The Forge Archives

First I'd like to apologize to Pyron for that last comment. It was out of line.

Ok, you all raise a various number of issues and that's great.

First up, James talks about the randomness factors in long jump and so on. I agree there do IS variation. However, if you look at the last part I have a rather long example on how to simulate it by the GM rolling different difficulty for every jump.

What the system does is give the GM 100% ability to fix external factors. If he doesn't feel like that then he can roll as much as he thinks the variation is. In other words the GM can set the randomness of the situation which is a powerful tool.

The same is applicable to the vase example.

James also raise the question about assessing difficulty of a task before it's attempted.

Since the GM has a number already, there are a number of ways for the GM to handle it depending on what he/she thinks the character knows (which can be determined the same way, through this karma mechanics), what is favourable to the story and personal style.

The GM might give the number outright, or simply give an approximate number. In any case, since the difference between each rating is rather large, the players should usually have rather precise knowledge of the difficulty, unless it's hard to assess. Jumping a chasm for example should probably have the difficulty outright stated, whereas an NPCs skill might be totally unknown.

Another question of James's is "why would anyone take the 50-50 chance unless they had no choice or really didn't care about the outcome?"

I'm not sure I understand this question. Obviously anyone thinking a task is important tries to stack the odds in his/her favour. The 50-50 rule isn't something I made up because I thought it was a good idea. It just inevitably HAS to be there because this karma resolution is supposed to work for opposed tests. Now if A and B have equal skill, naturally the there has to be a 50-50 chance for either win.

If your skill is lower than required even stacking odds in your favour can't get you higher than a 50-50 chance. That's when you end up there. I don't really see the problem.

Finally James brings up the fact that the GM can roll the difficulty, which makes look a little similar to having a static difficulty assigned by the GM which the player rolls against.

But in fact, they are very different. In the latter case, GM only sets part of the circumstances and leaves the rest to the dice. Usually, like Ralph points out, the dice stays the same which means despite the GM's best efforts to fix more of the situational conditions, the randomness stays the same.

And this is exactly what leads to the contradiction between soliloquy and mechanical play in many systems. Basically soliloquy let's the GM totally decide on the circumstances and then ENTER THE GAME SYSTEM and the GM is just as much at mercy to the roll as the players are.

If the GM is empowered to set the difficulty a-priori either randomized or simply set, the game grants the GM a lot of power to shape the story which ultimately helps in maintaining the illusion. It's not that I don't like randomness, it's that I don't like randomness to override reasonable results just for randomness sake.

Quote from: PyronHan had a chance of shooting vader in ESB. Just a very very small one.

I'd say he didn't. Aside from that discussion, you seem to argue that randomness is essential to create heroic situations.

It is true that occasionally, this is the case. The hero gets a lucky shot on the monster and fells it despite all odds against it. Stuff like that. In the books it is described as lucky coincindence. In rpgs, sometimes randomness allows for similar situations. On the other hand, randomness is also responsible for the most silly and de-protagonizing moments in rpgs as well.

I had a session of Rolemaster which illustrates it nicely. After the party successfully had killed a dragon and defeated a powerful sorcerer on their own, they were on their way home when they encountered a band of average rogues intent on stealing their treasures.

A few lucky (or unlucky) shots later, the mighty high elven ranger/bodyguard for the elven beastmaster/princess was busy rolling for "Body Damage Stabilize". The Great Man hero who singlehandedly had wrestled down werewolves were down on his knees and the Beastmaster? She was already out.

Although they didn't die it was darn near and the players hated it. What had happened? A few very lucky GM rolls. Did it make a good story? Was it reasonable? Nope, not at all.

So my point is, although randomness can give you those heroic moments it's just as likely to plungle you into situations where the character seems more like a fumbling fool, no matter how powerful it has the potential to be. I could draw other good examples on the later from Earthdawn.

If we want those heroic situations we should look for a different mechanism to create them, and not sit and hope that randomness will help us.

