Stunting

[Talakeal]

Some games, for example Exalted, provide bonuses for PCs doing "stunts". Wild and cinematic moves that would look great in a Kung-Fu or Swashbucking movie, even if they aren't terribly realistic like swinging on chandeliers, rolling under the enemy's legs, sliding down bannisters, or jumping from the backs of one enemy to another.

Sometimes, they are, underwhelming, for example I often heard about 4E D&D and how it is almost never better to take an improvised action than use one of your at-will powers.

I tried to implement this in my Heart of Darkness system fairly simply; you narrate the stunt, you make an agility test, and if you pass, you get +2 on your attack, if you fail you get -2.

However, one of my players, Bob the munchkin, soon realized that if he was playing a character with a high agility, it was mathematically optimal to do this every turn. However, being the min-maxxer he is, he refused to actually narrate the stunts, and just said he was doing a stunt and that it was unfair to ask anything else.

Now, a new player has joined the group and is learning to play a rogue. Bob is teaching him, and telling him to stunt every round. When I told the new player it was necessary to narrate your stunts, he now simply says "I flip off the wall" before every attack.

When I told him the idea wasn't just to spam the same stunt over and over again, he stopped doing it at all. At that point, Bob jumped in and said that if I ever actually publish the game, nobody will actually narrate their stunts, they will just take the bonus and ignore the fiction, and that the only groups that actually enjoy narrative stunt rules are those who are less playing an RPG than they are... well I don't think I will repeat what he said.


So is this true? Does anyone have experienced with published games with good stunting rules? Do people generally ignore them, or just take the bonus as an entitlement with no narrative component?

[NichG]

Some games, for example Exalted, provide bonuses for PCs doing "stunts". Wild and cinematic moves that would look great in a Kung-Fu or Swashbucking movie, even if they aren't terribly realistic like swinging on chandeliers, rolling under the enemy's legs, sliding down bannisters, or jumping from the backs of one enemy to another.

Sometimes, they are, underwhelming, for example I often heard about 4E D&D and how it is almost never better to take an improvised action than use one of your at-will powers.

I tried to implement this in my Heart of Darkness system fairly simply; you narrate the stunt, you make an agility test, and if you pass, you get +2 on your attack, if you fail you get -2.

However, one of my players, Bob the munchkin, soon realized that if he was playing a character with a high agility, it was mathematically optimal to do this every turn. However, being the min-maxxer he is, he refused to actually narrate the stunts, and just said he was doing a stunt and that it was unfair to ask anything else.

Now, a new player has joined the group and is learning to play a rogue. Bob is teaching him, and telling him to stunt every round. When I told the new player it was necessary to narrate your stunts, he now simply says "I flip off the wall" before every attack.

When I told him the idea wasn't just to spam the same stunt over and over again, he stopped doing it at all. At that point, Bob jumped in and said that if I ever actually publish the game, nobody will actually narrate their stunts, they will just take the bonus and ignore the fiction, and that the only groups that actually enjoy narrative stunt rules are those who are less playing an RPG than they are... well I don't think I will repeat what he said.


So is this true? Does anyone have experienced with published games with good stunting rules? Do people generally ignore them, or just take the bonus as an entitlement with no narrative component?

I don't think I've even seen a group using a system that gives bonuses for RP (including stunting) just say 'sure, you can get the bonuses without the RP'. The closest to that I've seen is with a system in which you could get a bonus to casting a spell by having your character say the incantation (which made it take longer to cast), where at the table people eventually just said 'I name and incant' after awhile. But since that also has a specific in-character consequence (that the spell now takes a full round action to cast rather than a standard action), it doesn't quite feel the same.

I think stunting systems can serve two different purposes and it helps to be clear if you're aiming for one, the other, or both.

- One purpose is to encourage people to be more descriptive with their actions - in that sense basically the system exists to bribe a player to do a certain thing. If the player doesn't do the thing, or does it poorly, they should not receive the bribe. If the idea of bribing players to RP better doesn't sit well for you or your group, you shouldn't use this kind of stunting system in the first place.

- The other purpose is to explicitly permit players to do things outside of the specific codified set of actions in the rules, and to assure them that doing so won't just be a wasted or sub-optimal action. Here the mindset is that the specific thing the player wants to do should matter somehow, and generally in a generous fashion to offset the uncertainty of the player not knowing how it will be resolved exactly and trusting in the GM (and the stunting system) to mediate that process. For instance, a character high up on a balcony who wants to attack someone below them might want to swing down on a curtain rope and attack in one motion in a system where 'jumping down' consumes the same type of action as an attack would require. Rather than the benefit of this being a +2 to hit, the benefit would be that e.g. in this circumstance they can both jump down and attack in the same round, which wouldn't be possible if they split the movement and attack down in terms of normal actions. And because it goes beyond, it should be conditional on the specific context (there's something to swing down on, the character can use their weapon one-handed, etc). For a system like this, you don't want to perfectly standardize the consequence of a stunt, but you do want to standardize the negotiation process between the player and GM to determine how a given stunt will be resolved - perhaps giving a set of factors for the GM to consider in order to determine if the stunt just goes as declared, if it requires a gatekeeping roll, if it is just not allowed; and when can it be repeated?

[Tanarii]

Yes. Players either abusing stunting by declaring whatever minimal in-fiction activity they think they can get away with, or tables ignoring/house-ruling it out, is a known problem with the concept.

Of course, it's not abuse if the game system assumes it will be used almost all the time. Then it's instead a requirement to describe your action to the satisfaction of the GM. Which some players will and do object to.

Edit:
It's also a common problem for games that have a system that allow use of any skill/ability score (or whatever it's called in the game) as long as you can justify it descriptively. AW and BitD for example. It's very common for new GMs to complain online about players abusing this, and the typical responses to those GMs is to remember the rules of the game are (paraphrasing) 'fiction first' and 'don't be a weasel'.

