MLwM mechanics thinkin'

[DevP]

If I may be so bold; Paul, what was your thinking behind the MLwM d4-pool mechanics? Why did you pick these in particular to back up play?

Why do I ask? Mainly curiosity, but also because I'm thinking up potential tweaks if any to try this game in other ways. (Also, suppose a mugger takes all my dice but one, I'd like to still be able to play MLwM. Just sayin'.)

Evil subtext: I was thinking about mixing MLwM and Wushu to my own purpose to create My Life with Gendo. I won't expound on that until I actually have time to run it, so everyone is safe.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Dev,

If I may be so bold; Paul, what was your thinking behind the MLwM d4-pool mechanics? Why did you pick these in particular to back up play?

Well, first I had the rough scheme of trait calculations for opposed pools, and I had the idea for the Intimacy, Desperation, and Sincerity dice. Thinking back, this was two years ago, my first stab at die pool mechanic used d12s, the most monstrous of the regular polyhedrons, counting 1s as successes. The Intimacy, Desperation, and Sincerity dice were reversed in size progression, so Sincerity was the d4, and as with the d12s you only counted 1s rolled. Then I put the mechanics through a conversation with Mike Holmes. And yeah, they were a mess. The Intimacy, Desperation, and Sincerity dice weren't significant enough to the outcome. And with larger opposed pools, a size difference of two or three dice wasn't statistically as representative of the amount of roleplayed story behind the disparity as I thought it should be. In response, Mike helped me formulate the existing d4 mechanics to achieve just the right significance for the individual dice, and the Intimacy, Desperation, and Sincerity dice.

Have you seen Alexander Cherry's thread, http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7976">[MLwM] For Those Of Us D4-Deprived?

Paul

[DevP]

I did in fact read that thread, but wasn't thinking about it in this context... but I can see why you picked the die pool you did, and am satisfied enough to not muck with it. Thanks!

This also suggest that next time I run MLwM, to push the I/D/S dice more onto the players.

[vhirvela]

Question in sincerity, intimacy and desperation bonus rols. Should highest number at the dice cout or should it not mean anyting like in normal dices?

[DevP]

I do believe that the I/D/S die is just simply added to the normal die pool. (So, the highest number = highest number.)

[Paul Czege]

Hi,

Yes, Dev has it right. The whole value rolled on the Intimacy/Desperation/Sincerity die is added to the sum of the non-4s the player rolled on the rest of his dice.

Paul

[Mike Holmes]

Just to explain some technical details of this, the system was created so that any number of dice could defeat any other number of dice. Since only one side of any roll gets the I/D/S dice, and can only get one, and since all pools have at least one die, this always remains true.

Also, we looked at other dice and methods, but we discarded them because they all had higher handling times, or didn't come out with the correct distribution of potency for the I/D/S dice. Alexander's method is "close enough" but actually takes more time to calculate. But if all you have are D6s, I wouldn't hesitate to use his method.

Mike

[vhirvela]

Just to explain some technical details of this, the system was created so that any number of dice could defeat any other number of dice. Since only one side of any roll gets the I/D/S dice, and can only get one, and since all pools have at least one die, this always remains true.

Also, we looked at other dice and methods, but we discarded them because they all had higher handling times, or didn't come out with the correct distribution of potency for the I/D/S dice. Alexander's method is "close enough" but actually takes more time to calculate. But if all you have are D6s, I wouldn't hesitate to use his method.

Mike

Intresting. Where can I find more information about that Alexander's method?

[Mike Holmes]

See the link in Paul's post above.

Mike