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I was lying in bed trying to sleep when this came to me. It's a simpler variation of the other skill system I presented, with more flexibility built in. Ultimately I think it's way superior. But without further ado:

Assume there's a rating. Maybe it goes from 1 to 8 in most cases. Or whatever, the main thing is that between every rating there has to be a significant step in skill.

Anyway, any task is assigned a difficulty, also between similar numbers. If the character has a rating below the difficulty, it's a failure, if it's above then it's a success. If it's the same, there's a 50-50 chance of success, roll 1T6 and have success on 4-6.

If you have rating above the difficulty you can trade that for extra quality, quicker execution, nicer style or whatever. 1 point makes it above average, 2 points is excellent, 3 points amazingly good.

To take an example. Bob the Ranger wants to jump that infernal chasm. Difficulty is only 3 and Bobs rating at Jumping Chasms is at 7, which is way more than required. Cool! thinks Bob. I'll do this without any running start whatsoever (2 points cost maybe) and with armour on (1 point). That still leaves the rating at 4, which is above the difficulty. Bob is over the chasm no problem.

In example 2, Bob thinks it would be cool to impress his buddies, so he's actually gonna take off his armour and then do a backward somersault over the cliff. The GM judges that would be 4 points to do that. 4 points off his 7 would leave him with 3 and a 50-50 chance of succeeding. If Bob would want to do it with armour on too, that would be 2 and a SURE death.

Another time Fifo the Thief wants to open a lock. He's got lockpicking skills all over the place, and the difficulty of the lock (4) is below his rating (6), so he spends a point to do it faster. If he would want to do it even faster he could spend 2 points, but only a 50-50 chance to succeed.

If there is failure, I suggest this either be paid for by reducing everything else by 2 points or simply accept as a failure if this isn't possible. Thus Fifo ends up doing it in normal time, whereas Bob simply drops into the chasm in case of failure. Of course you could simply reduce things by a point at a time in the Fifo case. That would be more lenient but it sounds like one would try to maximize out things all the time if that were the case.

Notice how the equivalence between say "difficulty of making a beautiful vase is 5 and to make a normal vase is 3" and "the difficulty of making a vase is 3 and you an upgrade it from normal to better by reducing your skill level"

The fun thing, of course, is that the GM might be rolling the difficulty differently for every player.

Look at the long jump situation. Bob wants to jump in the olympics. The GM sets a difficulty for making a valid jump. Maybe he rolls a D4-2 or something. Bob wants to optimize his jump, so naturally he goes for the 50-50 chance. If the GM rolls a 2, Bob can spend 7 points on making the jump longer and have 50-50 chance of making it that long. If the GM had rolled a 4, the maximum points would have been 5 (maybe because it got slippery or whatever). Or the GM rolls a 1 and let's Bob potentially max out with a 50-50 chance of making a 8 rating.

If we look at this example, the chances for the different jumps are something like this:
(assuming Bob wants to max things out and the 2 point drop in efficiency during failure is in effect)
8 1/8
7 1/8
6 1/4
5 1/4
4 1/8
3 1/8

In case Bob doesn't max but go for the sure thing, chances are like this:
7 1/4
6 1/4
5 1/4
4 1/4
and only dependent on the GM roll. This roll (the circumstance roll) might of course be given to Bob's player in this case.

It might be interesting how this relates when two players are competing at different skill levels. Let's say rating 6 (A) and rating 7 (B).

With a single jump that would be something like this (assuming both try to max)

A wins 25%
tie 16%
B wins 59%

Or with safe bets

A wins 19%
tie 19%
B wins 62%

In any case, simulating it with a D4 like this for resisted rolls would make sense:
A rolls higher or equal to (A rating-B rating)+3 on a D4. That gives A a 25% chance of winning over B. Which kind of makes sense in this case. Either way (resolving each jump separately or as an opposed roll with a winner and a loser) would work if there are only two contestants.

The resisted roll idea could probably be extended by saying that if the difficuly varies with a Dn then the opposed roll is (A rating-B rating)+(n/2+1) on a Dn. Of course there are certain wins in this case also. If A's rating outshines B's for example, he/she might choose to win with extra style. It rolls together pretty neatly.

What do you think? You can ignore the opposed (static) roll mechanic. It's not necessary I think and might complicate things. So ignore it if you think it muddles things. The system boils down to a difficulty and a rating and automatic success or failure if the rating and difficulty doesn't match. And if you are better you can choose to take advantages. In fact, hmm you should be able to make concessions too, right?