All of which is to say that the concepts (both before and after the edit) are fine and dandy for the right kind of player. But they only work if the player buys in. Some won't.

[Phhase]

Sounds like your players are joyless and uncreative card-counters. A bit hyperbolic, but they really don't seem to be putting in the effort. I myself have some powergaming tendencies, but I always try to make it stylish, because what's the point of swinging your sword just a little better? I want to do cool things like shoot down hanging chandeliers and cause dust explosions. Not play the game like a Whack-a-Mole machine.

Albeit, it seems to me that the system does rely mostly on the players to supply the cool factor and the satisfaction to it. "I swing from a chandelier to cross the crowd and slam into him feet-first! What do I get for that?" You get +2. "I deliberately ricochet my shot off of his sword so it bounces to strike from an unexpected angle! What do I get?" You get +2. "I clash my weapons to create sparks that blind my foe before going in for a swing! What do I get?" You get +2. See what I mean? When the payoff is bland and the same every time, the thrill of creativity diminishes somewhat, as the mechanics don't really do much to reinforce the fantasy. Thus, the urge to improvise and stunt is somewhat discouraged. Narrative is all well and good, but some people find it hard to ignore the fact that narrative can be anything you want it to be, and thus can sometimes have a hollow feeling if the payoff doesn't have some hard, mechanically measurable backing. Having the mechanics uniquely reward you for being creative, for some people can lend a more tangible weight to the reward of creativity.

It's a complex issue naturally, and one that depends on player types. It seems your player might prefer a different system, that rewards card-counting more.

[Telok]

Works fine without players being jackasses about it. Ref: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...agoning-40k-7e

Had several people do some quite good ones last campaign too. Will see if I can dig up the old post.

Edit: appatently the best bit didn't get into a post, so spoiler. This is from the condensed post-game GM notes log file.

Spoiler

Show

Guys were laying fiber optic and mirrors down a corridor in the front of the ship to try to burn shadows in the power core. The power core is empty but they don't know that.

Hamanu gets about 4 giant zombie bug-busses through (statted as 'living' vehicle, alternate controls - necromancy magic rolls, berserker circuit, mild armor, two ballista & lots of passenger room) and a squad of templars. Start disembarking. PCs come around & fighting starts. Lobos in assault shuttle flies low & strafes with suppressing fire, panicking many troops. Smythe in EIN hover tank blows away a ballista a round with called shots (I had to guesstimate damage & crew for verisimilitude, then consistent high damage rolls made it pretty moot). Velon zooms around on syrne hoverbike lobbing occasional fireballs and weaponizing defiling.

Bug-busses charge the hovertank & a couple ballista shots do a little damage, tank is actually kinda fragile (hover/vtol version of Battletech light Scorpion tank https://www.mechground.com/index.php?title=Scorpion_Light_Tank_(3026)) and Smythe orders the driver to go higher when a de-peopled bug-bus on auto-berserk rams and damages the tank. Hamanu throws a combo spell & then goes invisible: gate+summon servitor 4 to put an 'ectoplasmic war monster' on the wing of the assault shuttle, it does a wound to the shuttle with it's claws. A final few shadows emerge and start eating troops.

Hamanu meteor storms the shadows & the hovertank, which is smoking badly now. The last bug-bus is de-peopled and they start attacking each other. With all troops panicked or dead Hamanu teleports up to the tank to melee Smythe (he got out to get a better downward angle with a rocket launcher). Lobos blasts them all with a storm bolter full-auto. Hamanu blinks out of the burst, Smythe dodges it, the tank hits 0 HP & starts its crash & burn.

Hamanu telports into the shuttle cockpit (it was below the tank and the windows aren't tinted) where he and Lobos start duking out with the NPC pilot being very very worried & keeps flying. Smythe stunts to rip off an access panel of the tank and shoot the anti-grav capacitor just right (with a plasma pistol) to boost his jump up as the shuttle passes 30+ meters overhead. He succeeds (tech roll for TN 25, shoot roll of TN 30, jump of TN of 80ish), yay for stunting rules combo with jumping rules - PCs get to be awesome.

Hamanu Defenstrates (spell) Lobos out the front windshield of the shuttle, he stunt lands on his feet, quickdraws a melta-gun & starts shooting into the shuttle. Hamanu, Lobos & Smythe start a brawl on the nose of the assault shuttle as it heads upward towards past 1500m altitude & kicks in the scram-jets. Hamanu teleports home where he smashes a wall and uses up his Death Ward spell. Lobos rolls into the cockpit & starts scrambling for a void suit. Smythe (he's wearing power armor) gets stuck in the window and slows air loss enough for Lobos to suit up.

[False God]

My experience comes from two angles:
At one time, I gave RP bonuses, the usual "narrate your action, get a +2 bonus". And initially the result was good, people narrated their actions, and got bonuses, RP improved. However, it really started to wear on the people who didn't have "cool stuff" to do every turn. Sure, they could say they were leaping off a wall to make an attack, but it came down to "I swing my sword a new way this time." and with 3X's iterative attacks, they struggling to find creative ways to narrate all of them. Characters with a wider selection of "cool stuff" and fewer attacks per turn had less of an issue, particularly since many of the spells in the cool stuff toolkit had built-in flavor that made for an easy jumping off point to RP.

Eventually it became reductive in order to balance turn speed and creativity, not unlike what your Bob is doing.

In FFG Star Wars, you get "advantages" which you can spend to mechanically do cool things. It was cool, at first, but over time people fell into mechanically optimal choices. Sure, it was helpful that everyone was giving the next guy a bonus die to attack, but it was dull. The game promoted the idea that these, along with their inverse, Threat, would be used to add cool narrative elements that also granted mechanical benefits and penalties. Unfortunately, on both ends it often fell into the same groove of optimal choices.

So, like before, it became reductive in order to balance turn speed and creatvitiy.