Quote from: Damion

Quote
This in turn means that the GM pretty much can decide on any outcome. Why? Because the GM decides the difficulty and there
is no roll unless it's a 50-50 chance which the GM can avoid by setting the difficulty one step higher.  

This actually worries me. The point of a charachter having skills is so they can affect the game, if you can't, why bother having skills at all?

In a random system with difficulty levels the GM also can set the difficulty arbitrarily high and make it impossible to reach success. This is no different from the karma system I outline.

The only difference is that in the karma system the GM essentially says: "Laying down all the different factors, X is the difficulty for you to succeed with this, and you fail not because you're not good at it, but because it was so friggin hard"

Besides, this was merely pointing out how the GM can exercise complete control over outcomes if he needs to without fudging the results. This is a great thing because I'm trying to create a functional illusionism, and here is actually a tool to make it legal for the GM to fudge any roll while at the same time letting it be totally random if the GM chooses to.

Obviously if two characters want to jump a chasm with fixed difficulty and one has higher skill, he's more likely to have high enough rating to make it.

In addition, if two characters have enough rating to perform a skill, the character with higher rating will be able to boost the quality of the performance, or make it quicker or in some other way improve it beyond that of the character with the lower ranting.

So skills definately weigh in.

QuoteIt seems like your trying to give players the Illusion that they can affect the world, when they really can't, which seems weird to me.

James, I think that sounds perfectly ok since I'm trying to make an explicitly illusionist sim game. Since a lot of sim games end up being illusionist anyway the only difference is that I state it outright. It might be a little unsettling at first to have it so clearly laid up.

Quote from: Fang
That's where I think the mistake comes in previous thinking. You pick a lock; what if you take your time? What if you use lots of specialized equipment? What if you would resort to even a crowbar if necessary? No lock would stop you; success is assured. You'd be doing it 'competently.'

This is what you mentioned in another thread and it's exactly this which I think makes the karma system feasible.

Difficulty to pick lock: 4 (or whatever)

I have 3, but what if I double the time spent on it? Maybe I get an extra point for that and a 50-50 chance (since I have rating 3+1 then), what if I use a book on lock-picking to help me too and add additional time? Maybe +2. That would be a sure success. Fine, I succeed.

Maybe I'm really masterful and have a rating of 6. It's not problem to me. But I want to do it in a fourth of the average time. Maybe that costs me 2 points of penalties which lands me at 4 and I hve to roll a 50-50 chance to succeed doing it that quickly. Half the time with 1 point of penalty wouldn't need a roll.

Get over the busy street taking my time? Slightly random (the GM will roll) difficulty between -2 and 0. I want to run over without looking which might give me 4 points of penalty. I have 4 in skill to run over streets, so it's only if the GM would roll a 0 (representing unlucky circumstances) would I have to roll a 50-50 chance to see if I got hit by a car or not (these rules can be tweaked a little).

Incidentally the game is equally symmetric about putting the penalties/advantags into the difficulty number. So the GM might decide that the difficulty to run over the street without looking is between 2 and 4. This would be a totally equivalent thing both from the point of view of the situation and mathematically.

It's trivial to add extra complications. Like I want to run backwards, which might make it even harder at a penalty of 1. In the latter case it would then be a difficulty of 2-4 against a skill of 4-1=3. Giving you a greater chance of being run over.

Quote from: FangA lot of design thought will go into each game that makes these 'dials' available. I tend towards the 'players making the direction' in the game, I think Christoffer goes the other way.

