The Gentleman's Game - A Political Steampunk Adventure

[Nuthael]

Hello.

I am writing a steampunk adventure set on the remote island of Irol'isse. The game takes place amongst great political intrigue as the omnipotent king falls ill and the myriad of potential successors secretly organise each other's deaths. The king, although greatly incapacitated, has a standing order to kill anyone who is found working against anyone with royal blood, and that is where the characters come in. Generally fresh from the 'Academy Mercene' and not expected to live much longer than their first mission, they are bought by the rich and powerful royalty to undertake all of the dirty dealings and back alley murders that they can handle. Any who return alive are rewarded hansomely.

The game itself runs on a system of money, fame, and d10s. All actions that are done against a human adversary can be made easier by giving up either fame (used in-game as Renown) and money (used in-game as Finances).

The actions themselves are resolved through the use of dice. Two d10s are rolled and compared to the most appropriate attribute. Each attribute is a conjuction of two of the attribute groups (Mental, Physical, Social) and derive their usefulness from those groups. For example, a character might have Physical 6 and Mental 4, their Finesse (Physical + Mental) would therefore be ( 6 | 2 ) (Halving the score for the minor attribute). Then when performing an action requiring a finesse roll, they would roll 2d10, and compare the roll to their Finesse score of ( 6 | 2 ). Let's say they got a 5 and a 4, they would therefore have one of the two below one of their finesse scores, what is called a "Minor Success."
Rolls can have three possible outcomes:
1) Major Success (Both dice rolled under the attribute scores)
2) Minor Success (One of the two dice under one of the scores)
3) Failure (Niether of the dice under the score)

This result would then be compared to the roll of the opposition. For example, if we took the minor success of the finesse roll and applied it to a major success of the opposition, the action would therefore be a failure.
There are five possible final outcomes:
1) Critical Success (Only when you roll a major success and they roll a failure)
2) Success (When you roll one step above their roll (Major vs. Minor Success, Minor Success vs. Failure))
3) Nothing happens (When you roll the same as them (Major vs. Major, Minor vs. Minor, Failure vs. Failure))
4) Failure (When you roll one step below their roll (Minor Sucess vs. Major Success, Failure vs. Minor Success))
5) Critical Failure (Only when you roll a failure and they roll a major success)

This allows the GM to specifically quantify the margin of success. For example, a Success means that the action succeeds, a failure means that something bad happens.

This is then reinforced by Training. When you have bought training (Skills), you roll a third dice and compare it to the level of training, then keep the best two of the three rolls.

I feel that this system re-inforces the uncertainty of working in politics. That is, just as if you trust someone you could get stabbed in the back, even if you roll a major success you could still not succeed in the action.

Thoughts?

[MacLeod]

Looks like you've pounded out some solid ideas.

You could use rate Success a little differently... on a scale from 1 ~ 4, you'd have less ties this way.

If a die beats both the Primary and the Minor Attribute TN, that generates 2 Successes. Thus, if both dice beat those values you get 4 Successes. However, if a die only beats one of the TNs it generates 1 Success whereas a die that is higher than both TNs generates 0 Successes.

This follows pretty closely to the model you've already presented... just a small wrinkle that generates two additional outcomes.

[chance.thirteen]

I like the basic mechanics, and I like the suggestions above.

Either mechanism sports only a 1% chance of auto max success (unless you can round down to zero on the minor trait).

[Luke]

Do you really want a result in which nothing happens? What do you imagine happening at the table at that moment? Is there an awkward pause and everyone looks around sheepishly until the GM claps his hands and says, "What next?"

"Nothing happens" is bad for business.

-L

[chance.thirteen]

True. The idea of nothing ventured nothing gained is a good one to think about in any game. Of course assessing risk vs potential profit is a hard call, and sometimes it is hard to imagine a level of commitment to an action where failure costs you somemore than not succeeding.

[MacLeod]

I don't think a tie necessarily means nothing happened... Mechanically it means nothing but for narrative it could be plenty.

Of course, you could just resolve ties right then and there.
The tie could go to the player. Always a good choice because it is often times more fun for players to succeed than to fail (exceptions are duly noted). Or,
it could go to whomever has the highest combination of Primary and Minor Attributes. Thus a guy with a 6/2 is beaten by the d00d with a 5/4. Or,
the ol' roll off. Each side just rolls an unmodified six-sided die. In the case of a tie continue rolling until one is the clear victor (by lowest number). This person is then awarded a single Success.

[Nuthael]

@ Luke: By "nothing heppens" I was generalising, and i meant entirely mechanically. Specifically, there is no significant result. if you are trying to break down a door, the door creaks, but doesn't give. I was using this as a separation from the definitive 'failure' where something negative happens and the difinitive 'success' where something positive happens.

@ MacLeod: Yes, I was considering an ol' fashioned roll off, and was trying to fit it in as more than just a simple 'whoever rolls lowest wins' into something that fits better with the system. Also, to respond to your earlier post, my original plan held a 4 tier success plan, where if one die where lower than both, the other higher, it was a minor success, and if one die were higher than one and lower than the other it was a minor failure, but that felt... messy. Still, I am exploring avenues in which i can lessen the chances of ties.

[GozerTC]

Whenever I read about "levels of success" I think of the OLD James Bond RPG.  I doubt most have ever seen the system but the idea was that it was VERY hard to fail.  (You're James Bond after all) It's just a matter of how well you succeed. 

It used percential dice and you had 5 levels of success.  It was a fun system for the genre (It was purposefully designed to have single guy with a pistol beat waves of machine gun toting baddies) so probably not quite what you're looking for but I agree with MacLeod that maybe you should look into having more "layers" of success as it were.