In that case it's the (by now) well established system of making concessions taking advantages thrown into a near karma resolution system (with the predetermined random difficulty mechanic, which I guess is kind of unusual)

Anyway, let's hear comments on it. Especially if you see any weak points.

It seems to be pretty simple, even for a karma system, and it seems to eliminate much possability for risk.  Why arm wrestle in the first place if you know that you will loose?  And don't you think that it would be difficult to eliminate min/max ing in character creation?  What could this system be used for?  Combat seems to be ruled out.  Please give greater debth on what it's uses are.

Quote from: PyronIt seems to be pretty simple, even for a karma system, and it seems to eliminate much possability for risk.  Why arm wrestle in the first place if you know that you will loose?

At equal rating you have 50-50. And you'd armwrestle because you don't know what the other person has for rating.

Look it like this:

There are some people you always win over when you armwrestle. Those are defined as having lower rating than you.

There are some people you always lose to when you armwrestle. Those are defined as having higher rating than you.

There are some people you sometimes win over, sometimes lose to. The system doesn't take into consideration if your chances are 50-50 or 30-70, it just rules the 50-50 straight off. Anyway, those are defined as having the same rating as you.

Then there is the option of making concessions to pump up your rating. You can't win the ordinary way? Cheat to pump up your rating a step to get that 50-50 chance.

Quote
And don't you think that it would be difficult to eliminate
min/max ing in character creation?

How would this lend to min/maxing more than any other system?

Quote
What could this system be used for?

General (as opposed to specific) resolution. Any place where detail isn't vital but where you still want to have an outcome dependent on skill.


Actually, you arguing against "why armwrestle" got me thinking about WHY THE HECK WOULD YOU WANT A RANDOM OUTCOME?? I've never had it happen that a strong guy was out-armwrestled by a weaker ON THE VIRTUE OF LUCK ALONE. Technique might be granted, but resolving armwrestling in most games is a symptome of everything gone horribly, horribly wrong in most skill systems. In reality I don't have a 1 in 20 chance of accidentally stabbing myself in the stomach while cutting bread. In real life I don't sometimes long jump 2 meters and sometimes 7, and yet that regularly happens in RPGs and noone seem to think this is unrealistic. Instead they complain about a +5% modifier here and there and how lying prone should have -25% instead of -30%.

It's so ludicrous. And here "why armwrestle with someone stronger than yourself if you're sure to lose"? Why do it in real life? Well, because it's a way of more or less accurately measure your strength. If it was very random it wouldn't be a good measure method would it? Therefore stuff like Jumping skills also ought to (but rarely does) provide little variation in their values.

On the other hand there are things that are much harder to measure. For example, try to measure your perception. You can do tests with "spot what's missing" and things, but they only test the static version. Anyway, consequently perception rolls can be allowed to be more random as they are more likely to be so in reality as well. But for a specified test, like "spot what's missing" the better one will be quickly found because that's the whole point of the test, to make it as little random as possible.

It's not even funny how situations with little randomness is lumped with near random events and dealt with in the exact same manner. This naturally leads to a lot of "whiffs" which simply are alien to real life (but having played rpgs long enough we get conditioned to accept them without question. I don't think ANYONE should build whiffs into their game, there is no reason for them.

Before I came to the forge, I used the armwrestling scenerio to prove your exact point.  In Star Wars D20 (my only system at the time) a wookie gets a +2 strength modifier, while a human gets a +0.  I mathematically calculated the exact % of the time in wich a human would win.  I think it was 40% or something.  Wookies are big freagin bearthings that throw cars, so this really was one of the things that got me into making indipendant RPGs.  My problem I expressed was from a metagame standpoint.  By which I mean that: Why would a player ever engage in competition with some one that they couldn't beat?  It just seems to dissallow for thousands of situations that go on in good literature.  Would the ring have been cut from the hand of Sauron if they were using your system.  You could easily argue that it would have plot use, but what player would attempt to try it?  What would Risk be like without randomness.   They are two seperate things, but I am now looking into it from a simulationist's standpoint.  I can only beat my friend at Halo 25% of the time (I only loose because he owns the game and me not.  Otherwise I couldn't ever loose).  We don't have equal skill.  He has beaten the freaking game on legendary.  I can't even beat the first level on mediam!

