Gears and Cogs (GaC)

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  So I am working on a jury rigged version of the splendid Alternity meshed with the wonder that was Old World of Darkness (back when it was not crap). The following combination of rules will exist under my design theory of if it aint broke don’t fix it, but it never hurts to take out the duct tape and some spare parts when necessary. Primarily I am looking to incorporate the design elements of Alternity with the mechanics of the OWOD system.
  From Alternity I am drawing the following concepts:

- Success Levels, every single thing in the game was structured (including action resolution) in 5 areas of quality. The reason that this was such an awesome concept for the game was weather you were casting a spell, buying a laser blaster, or even making a piloting skill check you had a universal scale which you could compare the worth of anything.
- Point by and level combination, was able to create an amazing sense of balance and control by using your levels limitations to determine how specialized in something you could become at any given time, and allowing a customized personal character build.
- Skills and “knacks” as a character raised their skill level it allowed them to purchase special abilities that relate to that skill.
- The use of skill categories and specialized skills, assured that you did not end up with characters who had no basic understanding of medical practice but could somehow perform surgery by categorizing skills.
- Amount of “wounds” equaling your con (or equivalent) level

  From OWOD I am drawing the following:

-   Dice pool equals skill + attribute + misc vs. target number, with number of success equaling the number of dice that match or better the target number. (I for some reason really like dice pools)
-   Soak rolls, because for some reason I liked the soak roll allot
-    Exploding dice, even though they are a staple of seventh sea (awesome), and the new world of darkness ( bleh) I like exploding dice…well really any explosion.


I need help with the following:

  In Alternity to gauge the scale of success to an action you would divide the skill + attribute into ranges and when you attempted to roll under whichever range you fell between was the quality of success you have. With a varying pool amount it becomes difficult to create ranges dependant on each skill attribute match.

My method to create this same effect is to create for example a set table where  for example 10 success always equals an “amazing” success, and between 0-1 always means a failure. Is this a good solution, and does any one perhaps have another idea that might work better.

  As I do not want to create a system in which a huge number of dice is rolled ala shadowrun I am thinking of capping the dice pools off at ten. A solution to this issue is that I am looking to make it so that all dice explode at ten, and if otherwise stated (by an ability or something) or a dice pool reaches past ten a number of your dice that exceed that amount become dice that explode on results of 9-10. My question in this regard is simply a matter of opinion, would this reward for a large pool be sufficient in your opinion without still tipping the odds to far in one person direction?

  Any way that’s what I have for now I will try and swing more specific information up when I have the chance.

Regards, Seth
Kobold Enterprises
“Cannon What?”

[matthijs]

It's kind of hard to answer this is in a useful way. You're asking for opinion, and in my opinion, your system is more complex than what I'd personally enjoy playing. What matters is your opinion, and that of your players.

I'm not sure how helpful this is - but here's a mechanic to look at, from Dread: The First Book of Pandemonium. It also uses dice pools, counting the highest number in your pool as the result. However, when you roll several equal results, the number of equal dice is added to the result. So, for instance, a roll of 6, 4, 4, 4 would count as a result of 7 (4 + three 4's).

BTW, what are exploding dice?

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  The system itself once I get my basic write up will come through less complex then the above most likley made it out to be, which I will try to do before the weekend. I apologize for having not explain "exploding dice", the concept is that when certain results are rolled the die is actualy rolled over again. So for example a roll of ten being a success, results in a re-roll of the die and the posibility for it to contribute more success to the roll.
Regards, Seth