----
In 4E, yes, you could do "stunts", but powers were always better, they were more powerful, more evocative, and more useful. IMO, this is still a better way to implement "stunts". A limited selection of balanced, codified abilities that are available on the basis of class/race/etc... that a player can choose from to encourage roleplay and creativity by helping them evoke the action of their character; rather than asking them to create it from whole cloth (which frankly, some people just aren't good at).

So IME, I've never seen a good "stunts" system that doesn't couple mechanics and roleplay into a codified ability.

[NichG]

So IME, I've never seen a good "stunts" system that doesn't couple mechanics and roleplay into a codified ability.

I'm running a superhero/supervillain campaign and system in which basically everything is a stunt in the sense that players can make up (in advance or on the fly) what their powers are and how they work, within a loose theme and modality of operation. It helps that the questions the system asks are less 'can a given character do a given thing?' and more 'what should the world be like, how should the world work, who disagrees with you, and how much are they willing to risk in order to disagree?'.

I tend to agree that mixed systems don't really work though.

[Zanos]

I think your player did usefully point out an issue with your stunting system that you ignored; it's mechanically optimal for characters to built around a specific stat to stunt, and probably not very good for characters who aren't built around that stat to even attempt it. Most stunt systems are just RP stuff well = minor bonus, not making a roll to see if you can get a +2 and getting a -2 if you fail. I usually drop it in combat heavy systems because there's only so many ways to describe swinging a sword that are interesting. Players who want to narrate their actions in detail will do so with or without the presence of a stunt system, so I usually only bother with something like it around newer players who don't realize that's even an option, and I've nearly always wound up dropping it.

[stoutstien]

Some games, for example Exalted, provide bonuses for PCs doing "stunts". Wild and cinematic moves that would look great in a Kung-Fu or Swashbucking movie, even if they aren't terribly realistic like swinging on chandeliers, rolling under the enemy's legs, sliding down bannisters, or jumping from the backs of one enemy to another.

Sometimes, they are, underwhelming, for example I often heard about 4E D&D and how it is almost never better to take an improvised action than use one of your at-will powers.

I tried to implement this in my Heart of Darkness system fairly simply; you narrate the stunt, you make an agility test, and if you pass, you get +2 on your attack, if you fail you get -2.

However, one of my players, Bob the munchkin, soon realized that if he was playing a character with a high agility, it was mathematically optimal to do this every turn. However, being the min-maxxer he is, he refused to actually narrate the stunts, and just said he was doing a stunt and that it was unfair to ask anything else.

Now, a new player has joined the group and is learning to play a rogue. Bob is teaching him, and telling him to stunt every round. When I told the new player it was necessary to narrate your stunts, he now simply says "I flip off the wall" before every attack.

When I told him the idea wasn't just to spam the same stunt over and over again, he stopped doing it at all. At that point, Bob jumped in and said that if I ever actually publish the game, nobody will actually narrate their stunts, they will just take the bonus and ignore the fiction, and that the only groups that actually enjoy narrative stunt rules are those who are less playing an RPG than they are... well I don't think I will repeat what he said.


So is this true? Does anyone have experienced with published games with good stunting rules? Do people generally ignore them, or just take the bonus as an entitlement with no narrative component?

You're ran into most of the known flaws for this type of mechanic.

1) if the bonus is sizable enough to be impactful then anyone who is aware of the math will try to achieve it as much as possible. So might put in the effort to Google: 99 fight scene cinematic moves but if they don't you can't really say no because...

2) some people don't want to describe their actions on this level of detail so it create a bonus based on the player's ability rather than the character's. It's akin to giving a special bonus if somebody declares their action in the form of slam poetry or only if they can walk on their hands.


Even for heavily narrative focused games mechanics like this are hard to implement without buy-in and even then it results in the very thing that it is trying to prevent. It shifts focus away from the narrative back to the resolution mechanics.

[Anymage]

Mechanical issues aside, is HoD really a system where you want stunts? When I think of flashy action sequences I don't often think of crunchy gothic systems. And there are people with a more simulationist bent, who argue that if you do something foolishly risky you should have to deal with the consequences. (There are likely parallels to the combat as sport/combat as war idea here.)

Making stunts a risk goes against the idea in the first place. As does making it so that only one type of character can expect that risk to go in their favor. The backbone of a good stunting system should be that it's never less effective than taking the more prosaic action, you're shielded from the worst of the risks of attempting a stunt over a more prosaic action, and the player's ability to add unstated but plausible elements to the scene to enable a stunt. The dice bonus and how to make it engage well with the system are secondary.

[Telok]

In 4E, yes, you could do "stunts", but powers were always better, they were more powerful, more evocative, and more useful. ....
....So IME, I've never seen a good "stunts" system that doesn't couple mechanics and roleplay into a codified ability.

Oh, yeah. The 4e bit was pretty bad with anything stunt-like being default to str/dex based. Totally useless for a non str/dex primary stat character. "lessee +5 to hit and 2d6+1 damage or +8 to hit and 1d8+4+rider effect... yeah i'll just at will again".

Come to think that might be the issue with the op's method. Its a static combat buff linked to a specific stat. In games like Exalted, assorted supers, and DtD40k7e, the stunts are generic riders unattached to combat or stats. If you can think of a way to stunt unjam a gun or social-fu someone then you get the bonus.

And something I've learned is to either not require additional rolls or make them relatively easy. My spoikered example is actually in violation of this and that was a mistake, the PC needing a dc 60+ jump check was rough enough already. The extra fail chance just adds to the disincentive for casual players to use them and is irrelevant to the hardcore min/max players. In DtD40k7e especially I specifically have the stunt bonus dice add to everything in that stunt that isn't a damage roll.

