Probabilities, mechanic tweak, blathering pointlessly

[Shreyas Sampat]

Actually my idea was that the first player gets to pick out any number he wants, and then the other gets the remainder to claim from as he wishes.

This doesn't have as much of the interesting strategic element, though...

[Lance D. Allen]

Hm. I'm not at all sure I like the skill - skill idea, personally. I think the skill -vs- TN/DR/whatever you want to call it was notably better.

What exactly was your rationale for changing it? I don't remember seeing anything that would suggest a problem.

[taalyn]

The idea for changing it resulted form Mikes Standard Rant #4, where he discusses the fact that there is an actuality no such thing as an opposed roll. I think I took it the wrong way, and am going back to the DL/TN thing I had before.

  I do hate calling them successes,  though, since if you don't get enough, they're not successes! So whereas it was skill>=TN before, it's now skill-TN>= 0. TN is directly correlated to an opposing skill or X-ness. So, it's still an all-opposed system, it's just transparent in game play.

  Shreyas and Brian, I really like this idea, and have thought of a couple of other applications as well. I don't know if they (or the original idea) will play out, but it's something I am going to think about. One of the most important of the additional uses of this 'use of remnants' idea is hit location. Normally, hit location is a 2-mote draw, and the combination of colors indicates location: if red (limbs) and and green (head/heart) is dwn, that's one of the major joints (shoulder/hips), as they're the most essential  part (green) of the limbs (red.)

   Anyway, I've come back around to basically where I was. As in other hobbies, I see something cool I like, and I want to indorporate it right away - not doable in anything!

   Thanks for the comments and ideas, everyone. And for putting with my wishywashy-ness (B8)!

  Aidan

[Lance D. Allen]

I know exactly how you feel about the "ooh, neat! I want it!" Phenomenon. I see something in another game that really impresses me, and I immediately try to think of ways to incorporate it into Mage Blade. Sometimes this is a good thing, and proper incorporation can strengthen the game a lot, and other times, it's a plain BAD thing, and can lead to the game being weakened by an idea which is great, but does not mesh with the style of game being created.

This is why this board is a double-edged sword. A lot of good ideas can be shared, but these ideas do not work with every game. Likewise, attempting to work in too many features from another game you like can make it too much like that game, and in that case, why not just play that one, rather than one that is strongly based off of it. I mean, who really wants to play a "Riddle of Steel Heartbreaker" or some such? The original game is awesome. Anything else is just imitation.

[taalyn]

After finally figuring out the odds (I just ran a little prog to make 10 million random draws), here's how the TNs work.

Any TN is half of the opposing skill, rounded up. This was determined form the odds I ran, and the mean number of successes for a given hand.

Jonas is trying to duplicate a potion of invisibility he found in a cluricaun's grimoire.  His generic cooking skills (applicable to potion making in this case) fall with his nature, with a hand of 6. This will be a precision task. The Potionness of the recipe is 7 (pretty difficult), which is halved to create a DL of 4. Jonas draws 6-4=2 motes, hoping for a success (any cyan mote, or by adjacency rules, blue or green, or by stacking rules, a mote he can explain and gain a success). He draws: XB. 1 success by adjacency (he makes the potion), 2 successes by stacking (X/Clear/magic - his desire to make the potion manifests his own internal magic unbidden, and B/Blue/Will, his focus aided his magic in happening).

That's a pretty complicated, poorly explained example, but hopefully you get the drift.

Aidan