I can only see little purpose in a karma system other than to shift the focus from the game mechanics to narrativism or something like that.  I don't think that basic karma systems can actually justify themselves in simulationismn very often, and even so must use another mechanic to do so.  Let me give you an example:

An adventuring party approaches a canyon.  (Party modeled after mine)  The ranger looks off into the distance...  He judges the difficulty and believes that with his leather armour on, he can jump it.  He doesn't.  The party fighter looks stunned and looks down as his former friend falls to his death.  He then looks at the player's character sheet and judges that he doesn't have a chance.   A dragon comes to attack them, and they know that even though the dragon is a bigger threat (not as a mechanic) than any canyon could be, they draw their weapons.

The problems are in the facts that success can be easily judged.  There is no daring.  There is only death.  There is no hope that you can draw that hold out blaster to shoot the guard as he flatfootedly enters the cell.  There is no X-wing armed with proton torpedos that turns off the targetting computer because he wishes to use the force.  There's just a bunch of people that have to overcome the fact that a 5 is less than a 7.

Quote from: Pale FireThe system boils down to a difficulty and a rating and automatic success or failure if the rating and difficulty doesn't match. And if you are better you can choose to take advantages. In fact, hmm you should be able to make concessions too, right?

In that case it's the (by now) well established system of making concessions taking advantages thrown into a near karma resolution system (with the predetermined random difficulty mechanic, which I guess is kind of unusual)

It seems strangely familiar to Fortune in the Middle (FITM), with Complications and Concessions, which I and others recommended some time ago. :)

Quote from: PyronBy which I mean that: Why would a player ever engage in competition with some one that they couldn't beat?  It just seems to dissallow for thousands of situations that go on in good literature.  Would the ring have been cut from the hand of Sauron if they were using your system.

Ok, I see you don't get it. The saving virtue here is (yes Andrew that's the mechanic, it kind of jumped out naturally out of this system) is concessions and complications.

See, you can say "I take this disadvantage to do it better", so given that you do enough preparations you can get to it.

In addition there is the possibility to introduce external random difficulty/advantages, which is basically saying you can make it as random as you like. The point is that you don't make the character PERFORMANCE random, but the difficulty random. Which is quite a difference.

With concession mechanics you can attempt the impossible. And with the external randomness the GM can introduce it's possiblity, but it does not emerge in the performance by the characters themselves.

This in turn means that the GM pretty much can decide on any outcome. Why? Because the GM decides the difficulty and there is no roll unless it's a 50-50 chance which the GM can avoid by setting the difficulty one step higher.

In the case of Sauron, aside from the fact that I'm not using this for the combat system, Sauron was already beset by 3 or 4 legendary heroes. It's only pressed like this Isildur gets his chance. Which essentially means that while Sauron kicks as in fighting, the circumstances were against him at this particular moment and thus Isildur gets the chance.

The difference between this system and conventional is that the GM has full control of whether to make it random or not as I took out the randomness out of the player's hands and put it into the GMs while still retaining the illusion (more or less) that the player has a chance to affect things as the he/she gets to roll in the equal case.

If you're still not satisfied, there are two other mechanisms, possible. One is the use of Fate Points to do something extraordinary (maybe by using up one you can raise something 2 steps or something) and the second is a mechanism I was tentatively labeling "Riskbreaking", which would allow a character to try to beat the odds and get a roll anyway, in exchange for disadvantages. But then again that would problably be like concessions anyway :)

QuoteAn adventuring party approaches a canyon.  (Party modeled after mine)  The ranger looks off into the distance...  He judges the difficulty and believes that with his leather armour on, he can jump it.

That probably it made it really fun for the player of the ranger. I'm sorry, you were saying this was the type of play you were advocating?

QuoteThe problems are in the facts that success can be easily judged.  There is no daring.  There is only death.  There is no hope that you can draw that hold out blaster to shoot the guard as he flatfootedly enters the cell.

You think Han Solo should have had a chance to kill Vader in Empire Strikes Back?

QuoteThere is no X-wing armed with proton torpedos that turns off the targetting computer because he wishes to use the force.  There's just a bunch of people that have to overcome the fact that a 5 is less than a 7.

Wake up.

Hey folks,

Politeness please. There is no room for phrases like "Wake up" directed to one another at the Forge.

Discuss the ideas, not one another's persons.

Best,
Ron

Various Comments:

1)I liked your previous posts better. Your right in that some things are random, and some things are not. However, in most games randomness is actually a way to squeeze a whole bunch of factors into one roll.

A persons jumping distance is probably a bellcurve around some average distance. For a running long jump I may go from, say 4-6 feet, depending on how good my takeoff is, ect.


