Task resolution system ideas

[Brian T]

Hello all I am new to the board and have seen a bit of good feedback and decided to look for some feed back on a task resolution scheme I have been working on.

Before I get into the actual mechanic let me tell you what I was hoping for in the system. I, and I am sure many of you have seen systems where an attribute or skill level is favored. There is also systems where a Target value is what is needed on a dice roll. All these systems have their good and bad points.

What I am hoping to avoid is a person with a lot of "raw talent" represented by an Attribute but little skill, represented by a Skill from pasting someone with less raw talent but greater skill. While this has multiple considerations and arguments for and against either what I have come up with is this...

Attributes and Skills range in the 1-10 range. A typical starting character should be around a 5 in either for proficiency. Dice used will be 10 sided.

1. Determine the Attribute and Skill for the Task. For the example we will say shoot a gun and will use the terms Coordination (attribute) and Firearms (skill)

2. Take a standard starting base of 10 and subtract the Attribute, and this is the target number.

(this was chosen to represent that someone with a superior Attribute should have an easier time to perform the task.)

3. Roll the Skill level in Dice against the target number and count successes. Any die that shows a "10" is re-rolled. Any 1 that is rolled is placed aside for a more nefarious purpose.

4. While in most cases only one success is needed but more success increases the result such as faster repair time or in our example extra damage.

Note: This is a more heroic style game, so no matter what everyone gets 1 die to roll even if unskilled.

That is pretty much it, there will be some meta-gaming modifiers for things such as range, wounds, and situational modifiers.

This to me seems pretty sound for what I want to do. It allows more a more skilled person a greater chance to have better success but it makes allowances for those with great raw ability.

The main problem that jump up is in a long story arc / campaign where characters Attribute and Skill levels can become quite high. Giving the character a large number of dice (from skill) at a very easy target (from attribute).  I intend to have advancement of attributes a bit slower than skills and with the more heroic feel it may not be a problem, longevity however might be the issue.

Brian T.

[SumDood]

Sounds like a cool system. It's totally different from mine, so I can't say I have experience here, but I'll throw out an idea for the longevity problem.

I assume you don't have levels for characters?

If you don't, you might want to consider having a point (based on attribute and skill levels) where a character reaches the "Next Level" so to speak. You could call it something like "Hero" or "Champion." Now this doesn't change their dice rolls or anything under most circumstances, but when they're up against another "Champion" class opponent, both the opponent and the character get their skills and attributes divided in half (but only as applied when fighting each other).

This gives a cinematic type of realism to the system, where a Champion character is really tough, but against another champion, they come down to a more mortal level.

Anyway, just a suggestion.

[Jeph]

Instead of "subtract attribute from 10, roll equal to or above," you might consider "roll equal to or under attribute." Identical probabilities, less math.

Cheers,
--jeff

[John Kim]

What I am hoping to avoid is a person with a lot of "raw talent" represented by an Attribute but little skill, represented by a Skill from pasting someone with less raw talent but greater skill. While this has multiple considerations and arguments for and against either what I have come up with is this...  
(...system described...)
This to me seems pretty sound for what I want to do. It allows more a more skilled person a greater chance to have better success but it makes allowances for those with great raw ability.

OK, so as I understand it, you want to distinguish in your system between an Attribute-8/Skill-2 person and an Attribute-2/Skill-8 person.  In many systems these two would have identical rolls to succeed.  You would prefer something which differentiated.  I'm not quite clear on what you intend this difference to be, though.  Forget about what dice to roll -- what is the result you desire?  Let's call the Attribute-8/Skill-2 person "Mr. Talented" and the Attribute-2/Skill-8 person "Mr. Experienced".  

In your system, they have the same average number of successes.  Mr. Talented has a much more reliable result, but will never succeed brilliantly.  In contrast, Mr. Skilled has a more variable results.  He will fail more often, but sometimes he will succeed brilliantly.*  It seems a little counter-intuitive to me (I would think that high skill should be more reliable than raw talent).  More importantly, you should make clear that this is what you are trying for it that's how you want it.  


* NOTE: Mr. Talented usually gets two successes (64%) and has only a 4% chance of failure.  However, he will never get more than two successes.  Mr. Skilled has a 17% chance of failure, but 20% of the time he will get more than two successes.

[Andrew Martin]

What I am hoping to avoid is a person with a lot of "raw talent" represented by an Attribute but little skill, represented by a Skill from pasting someone with less raw talent but greater skill.

I feel that "raw talent" is best represented by having a low skill and having a high interest in improving the skill; and "raw talent but greater skill" is best represented by having a high skill and low interest in improving the skill. Why? Because this best models real life currently and in the past. Have a look at this real world site for talent developement:
http://www.ashland.edu/~jpiirto/Piirtopyramid.htm

So if you want to make your game as realistic a simulation as possible, it's best to start with a good foundation that matches the real world; where attributes don't "add" to skill level. Attributes seem to make no real difference to skill, except in ways that most conventional RPGs fail to consider. Consider this real world site on singing talent, and how to improve one's "attributes" for singing: http://www3.sympatico.ca/k.widenmaier/performance/voice/yourvoice.html

Note that very, very few conventional RPGs would have an attribute for "Lung Capacity", and use that to add to "Singing skill", to produce a Singing "effect total". :)

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I would make raw talent a bonus of some sort toward raising the skill.

