.

Hacking into a computer:

-fail with threat - you didn't hack in, and you set off an alarm

-fail with advantage - you didn't crack it quickly, but you can likely get it with enough time (reduce time for more advantages) - roll vigilance check for security to notice the ongoing attempt (difficulty based on advantages from hack roll) Players can always change their strategy at this point.

-succeed with threat - you hacked it, but set off an alarm

-succeed with advantage - you hacked into the system and came across some bonus info

If there is no danger, and time isn't an issue, and the check isn't overly vital to the story, just let it happen without a roll.

As for the idea of a player failing the same roll a half dozen times in a row... Well, EotE is a narrative game, which doesn't lend itself well to "I roll again." With that in mind, in a situation like that, both the GM and the PC could have done more to help avoid it. In a game like d20, success/failure is generally a binary situation, but here, there are a bunch of options. HOW and WHY did the attempt fail? Is there a different approach the character could take, perhaps to get an advantage on the next roll?

Rather than:

PC: I rolled. I failed.

GM: Okay, let's repeat that until you succeed or get bored...

PC: I rolled. I failed.

GM: Any advantage or threat?

PC: Nope. Hey, why did I fail? Anything I can do to improve my odds?

GM: Hmmm... It's a software thing. You just can't get in. Maybe if you understood the owner a little better...

PC: Okay. Can I spend a maneuver to make a Perception check to try to get an advantage die on the next roll?

- OR -

PC: I rolled. I failed.

GM: Any advantage or threat?

PC: Nope. Anything I can do to improve my odds?

GM: Yeah, okay. If you take a round of prep time, I'll give you an advantage die... if you can tell me what you're doing.

PC: Yeah, sure, okay. I'll, um, set up a security spike to try to overload the system. And while it's deploying, I'll check the drawers to see if the password is taped somewhere...

I agree with this. In my games (not just EotE) you only make a second or third roll if the situation changes somehow. That change can be as simple as "I'm going to check my datapad and see if there another code breaker I can try...", but something has to change otherwise you don't get to roll again, you just failed. Hopefully you didn't fail with a Dispair . Rolling until you achieve success is boring.

Also, to echo some things said here and by SkillMonkey - you don't always have to have a roll. If there's no time pressure and success is needed for the plot, there's no point in rolling. I was making notes for my next adventure and in order for the story to progress (well, I'm sure there's other ways, but this is the most obvious and less risky / time consuming) my players have to locate a crashed ship. I was making notes about the sensor check needed to find it and I realized, if they don't find it it's going to cause problems for my story. Since no one will be shooting at them and they have a few hours that they can spare I have decided that they will detect the crashed ship. I stole the idea from Beyond the Rim that the sensor check will determine how close they can pinpoint the crash site, but even if they fail, they will have a general idea of where to search. If I didn't do that, they would just keep rolling and rolling until they find it, so since that's the end result we need anyway, I just start from there. Now, if they had a time constraint or we under fire, sure I would use rolls as there's a consequence for failure. No consequence, no roll

Played my 2nd Beginner Box game with a different group.

During the starport control scene, the droid tried to slice the console to unlock the docking clamps.

4 greens vs 2 purples

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Fail.

Success.

There were also 2 times were he had to roll his cool vs a technician's and the overseer's vigilance while his buddies were making a distraction. He passed both of these.

Your thoughts?

On second thought if he made that many rolls and ONLY got fails, you guys did something wrong. It's every hard to roll that many dice and only get fails, meaning no advantage. Based on that you should try to come up with better ways to describe/use the advantage and/or threat.

I still say and use myself as a GM, longer time periods than 1 minute per roll depending on the skill check. I mean some repair rolls are an hour or more per check.

On second thought if he made that many rolls and ONLY got fails, you guys did something wrong. It's every hard to roll that many dice and only get fails, meaning no advantage. Based on that you should try to come up with better ways to describe/use the advantage and/or threat.

Not necessarily true. I've seen some pretty heinous strings of failures since starting EotE. My luck has been horrible. My poor assassin is starting to have some major self confidence issues based on how much total failure she's achieved despite the odds being well stacked in her favor.

On second thought if he made that many rolls and ONLY got fails, you guys did something wrong. It's every hard to roll that many dice and only get fails, meaning no advantage. Based on that you should try to come up with better ways to describe/use the advantage and/or threat.

Not necessarily true. I've seen some pretty heinous strings of failures since starting EotE. My luck has been horrible. My poor assassin is starting to have some major self confidence issues based on how much total failure she's achieved despite the odds being well stacked in her favor.

I'm not saying failure, I'm saying failure with no advantage, triumph, threat, or despair is almost impossible 5 roll in a row.