Questions on mechanic for my system -- answers please

[vgunn]

Okay, I think I have finally settled on a resolution that works for me. Really simple overall, but I still have a few questions and concerns. Hoping you can give some advice.

Here is the rundown:

Stat+skill(s)+2d6 roll high, meet or exceed target number for success. Reroll doubles and add to total. The higher you beat the TN the more successes you get (three-point increments give you an extra success). Pretty straightforward.

BTW -- Stats go 1-12 and skills 1-6.

Now for specializations or qualities I was thinking of giving bonus d6 (flaws give penalty d6 and take lowest 2 numbers). Really becomes a d6 roll and keep, similar to Green Ronin's Song of Ice & Fire game. No matter how many d6 you roll, you only keep 2.

So a couple of questions:

Should there be a cap on how many d6 you can roll? I was thinking 5 or 6. Reasoning behind this is skill specializations go from 1-6. Qualities go from 1-3. However what if someone has a 6 say in short blade specialization and a 3 in battlelust. That would mean 9d6 can be rolled.

Should specializations and qualities provide different bonuses (one gives +points to the roll and the other gives d6)?

If you roll 5d6 and keep 2, should you be able to reroll if there were doubles? For example, roll 5d6 you get 2, 4, 4, 1, 6. Keep the two fours and reroll.

How should I handle penalty dice for flaws? Say you have a -2 flaw, roll 4d6 and keep lowest 2. Does this sound good?

Thanks in advance!

[Vulpinoid]

How important do you want specialisations to be in your system?

Under the current mechanic, they can easily overshadow the attributes and skills.

This may be what you're after, or it may not.

If it is what you are after, then I'd thoroughly recommend making specialisations and qualities more expensive from the perspective of XP, and I'd also tie these aspects more carefully into the background colour of the game. Possibly even make the acquisition of these specialisations and qualities the focus of quests and storylines.

Rolling two dice (and picking the best) compared to simply rolling one gives an average result just over two points higher. I'm not 100% on the stats here, but if I remember correctly, rolling a third die and picking the best two gives a result slightly lower (just under two points higher than the raw 2 dice).

Once you throw a doubles aspect into the mix, then rolling extra dice becomes even more volatile and potentially nasty.

There seem to be a couple of things in the system that are neddlessly complicating things, so I'm just going to ask a couple of questions to clarify some details.

How are you working skill specialisations?

You indicate that the system uses Stat+Skill+2d6, but the skill specialisation is adding more dice. Is the skill specialisation limited by the value rating in the skill?

Do you really need to throw in more dice when the skill is already improving the degree of success?

If you've got bonuses to the die roll coming from extra dice and increased static modifiers, do you really want more complications by splitting up the benefits provided by specialisations and qualities?

Once you clarify this for me, I'll try to help out a bit more.

V

[vgunn]

How important do you want specialisations to be in your system?

Under the current mechanic, they can easily overshadow the attributes and skills.

This may be what you're after, or it may not.

No this is something that I am afraid of.

There are 3 core Stats (Mind, Body, Soul), rated each from 1-12 (average is 4-6)

There are 20 or so broad Skills rated each 1-6 (average is 1-2)

Specializations are ranked each from 1-6. For example: Body stat 5, Combat skill 3 [Blades+2d6] is the specialization. So the character would have 8 (5 from stat, 3 from skill) and roll 5d6 keeping the highest two.

If it is what you are after, then I'd thoroughly recommend making specialisations and qualities more expensive from the perspective of XP, and I'd also tie these aspects more carefully into the background colour of the game. Possibly even make the acquisition of these specialisations and qualities the focus of quests and storylines.

Absolutely. Specializations are very expensive. I also was thinking of placing restrictions such as a specialization can max only be 2 points higher than the skill (still capped at 6), so if someone had a Combat skill of 2, a specialization would be maxed at 4. Also the number of different specializations per skill, can be one less than the skill number. For example if the combat skill was 2 you could have blades (1-4), if combat skill was 3, you could have blades (1-4) and axes (1-4).

