The Forge Archives

So I tried out Donjon last night with my ol' buddy Dave "Dial" Turner. We played run-through of Donjon Pak A1: A Fungus Among Us.

Here's the lowdown on the hoe-down:

Initial reactions
Omigosh, it feels weird to roll dice as the GM. Dave was constantly reminding me, "Jared...dude, roll the GM dice."

I need way more 20-siders to play. I used 10-siders but a) didn't have enough and b) having results from 1-10 didn't seem to allow for a lot of discrepancy between my results and the player's results (a case of, "I got a 10...you got a 10...I got a 9...etc.).

I like character creation a lot. The "infinite" range of classes/races that can be created...very cool.

The spell system seemed WAY over-powered. Dave was gathering Magic Power and using it on spells that just trumped abilities he had (or didn't have). I'm pretty sure I was doing it wrong (for ex: he gave himself bird wings using a spell...I had him roll his Cer+Magic+Spell Dice vs. the Donjon level (1) + the difficulty of fording a river (Medium, I guess). Would he then use those successes to cross the river or would he apply them as bonus dice to an Adroitness roll? I gots no clue.

I'm distinctly uncomfortable in a GM role. I don't like having to know rules, I don't like the "responsibility" of entertaining players. I don't want the responsibility of deciding what happens (and thus affecting the players either too adversely or not adversely enough). This is not Donjon's fault (although I don't care for arbitrarily coming up with task difficulties).

At one point I had the Spraycap attack Dave with a Fungal Blast while Dave counterattacked (parried) with an edged weapon.  No idea if I did it right -- it was confusing to say the least.

I can't think of anything else, really. I like Donjon a LOT...but next time, i get to play.

Clinton, get yer ass to New Hampshire. GenCon '03 is too far away.

- J

Jared,

I'm glad you enjoyed playing. You're sounding near GM-phobic these days, though - GMing Donjon is at least meant to be easier than GMing most games.

Issue 1: Over-powering Magic

Magic is very powerful in Donjon. I'll give the very real lowdown here: the old magic system was underpowered, as I found in play, and so I took all my notes from it, looked at the rest of the system which was balanced, and used the same methods to balance it. Unfortunately, it didn't work exactly as planned, as I also noticed last weekend.

Here's two very easy fixes, if you want to tone it down:

Fix 1: Gathering Magic Power is normally a Medium Test, instead of an Easy one.

Fix 2: When casting a spell, roll the "Casting Spells" Ability + any left over Spell Dice, leaving out Cerebrality. (I like this fix better.)

I have a lot of ideas on this and am currently thinking about writing a "Ye Old Tome of Magic" supplement for the game with several variant magic systems.

Issue 2: Figuring out how to arbitrate spells

QuoteThe spell system seemed WAY over-powered. Dave was gathering Magic Power and using it on spells that just trumped abilities he had (or didn't have). I'm pretty sure I was doing it wrong (for ex: he gave himself bird wings using a spell...I had him roll his Cer+Magic+Spell Dice vs. the Donjon level (1) + the difficulty of fording a river (Medium, I guess). Would he then use those successes to cross the river or would he apply them as bonus dice to an Adroitness roll? I gots no clue.

I think you did this right - a Medium difficulty task seems right, although I did leave a lot of this in the GM's hands. As for what you do with the successes - if it was an immediate spell, then don't use them for anything. Magic works differently than the rest of the game in that the facts are already stated - rolling just tells you if you succeed or fail. If the spell was not immediate, you could have arbitrated it one of two ways:

a) The character can fly for the duration of the spell. That's it.
b) The character has a new Ability, "Flying," with a score equal to the number of successes on the spell Test for the duration of the spell. I like this more - this is a cool way to arbitrate things.

Hey all!

I also had a chance to play Donjon this weekend, with Clinton running the game.  I have to say, I had a great time, though it took me a little bit to get used to the player-narration capabilities.  For contrast, on Saturday, I played a game with a GM who jumped on me for assuming that my character knew about a good cement drainage culvert near to town that the PCs could hide in.  Then on Sunday, I play Donjon, where I'm expected to do that and more.  HELP!  OK, I'm over it now...

Anyway, we definitely found the problem with magic being overpowered.  My druid-like character was killing everything with one spell and leaving the fighter types to mop up the survivors.  I think your suggestions would work well, Clinton.

The die mechanic does mean that horrendous amounts of dice get to be used (like my 15d10 spell o' doom).  I think that problem will become exacerbated as characters level up.  Clinton talked about a campaign supplement taking characters through 20th level.  But at that point, an initiative roll would frequently involve more than 25 dice (and so would many others).

clinton, I'd like to see the narrative element carried over better into combat and magic.  For example, if you could assemble your spell using the facts generated by a die roll (instead of assembling it first and rolling to see if you succeed).  It seemed too much of a realistic departure from a system that drew most of its fun from being unrealistic.  Likewise, in combat, facts tend to fall to the wayside compared to damage (although perhaps there are tactics I haven't explored yet).

Yeah, so here's the thread where I talk about Donjon.  ;-)

First off, I must confess that I was ripping on Clinton a bit as Jared explained the rules to me.  Clinton uses words like "dial" and "flurry" to stand in for "optional rules" or "combat round/turn".  I can appreciate the indie spirit and all, but I see this kind of thing crop up frequently in indie RPGs.  It's a bit like the old White Wolf tendency to suddenly choose a Particular Word and making it Important by capitalizing it.  This is a cheeky criticism, really, so don't take it too seriously.  :-P

Now, onto the game itself.

The character stats are fine.  I do think that "Cerebrality" looks good on paper but is a bitch to consistently use without tripping over your tongue.  I know it's a tongue-in-cheek jab at D&D, so it's not a big fat hairy deal.  Character creation was intuitive and relatively quick.  A strong character concept goes a long way towards speeding up the chargen.  I was going for a D&D druid, essentially, so I didn't have too much trouble.