[tyckspoon]

Stunting is appropriate for systems where you:
- want a mechanic to cover the gap between 'things characters can explicitly do' and 'things characters should be able to do'; in this case, you aren't giving stunt bonuses to make people better at what their normal options are, like you don't want to just give a plus hit/damage to somebody's standard attack option - you're giving the stunt bonus to help make up for the fact that the character probably doesn't have any normal bonuses relevant to what they're trying to stunt. It helps get around the issues some systems can have where characters are only good at the explicit powers/skills/'buttons' that are written on their character sheet.
and/or
- where it is a central conceit of the game setting/style that it isn't sufficient to just achieve a challenge - what is important is to do so as stylishly as possible. Martial arts games, swashbucklers, and games that take significant cues from those genres are where you will often find this. Consider the following scenes/player actions where a character has been.. oh, let's say taken prisoner on an enemy boat and is making an escape:

"I scurry along the edge of the ship, staying low and weaving between obstacles to limit visibility so they can't easily see me. When I make it to where our lifeboat is I slip over the side as quietly as I can."

"I use my hidden knife to cut loose a rigging line and use it to swing across from the forecastle to the edge of the ship. There, silhoutted against the setting sun, I turn and blow a kiss to the ship's cute First Mate before gracefully diving overboard."

If your system should encourage the second over the first, stunting is appropriate. If your response to the second is "the entire ships crew shoots you. You are dead, roll a new character, you idiot" then stunting is not a good fit for your system/intended playstyle.

[Satinavian]

So is this true? Does anyone have experienced with published games with good stunting rules? Do people generally ignore them, or just take the bonus as an entitlement with no narrative component?

It works for the right players in the right system.

It would never work with Bob and it seems it doesn't work with your new player. And most importantly, it seems like a very bad fit for your Heart of Darkness system.

[gbaji]

I think your player did usefully point out an issue with your stunting system that you ignored; it's mechanically optimal for characters to built around a specific stat to stunt, and probably not very good for characters who aren't built around that stat to even attempt it. Most stunt systems are just RP stuff well = minor bonus, not making a roll to see if you can get a +2 and getting a -2 if you fail. I usually drop it in combat heavy systems because there's only so many ways to describe swinging a sword that are interesting. Players who want to narrate their actions in detail will do so with or without the presence of a stunt system, so I usually only bother with something like it around newer players who don't realize that's even an option, and I've nearly always wound up dropping it.

Going to second this idea. My personal view is that mechanics and RP should be kept separate as much as possible. I would certainly be very very hesitant to provide actual mechanical bonuses for RP (for the exact reasons the OP highlights).

If you are playing a RP heavy non-crunch game, then mechanical bonuses are inappropriate. The GM should just say "hey that was great, I'll come up with something great in response". And we move on. Bonuses in such systems are like the points in "Whose line?". They just don't matter.

If you are playing a crunchier game, then it's also inappropriate, because "what you are actually doing", should have some in game mechanical definition with already existing mechanical rules, bonuses, etc that apply. RP is great. It's fun. But it's done only for the enjoyment of doing RP (and can, of course, be used for social parts of the game, but even then may act merely as "color" while actual skill rolls are used for resolution).


And yeah. Actually providing a roll to get the bonus, but then also requiring the RP? That's just not a great idea at all. You *can* choose to provide bonuses for RP, but then it should be for the actual RP. But if your rules system says "if you make a dex roll at <whatever target>, you get +2, but if you fail you get a -2", then those are the rules. The player is mechanically attempting a tricky/sneaky/clever/whatever maneuver, and risking suffering a minus, for the chance of getting a plus. That's a purely mechanical rule (which is perfectly fine). Adding in a RP element is just meaningless IMO.

[Reversefigure4]

It works for the right players in the right system.

It would never work with Bob and it seems it doesn't work with your new player. And most importantly, it seems like a very bad fit for your Heart of Darkness system.

Bingo. No stunting system I've seen anywhere would survive Bob, because stunting and min-maxing don't work well together. If it requires an Agility test, he'll either build for Agility or moan about how the system 'forces' him to play an Agile character. If you have to describe it, you'll get "I do a cool flip" each round. If it requires a different stunt to be performed each round (a common mechanic, because swinging from a chandlier once is cool, but doing it every round is silly), Bob will simply work through a printed list of ten things then start over again. "I flip. Round 2, I smirk. Round 3, I balance on one foot. Round 4, I say something about his mother", each and every combat.

Something like Exalted, where the math assumes you'll stunt every round, eventually boils out all the cool descriptors because you're going to play out hundreds of rounds of combat over the campaign, and even the best player will lose energy for it after a while. Something like 4E, where stunts are sub-optimal, discourage you from using them because the alternatives are better.

The best systems I've seen having stunting as a limited option, both limited mechanically by some minor cost, and limited by the nature of the scene. Yes, you can swing off the chandelier, and it will give you a +2 to hit... but it only works if you make an easy Acrobatics check, and it'll only work in this particular fight in the ballroom. It's more of a terrain option than an always on thing. Or you have a FATE game which has "Time For Some Dashing Heroics" as a Campaign Aspect. Yes, you can tag it with any stunt-y descriptor, and it gives you a medium sized-bonus... but it costs a Fate Point, which are a limited resource.

Any stunt system should, IMO, start with "Why wouldn't everyone do this every round, all the time?" And if the answer is "They would", then you might as well bake that into the math, give everyone the +2 all the time, and assume the PCs are doing cool things.

The other alternative is where you pay the PCs for doing cool things. Ie, tyckspoons "Diving off the ship and blowing a kiss to the first mate" doesn't make that action any better, but gives you a Style Dice to spend on a future cool thing. Even then, you won't get around Bob's "I do a cool thing, give me a Style Dice" or "fine, I narrate the cool thing from my pre-prescribed list of Things Talakeal Agreed Are Cool, give me a Style Dice."

[Talakeal]

These are all really good points.

I really want to enable cinematic feats for people playing Jackie Chan / Errol Flynn style characters, but at the same time, but I want it to be an occasional cool bonus, not an every round thing that makes swashbucklers innately superior to every other sort of combatant.

This is going to be a tough circle to square.