Now a thought that occured was that specializations would max at double the score of a skill. So you would, with a skill of 6 (the highest rating), have 12 specialization points. Make the number of specializations you were allowed to equal skill rating. So again with a skill of 6 you could have 6 different specializations. However, with only 12 total points this would limit the specialization ratings.

Rolling two dice (and picking the best) compared to simply rolling one gives an average result just over two points higher. I'm not 100% on the stats here, but if I remember correctly, rolling a third die and picking the best two gives a result slightly lower (just under two points higher than the raw 2 dice).

You always have at least 2d6. So you are saying rolling 3d6 will bump up the average score by 2 points.

Once you throw a doubles aspect into the mix, then rolling extra dice becomes even more volatile and potentially nasty.

Okay, so what if I say; a roll of more than 2d6 does not allow rerolls.

How are you working skill specialisations?

You indicate that the system uses Stat+Skill+2d6, but the skill specialisation is adding more dice. Is the skill specialisation limited by the value rating in the skill?

I certainly was thinking I must limit this, maybe that would be the best idea.

Do you really need to throw in more dice when the skill is already improving the degree of success?

Stat and skill do form the base bonus, but I am not opposed to specializations increasing the chance of success a bit more.

If you've got bonuses to the die roll coming from extra dice and increased static modifiers, do you really want more complications by splitting up the benefits provided by specialisations and qualities?

For qualities definately this is a concern. What about the quality lowering the TN? Or something else that has an effect. For example: body stat 4, combat skill 3, blades 2, swift-strike 1. Base is 7, roll 3d6 keep 2, swift strike lowers TN by 1.

[Vulpinoid]

My instant reaction here is to say...

"Dude, that's a lot of numbers going on!! This isn't the 80's where game design is measured by "realism", and "realism" is designed by making things complicated."

But my second reaction says...

"Let's get to the bottom of this and see what you're really trying to do with your system."

Specialisations, Skills and Qualities.

Hmmm.

So, specialisations descend from skills. The better your skill level, the more specialisations you have access to and the better they can become; the better your specialisations the more dice you can roll.

The dilemma I'm seeing here is that skills are already improving the chances of doing stuff. Using specialisations to improve things in a different way is just doubling up to maximise the benefits from a few different perspectives. Again, if this is the aim of the system, then you're designing it well. Otherwise it just looks a bit like overkill to me.

Okay, so what if I say; a roll of more than 2d6 does not allow rerolls.

This comes in at an oblique angle, and sort of hits at another issue...I'll try to address it in the following response.

A character with 2 in an attribute and 1 skill in fighting a character with 10 in an attribute and 5 in a skill. The lowly ranked character rolls the best possible die result {double 6's} scoring a total of 15. The higher ranked character still beats this score even if they roll a minimum {double 1's} for a total of 17. It's literally impossible for the lower ranking guy to hit the higher ranking character unless there is some kind of option for exploding dice (or additive re-rolls).

Again, this may be something you'd like to see in your system, or it might not. But it's something to consider.

For qualities definately this is a concern. What about the quality lowering the TN? Or something else that has an effect. For example: body stat 4, combat skill 3, blades 2, swift-strike 1. Base is 7, roll 3d6 keep 2, swift strike lowers TN by 1.

For your game mechanism as it stands, lowering the TN is exactly the same as increasing the die roll. The difference at the end gives an idea of the degree of success. You aren't rolling more dice and counting the successful dice as successes.

Having some effects increase die rolls, while other effects decrease difficulties doesn't really improve things, it just means players have to perform additions and subtractions to a value before they even start their dice rolling. That slows things down. To show my point; arguably, one of the best things that 3rd Edition D&D did was to get rid of THAC0. I've heard dozens of people say this and have read it hundreds of times on forums and in blogs. I don't know of many people who actually prefer the THAC0 thing (unless their getting off on a retro kick).

Do you really need to throw in more dice when the skill is already improving the degree of success?

Stat and skill do form the base bonus, but I am not opposed to specializations increasing the chance of success a bit more.
[/quote]

This is actually the dead opposite of my intention.

I'm actually asking why there are extra dice as well as the improved base bonus.