If mean that I encourage the GM to take control the game? No, definately not. This machinery is there for two reasons (let me know if it's going against it)

1. To allow soliloquy results consistently be the same as the mechanical results (this would arise from the GM being able to set the conditions so that after using soliloquy to resolve a situation the GM can actually reconstruct it into a mechanical situation which yields the same outcome. In fact the GM can use soliloquy results to create a mechanical profile of an NPC or a situation - "He beat you easily and you have a rating of 4 so he must have at least 5, probably 6 or 7")

2. To help the players avoid character de-protagonization due to unlucky rolls.

Quote from: PyronTo use all of these arguments to justify the statement: "It can be used correctly if it's applied to the right things," you must tell me what you are planning to apply this system to.

Already told you. The no-so-important skill rolls, as opposed to say the combat or the magic which uses their own mechanics.

QuoteSauron did NOT have to worry about any legendary heroes.  Elrond was busy.  Isulder's dad was dead.

Actually if I remember correctly, among the people fighting Sauron was Gil-Galad, Cirdan, Elrond and Elendil. Both Gil-Galad and Elendil and Elendils sword broke under him. Isildur then took the broken sword and cut the ring off Sauron's finger. Probably because Sauron paid little attention to him.

What DIDN'T happen was that Isildur aimed for the finger and rolled a crit on his to-hit roll. Look Isildur didn't stand and fight with Sauron for 2 hours aiming for the finger. He took a single shot and fate was with him.

Now pick up a game like Rolemaster with it's open-ended rolls and try to do the same thing. Oh wait, you can't because Rolemaster don't have any rules about aiming. Bummer. In fact I think Sauron would survive in most games except maybe Phoenix Command because I don't know about any other game that really allows for aiming at fingers. Not simulationist games anyway.

QuotePlease tell me how your system accounts for this.

Please tell me a sim game which accounts for this.

Have you read what I said about riskbreaking rules and such to make exceptions? Besides it's not for combat anyway.

Look at it this way. Sauron killed people (faceless soldiers) left and right. Could *any* of them have done what Isildur did (which is what you seem to be proposing)? Enter the random system and there is no difference between their luck and Isildur's chance. On the other hand if you recognize that there was Isildur, his father just dead. In this moment he was the king of all men and he was avenging his father. A very fateful moment and the result is equally dramatic. Do you really think we get a story like this from making stuff more random??

QuoteNow on the issue of empowerment.  Player empowerment is about the concept of player control.  It is within my opinion that if this is so that empowerment is entirelley based upon illusionismn.

How can you make that connection?? Illusionism is about GM making the players believe what they do make a difference when it doesn't among other things (right Ron?). Now I'm cutting up my system so you can see the guts of it, which is showing how the GM can use it to help in illusionism. To the players of course, it should always look like the GM has everything preplanned and only follow rules.

QuoteI have never seen anything that rivals a player's joy at succeeding in a desperate situation.

It's a sad sad life you live >;) But seriously, I know what you're talking about, but you have to understand what this karma system is and isn't.

If you want to risk things, go for jumps when it's 50-50. And if you don't have a chance, do the riskbreaking thing (I was thinking of some mechanic which would let you do really risky things and have a chance if it was a desperate life and death situation). But if you have two legs broken and want to jump that 4 meter cliff you're not gonna get a 5% chance to make it in my system. I can live with that, are you sure you can't?

QuoteOne forwards power to the GM in a karma system.  It's a simple inequaltity statement.  If players have limited control over the inequality statement, or think that they have control, more situations will arise.

See, the point is that the players are supposed to think they have control over their actions when they don't. That's what it's supposed to facilitate. I'm open up the system to show that in fact the GM can assume all control behind the scenes without the players noticing a thing.

The point is that I don't think that random rolls=player empowerment. In fact, I think one of the worst situations of player disempowerment has come when I was forced to make rolls for situations my characters clearly ought to succeed at. Rolemaster is this golden example. You could safely say that if you had to roll to breath in Rolemaster, you'd be dead really really quickly.

QuoteHe had gone throughout the masses of hundreds of elves and humans unhurt and was ready to make the final blow to a prone opponent. What kind of concessions in hell's very name could Isulder have made to cut the ring with an entirelley shattered blade? You tell me.

