First off, thank you so much for this system! I’m going to start my first session next saturday, but so far this has already been a great experience.
I understand the concept of the challenge rating, although I was wondering two things:
Do Players get to know the CR beforehand?
If they do, they can easily guess if they succeed, succeed with twist or fail. I don’t know if this even matters that they know it.
See the example below. Specifically the Failure section. Lets say that a player throws a 3 total for this CR. A player will probably know that he failed and might ignore this ‘mis perception’. Is there way to force this anyway? Or do players just need to go with this flow or else they’re boycotting?
Have you played other TTRPGs (table top roleplaying games) before?
Both of your questions have to do with the concepts IC (in character) and OOC (out of character).
There is a difference between a player and their character, the player usually knows things that the character doesn’t/shouldn’t (such as precise stats of themselves and others) and sometimes the character knows something the player doesn’t (for example a legend that is widespread within the game world but in the real world it doesn’t exist.)
Bringing these together can be difficult and in the examples I provided is usually achieved by the character roughly knowing what they are capable of and the player being able to make a Learning Roll to see what the character remembers.
Making the character know something they shouldn’t because the players knows it, for example that a Roll failed is called “Metagaming” and is usually looked down upon.
Now to answer your questions:
You can let your player know the CR of the check beforehand OOC, but usually it is better to make a vague statement like “This seems to be an easy jump for you.” or “You don’t think you can jump that far easily, but you can try.” when trying to jump over a chasm.
If the action carries a great risk, be sure to let them know though, like this: “This chasm is very deep and smooth, you could die if you’re not careful or at least you could be heavily wounded.”
If a player fails this Roll or one like it by far, you are right. They probably know they failed it OOC.
However, they shouldn’t act like they know IC, otherwise they are metagaming and that is usually no fun. Characters need to make mistakes to grow and seem believable, enhancing immersion by doing it. Don’t force this, but encourage it.
That is the beauty of Open Legends system for these failed Rolls; Even though a Roll fails, that doesn’t mean it’s useless. It just means things aren’t going the way the player wanted them to, but they are still going, something is happening.
I hope this helps you somewhat. Have fun with your first session!
I have not! This is going to be my TTRPGs cherry! Closest thing to this is werewolves, regarding roleplaying and Descent/Star Wars Imperial Assault regarding character building/tactics etc.
Your answer can just a easily be copy-pasted in the manual. Perfectly clear answer!
I already thought this would be the answer, but will mean for us all that we need to adjust our attitude a lot. We’re normally more in the tactical-mastermind-like-mode + Major Metagaming (didn’t knew this term, nice!).