[Brian T]

Hey thanks for all the feedback so far some good points and new thoughts are mine to mull over.

John Kim your statistical examples helped put numbers to what I was certain could be an issue. I am not proficient in math in that capacity. I thank you.

Let me give those that have been following this thread an example of what I am trying to avoid.

In an example game system they use a 1-5 scale for attributes and skills. In their system as skills levels increase the skill is considered exponentially better than the previous level with level 5 placing the character in the "best in the world" category.

Now lets take an example of two characters, in the exact same situation, one possesses a Dex of 2 and a Firearms of 5 the other the opposite D5/F2.
While the higher skilled person should have ability that is a few times exponentially greater they possess the exact same odds to succeed because their pools are the same.

This is what I am trying to avoid. In the heroic theme of the game I want those with a good attribute to have some benefit but I want greater skill to generally be able to accomplish greater and more frequent success than someone with lesser skill. I want a little realism without overburdening the system with too much simulation.

Brian T.

[Jack Aidley]

Have you considered simply putting the attribute on a different scale (say 1-5) than the skill (0-10)?

[Mike Holmes]

Have you considered an augmenting system? That is, in this case, the skill would be the primary consideration and the stat secondary. What you'd do is roll the secondary, and get a result. That, in turn, would add some number based on the result to the original skill. Basically the one adds to the other with a diminished return. The advantage of doing this with a roll is that you don't have the problems that you have with dividing to get a diminished return (breakpoints).

The second roll at first seems like a lot of extra work. But it does have the advantage that it implies that you can add any two things together be they stats or skills, or whatever. In fact, using such a system, you can get rid of the delineation between them altogether. Which usually has some nice benefits as well.

What happens if you don't have any skill? You roll against a zero, and can augment that with the appropriate stat. Not great, but better than nothing.

For an example of how this can be made to work well, see Hero Quest.

Mike

[John Kim]

Now lets take an example of two characters, in the exact same situation, one possesses a Dex of 2 and a Firearms of 5 the other the opposite D5/F2.  While the higher skilled person should have ability that is a few times exponentially greater they possess the exact same odds to succeed because their pools are the same.

This is what I am trying to avoid. In the heroic theme of the game I want those with a good attribute to have some benefit but I want greater skill to generally be able to accomplish greater and more frequent success than someone with lesser skill. I want a little realism without overburdening the system with too much simulation.  

OK, from the sound of it, you don't really want differently-shaped probability curves.  I think the simplest solution is the one Mr. Jack suggested: attributes range from 1 to 5 while skill ranges 1-10.  Attribute adds to skill, but it isn't equally important.  You might alternately consider attribute being a modifier, rated -2 to +2, which is essentially the same thing.  

You can also have high attribute make it cheaper to buy skill, rather than simply adding.  However, there is a game balance consideration.  Consider someone who invests heavily in attributes.   At the start of the campaign her PC will be overshadowed, but as experience accumulates she will become the most powerful.  The campaign has to be a specific length for this to balance out.  This might not be important, depending on your priorities, but it is something to consider.

[Mike Holmes]

That last post of John's makes me think that my Rant about Stat/Skill systems might have something of use. Possibly not if you don't use a point pool or anything. But who knows...

Mike

[M. J. Young]

Mike beat me to the punch on that--why do you have attributes involved at all?

I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons for a system in which both attributes and skills contribute to success; Multiverser is such a system. However, you need to have some reason why you would use both, or you generally wind up in a game in which building up attributes gives greater return for less investment than building skills.

To look quickly at Multiverser, this is handled (in brief) this way.

Attributes contribute directly to chance of success. They are difficult to raise, and grow geometrically more difficult to further increase as they advance. Far short of the theoretical ceiling the character will reach a point at which he must go beyond normal human means of improvement, because he is attempting to achieve superhuman attributes.

Skills contribute directly to chance of success. However, they also contribute to speed of performance, which attributes do not--the more skilled character can do things faster than the less skilled character, even if the less skilled character has the higher chance of success for a high attribute. Further, skill contributes more to quality of performance than attribute, often permitting success which is of a higher order (such as producing a product of superior quality); attributes only contribute to this in the sense that they allow a character to get a higher successful roll. On top of this, skills are far easier to improve initially, and although they do become more difficult to improve as they rise, an ordinary human dedicated to advancing a particular skill will eventually reach best of the best, doing things others didn't think were possible.