"I scurry along the edge of the ship, staying low and weaving between obstacles to limit visibility so they can't easily see me. When I make it to where our lifeboat is I slip over the side as quietly as I can."

"I use my hidden knife to cut loose a rigging line and use it to swing across from the forecastle to the edge of the ship. There, silhouetted against the setting sun, I turn and blow a kiss to the ship's cute First Mate before gracefully diving overboard."

If your system should encourage the second over the first, stunting is appropriate. If your response to the second is "the entire ships crew shoots you. You are dead, roll a new character, you idiot" then stunting is not a good fit for your system/intended playstyle.

Not sure if my *system* cares about one or the other. I certainly would prefer to run / play for the latter though.

[Telok]

These are all really good points.

I really want to enable cinematic feats for people playing Jackie Chan / Errol Flynn style characters, but at the same time, but I want it to be an occasional cool bonus, not an every round thing that makes swashbucklers innately superior to every other sort of combatant.

This is going to be a tough circle to square.

You put a cost or limit on it then. Mana or... what was the other one, focus? And then put the result effect level on par with the HoD cantrip spells with a similar target number roll. Or stick it at a limit of 'destiny per scene' times to stunt but punt it up to something like add a free combat maneuver or metamagic (maybe limit maybe +4 maybe)? There's lots of options. Look across your records for a frequently under used resource and see if you can peg "what Jackie Chan / Errol Flyn should do" to a mechanical level of benefit for it.

[TaiLiu]

These are all really good points.

I really want to enable cinematic feats for people playing Jackie Chan / Errol Flynn style characters, but at the same time, but I want it to be an occasional cool bonus, not an every round thing that makes swashbucklers innately superior to every other sort of combatant.

This is going to be a tough circle to square.

Could something like modified inspiration from D&D 5e work? A player has a really crucial character moment or does something super cool, so you tell them to roll twice and take the higher number.

[Satinavian]

I really want to enable cinematic feats for people playing Jackie Chan / Errol Flynn style characters, but at the same time, but I want it to be an occasional cool bonus, not an every round thing that makes swashbucklers innately superior to every other sort of combatant.

You could make it an ability that has to be purchased with character build points and can be invoked to give an action a set bonus once per session and requires the player to give a cool description. You might also allow it to be bought several times for several uses per session.

Now people might still put less than envisioned effort into the description, but that is the worst that can happen. It can't be spammed anymore, it does no longer synergize with a certain stat, reduzing the min-max-potential, it is balanced and it stops being a reward for cool descriptions which would always be a seed of arguments. And because it is a limited ressource, you can assume it will be mostly used at the most dramatic moments.

[Vahnavoi]

@Talakeal: what you describe in your first post is not a stunt system. It is a badly named circumstance bonus. (Gating it behind a die roll and specific ability is just pointless at this level of detail.)

Why does the name matter? Well, when you call a mechanic such as this circumstance or situational bonus, it tips the players that the bonus is granted based on circumstance or situation. It communicates they have to keep their eyes on what's going on in the game. It also allows a game master to telegraph situations to benefit from this.

"Character does something cool" is too vague of a circumstance. Since it's also subjective, it's liable for causing tension between what player thinks is cool and what a game master thinks is cool. You CAN make a working game on this basis, but it requires players to accept whoever does the evaluation (game master or other players) as an authority on coolness, which your players are unwilling to accept and you are unwilling to really be.

Requiring narration to get the bonus is fine. It is, in fact, necessary: nothing happens in a tabletop roleplaying game unless someone at the table describes it happening (duh). But here's the thing, and here's where we get to a major design flaw in various "stunt" systems that inspired yours: game mechanics already provide description. In some cases (and specifically in case of White Wolf games), the developers just failed to check whether their base game actually creates what they consider genre-approriate or interesting outcomes. So, when they realize it doesn't, they end up bolting on something like your "stunt" system (or some other more freeform solution compared to rest of their system) on top of everything to allow for the kind of actions that they forgot to facilitate from the get-go. It does not materially improve on the basic mechanic of "any action not listed can be attempted on a game master's approval".

It would be much better for a rules-heavy game (and I consider your game to be rules heavy) for the cool stuff to emerge from the basic mechanics. That's what all those mechanics are there for, right? To describe and facilitate events in the staged situation of your game. If your basic mechanics cannot create cool and interesting outcomes in this bottom-up manner, go back and see why that is instead of trying to get there in a way that bypasses those mechanics.

But, there's an even deeper flaw in many designs that starts with dubious notion of player psychology. So, as some above noted, you're effectively trying to bribe players to provide interesting narration with game points.

Why do you need to do that?

If your answer is "because I want cool and interesting narration, it's good for the game", you didn't think deep enough. If fancy narration is cool and interesting, those are already reasons to do it.. If it is good for the game, experience it will direct people towards it. You don't need bribes.

A bribe, implicitly, exists to get people to do something they aren't inclined to. If you have to bribe your players to do fancy narration, then that suggests the premise that fancy narration is cool and interesting and good for the game is incorrect, or at least the players don't see it that way. With your infamous "Bob", this is very clear-cut. Bob sees the game as numbers and will always nakedly lobby for numerical advantage. Bob is either unwilling or unable to see value in fancy narration. Therefore, any attempt to bribe Bob to add narration will result in Bob doing the exact minimum required go get the mechanical benefit, or not even that if they can get you to let them off the hook by complaining long and loud enough. If you want to see fancy narration, the solution isn't to bribe players like Bob, it's to explain to them the game doesn't work the way they think it does and then, if they don't want to play the actual game infront of them, stop playing with them.

[Just to Browse]

I think stoutstein and Zanos (stupid autocorrect) have it exactly right. I've seen this behavior with games like Exalted as well. Dungeons: the Dragoning runs into similar issues. When it's always optimal to stunt, you will always do it, which means players are incentivized to invent mini-fiction every time they try to do anything. That can get really draining, especially in games like Exalted where attacks happen pretty frequently. You usually end up with some mixture of players who (1) describe 100 variations on "I stab that guy" because their strategies aren't changing, and/or (2) ask for stunt bonuses with minimal / no effort ("I do a flip off the wall").