I'd be more inclined to give characters a range of specialisations (one specialisation per level in their combat skill). Characters assign a key word or phrase to this specialisation and how it gives them a bonus in combat (Knives, Enclosed Spaces, Knock-Out blows, etc.) If the character is able to apply one of these benefits to the events at hand, they get a single extra die to play with. Having higher skill level just means having access to more of these specialisation bonuses, and a better likelihood of gaining access to that third die.

To make qualities different to specialisations, I'd give them the same sort of effect, a descriptive term that might be relevant to the situation at hand but turn these into a static bonus (+1 to +3). This is working on the assumption that qualities aren't directly linked to skills, and could possibly be applied to any skill of the situation permits. Flaws would simply work as the opposite of qualities and would provide a penalty (-1 to -3) when their situations are present.

I realise that this breaks away from your handfuls of dice concept...and some people love the visceral feel of throwing a whole bunch of dice down onto the table...but I'm trying to avoid what I'm seeing as needless complications in the system.

Don't take what I'm saying as roleplaying commandments, they're just ideas.

V
{Oh, P.S. I've been spelling specialisations rather than specializations, because that's how we do it down under.}

[vgunn]

Michael,

Again thank you, positive or negative feedback is always welcome.

You said:

I'd be more inclined to give characters a range of specialisations (one specialisation per level in their combat skill). Characters assign a key word or phrase to this specialisation and how it gives them a bonus in combat (Knives, Enclosed Spaces, Knock-Out blows, etc.) If the character is able to apply one of these benefits to the events at hand, they get a single extra die to play with. Having higher skill level just means having access to more of these specialisation bonuses, and a better likelihood of gaining access to that third die.

Okay so at skill rank 6, they could have 6 different specializations. But only only 1 of them can be used for the bonus d6 during an action (depending on the situation).

You said:

To make qualities different to specialisations, I'd give them the same sort of effect, a descriptive term that might be relevant to the situation at hand but turn these into a static bonus (+1 to +3). This is working on the assumption that qualities aren't directly linked to skills, and could possibly be applied to any skill of the situation permits. Flaws would simply work as the opposite of qualities and would provide a penalty (-1 to -3) when their situations are present.


Not a bad idea at all.

A question I do have is, how is my system that much different from ASOIAF?

Here is the resolution for that game:

Quote:

Abilities

A character’s rating in an ability is measured by rank, a number listed after the ability, like “Athletics 2” or “Fighting 4”. The greater your rank, the better you are at using that ability. Rank says a lot about your character and knowing it means can help you translate the numbers into useful descriptions. Abilities are ranked from 1 (the lowest) to 7 (the highest).

Specialties

Where rank represents talent combined with training, Specialties reflect a narrowing of an ability’s focus, the result of specific development in one of the many areas an ability encompasses. Specialties, like abilities, are ranked from 1 to 7. They are designated as a number followed by a B (for “bonus”). So, if you had rank 2 in the Axes specialty, you’d note it as Axes 2B. Your specialty rank cannot exceed your ability rank. Your rank in a specialty provides a number of bonus dice toward your ability test. Also, when an opponent tests against your passive test result, you may add the rank of a specialty that most closely applies to the passive test. For example, if a spy tries to sneak past you, he rolls a Stealth test against your passive Awareness test. Assuming you have Awareness 4, your passive result would be 16 (4 times rank 4). If, however, you had a Notice 2 specialty, your passive result would be 18 instead (16 + 2 for the specialty rank).

Qualities

A primary use of Destiny is acquiring various qualities, innate advantages, ranging from prowess in combat to social graces to wealth or even rare supernatural gifts. Several qualities are described for the characters in this book, and many more are presented in the A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying
rulebook.

Drawbacks

The characters of the A Song of Ice and Fire saga are often flawed, some fatally so. Others struggle to overcome the setbacks fate has dealt them. Thus some SIFRP characters have drawbacks, negative qualities, imposing some penalty or difficulty   on the character. You can see several   drawbacks described for the sample characters in this book, including Bastard Born and Flaw. Other drawbacks in SIFRP include things like Craven, Crippled, Debt, Nemesis, and Outcast.