Damn Pyron, that one is so obvious.  What concession did Isildur make?  How about:
Player:  "If I land this blow, I'll make sure the ring does not get destroyed".  
GM: "Ok take +15 for that".

Isildur was FATED to strike that blow.  There is no pure (i.e. no metagame) simulation system on earth that could have been used in that situation to that effect.

Hey Christoffer,

It's good to see that you're so far ahead of me on this one.  I only see a coupla inconsistencies in what you've presented.

First you say:

Quote from: Pale FireIf your skill is lower than required even stacking odds in your favour can't get you higher than a 50-50 chance.

I wondered about that one, but then to my post you responded apparently differently....

Quote from: Pale Fire

Quote from: Le JoueurThat's where I think the mistake comes in previous thinking. You pick a lock; what if you take your time? What if you use lots of specialized equipment? What if you would resort to even a crowbar if necessary? No lock would stop you; success is assured. You'd be doing it 'competently.'

This is what you mentioned in another thread and it's exactly this which I think makes the karma system feasible.

Difficulty to pick lock: 4 (or whatever)

I have 3, but what if I double the time spent on it? Maybe I get an extra point for that and a 50-50 chance (since I have rating 3+1 then), what if I use a book on lock-picking to help me too and add additional time? Maybe +2. That would be a sure success. Fine, I succeed.

Which says that you can 'stack the odds' more in your favor than 50-50.  Since I'm following along with your system, can you clarify?  Are any there situations (non-in-game or abstracted) where I cannot 'stack the odds' in my favor, one way or another?  Is there a rule?

Also, I was kinda curious about something else you said to the other comments.

First:

Quote from: Pale FireIf the GM is empowered to set the difficulty a-priori either randomized or simply set, the game grants the GM a lot of power to shape the story which ultimately helps in maintaining the illusion. It's not that I don't like randomness, it's that I don't like randomness to override reasonable results just for randomness sake.

...Besides, this was merely pointing out how the GM can exercise complete control over outcomes if he needs to without fudging the results. This is a great thing because I'm trying to create a functional Illusionism, and here is actually a tool to make it legal for the GM to fudge any roll while at the same time letting it be totally random if the GM chooses to.

And to me:

Quote from: Pale Fire

Quote from: FangA lot of design thought will go into each game that makes these 'dials' available. I tend towards the 'players making the direction' in the game, I think Christoffer goes the other way.

If [you] mean, [do] I encourage the GM to take control the game? No, definitely not. This machinery is there for two reasons (let me know if it's going against it)[list=1][*]To allow soliloquy results consistently be the same as the mechanical results (this would arise from the GM being able to set the conditions so that after using soliloquy to resolve a situation the GM can actually reconstruct it into a mechanical situation which yields the same outcome. In fact the GM can use soliloquy results to create a mechanical profile of an NPC or a situation - "He beat you easily and you have a rating of 4 so he must have at least 5, probably 6 or 7")

[*]To help the players avoid character de-protagonization due to unlucky rolls.[/list:o]

I don't understand.

Which is it?  Does "the GM [have] a lot of power to shape the story which ultimately helps in maintaining the illusion" or do you "definitely not" "encourage the GM to take control the game?"  First you say you're "trying to create a functional Illusionism" then you turn around and say that you don't "encourage the GM to take control the game."  That sounds contradictory to me.

If "the GM can exercise complete control over outcomes" and it can "be totally random if the GM chooses to" then there isn't a situation where the gamemaster isn't in control (choosing to 'let it be random' is still choosing).  I understood this kind of "control" was inherent in Illusionism.  How can you say you don't "encourage the GM to take control the game," if you are "trying to create a functional Illusionism?"

You probably already know the answer and are just having difficulty expressing what you meant (happens to me all the time); I just need clarification.