Consider why you want a stunt system in the first place. Your goal and the current mechanic might not line up as well as you initially intended. Are you just trying to get your PCs to describe their actions on their turn? Are you trying to create occasional high-excitement moments? Are you looking for a storytelling tool that gives your players some extra narrative control?

EDIT: autocorrect messed up someone's name and didn't fix any of my typos....

[gbaji]

Consider why you want a "stunt" system in the first place. Your goal and the current mechsnic might not line up as well as you initially intended.

Yeah. My tendency is to reward players when they come up with cool ideas/actions on a mostly one on one basis. The default is "here are the rules, and they say what you can do, what your chances are, what the outcomes are, etc". But occasionally, someone will want to do something that kinda fits with a rule, but is also really cool, interesting, dramatic, whatever. And yeah, when that happens, I'll allow for a greater effect than the rules might naturally allow, or give some "situational bonus". But it's not written down. It's subject to the GM agreeing that this is a cool idea/action, and enabling it in some way.

This is certainly going to be GM specific though. And certainly, some players may chafe at this because it makes these things subjective, and GMs are not perfect. So there's always the chance of GMs favoring some players over others, or some actions over others, or allowing/disallowing such things to favor their own narrative rather than the players. Yeah. That's a thing that can happen. Bad GMs are going to be horrible with this sort of thing. But then, they're going to be horrible with a ton of other things in a RPG anyway, so....?

A decent to good GM, on the other hand, should be able to recognize when something the player is proposing is interesting, exciting, dramatic, and has an effect/impact on the scene *but* isn't over the top crazy and/or rule-breaking (game theme dependent of course!), and will allow such things. No need for special rules. In fact, I'd argue that the more you specify rules for this sort of thing the less likely it is to actually be used in the spirit in which we presumably expect.

The whole "swing across the room and behind the opponent on a chandelier" is a classic example. Most games aren't going to have specific rules covering this. In fact, in most games, the guy taking his feet off of firm ground, and spinning around in the air is likely just putting himself at a combat disadvantage, right? I mean, you're not just flat footed, you're no footed. You are likely provoking attack of opportunity as you pass thorugh/near the opponents space. And you're pretty darn helpless while doing so. Mechanically, it's probably a terrible idea. You should just use a move action to move up to the opponent and attack, right? But hey. On the super rare occasion when you're on one side of a room, an opponent is on the other, and there's a chandelier that you *could* swing on to move around on, and the player says they want to do so? Why not? Call it an unexpected/surprise action. Call for some kind of dex/acrobatics/whatever roll. Let it happen. And yeah, give some minor advantage if pulled off (you get around/behind the opponent, get one attack as though flanking, whatever). Why not?

These are the moments that players remember and talk about years later. So... Let. Them. Happen. As a GM, it costs you nothing to do this, and adds a lot to a game. But yeah, the moment you actually create mechanical rules to handle this? I've found that this takes the "magic" out of them, and just turns this into another decision/action by the characters, no different than anything else. It becomes more mechanical. That can still be a ton of fun to play, but it's not quite the same. If every scene expects the PCs to do cool and interesting things, as part of normal play (and there are whole game systems that revolve around this), then it's just that: Normal Play.

Over a decade later, my game group still talks about the time the party was invited to a feast by some powerful folks, only to discover there was a massive assassination plot going on (by folks who had a special invisibility spell that only worked against people aligned with a specific deity, which affected the hosts, but not the party). So they're watching as "servants" take up positions behind each of their hosts, sitting at the main table in the hall, but are not acknowledged by their hosts. Then realize that these people are pulling out nasty looking knives with some kind of liquid on them (poision). One of the PCs responded by shouting out, jumping on their table, pickiing up a large platter and hurling it at the knife arm of the assassin going after the leader of their hosts. Now, the game has no specific rule for "thrown platter attack", nor, specifically for "tossing it, captain america style, so as to knock the knife away from the assassins hand". But yeah, I just had him make a generic throw roll, and applied "rule of cool" to the encounter, and allowed it to disrupt the attack, and alert the rest of their hosts to danger. And then, a big melee broke out.

I absolutely could have lumped a boatload of negatives on the roll, making it nearly impossible to do (seriously, how many people have tried to do something like this, and what do you suspect your odds of success would be the very first time you try?). But that's not "fun", and at the end of the day, it had a minor effect on the primary outcome of the encounter anyway (cause the whole thing was set up for the PCs to notice and disrupt the attack anyway, right?). To be honest, just shouting out a warning would have at leaast been sufficent to allow the targets to count as "aware of a threat", and therefore not subject to automatic backstab effects (which are brutal iin the system we were playing). But this was dramatic. It was fun. So yeah. I totally allowed it.

But here's what didn't happen. The character who did this, didn't spend the rest of his adventuring career carrying a large platter around as a weapon and using it to knock opponents weapons out of their hands as a normal combat action. The moment something becomes a normal every day action, I'm going to apply normal every day rules to it. And guess what? There's probably a reason why you don't find any historical records of great warriors who fought by carrying platters around and knocking their opponents weapons out of their hands and then defeating them because of this incredible tactic (Xena and Captain America excepted, but they are fictional, right?). Because, realistically, there are better weapons to carry around and use.

[Rynjin]

But here's what didn't happen. The character who did this, didn't spend the rest of his adventuring career carrying a large platter around as a weapon and using it to knock opponents weapons out of their hands as a normal combat action. The moment something becomes a normal every day action, I'm going to apply normal every day rules to it. And guess what? There's probably a reason why you don't find any historical records of great warriors who fought by carrying platters around and knocking their opponents weapons out of their hands and then defeating them because of this incredible tactic (Xena and Captain America excepted, but they are fictional, right?). Because, realistically, there are better weapons to carry around and use.

