Action and Emote

[VenomousFiligree]

Are they both needed?

Legolas: I draw my bow

Legolas draws his bow

What's the difference?

[phantomwhale]

I always took the action to be "I intend to do this" and emote to perform in character actions that I don't NEED to ask permission to do.

E.g.

Legolas scowls at the goblin horde
vrs
Legolas : grab the ring before the hobbit can get it

So in the second example, the GM might ask for rolls, or at least needs to decide the resolution. Whereas the GM doesn't control the characters emotions, so scowling is fine !

I'd usually use "act" for drawing a bow under this system, but confess that I usually use emote as you've done, and let the GM tell me if what I said happens actually happens otherwise. As do most of my players. But in a purist sense, players should ask to do actions, and the GM report back how they went, I guess.

[VenomousFiligree]

Personally I never use action, if there is some doubt as to whether I might be able to do what I want then I will use "attempt" or something similar.

Legolas attempts to draw his bow

And I always encourage my players to make rolls to suit the emote without me prompting for one

Legolas attempts to draw his bow
<makes an agility roll>

Even in action examples I've seen, I still think that an "attempt" type word should be used?

As even
Legolas : grab the ring before the hobbit can get it
sounds conclusive?

[phantomwhale]

Yeah, my last answer was my opinion on the theory of it all (based on GM's getting story elements instead of action - e.g. they say what happens, and players just say what they hope they can make happen)

In practice, I only emote and chat both in and out of character, and leave act alone.

[VenomousFiligree]

Yeah, my last answer was my opinion on the theory of it all (based on GM's getting story elements instead of action - e.g. they say what happens, and players just say what they hope they can make happen)
Yeah figured that, sorry if I was coming across a bit "in yer face" :)


In practice, I only emote and chat both in and out of character, and leave act alone.
As I'm sure all the best Players / GMs do ;)

[someoneinatree]

I see no difference between them except that I use "action" when it is grammatically awkward to start the phrase with my character's name.

A bit like when facebook used to force you to use "is" to start a status update - it is unnecessarily limiting.

Unfortunately I can't think of a good example right now!

[Valarian]

I tend to use Action text as a sort of "internal dialogue", similar to character speech but expressing in-character thoughts, rather than actions. For descriptive and action text, I use Emote. That said, I sometimes use Emote for thoughts as well (e.g. Legolas wonders why the elf is picked on in examples).

I'd like players to use Action more. To ask in-game questions via action rather than OOC. I tend to strip OOC out of the chat logs and some of the game mechanics stuff gets stripped out as a result.