Using Dice

When rolling to try something, you're said to be testing the ability or rolling an ability test. These are called test dice, so if you test a rank 3 ability, for example, you roll three d6. Say you get a 2, 3, 5, you add the numbers up to get a result of 10.

Sometimes, you'll get to roll additional d6 called bonus dice. Bonus dice are not added, but instead improve your chances at getting a better result. You never roll bonus dice by themselves, but roll them along with your test dice and then keep the highest dice equal your test dice. Bonus dice are abbreviated with #B, with the # describing how many bonus dice you get to roll. So, in the previous example, if you test a rank 3 ability with two bonus dice (2B), you roll five six-sided dice, and add up the highest three numbers (equal to the number of test dice).

Modifiers

A modifier is a bonus or penalty applied to a test result. Modifiers are gained as a result of situational factors, such as smoke or fog, being injured and so on.

Penalty Dice

Penalty dice are drawbacks imposed by wounds, flaws, or certain actions. Each penalty die cancels one test die when adding up your result, starting with the lowest remaining die. You apply the penalty die after you roll and after you drop any bonus dice. Penalty dice are abbreviated as #P, so when you see –1P, it means you have one penalty die.

Example: Steve’s character, Reinhart, suffers a wound, imposing 1 penalty die on all tests. In the thick of combat, he shoots an arrow from his longbow at a charging Wildling. Steve has Marksmanship 4 (Bows 2). He rolls six dice and gets a 6, 5, 4, 4, 3, and 1. He drops the 1 and 3 for his bonus dice. He must also drop one of his 4s because of the penalty die from his wound, giving him a result of 15.

Testing Abilities

Whenever you attempt something with dramatic consequences or when the outcome of the action is not certain, you test your abilities. A test is a roll of the dice with   the aim of exceeding the action’s Difficulty. The   number of dice you roll is determined by the most relevant ability, so if you try to stab a Gold Cloak with your sword, you use Fighting, or if you’re trying to scale a keep’s wall, test Athletics. Once   the ability is determined, the   Narrator sets the test’s Difficulty.    The Difficulty describes the   complexity and challenge of   the action. To help   assess how hard a   task is, a   Difficulty number has a descriptor, such as Routine for Difficulty 6, Challenging   for Difficulty 9 and climbing all the way to 21 (or higher) for nearly impossible ones.

Roll the dice

Once you roll the dice, sum the highest results equal to your test dice and add or subtract any modifiers. The total is the test result.

Example: Nicole rolls five d6 (three test dice and two bonus dice from her specialty) and gets 6, 6, 5, 2, 1. She discards the 2 and 1, since they count as bonus dice and adds up the rest, getting a 17 as her result. The test Difficulty was Formidable (12). Since Nicole beat the Difficulty with her 17, she succeeds!

Okay so here is a thought for my mechanic. Stat rank is number (Body 6). Skill is bonus d6. Specialty provides positive modifier in certain applicable situations.

[Monk]

So as I understand your system, you get a dice pool by adding together stats and skills, roll them, and keep only the highest two dice? On it's face this gives a very low range of end results and at a certain point everyone will be having 12.
  Enter doubles - rather than rerolling them, how about you make doubles 'stack' so they can be treated as one die? Thus if you rolled 6, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2 you would want to keep the fives and twos. The fives 'stack' to give one 'die' with a value of ten, and the twos do the same with a value of 8 - meaning 18. Treating doubles in this way makes calculating the dice a bit easier (you just look for high dice and doubles) and gives an unlimited amount of result possibilities.
  Also, rather than figuring out the degree of success by figuring out how much the roll exceeded the target number and dividing by three, why not just have the TN be a number of successes that must be met or beat. Then just divide the result by 3 to see how many successes you get. Thus, using the above roll against a TN of 2, we see that you succeeded the roll with 4 successes to spare.

