My Game Mechanics Revisited

[archangel_2]

Well, it's been a while since I posted about my game mechanics here. (That's mostly because I got busy and wasn't able to work on 'em for quite a while, but who's being picky! lol) So I figured, since I DID do some work on 'em, I'd best post here! This is what I've worked on:

One thing I've done is to create a Table of Contents, found at http://www.geocities.com/dan_worthington/Professional/MG/toc.html - if there's a link, it works. If there isn't a link, that means I haven't yet got a chance to work on it yet, but will!

I've been mainly working on Gifts from God and Spiritual Warfare (covered under Gifts from God), so the two main pages to look at are the Character Framework page and the Gifts from God page.

I also made rules for "Assisted Actions," as I realized there was nothing covering such eventualities in the rules. That's found under the Rules Resolution page. Also on that page, I changed combat slightly by saying that the Offense and Defense Factors are applicable to ONE OPPONENT ONLY. You can still attack or defend against more than one opponent, but each opponent will require a seperate Factor. (This is different from the standard Opposed Action, where each Factor is good against any number of opponents...)

One last thing: I read on another post that it's best to not respond to each post about your mechanics; to let there be some discussion apart from you. I realized that I hadn't done that in my last thread (I was thinking people would appreciate personal feedback on their suggestions), so I feel I need to apologize for that. I'll make sure to do better with this thread. :)

Daniel

[Laurel]

Hi Daniel!  I'll read your mechanics during lunch and make a post later today.  Glad to see you back.

[RobMuadib]

Daniel

Hey, I read over your rules and thought I would make a few comments. Umm, first, I think your Resolution Rules is kind of backwardly titled (You have Rules Resolution).

As written your mechanics are rather hard to understand. I think if you wrote out first each step in resolving an Action, and then explained each step, with either a cumulative step by step example, or a single example at the end it would be eaiser to follow.

For instance:
1 - Determine the applicable Focus, Trait, Thorn, and Gift
2 - Determine Success Factors and Difficulty
3 - Roll Dice and Calculate Success
4 - Apply Successes
5 - Announce Results

Now, a few comments, I think you should change the generic Factors term, into Success Factors. Since the Factors are the Success Elements of a particular Action. For instance, in your lock-picking example. You'd say that Duration, how long it will be to take for the character to pick the lock, and Detection, whether or not he can do so without drawing attention to himself, are the Success Factors.

You should define the list of common Success Factors, with some explanation as to their use. Also, implicit is this is explaining the whole idea of Success Factors in general. In that they are elements by which the success of an Act attempt are judged, and that they vary with the act being attempted.

Then explain The idea of Difficulty.
Also on Difficulty I would add a 0 Successes Difficulty

Difficulty Rating        Success Required
Easy                         0
Average                    1
Hard                         2
Very Hard                 3                        

This would allow for a varying number of possible Success Factors (I am thinking every action needs to be defined by at least two possible Success Factors, otherwise this doesn't work very well.)

Perhaps including some examples.

Next in applying Successess, restate your Success Scale. i.e

Success                     Success Rating
Difficulty - 2               Botch
Difficulty - 1               Failure
Difficulty                    Marginal Success
Difficulty + 1              Considerable Success
Difficulty + 2              Extraordinay Success

Also, this Difficulty/Success Rating combo reduces the amount of Botching for easier tasks. (I am assuming you are wanting a more Storyist type of thrust with this game, so letting the characters largely accomplish what they are trying is good. )

anyway, that's all I have time to comment on right now. It's a fairly interesting system, and looks like it would work well. Especially if you push the let the acting Player narrate the results in terms of Success Rating in the Success Factors.

[Got some more time]

One other thing I wanted to mention. At present because of the way that you resolve Opposed actions, if the opposing character is able to beat the Acting character's Success, he will always tend to succeed by a large amount. This is because if he beats the Acting characters success with in a Success Factor, he gets to use the full amount of his Success within that area to Define his success. In effect it gets counted twice in his favor. Which kind of sucks in my opinion.

How about you treat it similar to a standard action. First the Acting player rolls his Successes and applies them to each Success Factor, thus setting up the way he wants to succeed. The Opposing Character then gets to use his Successess to reduce the Acting character's Success in Each Success Factor. With the Final result of the action Being determined by the characters net Success in each Success Factor.

