This is doubly true if the campaign doesn't revolve around dungeon delving or adventuring in the traditional sense for Pathfinder. This isn't something that can be handwaved easily, unlike a requirement that the character spend an hour a day in quiet contemplation, or that they not eat meat (the latter of which could provide some interesting role-play situations, on occasion, but needn't come up every session). triply so since the character in question might not otherwise feature in the session. Rather, I submit that the player has chosen a character option which is inappropriate for the campaign you want to run: the player has chosen an option which requires spending precious table time focused on their repeated attempt to do the exact same thing every day, and an activity in which the other players are unlikely to be engaged, and which is likely to cause them grief.
#Pickpocket pathfinder Pc
Quick resolution plus a plausible profit potential also raises a red flag: why would the PC spend time adventuring (and risking life and limb) when they can just keep picking pockets and live a much safer (though, potentially, slightly less comfortable) life? Depending on the player, even the success state could take quite a bit of time, as they narrate how they try to get situational bonuses to their check.įurther worsening this tension is the sandbox situation, which typically (in my experience) means that the PCs have a base in/near a specific point of civilization (a city, a village, etc.) the citizens are going to notice a rash of high-value thefts and will start to go on the defensive (potentially hiring the very PC who is stealing from them!). the meaningful risk goal: in the failure state of the theft attempt, meaningful risk (eg., a chase scene, jail time, etc.) will tend to take a lot of table-time. The biggest problem is the quick resolution goal vs. I submit that these goals are mutually exclusive, as a set. To answer this, we need a procedure that respects the fictional reality and glosses over parts that are tedious or repetitive to play through. In particular, we want the process of play to answer the following question: Can this particular character, under these particular circumstances, accomplish a particular goal? Is the player skilled enough to pull it off? Glossing over potential challenges is not acceptable, since the characters facing and trying to overcome challenges is the purpose of play (an instance of gamist creative agenda, for those conversant in that particular theory). I am running the game in a (GDS/threefold) simulationist way, so my first priority is in what makes sense in the context of the setting. That is: The outcome should depend on how skilled the character is, but the game master should be capable of engaging the rules system without ever knowing the level of the character. Since this is a sandbox setting, the rules solution should not depend on the level of the character in question, in the sense that the world should not twist to create level-appropriate challenges or level-appropriate rewards.Īny character should be capable of engaging the relevant rules system, and if it turns out that someone focused around sleight of hand can get rich this way, then so be it. I want the resolution to be fast when everything goes smoothly, but we can zoom in and play the event out in detail when there is trouble of adventurous kind. How can I handle the pickpocketing so that it only takes a small amount of real life time (unless there is trouble) and has plausible potential for profit, as well as significant risk of consequences, as any attempt to earn obscene amounts of cash by thievery should have? One character of one player is kleptomaniac (has the envy drawback), which requires them to steal 10 gp (a large amount of cash) each day or suffer penalties. Context: A sandbox campaign with players having a stable of characters.
0 kommentar(er)
