yet another core mechanic I'm toying with

[John Blaz]

Hey everyone, I've been trying to come up with a system for a fantasy and modern day survival horror RPG for a while now. I have a decent idea of the settings and such for both, but have yet to decided 100% on a system. I like "success level" systems (like World of Darkness) where characters have the chance to get multiple successes on their actions which shows how well they've performed on a skill, or damage or what-have-you. So here's my thought:

multiple d20s under the character's relevant skill rank
Stat rank equals number of d20s to roll (stats max out at 5 or so maybe)

so punching would work out as: Strength 3, Punching skill 12
roll 3d20, each one under 12 counts as a Success.

The reason I like this approach is that multiple modifiers can be stacked onto the character's skill level. So, say a character is sniping with an accurate rifle. The rifle may add +2 to their skill, if they lay prone they might receive another +2, it's foggy out so they receive a -4 etc. etc.

I know you guys are the masters at this sort of thing, just wondering if this is a feasible idea or not.
I'm also wondering if certain situations should modify the dicepool, or if that randomizes things too much.

[Vulpinoid]

If you were going to use a system that modified both the difficulty thresholds/roll results, as well as the size of the dice pool, I'd make sure the modifiers applied in completely different ways.

An option could be to have one set of modifiers be internal, while the other one remains external.

Fog, visibility, cover, unforeseen difficulties, assistance from tools and things that affect the chances of success from a external perspective would increase or reduce the skill level/difficulty threshold.

Injuries, confusion, drugs, internally focused mystic influences and things that affect the chances of success from within would increase or decrease the dice pool.

Keeping the two separate would reduce the possible confusion. Don't get me wrong, it won't eliminate the confusion completely...you'll still get confusion, especially when people try to work out what's an internal and what's an external modifier, but a decent list of examples should help remedy this.

Just an idea...

V

[John Blaz]

Still waiting on some more feedback before I make any decisions, might have to move this to another board...?

[hoefer]

My Century's Edge system has all sorts of ways a roll might be modified.  This isn't necessarily a good thing as Vulpinoid pointed out.  After confusion in early playtesting, I tried hard to organized the conditions under which the different types of modifiers would come into play. 

As he said, interenal situations vs. external situations is a nice division. 

I also tried to delineate in the narrator's section how the different modifiers affect the roll -so the narrator would know whether a situation would call for a Bonus Factor or a bonus die (in my system a Bonus Factor tends to have a much larger impact, pushing numbers to the greater success levels.  Where as, bonus dies tend to increase the chance of success but still keep it within the average range of success -if that makes sense).  Giving the narrator a lot of tools is nice, but you have to label them and justify their existance...
Louis Hoefer
www.wholesumentertainment.com

[soundmasterj]

One small thought: adding and substracting modificators, especially multiple stacking ones, takes a lot of time and therefore a lot of action out of the game. Shadowrun, a prime example of this, recently moved away from three dimensions of math (number of dice, target number, number of successes) and went for a two-dimensional system (number of dice, fixed target number, number of successes). Now firing a single bullet no longer takes 15 minutes, just 10. We all know basic math, but determining which modifiers apply is more of a social thing than a mathematical and it takes a lot of time. I would try avoiding it at all cost if you are at all concerned about fast-paced mechanical resolution. If you LIKE that part of the game (and to be honest, I do), go for it, but fast-paced it ain´t.

So - I hereby speak out against Vulopnoid
How about we look at this from a completely different perspective? Say- your character has 5 Agility, 10 Shooting, it is raining and he has the trait or speciality "Aiming". Now you throw 5 white dice, one blue die and one red die. When you want to use the red die (say it shows a 2), you have to narrate how in shooting, the character has to focus to make out the werewolf through the pouring rain. If you use the blue die, you have to narrate how in shooting dead the wolf, the character has to aim carefully. If you use both, both, if neither, neither. I guess that´s how I would do it if I wanted to tell stories like in movies, in books. If, however, I wanted to approach this more like a computer game, I would make up a huge list of stacking modificators. Maybe in that case, Vulpnoids idea would be a good one, one had to test that. The question is, do you want tactics (numbers) or stories (words)? Both are fine, I guess, but they seldomly mix well. If you tell me what you are going for, I will give it further thought.

[Vulpinoid]

I'm just wondering how you are speaking out against me.

I proposed an option for simplifying things (especially with regard to speeding up game play). The internal/external divide seemed to make sense based on the initial suggestion of modifying both pool size and die results. The list of tables was just a opening suggestion for how these might be incorporated.

Besides, I'm strongly of the opinion that other perspectives are good.

My follow-up question is where the blue and red dice come from? Are they always added to every skill attempt? Are they bonus dice available through expenditure of a meta-game resource? Why add these into a mix if the aim is to avoid complicating things?

V

[soundmasterj]

Let´s just say that the last thing I intended to do was get the focus from the discussion about rules to how you, V, and I are positioned in this discussion. I shouldn´t even have mentioned your name, V. Starting a meta-discussion was my fault and I hereby pledge to no longer participate in it.

Where do these dice come from? It all depends. One could let a Game Master assign dice based on circumstance (like, rain), good or bad, and the played might be allowed to add everyone of his traits (like, Aiming) he wants to to the mix. One could say that for every roll, exactly one external and one trait-based die would be added to the pool, where GM and players had to decide which trait and which circumstance apply for each case; or one could have these dice freely assigned. Vulpinoid suggested a metamechanical pool, that´d be fine, too, I guess.
It all depends.

Why add these to the mix? Because you want to put external restrictions on narrative. They help immensly in my opinion. Vincent D. Baker once mentioned in passing that one of the main effects of rules is to force players to narrate their players as not being perfect; because perfect characters are boring, but if being free to choose, everyone would be perfect.

Again, I´d like to press the importance of my main issue: if you want a tactics game, give tactical options. If you want a dramatic game, don´t; give narrative options instead. If and only if you want it to be "realistic" in the sense that the rules should give all the players the feeling that "this is how it would have happened", they should attempt to somehow simulate a reality.

[soundmasterj]

I found a (free, indie) german RPG using your mechanic with Vs suggestions added: Aera (aera-rpg.de). They roll (attribute) D12 against (difficulty set by GM - skill level), counting each die higher than that number as a success.
They do it thusly: whatever concerns the character himself changes dice pool (spending endurance points gives bonus dice, being wounded reduces the dice pool), circumstances are reflected by the difficulty number - here, the GM decides relatively arbitrary. So he might say, shooting in the rain is difficult, the difficulty number be 10 or something.

I don´t like that, but that´s how they do it. If your only goal is "creating a feeling of emulating physical probability", go for it, I´m pretty sure it takes ages though and in all cases (be it that difficulty is set by GM fiat or be it that different modificators you have to look up on prepared tables stack), there will be a lot of unwanted bargaining and metagaming. I think you´d have to decide what your rules should do before you start counting and computing.

[David C]

I didn't read the rest of the replies, so forgive me if this has been mentioned or become irrelevant. 

What if instead of the traditional "Difficulty number" + "Dice for success" you did the opposite.  Instead, you have a skill level ranging from 2-20.  The GM then assigns a difficulty, 1-5.  1 is very hard, 5 is very easy.   Successes are determined by how many you roll under your skill.

Alternatively, if the game you want to be playing uses the traditional roll+modifier mechanic, have you ever considered making successes be how much you succeed by?  For example, if you succeed by 10, you get two successes instead of the 1 success you got for rolling above the difficulty.