Working out whether a character's actions succeed in Shades of Norwich is sometimes straightforward. If we're in uptime, or in a downtime scene, we can turn to card draws.
But what about in downtime?
We've had a couple of players ask us how we decide how successful a given action is in a downtime. The short answer is: it depends on the situation, and it's with some finagling, a bit of faff and the occasional card draw. The longer answer is below, and some things might surprise you more than others...
1. What stats are most appropriate for the given action?
We generally pick a combination of Attributes and Skills we think are appropriate for the action. This all depends on what the character is trying to do - trying to tail someone without being spotted would be Dexterity and Stealth, but their Wits and Investigation would come up too - after all, being super-stealthy doesn't help if you can't spot the person you're trying to tail!
Sometimes, an action might be more complex. Ingratiating yourself into a subculture might be Manipulation and Socialise, but if you're basing a lot of your social power on lies then we would include Subterfuge as a skill of interest, and if you're trying to butter up the University Fellows then Intelligence and Academics will start to come into play as well!
Without a doubt, if you're talking to NPCs, whether human or supernatural, and trying to get information out of them or befriend them in any way ... you're going to want to have some
Empathy on your character sheet.
2. What are the character's dots in those stats?
This can be the real kicker - we're all geared up to write a fairly positive response for someone trying to get information from the kids on the local estate by making friends with them because they've got Streetwise 3, but when we check their character sheet we discover they have Presence 1, Manipulation 2, Empathy 3, Persuasion 1 and Socialise 0.
Now, a couple of those stats aren't so bad. With Streetwise 3, the character can find the kids in the first place, and they really know the streets like the kids do. With Empathy 3 they can tell very well whether or not the kids are telling the truth, and what they think of the character. But 1s in Attributes and 0s in skills show that the character is
fundamentally bad at that thing. They are below the human average.
Having 1s in Skills is often less of an issue, if the action in question is not unreasonable, and if it isn't particularly risky. But 1s in Attributes are always a flag for us, and we will always pay attention to it. An Attribute at 1 will have more of a negative effect on the success of an action than just having a smaller draw pool!
Back to our example, we'd focus on their Presence 1 and Socialise 0. That's subsantially less than the NPCs they're trying to interact with - after all, the kids know when's best not to swear to adults, and how to fit in at parties with their peers.
So our example character's prospects have gone from looking fairly promising...to suddenly not so good.
3. What factors are there that may affect the character's efforts?
In almost every situation, to a point, we would rather someone succeed than fail in a downtime action! We look for other factors on the character sheet that might make a difference - in our example above, the character may have Allies or Contacts (Street) of some kind, and if they aren't being used for something very different we might rule that 'word gets around' that the character isn't such a bad person to talk to.
Of course, sometimes there are things going on in the wider world of the game that means that the action might be more difficult than normal. Perhaps the kids are more suspicious of strangers because of the actions of an NPC...or even another PC. We always do our best to ensure that the ripples of one character's actions reach the distant shores of other people's downtimes!
4. What can I do to improve my chances of success?
The most reliable method of improving your
chances is buying up relevant Attributes or Skills with your XP. The STs are generally happy for you to improve an Attribute or Skill as part of an action in which you're using it, so using our example above, we would be happy to approve buying Presence 2 or Socialise 1 from the action.
However, sometimes you need to get something done and don't have the time or XP to buy up the Attribute or Skill before you try to use it. Under these circumstances, there are other options available.
- Try a different tactic. Perhaps the example character actually has Intimidate 3 - in this instance, though their Presence 1 would still be an issue, if they got information out of the kids by being the tough guy and making a few threats, it might go better for them.
- Get another character involved. Taking a "good cop, bad cop" approach, or finding someone who makes up for the weaknesses in your character's skill set, can improve your chances of success.
- Use your disciplines. Dominate, Majesty and Nightmare can all help to move things along in social situations, but will generally increase the chances that your actions will be noticed unless they're used carefully. Animalism and Auspex open up a wide range of investigative possibilities when used well. Obfuscate and Protean have a wide range of applications for investigations, stealth and general survival.
Note: Making extensive use of disciplines that cost Vitae or Willpower may affect your starting totals for those traits at the next game, and it's always worth keeping the Masquerade in mind...
- Use Willpower. This will mean that you start the next game down at least one point of Willpower, but can be a helpful last-ditch effort when you
really want something to succeed. We'll never assume you're spending Willpower in downtime, so if you want to use this option you need to be explicit about the fact that you're using Willpower and how many points you're willing to spend. Even then, there's only so far it can go to make up for a lack of Skill dots and the knowledge they represent - a character with no dots in Science certainly isn't going to be able to write a ground-breaking physics paper, no matter how much Willpower they spend!
Remember:
Though our example uses a character in a social situation, it's not just social skills that have this issue!
A few blind spots we notice skills-wise are things like...
- Being in the wilderness without having Survival/Athletics/Animal Ken
- Doing research with low or no dots in Academics or Investigation
- Trying to bribe people or negotiate deals with no Politics
So when you're planning your downtime actions, if there's anything particularly complex or risky you're doing, or something you've had issues with in the past - think beyond the main stats you think you'd use in a card draw. What else might contribute and are you trained in those things? If you aren't, maybe another method would work better (or you could spend some XP) - if you are, then fabulous!