Thus even though you can improve your chance of success for a broader range of skills by investing in attributes, your investment will get you more for less if you put it in skills in both the short term and the long term.

So, why is it that you are including attributes in the system at all?

--M. J. Young

[Dr. Velocity]

Consider Perks/Abilities or even call them skills if you want

Fast Draw is good for those never-miss gunslingers, but could be generalized to 'Fast' and would cover anything involving precision, fast manual dexterity, but keep in mind 'Firearms' involves dexterity, speed, precision AND... AIM - good perception (usually) - so you'll need to figure out just how fine you want to split hairs.  I do think its unnecessary and cumbersome to detail things too much, especially in a cinematic game.

Raw talent ADDS to or enhances a skill, or allows you to take the skill in the FIRST place, but it shouldn't let you DO the skill with no training, unless that is part of the scenario or is in the character's past or something - no matter how 'fast your hands' are, you are NOT going to pick up a revolver and start picking cherries off a tree with it if you have no training.

If you use attributes and skills, both rated at 1-5 (my personal favorite rank for rpg stats, by the way), you could simply do something arbitrary like subtract 3 from the requisite attribute, and add the result to the skill level - so if you have a 3, you're not all that and a bag of chips like you think you are, and are just relying on your skill and are lucky you aren't a 2 dex, which would PENALIZE your gunslinging ability - this leaves 4 giving you +1 and 5 giving you +2 to the Firearm skill. Simple, not necessarily pretty, but it works in a pinch, in my opinion.

[Brian T]

Again lots of great feedback, I appreciate it.

To Answer M. J. Young's question of why have abilities allow me to further give my insights on why I am using an Attribute/Skill system.

In the game I am designing there are attributes, one named Might to represent Physical Power. (not necessarily size mind you), there is also a trait called Prowess to represent coordination, speed and overall agility. I wanted to keep the number of attributes small to represent the abilities of the characters untrained capabilities. Perhaps that is not the best description but let me continue.

For my argument lets compare a 70 years old man with a Prowess of 2 (in a 1-5 scale as from feed back I have considered that my be better than a 1-10 range) In his youth this man may well have had a Prowess of 4 but that's not the focus. Compare him to a young 20-something with a Prowess of 4. In a situation where skill levels are equal the young man would have an advantage.

However things are never so simple and the older gent has a higher skill in say the skill Athletics (for the example lets give him a 7). The younger has an Athletics of say 3.

When the task is rolled using the system I described in the original post the Older gent gets 7 dice against a difficulty or 8 (10-attribute) and the younger gets a roll of 3 dice at a difficulty of 6.

Now while the younger man has a better chance of getting successes because of the lower difficulty at best he can get is 3 successes. Granted while the older gent has a higher diff his greater skill allows him the chance for greater success than the younger can achieve.

The older gents body (if you will) represented by the lower Prowess limits his ability to perform the skill to the best effect. The younger has an easier time succeeding but it limited by his lack of skill. At least that's how it looks to me I am not skilled enough at math to see if this is actually accomplishing what I think it is. In my mind if the older gent had a Prowess of say 3 his chances against the younger would be greater as he is not as limited by his skill level.

As mentioned the greater skill is intended to provide greater results, in speed, quality and what not. That aspect is also desired.

My goal is to have skill the primary factor with modification from attribute that assists (or perhaps hampers) the character. Perhaps having a base diff of 10 (on 10 sided dice) is too great.

The relation of advancement of skills and attributes will be in contrast. Raising skills will be far more rapid than attributes. Attributes will have a geometrically higher cost making it more expensive to raise than the skills.

I also have attributes in the system because other scores are determined such as damage taking capacity and such.


Hope this gives a clearer idea into my desire.

[Mike Holmes]

That tells us what the system is like, but not why. The only reason you gave for having a split is:

I also have attributes in the system because other scores are determined such as damage taking capacity and such.

The rest doesn't tell us why the split is neccessary. If it's a matter of needing to be able to add two or more things together in order to get an "appropriate" score to roll from, you don't need a skill/stat division to do that. You can simply say that you can add any two things together as long as they make sense.

Further, your objection that I quote above does not hold either. That is, if you want to have secondary statistics for a character, all that means is that they have to come from a certain stat. Not that that stat has to have some privileged position as an "Attribute" or such. The point is, if you need a Size score or something, then mandate that it be assigned. The question is why it has to be different than the skills in application.

Have you played any "single-tier" games like Hero Quest (Wars), Story Engine, etc? Seeing how these work often clears peoples minds on this subject. That's not to say that I think you ought to go with this model. Just that it might help you identify what it is that you need from your split. Without understanding why you have this in the system, it's hard to work out the correct way to implement it.

The relation of advancement of skills and attributes will be in contrast. Raising skills will be far more rapid than attributes. Attributes will have a geometrically higher cost making it more expensive to raise than the skills.

Did you read the rant? You realize that doing this will cause a "best strategy" to form for each character, right? This isn't a problem?

Mike