Quote from: jrientsLet me clarify what I meant by 'traditional dungeon crawl'.  I'm referring to the kind of game where entering, surviving, clearing, and looting a big multi-level dungeon is itself the entire point of the outing.  Your rescue scenario is exactly what I mean by 'more plot-oriented'.

It isn't so much about "plot" as it is about having tighter control over the environment, if you are willing to toss aside "colour".

For example in a dungeon if you don't want lots of rolls to disarm/disable a trap made you don't put in traps. Of course you lose the "colour" of a trap around every corner.  Same applies to climbing checks and such. Just put in a 20' climb instead of a 200' climb if you want to pull back on the climbing rolls.  Or to fairly closely approximate the Let It Ride rule just attach a note to the climb that either it's all really easy (that even a blind, lame, rhino can Take 10) expect for a specific 20'. Or attach a special overriding rule (basically usurp the core rules) that it's only 1 check to make the 200' climb.

For the large part Let It Ride allows you to dynamically taloir to your group the scale of how you partition the physical world and time. You're right that is something that isn't done in most dungeons, traditionally. Whether or not they would benefit from it has a lot more to do with how you'd like to colour you dungeon, and where you draw the line on "pixel bitching". For me using a single check for finding traps for an entire session or section of the dungeon sure would be nice.

EDIT: It isn't really about rolling dice or not. I like my dice rolling too. I just like rolling dice about things I care about. Yes a "traditional" dungeon crawl says you are to care about anything put before you, but in practice that doesn't cut it for me. YMMV.  Let It Ride doesn't nessasarily lower the overall number of dice you roll in a session, although it does stop those binge spurts of rerolling the same over and over looking for that single good/bad number to come up.  Thankfully D&D 3e removed some of that with Take 20/Take 10.

Quote from: blakkieThankfully D&D 3e removed some of that with Take 20/Take 10.

I'd say Take 20/Take 10 and Let it Ride are very remote cousins, because Let it Ride doesn't say anything about qualitative about what your character can do. You have to put up with the result of your roll for the duration of the scene, whether it's good or bad.

It certainly sharpens the significance of those rolls, when you know you're going to have to put up with the results for a significant amount of time.

A cool (to me) side effect of LiR is that you  can have some interesting times trying to find a different approach to a problem, from giving other player characters a chance to shine with their abilities, to mustering helping dice, to finding, as players, a way to effect the 'significant change' that allows you to re-roll.

So am I correct in understanding that under Let It Ride you roll once, and then retain that roll - but if there is opposition they each get a chance to roll against that? Because that's different than I was understanding for some reason and I like that idea more. It then becomes a gamble. "Hey, I got a really good stealth roll. I'll Let it Ride...oh shit, that Orc rolled higher than me. If I hadn't Let It Ride, I could've had a chance to roll better than him."

Dammit, I need to get Burning Wheel. I had more than enough gift credit from Amazon to get it, but I couldn't find it anywhere (besides some old used copies and then only one book) so I got Exalted books instead.

I like this rule. My only gripe is that Burning Wheel didn't invent it. It first (to my knowledge) appeared in Maelstrom Storytelling as "Scene-based Resolution" (you made one roll for all action in an entire scene, and applied the roll result throughout). It was innovative in 1997. In BW it was still good, just not original.

It's still original if whoever wrote BW had never heard of MS.

Quote"Hey, I got a really good stealth roll. I'll Let it Ride...oh shit, that Orc rolled higher than me. If I hadn't Let It Ride, I could've had a chance to roll better than him."

My understanding (gleaned solely from this thread) is that you don't get a choice as the player whether to let it ride or not. The rule is also there to prevent countless rerolling by players looking to get the best result.

Quote from: James McMurrayMy understanding (gleaned solely from this thread) is that you don't get a choice as the player whether to let it ride or not. The rule is also there to prevent countless rerolling by players looking to get the best result.

So is there like a little slot machine that when it comes up all badgers or something kicks "Let It Ride" in? Have I spent too much time in casinos?

I think (again just from what I've gleaned here) that whenever you make a skill check that could conceivably last for a while, let it ride happens automatically.

It still isn't original if MS did it in 1997. It's just a really formal take on what many GM's had done independently.  Most games, to my knowledge, are not very clear on how often to roll, or for that matter 'when' to roll. They say 'roll stealth to be stealthy' and not much more, or 'Roll stealth vs. notice' if they use it as an opposed check.

So, some GM's pixel bitch, some GM's roll opposed checks for every guard, some GM's have you roll to see if you sneak the fuck in and get back out with the information.  One roll, essentially a 'let it ride'.

So along comes a few games presumably written by people who were tired of being pixel bitched and rather than just GM their games there way, formally wrote down the way THEY liked GM's to handle things.  Nothing original, just more sticking their mitts where they didn't belong.  Is it a good rule? Sure, I've played that way for years without it. Do I want the game to tell me to do it? No. Do I think it's particularly inventive, clever or orginal? :rolleyes:

Quote from: WilSo am I correct in understanding that under Let It Ride you roll once, and then retain that roll - but if there is opposition they each get a chance to roll against that?