Fang Langford

Quote from: Fang
Which says that you can 'stack the odds' more in your favor than 50-50.  Since I'm following along with your system, can you clarify?  Are any there situations (non-in-game or abstracted) where I cannot 'stack the odds' in my favor, one way or another?  Is there a rule?

Ok, I think I was kind of dealing with things in parallell there. I think the 50-50 was about what I later was referring to as a "riskbreaker rule" (no, I haven't outlined it yet, but that's because I see a few different ways of doing it). Basically the idea was that despite you don't have a 50-50 chance you would be able to get that 50-50 chance (or maybe 1/6 chance depending on how it works) despite the fact that it should be "impossible" (the concessions you do aren't enough)

The real rule should of course be that you can get a sure win if the concessions are enough. Of course there are limits to what concessions can do too, they are not necessarily absolutely cumulative. That would quickly lead to weird results.

Quote from: Fang
Which is is?  Does "the GM [have] a lot of power to shape the story which ultimately helps in maintaining the illusion" or do you "definitely not" "encourage the GM to take control the game?"  First you say you're "trying to create a functional Illusionism" then you turn around and say that you don't "encourage the GM to take control the game."  That sounds contradictory to me.

What I mean by the GM taking control of the game was as response to Pyron's (what's your real name?) and James' concern that the GM would blatantly force the player's decisions and railroading the story by using the power of determining difficulties. That's what I'm against. With at least moderately intelligent players they would quickly get the feel that the GM was working against them when they weren't doing stuff according to plan.

It's NOT the GM deciding everything, including what the players do. That's what I would say is "the GM taking control over the game". On the other hand as you point out, illusionism is about the GM doing a lot of stuff behind the players' backs and some of the decisions the players do might not have a real impact. However, a sound illusionist GM maintains the illusion to the players that everything they do HAVE impact. That together with the illusion that the players are free to do whatever they want.

If the GM uses the heavy handed approach of what amouts to overtly stacking the odds against the players when they don't follow The Plan, then that's breaking the illusion. So when I say "definately not GM taking control", it's this overt, heavy handed control which cripples the players actions and explicitly stop any character's attempt to do things contrary to the GM's wishes. Yes I have played with GMs like that. GMs can do stuff like that in non-Karma games too :)

Quote
You probably already know the answer and are just having difficulty expressing what you meant (happens to me all the time); I just need clarification.

It's good to have you double-checking what I'm saying. I hope things got a little clearer now.

Quote from: Pale FireIt's NOT the GM deciding everything, including what the players do. That's what I would say is "the GM taking control over the game". On the other hand as you point out, illusionism is about the GM doing a lot of stuff behind the players' backs and some of the decisions the players do might not have a real impact. However, a sound illusionist GM maintains the illusion to the players that everything they do HAVE impact. That together with the illusion that the players are free to do whatever they want.

Excellent.  One suggestion, about wording?  Don't put it in terms of the illusion hiding the fact that "some of the decisions the players do might not have a real impact."  I suggest that Illusionism for you might be not giving the players those choices in the first place.  You aren't blunting any choices, it's the 'magician's offer.'

A magician presents two unicorns saying he is going to transform one into an horrible dragon.  He offers a member of the audience, let's say the king, the choice.  If the king chooses the dragon with the unicorn illusion on it, the magician explains that the king has consigned that beast to transfiguration.  If the king chooses the real unicorn, the magician explains that the king has spared the beast.  Notice the king never had a real choice.

It's like the issue of putting air vents into a dungeon.  Without them the denizens would eventually suffocate, but they offer the players an undo escape route.  What the gamemaster does is have them never appear when the players shouldn't be able to escape.  These vents actually 'move around' to suit the illusion.  The players are never given the choice (and that's what I'd use instead of a chasm or other 'covert impasse,' no choice).

Otherwise, everything is going great!  Keep up the good work.

