Should circumstance modifiers be used in Roll for Shoes?

Question

As I now know from reading How many dice does the GM roll when challenging the players?, there is almost certainly no clear ruling on this.

Consider the situation:

• Player A is a chef
• Player B is an armored knight.
• Player A has the skill Spoon as Knife 3 from (Cooking 2<-Anything 1) from the time he had to prepare a fine meal with only the most basic utensils.
• Player A declares that he wants slit the armored knight's throat, the Player B's character has Armour-ed 3 from (Knighting 2<-Anything 1)
• There is no question that that Player A's character can cut someones throat with a spoon, he proved this with Spoon as Knife
• But a spoon is a poor weapon for doing so, particularly if Player B's character is wearing a Bevor, compared to say an Axe which would cut right through the chain mail neck piece, or a stiletto that could slide between.

Should either player be get a dice bonus/penalty? Or a modification to the rolled sum?**

Or that that the way the game goes. And it is to be embraced as part of the experience?

This is just a exaggerated PvP example, but same might apply to a character:

• trying steal say a letter out of another's hand without them noticing.
• Or to whisper a message to an NPC without a player who is wearing a heavy helm hearing.
• Or sneak in to a dimly lite room without the other players spotting them.

Answer 1

The way RfS skills work, the skill IS the circumstance modifier.

You already get to roll an extra circumstance die because you're a chef and another one because you have a battle-spoon. Your opponent rolls an extra die for being knight-y and another one for being knight-y and having armor.

If either side wins spectacularly, clearly they should get another circumstance bonus (skill) to make it clear that what happened wasn't a lucky roll of 3x6, it was a hidden circumstance bonus like NECK MADE OF STEEL that just now became clear to the players.

The initial skills work the same way; your character rolls his Do Anything and it's a 6. That doesn't mean he was lucky; it means he's good at that kind of thing and gets a skill to match.

Whenever the story shows you that you're good at a thing, you get bonusses on the next roll that's sort of like it. But it never happens beforehand; you can't roll Do Anything and say "But I'm good at cooking, so I should get another die", you show how good you are at cooking by rolling (or buying) that 6 and noting the skill for next time.

Answer 2

Don't think, roll!

Roll for shoes deliberately has as few rules as possible; things like doors, walls and so on don't have any stats particularly, they a number of a dice to resist it. If you think something should have a bonus then make it harder, the convention is for the resisting side to have more dice.

For an NPC

If the sum of your roll is higher than the opposing roll (either another player or the DM), the thing you wanted to happen, happens.

Do Anything (1) -> Tough Guy (2) -> Balls of Steel (3)
Wooden Door (1) -> Reinforced Door (2)

Or whatever.

So if you think the knight needs a bonus die, just give him one situationally and keep going; there are no RAW for this sort of thing apart from the quoted line, so keep things going!

For PVP

Or that that the way the game goes. And it is to be embraced as part of the experience?

Exactly. Players get what they have in dice, objects don't give any bonuses (unless you decide to add that level of complication you crazy person!) the only way to do anything is through skills.

Plus the player has spoon as knife So in the hands of that player, that spoon is a deadly, deadly weapon.

Roll For Shoes lends itself to crazyness and this can escalate rapidly (horah!) so roll with it and let the players do anything their crazy minds can think up.

Skills from a game I ran as an example

Sail Piano (4) (Used to turn a piano into a (small) pirate ship)
Supercleanse sheep (3) (Used to produce sheep from noowhere)

And so on...