glib?

Or what if the player who’s tongue-tied in real life wants

to play a character who’s a great orator? combat
These issues don’t come up during combat or exploration
encounters for the most part. No one expects a player to actu-
considerations
ally be able to fight or decipher an ancient script. People are When the game switches from narrative time to action time,
content to let dice rolling handle such things. When it comes it’s time for combat. This is when Fantasy AGE becomes the
to roleplaying, however, players can talk and interact. They most rules intensive and you’ll have many decisions to make
are doing so in character but it is the players using their social in a short time. It’s up to you to control all the NPCs. You have
skills to roleplay. to roll initiative for them and decide on their actions when
So let’s imagine a scene in which the PCs have to convince their turns come up. You’ll need to keep track of the resources
a local noble that a man was wrongly imprisoned. There are of the various NPCs as well, such as Health and magic points.
four ways you can run this scene. The core rules for combat are in Chapter 2: Basic Rules, but
as the GM there are a few more things you need to know
• Everyone can just roleplay. You play the noble
about adjudicating a fight. The following section provides
and the players their characters. If their verbal
additional advice and rules that will help you run combat
arguments are convincing, you decide the
encounters in Fantasy AGE.
noble relents and frees the man.
• You could resolve the whole thing with
ability tests, with the players making major and minor npcs
Communication (Persuasion) tests vs. the
noble’s Communication (Leadership) tests. Non-player characters in Fantasy AGE are
divided into two types: major NPCs and
• You could mix the first two approaches, minor NPCs. Major NPCs are promi-
letting the players roleplay and then nent characters in the story and often
having them take tests with bonuses have a reoccurring role. Minor NPCs
or penalties based on their arguments have a support role, be it as local
and delivery. color or spear carriers. Many minor
• You could run the scene as an NPCs won’t even have names.
advanced test. You tell the players The rules treat major and minor
they have five minutes of game NPCs the same way with two
time to convince the noble exceptions.
and each Communication
First, in combat encounters,
(Persuasion) test takes
you should roll initia-
one minute. You then
tive for each major NPC
set a Success Threshold
separately. Minor NPCs
based on the noble’s
you can break up into
attitude towards the
groups by type and
PCs and the prisoner.
then make an initia-
Before each test, the
tive roll for each
players can make
group. If you had three
an argument. If you
orcs and four goblins in a
find it convincing,
combat, for example, you’d
you can reduce the
roll initiative once for the orcs
difficulty of that test. The players can
and once of the goblins. When
take turns making arguments and
initiative for the orcs came up, all three
rolling or have a spokesman with the
of them would take a turn. Each one
best Communication (Persuasion)
could take different actions, but they’d
do it. The dice are the final arbiter in
all happen on the same initiative. Then
this approach but good roleplaying
when the goblins’ initiative came up,
makes successful tests more likely.
the four of them could take their turns.
None of those techniques are wrong, though the
Second, you may, at your option, apply
second one (just rolling dice) does reduce the
the rules for dying PCs to major NPCs.
roleplaying to a minimum. You need to decide
If you do, a major NPC dropped to
how you want to handle scenes like this in your
0 Health will die after a number of
game and it’s fine to mix and match approaches.
rounds equal to 2 + Constitution unless
You can do a quick and dirty ability test to cover
healing is received. A dying character
haggling with a merchant and later roleplay out a
can talk but cannot take any other
feast with no dice rolling at all. The important
actions. The NPC dies at the start
thing is to discover which approach
of their turn on the final round, so
works for your group and is fun
their allies have until then to save
for everyone.
them.

chapter 8 - mastering the rules 99