Consider I'm, say making a vase. The quality of the product depends on my skill, the quality of the materials, my artistic vision,
what colors I choose, how good the firing oven is, ect.
Most games roll all these factors into one random roll, so you get a larger range than is intuitivly possible.  This seems to be the cause of your concern, to me.

About your system:

1)One it requires players to have a good assesment of the difficulty of a task before the attempt it. This can be difficult for a GM to convey. It kinda seems like that covert impasse thing again.

2)I don't see why anyone would take the 50-50 chance unless they had no choice or really didn't care about the outcome. If you don't care, why roll? Just pick what's more interesting.

3)A karmic comparison of the GM's roll and players skill is the same
as a karmic comparison of the players roll+skill and the GM's static difficulty number, but seems disempowering to the players.
Also, the GM's roll seems to reintroduce the randomness you despise...I'm confused here.

I'd like to see what other people say before I argue again, but I'd just like to say:

Han had a chance of shooting vader in ESB.  Just a very very small one.  I still think that karma is not a bad mechanic.  I just think that it should run using a little randomness.  I wouldn't argue with a system that used skills as a range instead of a single number, and the number used whithin that range for the given situation was based upon the curcumnstances.  I'm not trying to insult you, Pale Fire, but I am trying to convey my opinion that, without refining your mechanic, or at least telling me what it would be used for, it won't work well in an RPG.

And I strongly destest any theory that says that our actions resolutions have no bearing on randomness.

And I'm not trying to say that you're system is bad.  I simply think that it doesn't work for a simulationist like me.

I just wanted to mention that randomness has absolutely no bearing pro or con on simulationism.  To put it in Forge Jargon.  Drama, Fortune, and Karma are GNS independent.

Having a non random resolution is in no way less simulationist than having a random resolution.  In any simulationist model you have a series of simplifying assumptions.  Without them you have no model...you have reality itself.  

A common feature of most scientific and economic models is to frame the situation in such a way that various factors that are difficult or impossible to know or measure are assumed to be held constant or ignored entirely (the "all else being equal" caveat we see so much).

What most RPGs do is they take all of those unknown factors, come up with a range of possible effects on the outcome (usually in a very non rigorous and non scientific...aka...pulled out of their ass way) and encapsulate those factors as being the "randomness" of the roll.

In a more rigorous simulation we would not be satisfied with such ambiguities and attempt to measure these factors and include them into our calculations.  This is where the multiple pages of modifiers come from.  As an aside:  Most of the time, however, you'll notice that as these games (often with house rules) add more and more modifiers they DON'T reduce the random range of the mechanic.  Technically this is a mistake.  If there are 30 unknown factors that are encapsulated in a random d10 roll, than defining 10 of those factors should have some measureable impact on decreaseing the range of the possible random result.  

If we could define the majority of these unknown factors we could reduce the random range to near enough to zero that we could substitute a Karmic mechanic for it.

What PF has done here is simply assign a difficulty which assumes (all simulative models assume somewhere) that all possible factors are incorporated into the difficulty number.  Thus, except at the margins, the success or failure of the roll is known with certainty.

There are many examples of where such a system is actually MORE realistic in a simulative sense...NOT...less.

One example...wild west fast draws.   If Johnny the Kidd is known to be the fastest draw in the west...than he is quite simply the fastest draw in the west.  He WILL outdraw you, period.  There is no question of him having a skill of 9 while you have a skill of 7 so with a good roll you might beat him...you won't beat him...EVER...until some dramatic moment in the story where after having killed your brother you are filled with enough passion to face him down.  At which point HE has no chance of beating you (similiar in concept to SAs in Riddle of Steel).

If your goal is to model Hollywood westerns...such a mechanic is a far BETTER simulation than the traditional opposed roll where every body has a shot (and is similiar to something I've been working on for my own western).

So in a nutshell.  PFs system is neither inherently a better nor worse mechanic from a simulation perspective.  It all depends on what you're simulating.

Well said, Ralph (Valamir).

It sounds to me like the crux of some of the objections to PF's system is not any lack of verisimilitude, but rather the (perceived) lack of suspense.

I believe this is an illusion that arises from staged examples that would rarely arise in real play. That's because the difficulty would rarely be known in advance -- either because the GM was randomizing it, as PF suggests, or because it simply hasn't been revealed. Han Solo, like the audience, doesn't know whether or not he can shoot Darth Vader, because he's never had a chance to attempt it before. It's a longshot chance, not because the odds are against his performing at his best, but because it's very likely that his best will not be adequate for the task. He has to try it to find out. at which point we all learn the answer.

