Non-Combat Fortune at the Beginning

[johndehope3]

Let's say you have a combat system with fortune at the beginning. Something like... each guy rolls, the guy with the higher roll picks a battle result, based on how much higher his roll was. In other words, the description of what happened comes after you roll the dice.

Is there any implementation of such a system (fortune at the beginning) with regard to non-combat actions? For example, climbing a wall. How do you refrain from describing the action ("I climb the wall") before rolling the dice, and thereby returning to FitM?

I imagine you could just allow a player to roll dice before deciding what to do. If they roll high they could have their PC climb the wall. If they roll low, they could have the PC sing a song (badly), and then roll the dice again. That doesn't sound very useful. Unless perhaps you had to spend currency to roll the dice. Or you had a fixed set of fortune to work with (such as a hand of cards).

[anonymouse]

Reverse RPG has FitB, although whether or not it succeeds is not a matter of the die; the die determines what sort of attribute or trait you used in the conflict, and then you choose to either use a Succeed or Fail token (and you have limited pools of each).

Something to look at.

[greyorm]

ORX utilizes FatB resolution. You roll one of your Stat dice, discovering whether you succeed or fail at an unnanounced task, then decide what you were doing afterwards based loosely on what sort of die you rolled, the Scene at hand, and narrative whim.

EDIT: I realized I should mention that ORX is also highly Gamist, and the focus on the rolling of dice against other dice is what makes the choice of die and rolling -- especially before it is given any other meaning -- important. Without that, I suspect the mechanic simply wouldn't work very well as it would fail to be very interesting in play.

[Lxndr]

"My intent is to climb the wall."

*Clatter clatter*

"I could not find any good hand-holds.  Thusly, I did not climb the wall."

That's all you need, if I interpret you correctly.  Stating intent, instead of action.  Then you could define failure in relation to the intended action, instead of assuming that "I climb the wall" means "okay, I'm halfway up now!"

[greyorm]

Alex,

From my understanding, that is FitM (Intent, roll, action). That is the method Sorcerer uses, and what Ron says Sorcerer's mechanic is.

[johndehope3]

Thanks for the feedback. The Reverse RPG is a lot like what I was envisioning things would have to work like. It uses the currency idea I mentioned, where you have to pay to succeed (and fail in this case).

Greyorm - Is there anyplace to see more about Orx?

[greyorm]

Orx will be coming out this spring, and you may be able to track down an old copy of the rules on the web somewhere, but I don't believe any of those old copies are as clear as or even running on the same lines as the intended rules. Orx really evolved in the past year due to play-testing, comments, and development.

If you have specfic questions, however, I would be happy to try and answer them here (also, now that my access problems have been fixed, I will be putting a sample chapter up from the game at the Orx website shortly which you can check out).

[Matt Wilson]

PTA uses that kind of system. You can follow the link below for some ideas.

[M. J. Young]

I hope I'm not coming to the party too late.

I won't say that this is the only way it can be done, but I think Fortune at the Beginning would look much like this:

You come into the situation, and the problem is described.

You roll the dice.

If the dice indicate that you succeeded, you then proceed to narrate how you managed to succeed, including such reasonable skill use as you think appropriate.

If the dice indicate that you failed, you then proceed to narrate how you failed, including such reasonable skill failures or successes as you think appropriate.

If the dice indicate a degree of success or failure, that should be accounted in the narration.[/list:u]

Who narrates is a seperate issue in all cases, but particularly with Fortune at the Start (FatS, as I remember it was once called) it helps for player narration to be the rule, as otherwise the player isn't really doing much of anything (since he isn't saying what he's going to attempt until he knows whether he succeeds).

Generally in this kind of set-up skill ratings are pretty much eliminated; however, you could devise a system whereby a character had very few (at most three) ability scores which characterized ways of solving problems. These could be as simple as brains, brawn, technique, or as esoteric as (Alyria's) force, insight, determination. When the dice were rolled, the player could then consider which score to use, recognizing that some rolls will fall into the area where he can succeed if he does it a particular way (e.g., you can bust the door open, but you can't sweet-talk your way inside) which might then impact subsequent events, so he would have to choose between success in a manner that might not be desirable versus failure at an approach that fits the situation better.

--M. J. Young

[johndehope3]

I think you could still have some skills. Maybe not as many as in GURPS, but at least a few. Let's say every task was 2d6 + score versus TN 10. Sometime you would roll so well that any skill would suffice. Other times you'd need to rely on one of your better skills. If you roll low, only your highest few skills might be a choice.

[M. J. Young]

I think you could still have some skills. Maybe not as many as in GURPS, but at least a few. Let's say every task was 2d6 + score versus TN 10. Sometime you would roll so well that any skill would suffice. Other times you'd need to rely on one of your better skills. If you roll low, only your highest few skills might be a choice.

Agreed; but if you've got three varied skills at top values, it might be impossible for you to fail at any task, as you can always find some way to use one of them to succeed in any situation.

Of course, it could be that your numbers are placed such that it is an automatic failure roll. In your 2d6+skill=>10 example, if skill cannot exceed 7 then any roll of snake eyes (1/36) would fail no matter what. However, this starts to suggest that skills of lower values are color, unless in using a skill you burn it up--and that starts to seem unrealistic, since after all if you were able to climb the difficult wall back there, why can't you climb the easy wall now?

But yes, you could use a few skills. Attributes would be better, because (as most players understand them) they cover a broader range of abilities so there could be fewer of them listed.

I'd also call attention to Legends of Alyria, in which skills and powers exist only as color: the resolution engine relies on attributes and traits, and skills and powers are used to describe outcomes but not to influence them.

--M. J. Young