I played a character who carried around a really sturdy chair to beat people over the head with for half a campaign but he was an optimized Improvised Weapons user and could have done t with any weapon; I just thought a chair was funniest.

As to the actual thread topic, consequences are only worthwhile if you codify and stick to them. A system I play (Final Fantasy d6) has a rule that if you don't describe an attack (eg. if you just say "I attack" or "I cast Fira") it automatically misses/fails.

Enforcing it ensures it's a real rule and not just fluff.

If Bob isn't sufficiently describing his action, don't give him the bonus. Simple as.

[SethoMarkus]

~~snip~~

All of this. Fancy narration and "stunts" should be their own reward for doing something cool and fun, for adding flavor and theatrics to the character's actions; or, used to attempt an action that is technically outside the rules, but fits within the theme and narrative already in play. Trying to codify these stunts into the rules will only make them another means of mechanical optimization, so better to add them as a resource based option. But then that is a step away from it being a "stunt", and just circles around to it being a game option.

If the goal is to encourage and increase player narration and investment in "doing cool things", you might have better luck with leading by example and directly asking players for narration. Describe actions that NPCs take with a flourish of words, give vivid descriptions of the effects of the PCs actions, and give details about scenery and environment that the players could take advantage of, and then give descriptions of that environment being interacted with to show the players that they can do this too. Ask the players to describe their actions; not all the time, but at dramatically appropriate moments. "What does that [attack] look like to you?" "How do you cast the spell, what form does your magic take?" "How do you want to do this?" "Badass! Does your character strike a pose afterwards?"

Leas the players to have fun with it, and I'd you see fit to reward their stunts in game with a bonus or mechanical benefit, make it small but beneficial. Let them take an action without the normal consequences, or give them a token of some sort they can use for a bonus later, or give them the equivalent of advantage. But whatever you reward them with, if anything, make it clear it is because of the extra effort and uniqueness of the situation. Making a cool attack by flipping over a banister onto the floor below is a cool stunt when done once for dramatic effect, but it's just how the character behaves if it's on every attack, every combat. If there is a reward, it is for thinking creatively and adding to the fun, not for fulfilling a minimum mechanical criteria. If you want to completely avoid it being taken advantage of though, it's better to not guarantee an in-game reward at all, other than allowing the creative action to take place.

[BRC]

Eh, this sort of bonus doesn't really work with the Bob-Mindset, the Bobset as it were.

The goal here is to encourage players to think creatively, get invested in the narrative, and do cool stuff besides saying "I attack".

The fact is, especially if you make it a dexterity check, there's no way to Bob-proof such a mechanic. "I do a stunt, I roll, I get the bonus" will always happen if you make it reliably achievable. It's impossible to build a hard rule around "Do something cool and creative". It should be a more general rule around "Here's how to handle if the PC's want to do something cool that isn't quite covered by the normal rules". Stunting should be more about enabling cool stuff than handing out rewards.

Bob will hate me for suggesting this, but from a rules perspective, you should go vague with Stunt rules. Don't say "To do a stunt, make X dexterity check and, if successful, receive Y Reward".

I think that a Stunt should fulfill three criteria

1) It should be Novel, you can't repeat a stunt, certainly not within the same scene.

2) It should Give You A Clear Advantage. "I do a flip off the wall, then attack them with my sword" doesn't clearly translate to any sort of advantage. "I throw my dagger so it momentarily pins their dumb flowing robes to the floor, then attack them with my sword" DOES make sense as an advantage.

3) It should be cool, and make the game more fun.


Stunts should be primarily about enabling things not directly covered by the game mechanics, encouraging creative play rather than just creative descriptions or good dexterity scores.

It will be impossible to truly bob-proof this mechanic. The closest you can get is to say that it happens at GM discretion, Bob will hate that and call you a cruel tyrant who hates fun. No mechanic survives contact with sufficiently ill-intentioned players.


A basic rule you might try to implement is "One Stunt per scene". Arguably, this is a decent rule anyway, as the alternative to Bob's "I do a stunt" before every swing is for players to slow down gameplay by turning every sword-stroke into a ballet.

[tyckspoon]

It will be impossible to truly bob-proof this mechanic. The closest you can get is to say that it happens at GM discretion, Bob will hate that and call you a cruel tyrant who hates fun. No mechanic survives contact with sufficiently ill-intentioned players.

Yup. This is another one of the cases where 'is this a good game mechanic' needs to be disentangled from 'what does Bob think about it', because Bob has a very specific approach to what he thinks is good mechanics (and as best as I can tell from what has been presented to us, it is largely centered around 'it makes the number go up' purely as a mechanical exercise, with an active dislike of anything that intersects with 'how does this actually work in the fictional reality.' Doesn't matter, number go up and if you prevent number go up then it's actively hostile to the players.) How Bob wants to interact with this isn't a Stunt - in the idiom of Hearts of Darkness, it'd probably be a combat maneuver. Something like 'Acrobatic Assault: You use your agility to strike from unexpected angles. Make an agility test against (pick a difficulty.) If you succeed, you get a +2 to hit with this attack. If you fail, you instead suffer a -2. You can only use this maneuver when you can move freely and there is open space around your enemy.' Then the specialization in it if a character wants to make this their Thing would reduce or eliminate the fail penalty, make the stat check easier, or some other thing that in some way makes it more reliable to attempt.

(I don't think the stunt as Talakeal has described it is a good implementation of stunting, but that's discrete from 'what does Bob think about it.')