Fang Langford

You put air vents in your dungeons?
And I suppose you made sure all the denizens had proper food and water supplies too...sheesh...
;-)

Quote from: ValamirYou put air vents in your dungeons?
And I suppose you made sure all the denizens had proper food and water supplies too...sheesh...
;-)

Well, proper egress and hunting/feeding ranges, yes.  All we had back then was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and a lot of free time.  We were doing 'the ecology of...' stuff even before Dragon Magazine started up on it.  Learned a lot of predator/prey biology that way....

Fang Langford

First off: I'm pretty sure Sauron was already beaten when Isildur cut the ring off of his finger. It was just done differently in the movie, in the book there is no 'called shot to the ring finger of the right hand.' Sauron was beaten and on the ground, which makes cutting it off pretty trivial. Isildur took the ring as 'spoils of war' and a reward for all the destruction Sauron causesed. I thought this was cooler, but  I'm digressing...

Christoffer: I was misunderstanding a few things, but I get it now.
The system REALLY needs the concessions mechanic to work though.

My point with the Random Difficulties: Say a skill 5 and skill 7 person try to jump the chasm. The GM rolls a 4 for the first person, who makes automatically, but a 8 for the second person, who falls in automatically. It's the same wiff factor here.

Other Point:

QuoteWhat I mean by the GM taking control of the game was as response to Pyron's (what's your real name?) and James' concern that the GM would blatantly force the player's decisions and railroading the story by using the power of determining difficulties. That's what I'm against. With at least moderately intelligent players they would quickly ge the feel that the GM was working against them when they weren't doing stuff according to plan.
....
          If the GM uses the heavy handed approach of what amouts to overtly stacking the odds against the players when they don't follow The Plan, then that's breaking the illusion. So when I say "definately not GM taking control", it's this overt, heavy handed control which cripples the players actions and explicitly stop any character's attempt to do things contrary to the GM's wishes. Yes I have played with GMs like that. GMs can do stuff like that in non-Karma games too :)

QuoteItalics mine.

I fail to see the difference between there two ideas. The advantage of your system is that the GM can overtly stack the odds easier because of the large granularity & the way the system works. Or are you saying that since ALL the odds are overtly stacked players won't be able to tell when it's because their 'not following the plan' or when it's just part of the story?  Interesting...  

You might want to keep possible concessions small, as the GM has to consider them when setting difficulty numbers.
GM:The lock has a difficulty of 5 and orcs are approaching, so you can't take extra time.
Player:I have skill 4, doh! Oh wait, I have +1 lockpicks!
GM:Doh! 50-50 roll please.

Quote from: Fang
Excellent.  One suggestion, about wording?  Don't put it in terms of the illusion hiding the fact that "some of the decisions the players do might not have a real impact."  I suggest that Illusionism for you might be not giving the players those choices in the first place.  You aren't blunting any choices, it's the 'magician's offer.'

Actually I don't see that as being necessary. You're thinking about the chasm again aren't you? Well I'd never put the chasm there to prevent the players from doing something. It's not a "oh, you can't cross there because then you ruin the adventure so I put a chasm there to stop you".

The chasm would only arise if the players consciously head that way "let's go up that hill and try to cross over to the other side", not as a tool to stop the players from succeeding.

Of course, this might be because I'm mainly playing improvised adventures. So there is no cliff until the players decide to cross it. All details for the adventure is generated as things moves along. Of course it's a bit of the magician's offer there too. For example, the players can go left or right. One way leads to the right place and one is way off.

No matter what the player choses, the decision will always lead the way the GM decided on, because the GM only decides afterwards if it's turning right or turning left that leads to the right spot.

Then there is the "Choosing The Path" which I already talked about. Sometimes the GM doesn't want to decide, so he randomly sets left as being leading right straight away and right leading the players away and leave it up to them to decide how the adventure unfolds.

It's important to note that just because it facilitates illusionist techniques doesn't mean the GM should use it all the time. It's more important if you follow a prewritten adventure than an improvised anyway.