[vgunn]

So as I understand your system, you get a dice pool by adding together stats and skills, roll them, and keep only the highest two dice? On it's face this gives a very low range of end results and at a certain point everyone will be having 12.
  Enter doubles - rather than rerolling them, how about you make doubles 'stack' so they can be treated as one die? Thus if you rolled 6, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2 you would want to keep the fives and twos. The fives 'stack' to give one 'die' with a value of ten, and the twos do the same with a value of 8 - meaning 18. Treating doubles in this way makes calculating the dice a bit easier (you just look for high dice and doubles) and gives an unlimited amount of result possibilities.

Interesting. What if you have only one set of doubles? I assume keep the highest single die and the other stack. Right?

Also, rather than figuring out the degree of success by figuring out how much the roll exceeded the target number and dividing by three, why not just have the TN be a number of successes that must be met or beat. Then just divide the result by 3 to see how many successes you get. Thus, using the above roll against a TN of 2, we see that you succeeded the roll with 4 successes to spare.

Okay so a Formidable Difficulty rating for example, you need 6 successes. Roll, total and then divide by 3. Correct? If so, I like this a lot.

[Monk]

Interesting. What if you have only one set of doubles? I assume keep the highest single die and the other stack. Right?

Exactly. I don't imagine that you'd have only two dice very often with the stats you proposed.

Okay so a Formidable Difficulty rating for example, you need 6 successes. Roll, total and then divide by 3. Correct? If so, I like this a lot.

Yup. You'll probably have to fiddle with exactly how many successes you need, and you could also skip the division step by just multiplying difficulties by 3 (as in: Instead of 6 successes, you need 18).

If you do that, then to determine degree of success you can instead use something else rather than the total rolled. You could use the specific numbers used in the total, use the rest of the numbers that you rolled, or some other combination. Here's a few methods:
  A: Unique Stacks - Take the two stacks used to figure out your total. The degree of success is determined by adding together the unique instances of numerals. Example: Your two stacks were 4 and 3,3. You have 7 degrees of success.
  B: Stack Height - Total the number of individual dice that went into your stacks. Example: Your stacks are 5,5 and 2. You have 3 degrees of success.
  C: Stack Combo - Specific combinations of numbers increase success. If your stacks are sequential, add one level of success. If the number of dice in a stack is equal to the value of that die, add one success (or maybe a number equal to the number of dice, or 7-the number of dice). Or you can come up with any other combos you want. Example: If your stacks are 3,3,3 and 2,2, you have four levels of success (1 base + 1 sequential + 1 three 3s +1 two 2s)
  D: High Dice - Total the number of dice in the roll that are 6's (I'm assuming you're using d6s here) and that is your degree of success. Example: You roll 6, 6, 4, 3, 2. You use the 6s and the 4 for your stacks, and have three degrees of success (assuming a base of 1).
  E: Higher Dice - Take the number of dice not used in your stack that have higher values than the dice you did use. Example: You roll 6, 5, 5, 4, 4. You use the 4s and 5s for your stacks, and since the 6 is higher than those, you have two degrees of success (base of one, right?). This would encourage players to take chances at failure by choosing lower dice than they could in the hopes of getting high degrees of success.
  F: High minus Low - Total the number of dice in the roll that are 6's, and subtract the number of dice that came up 1's. This is your degree of success. Example: You roll 6, 4, 4, 3, 1, 1. You use the 6 and the 4s for your stacks, and have -1 success! Only use this method if you want to have negative consequences to success.
  G: Pairs- Instead of picking only two stacks, pile all the dice up into stacks, and pair them up. For every pair that succeeds, you get a success. Example: You roll against a difficulty of 9 and get 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1. You divide them into stacks as follows: (5, 5) + (4, 4), 6 + (2, 2), and 3+ (1, 1). Since two of these pairs are 18 and 10, you get two successes.
  H: Leftovers- After picking your stacks, total all of the dice not used in your stacks (or maybe them too). For every multiple of the difficulty achieved you get an additional success. Example: You roll against a difficulty of 12 and get 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1. You use the 6 and the 5s for your stacks, and the total of the rest is 13. You got two successes - one for the stacks and one for the leftovers.

There's still lots more different ways to determine degrees of success if you want to, and each of the methods above could by modified or varied nearly endlessly. I hope I gave you a good starting point.