This could even be conducted in a number of rounds or such as an Extended action, with Successes being generated in Each round or whatever.

This would have the nice effect of only allowing the Opposing character to get  huge Success (or the Acting character to suffer terrible failure as it were.) ony if he is able to overcome the efforst of the Acting character by a signifcant margin.

This seems more satisfying to me, the other way seems kind of broken in how it counts the Opposing Character's Success twice as it were.



Rob Muadib

[archangel_2]

Well, I was trying to give a bunch of people time to respond, but not too many people did. Um, it's been a few days, so I'm going to respond (and hope I'm not breaking protocol TOO bad). Thanks to those who responded. :)

Laurel: Please feel free to get back with me about any questions or comments you may have, but don't feel you have to rush. I'm willing to wait for what I'm sure will be wonderful advice. :)

RobMuadib:

Umm, first, I think your Resolution Rules is kind of backwardly titled (You have Rules Resolution).

Ya know, it made sense to me when I wrote it, but now I couldn't tell you why! I'll correct it. Thanks for the catch.

As written your mechanics are rather hard to understand.

I didn't find them all that confusing, but then again, I wrote 'em, so I doubt I would! Besides, there's no reason not to make it more managable and easy to read. I'll work on that.

I think you should change the generic Factors term, into Success Factors. Since the Factors are the Success Elements of a particular Action. For instance, in your lock-picking example. You'd say that Duration, how long it will be to take for the character to pick the lock, and Detection, whether or not he can do so without drawing attention to himself, are the Success Factors.

Works for me! I'll change that as well. (I'll make sure to make a post when I make all these corrections...)

You should define the list of common Success Factors, with some explanation as to their use. Also, implicit is this is explaining the whole idea of Success Factors in general. In that they are elements by which the success of an Act attempt are judged, and that they vary with the act being attempted.

I thought I did list the Success Factors... (Range, Duration, Damage, Detection, Miscellaneous, Offense, and Defense) Giving examples of how to use these, however, would probably be a VERY good idea. I'd been nervous if people would understand just how flexible they were intended to be; examples would alieviate that anxiety. :)

Also on Difficulty I would add a 0 Successes Difficulty

The problem with that is it means that there is no chance to fail. I've already negated the chance of botching on an easy roll (can't get Difficulty -2 if the difficulty is 1...), but there would still be a chance for failure, no matter how remote. (Besides, as far as I'm concerned, any Difficulty requiring 0 Successes shouldn't even need to be rolled, just role-played.)

Success Success Rating
Difficulty - 2 Botch
Difficulty - 1 Failure
Difficulty Marginal Success
Difficulty + 1 Considerable Success
Difficulty + 2 Extraordinay Success

Also, this Difficulty/Success Rating combo reduces the amount of Botching for easier tasks.

This actually is exactly what I'd stated for Botches, but removes one requirement for Extraordinary Success (it used to require Difficulty +3) - however, looking at the chart, this looks more intuitive (having -2 the opposite of +2 instead of +3), so I like it!

Btw, I've yet to have the game playtested, so the Success Ratio and Difficulty Ratio may change as a result of how it plays out... This is just a general guideline to get me there.

(I am assuming you are wanting a more Storyist type of thrust with this game, so letting the characters largely accomplish what they are trying is good. )

Actually, my goal is to have an exciting (or semi-cinematic) feel to it, while remaining "Scripturally accurate". From my perspective (and please let me know if I'm wrong), that means it will look a LOT like a Narrativist (or Storyist) thrust, but isn't quite the same...

One other thing I wanted to mention. At present because of the way that you resolve Opposed actions, if the opposing character is able to beat the Acting character's Success, he will always tend to succeed by a large amount. This is because if he beats the Acting characters success with in a Success Factor, he gets to use the full amount of his Success within that area to Define his success. In effect it gets counted twice in his favor. Which kind of sucks in my opinion.