Randomness in resolution can represent either or both of two different things: uncertainty about the immediate effects of unknown factors that are acting at that moment, or lack of complete knowledge of the situation. The latter is not really, technically, fortune but it is treated as equivalent, which might not always be appropriate. Consider three cases:

1. My character has a fast draw skill of 5. He draws against an opponent whose fast draw skill he doesn't know, but it turns out to be 6. He loses. That's karma.

2. My character has a fast draw skill of 5. He draws against an opponent whose fast draw speed, according to the system, is determined by a roll of d10. The roll is 6. My character loses. That's fortune.

3. My character has a fast draw skill of 5. He draws against an opponent whose fast draw skill he doesn't know, and the GM has not determined in advance. The GM rolls d10 to decide what the opponent's skill is, and it comes up 6. As a result, my character loses. Is this karma or fortune?

This is related to the age-old question: does my pick-locks roll determine how well I use the lock picks, or how tough the lock is? Many systems are just sloppy about this distinction. For example, a rule that prevents me from trying again on the same lock implies the latter, while allowing another character to try the same lock without taking my prior attempt into account implies the former.

The bottom line is that Pale Fire's proposed system is no more likely to reduce the drama of a situation to mere numbers than any other system, and that the use of a (mostly-) karma mechanism for resolution doesn't preclude the use of randomness to fill in unknowns in the situation prior to the moment of resolution.

So, having survived being shot by the opponent in the showdown, my character improves his quick-drawing skill and seeks out that opponent for another duel. Since I've now raised my quick draw to 7, is the outcome a foregone conclusion, devoid of suspense? Hardly. What's the other guy been doing while I've been practicing? And did his previous 6 represent his actual best ability, or was he holding back? Only one way to find out.

- Walt

Walt:I'd call #3 fortune, possibly with player disempowerment, as this is really no different than me trying to roll under my skill.  But that's just me.

Quote
This in turn means that the GM pretty much can decide on any outcome. Why? Because the GM decides the difficulty and there
is no roll unless it's a 50-50 chance which the GM can avoid by setting the difficulty one step higher.

This actually worries me. The point of a charachter having skills is so they can affect the game, if you can't, why bother having skills at all?

Another difference here is Movies vs 'Standard Reality'. Han had no chance of shooting Vader because it would have ruined the story and 'block,block, gimme that.' was much cooler to watch.  Now if your simulating a movie style story and your charachters know this, that's fine.  
I get the impression your trying to create a more 'Standard Reality'
style game.  It seems like your trying to give players the Illusion that they can affect the world, when they really can't, which seems
weird to me.

This doesn't have to have any effect on player empowerment or the ability of characters to "change the world".

Allowing players to "roll for it" isn't empowering their characters.  Its giving them the chance to screw up where such isn't necessary.

Its the old "don't make the players roll for crossing the street" thing.
Why not?  Because obviously characters are competant enough to cross the street without needing to roll.  Even the most roll heavy games basically acknowledge karma resolution at this level.

You don't have players roll to cross the street.  You don't have players roll to see if they choke on their dinner...but yet you do have players roll to defeat a bad guy...even when that bad guy doesn't offer any greater challenge to the character than walking or eating.

By forceing players to roll in "stressful" situations you're not empowering them...you're risking whiffs that make them look stupid.

Conversely allowing them to roll with a small chance of success for something outrageously difficult isn't empowering them either.  The GM has ultimate control of the difficulty...he can set it high enough to make success highly unlikely.  At this point its just the pure luck of the die...minute chance for success vs. whatever penelty is assigned for failure.  Relying on luck isn't empowerment.

Empowerment comes only from the GM allowing the player decisions to impact the world.  Whether the players get to roll dice or not, ultimately its entirely up to the GM to decide.  In many games, rolling dice is the ultimate illusion...you think the rolls mean something, but in reality the GM is still pulling the strings.  Similiarly a system like PF described could be equally depowering.

On the other hand, a system of concessions where the GM allows players to up their ability for purposes of success by voluntarily taking certain prices (especially if those prices are chosen by the players) can be highly empowering.

Its all in how the GM handles it.

Note:  I've never been a huge fan of Karma resolution in the past, but I've come to see its validity as an option.  Like any mechanic its all in how you use it.

Quote from: Valamir...Its the old "don't make the players roll for crossing the street" thing....

Why not?  Because obviously characters are competent enough to cross the street without needing to roll.

