Advancing individual skills through heroic rolls and rewards

[Mamatried]

I was thinking about extrmeme sucess on rolls with untrained skills-
Could something like rolling 2x DN be something that would give the palyer a +1 to this skill after all other advancements are made.

so Joe the pilot had to roll for a Con, on his mission, he needed a 16 to succeed and rolled with explding dice 34 in total, his attribute was 2D+1
and he did spend a CP to add an additional dice.

when the mission was over he got 5 Cps and spent them all on improving his piloting skill.
However the extrmeme sucess with his Con brough up the question that maybe he should get an addtional +1 to that skill, and have it as a rule that rolls on untrained skills that are 2x DB could warrant and give a +1 to this skill becuse the extreme level of sucess opends up ways to "wow that worked, I will try the same next time" type thing, and thus learning from the sucess in that skill only.

Now of course there may balance issues if such rare occations comes more than once in one adventure, maybe he rolled similarly well on 5 other skills should these then imporve as well, and I am conflicted, I can see both a blanace issue and reason for "learning through sucess", however I am not sure and wanted to ask about the concept.

This can IM give players and GMs alike a suprise and be more RP tools and hooks, like you are a pilot, how did you get so good at shooting, or conning people out of their money ect....Oooh I leared a few accidental tricks here and there.....

[garhkal]

We've had discussions in the past about if someone rolls a skill they 'didn't have' but defaulted to the base attribute and rolled Extremely well (IE hit heroic), they'd get a +1cp Towards that skill, for earning/improving it.

Let me see if i could find some.
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[garhkal]

Rats.. My search-fu must be off.. I am not seeing the threads i was thinking of...

Unless i was thinking of a post, on the OTHER SW site, SWRPGNETWORK, which no longer seems to exist..
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[FVBonura]

There are some role-playing games that don’t allow advancement in a skill until you have rolled terribly (i.e. you roll a fumble or critical failure). If memory serves I believe the role-playing game “Burning Wheel” has that mechanic. Basically you learn from your mistakes. I have debated whether or not to play test that in my own campaign.

However, in my campaign, if someone rolls really high and accomplishes something I usually give them a character point. The only time I give bonus skill points is if something story related that is truly extraordinary happens. For example the group’s doctor spent some time with the alien Sumras (mentioned in both imperial source books). The Sumras were having massive telepathic conversations with each other. The experience was so mentally intense I gave the character, Willpower: telepathic, as a bonus skill having survived the mental taxation of so many telepathic conversations going on in his head.
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[garhkal]

I;ve seen other dms do that, where a heroic like roll on something unskilled earns the pc a free cp, but to spend On that skill's learning.
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[cunning_kindred]

I have used both a system where you gain character points for exceptional successes and when you roll a really bad conflict on a 1 on the wild die. Over the years I abandoned both.

The extraordinary success rule generated really bad feeling in the group over time as just sheer luck or bad luck favoured one or more players over others. In time I just concluded that the very idea of extreme success leading to learning as a codified thing just didn't make much sense. On occasion you might learn something new like this but in general I think we learn through exposure to new ideas or through our own mistakes - which is itself just another way of encountering new ideas. Really, though it was the way this "felt" when we played that made me abandon it. I have on occasion still used it. I remember a moment when one of my players rolled exceptionally well on an aquatic vehicles operations roll. He had the skill despite the fact that I don't think I've asked someone to roll it more than two or three times in the last half decade of roleplaying. So, I gave him a whole die for free. I think he used that free die like once more in the whole campaign.

The extra character point on a 1 was more favourably received by the players as compensation for the bad luck. I only gave a point if a majorly unfavourable outcome occurred and the roll was failed. Players liked the compensation. But the character point was a really big reward and it did encourage players to look to make rolls that weren't strictly speaking necessary and this could feel a little skewed toward players with a leaning toward dice rolls over roleplaying. In time, as I developed the trouble system I now use, I as the GM dropped this mechanic between iterations of the rules and in general, my players don't really seem to have cared all that much.
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[garhkal]

One way to lessen the 'impact', is to have it only apply once to a PC, Per attribute.. So if a pc does it on three skills, say under mechanical, he has to choose which (or randomly roll) which it applies for.
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[Mamatried]

[garhkal]

That way at most, even if someone's lucky as heck, he only gets SIX skills ever he can do this with.. Same as everyone else.
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[pakman]

We toyed with this idea - and even tested it a while, and in the end - rejected it as a group consensus.

Which was a bummer for me, as I put work into it...

Here are some reasons why we did not do this
* Recordkeeping - did folks remember, did the sheet get lost ,etc.
* Accuracy of recordkeeping - some players had a bit more than others remembered
* Character power and reconstruction - in our game, everyone gets the same amount of points at the end of an adventure, and we only use points for leveling characters (have an alternative to CP in play).

We keep track of lifetime experience awards and the number of times the party has leveled - it is a great way to balance encounters (e.g. a 50 point character....etc.). Also it is handy, for adding new players etc.
(four advances of 12,16,10 and 14 points ....)

We found that any potential benefits of giving extra bonuses outweighed not doing it.

What we use instead

As the GM is a player gets a really great roll - I will either;
* Give them a bonus on the next similar situation for that roll
* Give them a hero die (our version of in game Character points)
* If they decide to train that skill next advancement, it takes less than a day.

Now - does training time really matter - well - that ....is a different story.

Best of luck in your game.
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