Actually, I was confused by this comment. The person who rolls the most successes has to assign where he puts them first. So he's got more to assign, but has to split 'em up first. That gives the person with less successes a chance of deciding the outcome (to a small extent). If two people are attacking and defending against each other and one person rolls 4 successes and the other person only rolls 3, the person with 4 assigns his first. Let's say he puts two in Defense and two in Offense. The person with the lower total successes now has the choice of breaching the character's defenses for one point (but take two points of damage himself), defending without a glitch (one more point than the two attacking successes against him), or splitting up the dice (though in this case there really wouldn't be too much of a need for this). In what way does this cause a double whammy against the person rolling the lower total? I thought it was actually akin to Risk, where the attacker gets three dice, but the defender wins on ties - BOTH are useful and about equal each other out. The higher total gets more successes, but the lower total gets the advantage of seeing where the higher total assigned those successes before deciding where to assign his successes! Did I fail to write that correctly, or is there just something I'm not seeing?

Anyway, thanks for all your kind comments and wonderful suggestions! They were a great help, and I greatly appreciate 'em. :)

Daniel

[RobMuadib]

Also on Difficulty I would add a 0 Successes Difficulty

The problem with that is it means that there is no chance to fail. I've already negated the chance of botching on an easy roll (can't get Difficulty -2 if the difficulty is 1...), but there would still be a chance for failure, no matter how remote. (Besides, as far as I'm concerned, any Difficulty requiring 0 Successes shouldn't even need to be rolled, just role-played.)

Ahh, I was thinking more about being able to achieve higher levels of success, not about being able to fail. But I see your Point.

However, it depends on how many Success Factors minimum are assigned to each action, if there is always at least two, and one's easy, then the player could choose to assign extra successes there to succeed spectacularly. That is, by including an easy 0 success difficulty, you allow for more Success Factors to be considered. Obviously, if there is only one Success Factor for an action, and it's easy, it isn't terribly worth rolling for.

Success Success Rating
Difficulty - 2 Botch
Difficulty - 1 Failure
Difficulty Marginal Success
Difficulty + 1 Considerable Success
Difficulty + 2 Extraordinay Success

Also, this Difficulty/Success Rating combo reduces the amount of Botching for easier tasks.

This actually is exactly what I'd stated for Botches, but removes one requirement for Extraordinary Success (it used to require Difficulty +3) - however, looking at the chart, this looks more intuitive (having -2 the opposite of +2 instead of +3), so I like it!
Btw, I've yet to have the game playtested, so the Success Ratio and Difficulty Ratio may change as a result of how it plays out... This is just a general guideline to get me there.

Understand on the hand-testing bit, But I think more important is the decision on the minimum number of Success Factors. I think two is a good mandate, as it relates to your Combat mechanic, and the system seems to be designed with that in mind.

One other thing I wanted to mention. At present because of the way that you resolve Opposed actions, if the opposing character is able to beat the Acting character's Success, he will always tend to succeed by a large amount. This is because if he beats the Acting characters success with in a Success Factor, he gets to use the full amount of his Success within that area to Define his success. In effect it gets counted twice in his favor. Which kind of sucks in my opinion.

Actually, I was confused by this comment. The person who rolls the most successes has to assign where he puts them first. So he's got more to assign, but has to split 'em up first. That gives the person with less successes a chance of deciding the outcome (to a small extent). If two people are attacking and defending against each other and one person rolls 4 successes and the other person only rolls 3, the person with 4 assigns his first. Let's say he puts two in Defense and two in Offense. The person with the lower total successes now has the choice of breaching the character's defenses for one point (but take two points of damage himself), defending without a glitch (one more point than the two attacking successes against him), or splitting up the dice (though in this case there really wouldn't be too much of a need for this). In what way does this cause a double whammy against the person rolling the lower total? I thought it was actually akin to Risk, where the attacker gets three dice, but the defender wins on ties - BOTH are useful and about equal each other out. The higher total gets more successes, but the lower total gets the advantage of seeing where the higher total assigned those successes before deciding where to assign his successes! Did I fail to write that correctly, or is there just something I'm not seeing?

Anyway, thanks for all your kind comments and wonderful suggestions! They were a great help, and I greatly appreciate 'em. :)

I wrote the above specifically in regards to your opposed lock-picking example. After rereading it, it seems I misread it somewhat, and in review it seems to work fine. So I guess you can dismiss that double billing example. I misread that he uses the number of opposing successes as his difficulty factor. So it was just a misunderstanding on my part.