[BRC]

Yup. This is another one of the cases where 'is this a good game mechanic' needs to be disentangled from 'what does Bob think about it', because Bob has a very specific approach to what he thinks is good mechanics (and as best as I can tell from what has been presented to us, it is largely centered around 'it makes the number go up' purely as a mechanical exercise, with an active dislike of anything that intersects with 'how does this actually work in the fictional reality.' Doesn't matter, number go up and if you prevent number go up then it's actively hostile to the players.) How Bob wants to interact with this isn't a Stunt - in the idiom of Hearts of Darkness, it'd probably be a combat maneuver. Something like 'Acrobatic Assault: You use your agility to strike from unexpected angles. Make an agility test against (pick a difficulty.) If you succeed, you get a +2 to hit with this attack. If you fail, you instead suffer a -2. You can only use this maneuver when you can move freely and there is open space around your enemy.' Then the specialization in it if a character wants to make this their Thing would reduce or eliminate the fail penalty, make the stat check easier, or some other thing that in some way makes it more reliable to attempt.

(I don't think the stunt as Talakeal has described it is a good implementation of stunting, but that's discrete from 'what does Bob think about it.')

Bob's approach is to get the maximum mechanical benefit with the minimal effort, applied to all aspects of the game. That's actually a useful perspective for a playtester to take, breaking things down to "What is this mechanic directly incentivizing". But it's not something Bob can turn off, hence the problem.

In this case, the stunt mechanic as written directly incentivizes PC's with sufficiently high dexterity to do a backflip every time they make an attack.

[Jay R]

A. I once invented a similar rule for Flashing Blades, because it fit the Flashing Blades genre – swashbuckling Musketeer-era adventure.

A character with Acrobatics skill may choose to add it to his combat moves. Thus, "lunge" becomes "spin and close", "step back" becomes "back somersault", etc. If he makes his Acrobatics roll, the action works at +1 (due primarily to surprise) and it looks very impressive. If the character misses his Acrobatics roll, his action fails as if he had rolled a possible fumble: roll again to confirm. This can only be done when it makes sense. One can neither shoot a gun acrobatically, nor add cartwheels to a parry. Also, it only adds +1 to actions that imply movement, such as lunge, dodge, tackle, etc.

It worked well with the players I had, because they were the type of players who enjoy thinking about that.

Note also that since it only affects certain combat moves, it cannot be done every round.

B. Bob is correct that some players will have no interest in the subgame of describing interesting cinematic stunts. He is wrong that “nobody will actually narrate their stunts”. Bob’s statement, like almost any other statement that all people will play just like he does, is simply false. All people don’t play the same way. But yes, of course, some people will play like Bob.

C. Bob does not want to describe an image in his head. He isn’t forming images in his head. He is formulating tactics in words. You will not ever get him to form images in his head and describe them. He isn't thinking about a cinematic move, and doesn't want to; he's thinking about a rule.

D. Bob is absolutely correct that many people will try to optimize their strategy. There is nothing wrong with that; there is certainly a strategic component to the game. If I were the GM (and I were trying to get him to do that), I would describe the rule in tactical terms, not cinematic ones. “You cannot make an attack roll until you tell me what weapon you are using, what opponent you are striking, and (if relevant) what special action you are taking. For the same reason, you cannot take a cinematic stunt roll without telling me what cinematic stunt you are attempting.”

E. If I were the GM (and I were trying to get him to do that), I would tell Bob: “This is supposed to be a special moment. If you want the bonus for a special moment, convince me that this is a special moment.”

F. I would also tell the new rogue: “That’s the same stunt you just used. He is now expecting it, and if you do it, you will get the -2 for failing to surprise him. You only get a benefit for doing something unexpected.” I would also tell him that before he rolled. This is a rule; he should know it before taking the action.

G. If it improves the odds of success, of course the players will do it in every round if they can. That’s just competent tactical play – similar to using the longsword +2 each round instead of a non-magical longsword. If you don’t want it every round, don’t allow it every round. I might allow it to work once or twice against each opponent, and never twice in a row. From my Rules for DMS:

38. b. Think about a movie where you've seen something like this happen. Did the hero do it often? Probably the player should be allowed to do it often. Did the hero do it once, as a desperate move, at the big finish? Then save it for the big finish.

H. Having the GM judge the player’s fluff for mechanical advantage cannot work unless the DM is fully on the players’ side, and the players fully believe it. That doesn’t seem likely, given the descriptions you’ve given us of that game. I don’t think the subgame of describing a cinematic move will add value for these players in this situation.

[gbaji]

F. I would also tell the new rogue: “That’s the same stunt you just used. He is now expecting it, and if you do it, you will get the -2 for failing to surprise him. You only get a benefit for doing something unexpected.” I would also tell him that before he rolled. This is a rule; he should know it before taking the action.

Bob: He'd never expect me to use the same move twice in a row!

Lots of great ideas on how to handle this. Obviously, this is game system/theme dependent, but I might lean somewhat towards "one stunt per scene". Might also lean against "roll to get a plus, but fail means a minus". That feels like a regular combat action mechanic to me. Depending on how crunchy your rules are, I might even lean heavily towards "describe your stunt and how you think it will/should work", folllowed by the GM just assigning some bonus as a result of the RP description itseslf.

The combination both limits things "have to pick your time/spot to do something heroic/whatever", and also strongly encourages both well thought out and well described stunts. It is subject to GM vagarities though, so some may not like it. And yeah, it's going to tend to punish more, shall we say... "technical" players. So this is very much game table specific. Some players just love to describe at length every little thing their charaters are doing, including full voice and action displays. Other players just want to say "My character does <some game specific action/skill>".

I'm all for encouraging RP in players, but if someone just doesn't want to go all out on that, I'm not going to penalizze/punish them for it either. But I think even the RP adverse folks should be able to handle "describe what you are doing" type things. And if there is a tangible benefit to doing so, it can be a good thing.

[Just to Browse]

GM vagaries can also get very annoying, funneling players towards "can I please the GM with my narration to get this bonus?" and funneling GMs towards "consider your players' actions on an ad-hoc basis". As a player, I want real agency over my behavior instead of trying to guess whether the GM will think my somersault with a sideswipe is sufficiently different from my somersault with with a stab. As a GM, I want to focus on interesting parts of each encounter instead of adjudicating the bonus of a given stunt on demand.