Re: Searching a room : extended contest

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 15:56:28 -0700


> A character wants to search a room to find a valuable magic item
> hidden by some wizard. It is an important plot in the story, so the
> Narrator decides to play it as an extended contest. The Starting AP
> and Resistance roll for the Narrator will probably be the Hide skill
> of the Wizard. The character starts searching, trying not to make
> noise. I guess the Narrator will give some penalty to his Search
> skill.

I assume that there is some reason he doesn't want to make noise (trying not to wake the wizard sleeping next door, or maybe the guards outside)

Various ways to handle "searching quietly":

Enhance Search with Sneak (or Sneak with Search - I'd make the player enhance the lower one with the higher). If the enhancement is negative, then he is making appreciable noise and the wizard/guard may come to investigate. The enhancement can be either an Edge or a Bonus.

Use an Improv penalty (your idea above).

> 1/ Is that modifier considered a "permanent" one, and therefore
> reducing as well the Starting AP of the character ? Or is is just a
> temporary one, as the Character may decide otherwise at any time ? In
> the first case, what if the character decides in the middle of the
> contest to take more risk and make noise ?

APs don't change when you switch abilities - so if you start out with an Improv penalty and later switch to the "correct" one, you don't get more APs. In this case, if you are applying an Improve penalty because he is trying to be quiet and he decide "to hell with it, I'm going to rip this place apart" the benefit he gains is the better target number, but he won't suddenly gain extra AP "from nowhere".

> 2/ How to represent a low stakes and a high stakes for such actions ?
> Low bid is searching drawer per drawer, while high bid is emptying
> the whole cupboard on the bed ?

Sounds good. Or low bid is tapping on the wall with one finger listening for echoes, high bid is tapping on the wall with an axe...

> 3/ What will be the stakes level of the Narrator (on the basis of the
> Wizard's Hide skill), and what do they represent ?

The Narrator's bids for Find the object should probably be a flat X, where X is something like 1/2 AP-1, 1/4 AP or something similar - the hidden object isn't trying to get away from the searcher. Estimate how many rounds you want the search to go on, and figure how much better at searching the hero is than the wizard's Hide Item.

RR

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