Quote from: JamesChristoffer: I was misunderstanding a few things, but I get it now. The system REALLY needs the concessions mechanic to work though.

Yeah, after looking at it some more I can only say I very much agree with you.

I mean I'm not used to karma resolution myself! That's why I sometimes lean towards introducing randomness into it in some of the discussions here.

Let's look at something you say:

Quote from: JamesMy point with the Random Difficulties: Say a skill 5 and skill 7 person try to jump the chasm. The GM rolls a 4 for the first person, who makes automatically, but a 8 for the second person, who falls in automatically. It's the same wiff factor here.

Exactly. You called me on that problem. Actually the randomness should only occur in situations where difficulty significantly varies. One would be in the case of perception rolls where the situation of 4 and 8 for difficulty is quite acceptable.

However, for the "jump-the-chasm" situation the difficulty should be firmly set. There is already a randomness inserted into the basic mechanics when there is a tie between difficulty and rating.

I'd like to explain it a little in depth because I only recently got a clear view of how it worked.

If we look at the long jump instead. We're at the olympic arena and the contestants get ready :) The skill 5 guy is there, as is the skill 7 guy, the world record holder with skill 9 (uh, that rating maybe should be pumped up, I have no idea what the current world record is) as well as my mother with skill 2 (at the most). ;)

How far do they jump?

My original draft had going for different difficulties and other problems. We don't need that. Since they all try to perform their uttermost they all get to roll the 50/50 roll. If the skill 5 guy rolls 4-6 he'd be performing [what I'll call] 5+ and if he rolls 1-3 it's 5-. Ok?

How far do they jump?

Well if we do some quick calculating assuming a skill 3 person can jump 3 meter's no problem and a skill 7 can jump 6. We get 3 meters/4 points of skill. Or 0.75 m. Maximum for skill 7 should be something like 7 m and 3 would have what? 4?

3+ = 4, so 3- should be more than 3.25 (which is 2+) but less than 4. 3.5m seems ok. So what happens with the die roll is that it give's you things +-0.25 of the average value which is 3.75 for Skill 3.

We can now lay out the average jump depending on skill level:

2: 3
3: 3.75
5: 5.25
7: 6.75
9: 8.25

So we have skill 5 jumping either 5 or 5.5m, skill 7 is jumping 6.5 or 7, skill 9 at 8 or 8.5m and my mother jumping 2.75 or 3.25m

This is the variation already built into the system with the 50/50 rule.

(Of course I don't mean the GM to sit and calculate exact length, I just want to demonstrate the inner workings of the system)

We don't really need any more variation than this in most cases.

Sure it goes against the grain of what we're used to, but we're used to having the world record holder jumping between 0 and 9 meters in our systems.

Beyond that, the GM can give advantages or penalties depending on the situation. For example using a spring board would help with the jump, right? And if you were carrying 100 lbs of gold in your backpack you "might" jump a little shorter, right? :)

Anyway. There should be a firm difficulty. 5 meter jump? That's difficulty 5. If you have 100 lbs gold on your back and you're the world record holder, the GM still might rule that sets you back 5 points or more already. It naturally depends on how strong you are and other factors, which is for the GM to decide the effects are.

But given all other things equal, the difficulty should be the same.

Quote from: James
I fail to see the difference between there two ideas. The advantage of your system is that the GM can overtly stack the odds easier because of the large granularity & the way the system works. Or are you saying that since ALL the odds are overtly stacked players won't be able to tell when it's because their 'not following the plan' or when it's just part of the story?  Interesting...  

If I follow what you're saying, it's the latter. However, the first also contributes as the large granularity is what allows for the GM to decide on the odds fairly easily and to ignore minor situational modifiers.

Done right there is no way to tell when the GM is setting a difficulty because he's trying to stop the players from succeeding and when "the best approximation of the difficulty of the situation" happens to be this difficulty.

I'd like to point out, however, that this is just a consequence of how the system works rather than the primary goal of it.

