Need help reducing handling time in my Signature RPG

[Palaskar]

The bit about reducing handling time has oddly coincided with my own concerns over my game's own resolution systems handling time.

The system is very flexible and comprehenive, but there are quite a few steps.

I was wondering if there was any way to reduce handling time without losing comprehensiveness.

Anyway, here it is:

Resolution Method
1. Describe the action.

2. Find the appropraite Trait. Traits are written as Succeses (Edge); for example, Brawling: 1 (50). Success is generally from 1 to 3, but is open-ended. Edge is from 0 to 100, exclusive, to as many decimal places as neccessary.

3. Modify the Trait's Success value for Plausibility or Difficulty of the action, from -3 to +3 Successes. Plausibility is how believable an action is, given the rating of the Trait. Difficulty is the rating of the opposing Trait in an opposed action.

4. If applicable, modify the resulting value for Tactics or Color used in describing the action, from +1 to +3 Successes. Tactics are tactical moves like circling to your opponent's blind side. Color are evocative descriptions of an action, like in Exalted.

5. Roll Edge on percentile dice. Less than Edge gives +1 Success.

Option: 6. Roll Variability. Variability is a number of dice rolled to give a varying positive or negative modifier to the Successes. Heroic games will tend to have flat or pyramidal curves with smaller ranges of modifiers, while gritty games will have more bell-shaped curves with larger ranges of modifiers. The range will never exceed -3 to +3 Successes. Right now, I have a fairly complicated chart that lists dice from 1d6 to 4d6, and Successes from -3 to +3. If a smaller range is desired, I'm suggesting that larger, out-of range Successes simply be ignored in favor of smaller ones.

7. The resulting number is the number of Successes. 1 Success equals minor success, 2 Successes equals major success, and 3 Successes equals complete and total success.

8. Spend Wild Points to modify the Successes, if wished. This is like HeroWars Hero Points.


9. The other side may then spend Wild points to modify Successes, and then the first side, and so on, until one side relents or runs out of Wild Points.

[Shreyas Sampat]

My recommendations:

Plausibility and Tactics/Color are almost directly opposed to each other, by my interpretation... I'd lose one of them.  (You imply that the system is means to be applicable to different styles; you could have a switch that chooses one or the other but not both for any particular instance of the game.)
Alternatively, Plausibility could be folded into Difficulty; this makes any Implausible action opposed.
Variability uses a different die type than Edge.  This strikes me as needless complication.  You could use decimal dicing here too.  You could even combine Edge and Variability, say by setting Edge as the zero point of the Variability curve; this cuts out an extra step.

New Process:
(assuming that Plausibility=Difficulty and Edge*Var)

Describe.
Choose Trait.  Note its S value.
Modify for Stunt.
Roll Edge/Var.  Modify appropriately.
Spend Wild.  Modify appropriately.

For opposed rolls, you simply compare the results of two unopposed rolls, allowing the Wild spending to continue under whatever framework you already have set up.

[Mike Holmes]

What does "Edge" represent? I'm guessing it's some sort of fractional value between levels of success or something?

Mike

[Palaskar]

Plausibility and Tactics/Color are almost directly opposed to each other, by my interpretation... I'd lose one of them. (You imply that the system is means to be applicable to different styles; you could have a switch that chooses one or the other but not both for any particular instance of the game.)

That's interesting. I lifted Plausibility from The Matrix Game; it's supposed to determine how 'believable' an action is, as opposed to the purely descriptive bonus from Tactics/Color. Plausibilty is also used to add new Traits, in a manner similar to that in The Matrix Game.

If I had to pick one, I'd pick Plausibilty. It's broader.

The switch I refer to is between Tactics and Color. Tactics is for realistic/gritty games; Color for cinematic games.

Alternatively, Plausibility could be folded into Difficulty; this makes any Implausible action opposed.

That's neat. I'll do that. By 'Implausible' I assume you mean any action with a negative Plausibility?

Variability uses a different die type than Edge. This strikes me as needless complication. You could use decimal dicing here too. You could even combine Edge and Variability, say by setting Edge as the zero point of the Variability curve; this cuts out an extra step.

Yes, but -how-? I've bent my mind around it a couple times, but I just can't figure out exactly how to do it.

New Process:
(assuming that Plausibility=Difficulty and Edge*Var)

Describe.
Choose Trait. Note its S value.
Modify for Stunt.
Roll Edge/Var. Modify appropriately.
Spend Wild. Modify appropriately.

For opposed rolls, you simply compare the results of two unopposed rolls, allowing the Wild spending to continue under whatever framework you already have set up.

By "modify for stunt" do you mean apply the Plausibility  modifier?

In any case, thank you very much for streamlining this for me. I'll include you in the 'Acknowledgements' section.

[Palaskar]

What does "Edge" represent? I'm guessing it's some sort of fractional value between levels of success or something?

Edge is indeed a fractional value between levels of success. It's meant to provide the additional granularity needed for, say, sentient robots, where a player can reasonably know that his character succeeds, say, 99.947% of the time.