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Mike Mayer
United States
Cary
North Carolina
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So how do all you keepers handle things when the players fail a necessary skill roll that's needed to be made so that a necessary clue can be found so that the adventure can go forward? (As so often happens in COC modules). Do you fudge it? Do you re-introduce the clue somewhere else? Do you give them the clue but add on some story penalty?
The 'necessary roll' seems to be the one chink in otherwise great game system.
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Mike Mayer wrote: So how do all you keepers handle things when the players fail a necessary skill roll that's needed to be made so that a necessary clue can be found so that the adventure can go forward? (As so often happens in COC modules). Do you fudge it? Do you re-introduce the clue somewhere else? Do you give them the clue but add on some story penalty?
The 'necessary roll' seems to be the one chink in otherwise great game system.
If it's that critical to the scenario don't resort to a roll, either...
Have an NPC blurt out something they shouldn't...
or
Have the PC trip over the clue...
or
Some other equally blatant give away.
Each scenario SHOULD have more than one way to discover the vital thing whatever it is. Let the players roll for the first one, but when they come to the last one, you just have to give it to them.
If you don't, if you live and die by the dice, without variance, then I reckon your playing the wrong game. CoC is about the story, unlike say D&D which is about the combat and the dice.
I don't belive the rules tell you this!
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Kelvin Green
United Kingdom
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Don't use a "necessary roll". Simple. The system doesn't encourage it anyway, only bad adventure writing.
Generally, I let the players find the clues automatically, as long as they're actively looking for them. Skill use only comes into it when they want to make sense of the clues they've found.
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Doctor X
United States
Utica
New York
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Mike Mayer wrote: So how do all you keepers handle things when the players fail a necessary skill roll that's needed to be made so that a necessary clue can be found so that the adventure can go forward? (As so often happens in COC modules). Do you fudge it? Do you re-introduce the clue somewhere else? Do you give them the clue but add on some story penalty?
The 'necessary roll' seems to be the one chink in otherwise great game system.
We used to call it a "notice obvious" roll vs. INT (or the equivalent stat) when that happened, plus or minus any modifiers the GM felt was fair. There's no point in killing the campaign by keeping a vital clue from the PCs, but they'd pay for it in unearned XP/IP/whatever at the end of the session.
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Brian Franzman
United States
Tacoma
Washington
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Never forget that you can give away the bare necessities that will keep the story and the PC's moving along, without resorting to rolls. However, you can still make rolls important by giving the investigators more details with them. Sure, the PC's may have, through sheer luck, stumbled across the location of the cult's secret hideout. But did they find out about the password? The secret knock? That the tentacled image of Zoth-Ommog branded on the inside of their left elbow is required for entrance? The day and time of the all-important ceremony, and what the magic chant REALLY means?
That's the great thing about CoC; it's not a game where you can tread steadily onward and just swing a sword until get to the end of the adventure. There are nuances -- often very important nuances. 
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Chad Bowser
United States
Kernersville
North Carolina
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Like others have said, the investigators shouldn't roll for any clue necessary to advance the plot. Instead, have them roll for nuances about the clue. For example, the investigators need to find the entrance to a chamber to continue onward. I would just let them find the door. That's not a big deal. Rolls are reserved for the ancillary clues. To continue with the above example, I would ask them for a Spot Hidden check. If anyone succeeds they notice odd scratches around the edges of the door. What are those scratches? That's up to them to determine. An Occult roll says, "Hey those look like ghoul scratches." A medicine roll says, "There's some kind of flesh in the furrows. I don't think human nails could have made this."
If every one fails that roll, then nobody has a clue what's waiting in the dark tunnels ahead. But, they haven't stymied the plot by failing to find the chamber entrance, just entered it blindly.
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Lowell Francis
United States
South Bend
Indiana
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Exactly what others have said-- the whole investigative engine for [rpgsystem=1264] is built around this. To quote the description: "The GUMSHOE rules system is a new rpg which revolutionizes investigative scenarios by ensuring that players are never deprived of the crucial clues they need to move the story forward. Adventure creation is a core component of the system."
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Eric Dodd
New Zealand
Martinborough
Wairarapa
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If you are determined to keep the players on the main track for the best possible success in the module, then you'll have to take one of the options suggested above.
If you're making secret rolls, it's easy enough to fudge. If it's just a matter of failing a dice roll then the players shouldn't be penalised, but no good module should allow that as the only option forward. A failure might allow the character to realise there is a clue here but not what the clue is. They need help in solving it - help that can be used as a hook for a later story, or involve an extra innocent party who can cause complications. You don't want NPCs to have all the major actions, though. If your "infallible" experts are starting to dominate, make sure they get things wrong from time to time so that the characters have to do some work.
The other penalty or missing the roll is not getting the potential for increasing the skill. Not much of a penalty, but something that might the send the characters for training, or lead to an interesting quirk about the use of that skill.
If the failure is more than just one die roll, then don't be afraid to have the story reflect that. Call of Cthulhu can be more about memorable failures than successes. Maybe the cultists do succeed in casting their spell, and the characters now have to try and dismiss the creature or contain it. In classic villain fashion the bad guy might say what clue (or types of clue) were missed to give the players a better chance next time, even if the characters are about to be sacrificed...
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You should never permanently withold vital information simply due to a bad die roll. On a failed roll either make sure they can get the information some other way or give the minimum info needed to complete the adventure.
However, you can allow the die roll to determine how much extra information and non-essential yet handy details the PCs discover (Ex: One of the weaknesses of a particular mythos creature).
Also be prepared to reward clever thinking just as much or more than good die rolls. If a player figures out exactly where to look for the next clue by connecting the dots between the previous clues, let the PC find the same information that would have been uncovered by a perfect die roll (though the information may still need to be de-coded or translated to be used).
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Joshua OConnor
United States
Washington
Dist of Columbia
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FNH1 wrote: Mike Mayer wrote: So how do all you keepers handle things when the players fail a necessary skill roll that's needed to be made so that a necessary clue can be found so that the adventure can go forward? (As so often happens in COC modules). Do you fudge it? Do you re-introduce the clue somewhere else? Do you give them the clue but add on some story penalty?
The 'necessary roll' seems to be the one chink in otherwise great game system.
If it's that critical to the scenario don't resort to a roll, either...
Agreed, or use several rolls with different skills (Library Use, History, Spot Hidden, Latin, Listen etc.) and let any one success yield the clue. You should let players know they should employ their skills whenever possible, and be constantly searching, leaving no stone unturned.
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Posted Sat Jul 18, 2009 5:14 pm