What I wanted to do was to make a quick resolution system which still could cover a big variation of situations and of randomness. Something which could be run karma-style or fortune-style.

The fortune in this case is mostly in the hands of the GM, but the players always roll the D6 or whatever to determine the quality of their performance within their skill level.

The difference between this and other systems is that the skill levels don't overlap, but instead you have to take concessions and use advantages to get that.

In BRP for example, if you'd have a skill of 8 your actual performance would be between 0 and 8. Some games use smaller dice or bell curved ones to make situations more predictable.

So if you have skill 5 in a game then maybe it's 17% that you perform at skill 5, 14% at 4 and the same for 6 and so on, diminishing in both directions.

Still the systems look like rating+-(skill variation)

What I'm doing is simplifying and derandomizing it until it looks like this: rating+-(0.25)

This is nothing more than removing randomness and putting it in the hands of the GM as you know.

However, the nice thing arises that the GM can take control of the situation and insure no unnecessary whiffs occur, no de-protagonizing situations happen by accident, and no major badguy dies without at least get a chance for a finishing monologue ;)

Quote from: Pale Fire

Quote from: Le JoueurExcellent.  One suggestion, about wording?  Don't put it in terms of the illusion hiding the fact that "some of the decisions the players do might not have a real impact."  I suggest that Illusionism for you might be not giving the players those choices in the first place.  You aren't blunting any choices, it's the 'magician's offer.'

Of course, this might be because I'm mainly playing improvised adventures. So there is no cliff until the players decide to cross it. All details for the adventure is generated as things moves along. Of course it's a bit of the magician's offer there too. For example, the players can go left or right. One way leads to the right place and one is way off.

No matter what the player choses, the decision will always lead the way the GM decided on, because the GM only decides afterwards if it's turning right or turning left that leads to the right spot.

Now I've seen that called 'the moving clue.'  No matter what the players do, they find it, because it moves around to 'get in front of them.'

Quote from: Pale FireThen there is the "Choosing The Path" which I already talked about. Sometimes the GM doesn't want to decide, so he randomly sets left as being leading right straight away and right leading the players away and leave it up to them to decide how the adventure unfolds.

Isn't "way off" almost as bad as dead?  I mean, now their doing things that everyone will eventually conclude are totally irrelevant, right?

Now I'm getting confused again about your proposed gamemastering technique.  Does the gamemaster control the adventure or doesn't he?  If one way leads to 'his stuff' and the other leads to irrelevancy, wouldn't it be better just to use 'the moving clue' and get it over with?

Now if there's no 'right way' or 'wrong way,' then it isn't Illusionism is it?  (I thought that's what you wanted to design.)  I thought the Choose the Path stuff was about letting the players 'fill in the detail' between them and 'the moving clue.'  If the gamemaster doesn't care to make the choice, then the dice decide what the players face; it still moves towards the gamemaster's goal, right?

I think I've lost track of your final goal again; would you mind restating it?

Fang Langford

Quote from: Le Joueur

Quote from: Pale FireThen there is the "Choosing The Path" which I already talked about. Sometimes the GM doesn't want to decide, so he randomly sets left as being leading right straight away and right leading the players away and leave it up to them to decide how the adventure unfolds.

Isn't "way off" almost as bad as dead?  I mean, now their doing things that everyone will eventually conclude are totally irrelevant, right?

No, maybe that phrasing was a bit bad. I just mean two ways which were in effect equivalent as far as player enjoyment goes.

Clearer?

Yep!

Now I'm quite curious to see how it looks in print; you go girl!

Fang Langford

Girl!?!

Christoffer (and apologies for previous misspellings of that)--

You go, girl! is fairly recent American slang, intended to be encouragement. I'm not certain of its derivation, but it has become gender neutral.

Sort of like White Wolf's annoying use of she when the antecedent is not clearly feminine.

--M. J. Young