Sort of, but if there are 4 or 5 opponents they'd likely still only have one roll total (depending at the scale at which you are running). Even if you encountered them at different points of the whole senario. For a detection you'd use the highest skill value amoung the group, plus extra dice if it is the others are able to help.
EDIT: To bring it back to Tony's example, what might happen is to one roll for the grunts (that's a single roll coving going both in and out) and one roll for the Chieftan. You do that if you want to differentiate where you fail.  If you are really only interested in whether or not you get by the Chieftan, or maybe this is a subgroup of the whole table and you want to wrap it up fast to get other people back in on the action, then it's just the Chieftan (assuming he's got the best dice, otherwise it's the best grunt) rolling. Maybe with helping dice, maybe not.

Quote"Hey, I got a really good stealth roll. I'll Let it Ride...oh shit, that Orc rolled higher than me. If I hadn't Let It Ride, I could've had a chance to roll better than him."

Except that it isn't really a choice. You say what you plan to do, you roll what you roll, and unless you can figure out a way to justify a reroll (see Tim's post above) that's what you go ahead on the stated plan with.

And yes, that means sometimes you fail and you go in knowing you have failed or are very likely to fail. Good chance you even know the conciquences. But failing is usually more than half the fun, and quite often a great opportunity.

QuoteDammit, I need to get Burning Wheel. I had more than enough gift credit from Amazon to get it, but I couldn't find it anywhere (besides some old used copies and then only one book) so I got Exalted books instead.

I think the only online distributor they use is Key20. So either there or in your FLGS to buy new books. I don't know the exact reaon why. They don't sell the whole book in PDF either. Wierdly you can buy parts of the Character Burner in PDF though :ponder: , and Burning Empires is available in PDF.

Quote from: blakkieExcept that it isn't really a choice. You say what you plan to do, you roll what you roll, and unless you can figure out a way to justify a reroll (see Tim's post above) that's what you go ahead on the stated plan with.

I got it. So it's telling the GM when the player gets to roll in explicit terms (ostensibly removing GM fiat from the equation) and yet at the same time does not give the player any additional flexibility in deciding to reroll either. It prevents a stupid cycle of "Can I roll again?" "No" "Can I roll again?" "No" from the player side, as well as "Give me 15 Stealth rolls!" from the GM side, as well as making the rules more neutral. I'm not seeing the huge problem except for maybe in a "This is my house and I'll do what I want! Even if it's exactly what someone else is doing!" sort of way.

Quote from: WilI'm not seeing the huge problem except for maybe in a "This is my house and I'll do what I want! Even if it's exactly what someone else is doing!" sort of way.

Given that it's the people in the house that set the scope, that isn't really an issue unless you are a cranky, yellow, electric bolt tossing rat shaking an angry but impotent fist at the empty sky.

I can understand Pundit's point of view. From my point of view, the rule is stupid too. I get to decide when to roll.

However, I do think it could be a service to certain anal-retentive gamers who need it spelled out that they don't have to roll all the time. I suppose a lot of folks here will not find this concept novel. Surprisingly, I think some gamers need the advice.

It's like all those threads of malajusted gamers on RPG.net asking what to do about the stinky group member who empties the fridge every session. Any normal person knows what to do (ditch his ass). Some gamers just aren't normal persons and need the obvious to be pointed out.

I'm also reminded of those "magic isn't real" disclaimers in some game books. It's scary but I think they might actually be useful sometimes. I prefer not to know when, though.

Quote from: blakkieGiven that it's the people in the house that set the scope, that isn't really an issue unless you are a cranky, yellow, electric bolt tossing rat shaking an angry but impotent fist at the empty sky.

Get it right, Waldo, I'm shaking an angry, electrically charged, fist... at the book.  I don't tempt the sky, it's got more lightning than me.

Quote from: SpikeGet it right, Waldo, I'm shaking an angry, electrically charged, fist... at the book.  I don't tempt the sky, it's got more lightning than me.

So what you are really saying is that you can't manage to get it skyward? Yeah, I figured so.  Anyway I heard that there is a great thread about "the meaning of original" over here. Enjoy, my pet rat.

@Consonant Dude

Will summed it up pretty well in the originating thread, and I don't see it here so I'll copy-paste:

Quote from: WilConversely, why is it bad to make it part of the rules if reasonable people already do it? I mean, that's generally how rules get made in the first place - reasonable people already behave that way, so there is a consensus that this is something that everyone should do. They become rules because of the unreasonable people who don't behave that way.

Basically you are saying is a good way to play, but that you'd rather have rules that told you something different?  Gee, that sounds to me like you think it is fundemantally sound to play with that rule, but you don't seem to want your RPG rule cluttered up with rules that work well and would rather have in their place rules that needed to be changed to function for you?

Quote from: Consonant DudeSome gamers just aren't normal persons and need the obvious to be pointed out.

Gee. I just like it because if I'm playing in some random Burning Wheel game, say at a con, I KNOW I'm not going to have to roll fifteen times to sneak into the Bandit Camp, each additional roll bringing me closer to inevitable failure, because it's in the book. You know. A rule.

If you haven't suffered through something similar to the above scenario as a player or, conversely, the classic player's classic "I rolled a 13 to pick the lock. you fail I rolled an 8, this time you fail I roll a...fuck it, while you're concentrating on the lock, you're attacked by Tiamat", you've been pretty lucky.

I don't think anyone's claimed that it's an innovative oh-my-god, this is so unique it's set my pants on fire, rule. It's just a rule they like!