You don't have players roll to cross the street.  You don't have players roll to see if they choke on their dinner...

It's funny, I've done a lot of thinking on this issue.  I don't think it's a matter of competency.  I think it can be argued that in all those "don't have to roll" situations, it's a matter of other factors taking all the 'chance' out of it.

No, it doesn't take a roll to cross the street, if you take your time.  What if the police are chasing you?  You rush; you jump in front of things you wouldn't when you'd be doing it 'competently.'  You take your chances.

No, it doesn't take a roll to eat dinner, if you take your time.  What if you're late to the summoning?  You need your energy; you rush through the meal.  You gulp; you stuff your face faster than you would when you'd be doing it 'competently.'  You're taking your chances.

That's where I think the mistake comes in previous thinking.  You pick a lock; what if you take your time?  What if you use lots of specialized equipment?  What if you would resort to even a crowbar if necessary?  No lock would stop you; success is assured.  You'd be doing it 'competently.'

You shoot an arrow; what if you take your time (like target shooting)?  What if you used complicated sighting equipment?  What if you could go closer to the target if necessary?  No target would evade you; you'd be doing it 'competently.'  Since I first considered this, I've wondered why one needed special 'aiming' rules.  Wouldn't they be very similar to any rules for 'taking your time?'

So what do you need?  They'd be like dials.  The first would be whether the players even want to take their chances.  Next would be time, materials and tools, subject qualities, opportunity, and so on.  What are all the dials?  I haven't figured that one out yet.  Perhaps that itself might be the decision of the players too.  There are many design possibilities.

Quote from: ValamirEmpowerment comes only from the GM allowing the player decisions to impact the world.  Whether the players get to roll dice or not, ultimately it's entirely up to the GM to decide.  In many games, rolling dice is the ultimate illusion...you think the rolls mean something, but in reality the GM is still pulling the strings.  Similarly a system like [Pale Fire] described could be equally disempowering.

On the other hand, a system of concessions where the GM allows players to up their ability for purposes of success by voluntarily taking certain prices (especially if those prices are chosen by the players) can be highly empowering.

I very much agree.  A lot of design thought will go into each game that makes these 'dials' available.  I tend towards the 'players making the direction' in the game, I think Christoffer goes the other way.  I don't know how much those 'dials' will work for him; one way would be defining a gamemastering technique that doesn't create what I've been calling 'covert impasses.'  You don't drop a chasm at the end of the map, you put up a sheer mountain cliff and so on.  A completely different way of gamemastering than 'making it all seem possible.'  Another new manner of looking at things.

Each approach is different and will suit different groups.  Is any better?  Perhaps only by how well the rules are put together, but certainly not based on which approach is used.  Good Luck!

Fang Langford

I'm not anti-karma.
I'm not anti-karma.
I'm not anti-karma...

I'm against the application of karma to justify realism, when it's not.  To use all of these arguments to justify the statement: "It can be used correctly if it's applied to the right things," you must tell me what you are planning to apply this system to.  Let me go back to LOtR.

Sauron did NOT have to worry about any legendary heroes.  Elrond was busy.  Isulder's dad was dead.  Sauron was, as the leader of the greatest military force of Middle Earth and the greatest warrior of Middle Earth, wearing the One Ring, swinging a gigantic mace, and toppling armies.  He was enclosed in full armor, probably magical, was a near-omnipotent spirit, and looking good while he did this.  He had gone throughout the masses of hundreds of elves and humans unhurt and was ready to make the final blow to a prone opponent.  What kind of concessions in hell's very name could Isulder have made to cut the ring with an entirelley shattered blade?  You tell me.  

Please tell me how your system accounts for this.  If your system is not adept to deal with these types of situations you should either tell me what situations it IS adept to deal with or explain to me how you account for the impossible.  What would happen if they try to make the philosopher's stone?  It isn't impossible.  "I have seen the stone."

Now on the issue of empowerment.  Player empowerment is about the concept of player control.  It is within my opinion that if this is so that empowerment is entirelley based upon illusionismn.  I have never seen anything that rivals a player's joy at succeeding in a desperate situation.  One forwards power to the GM in a karma system.  It's a simple inequaltity statement.  If players have limited control over the inequality statement, or think that they have control, more situations will arise.  They will be less conservative about their tactics and I think that more fun will occur.  If you wish to simulate impossible situations, then I would go with your systems.  I probably wouldn't use it without a twist mechanic (yes, even beyond the one you have already established).  Please give more detail.