As Jared said, we were using d10s, because we had more of them.  I understand that Clinton recommends d20s.  The d10s felt a bit weird.  The limited range of the die led to some counter-intuitive moments.  For example, I rolled 10 dice or so and had results like 9, 9, 9, 8, 8, 7, and a few smaller numbers.  Jared rolled less dice and got a single 10, which trumped all my 9s and 8s, leaving me with no successes.  If he had rolled a 7, though, I would have had 5 successes.  So, there was a bit of a "feast or famine" vibe in that one die could swing me from 0 to 5 successes.  Admittedly, we were using d10s, so this probably isn't as much of an issue with d20s.

We had a bit of trouble figuring out how certain magical effects would work.  For example, I wanted to grow bear claws to rend my enemies with.  Jared had trouble finding rules that covered this option.  It wasn't a "one-time" magical blast, like a lightning bolt.  Eventually, we decided that lasting magical effects were like creating temporary magic items.  So, we used the magic item creation table to determine what effects my spell had.  So, if my Bear Claw spell netted 6 successes, those successes were filtered through the magic item creation table and I received a "Worth 3 magic weapon".  

Speaking of magic, it seemed to be very useful.  I understand that a character's main ability is supposed to be broad and useful in a wide variety of situations, but magic seemed almost too useful.  Part of it might be the words I chose.  I chose very broad words, namely "weather", "plants", "animals", and "vigorous".  I got a lot of mileage out of "animals", since I was able to grow wings, claws, develop echolocation, eagle sight, and underwater breathing (which technically failed in the Gather Magic Powah phase, but the intent was there).  I can't see how a non-magic-based Main Skill (like Weapons Mastery or Prodigous Charm) could be as flexible as the word-based magic system.  We were playing a solo session, but I could see how other non-magical characters in a game could be overwhelmed (unless the magic-using player consciously avoided hogging the limelight).  In hindsight, I should chosen less broad words, such as "storms", "tree", and "bear".

I did see a potential problem with scaling and the amount of dice you need.  At the highest levels of the game, a DM could be rolling 25+ dice every single roll, which is a pain to sort and count.  Maybe there could be some system of "die-cancelling" at the higher levels?  Like a character's level subtracts from the donjon level when determining how many GM dice to roll?  That would make the GM's burden a bit easier, maybe.

I've been criticising rather than praising up till now, so I'll switch gears.

Donjon has an interesting take on the whole "players as narrators" thing.  Our understanding was that a player can describe facts about a scene, but it's up to the GM to incorporate those facts into the narrative.  This seems to be a compromise approach between the two extremes of pure GM control vs. collaborative GM/player narration.  Donjon would be a good game to use if you're trying to wean your players from the pure GM extreme.

I definitely liked the treasure system.  Instead of the GM placing items he thinks the players might like, the players dream up items and they roll to see if they're present.  I used this feature to find a map to the Crimson Forest on the body of a dead blood goblin.  I suggested it, we hashed out what game effects it would have, we rolled dice, I won, and the map was therefore present.  The same system came into play when I needed to know if my character had a gourd on him.  I spent a point of Provisions and rolled.  It kept the game focused on story rather than equipment lists.

The initiative/action system was interesting.  I don't think I've seen it done that way before and I liked it.  It had elements of uncertainty (when exactly will I act?), which kept it exciting.  But it had elements of certainty as well (I WILL act 5 times, because my Discernability + Level = 5).  Good stuff.

Overall, I liked it.  It's got a nice, tight focus and it does what it says it will do.

For those that care, here's a brief synopsis of what actually happened in the story:

Silvanus (that's me) is asked by an old friend Grizzled to recover an emerald that is important to the welfare of a village on the edge of the Crimson Forest.  (Think Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom/Shankara Stones and you're on the right track).  Grizzled knows that the foul Mushroom King has stolen the emerald and is holed up in his lair, which is in the heart of the Crimson Forest.  Silvanus agrees to recover the emerald in exchange for some high-quality armor from the talented local tanner.

At the edge of the Forest, Silvanus hears the sounds of battle and a cry for help.  He rushes to the sound and sees a young adventurer sorely pressed by two blood goblins.  Silvanus summoned lightning from the skies and fries the two goblins (one spell, two targets.  I did massive damage).  All that remains of the goblins is their smoking feet, like Paranoia-style smoking boots.  ;-)

The young adventurer thanks me and flees to the safety of the village.  Silvanus searches the scorched goblin remains and finds that aforementioned map (it gives a +2 dice bonus to all navigation checks in the Forest).  Silvanus, using the map as an aid, comes to a river he must cross.  Again, he Gathers Magic Powah and grows wings from his shoulder blades to fly across (rather than ford) the river.  While he's up there, he spots a nest in a distant tree with a glimmering "something" inside.  Silvanus lands (instand duration spell, i.e. enough to cross the river) and makes his way to the tree.  He grows wings again (scene-long duration this time) and flies up to investigate the glimmer.  METAGAME ASIDE: At this point, I asked Jared if there were any critters nearby.  He, in turn, asked ME if there were.  I decided not.  /METAGAME  Silvanus searches the nest and discovers that the glimmer is acutally a dead warrior in full plate armor.  This warrior was also sent to recover the emerald, but fell victim to the nest's owner.  The warrior was equipped with an amulet that grew cold in the presence of living fungal beings.  Silvanus takes the amulet from the corpse and flies to the Mushroom King's lair, which is visible from the nest.  METAGAME: all that stuff about the dead warrior and the amulet was stuff I established with bonus dice from a search roll.  Very cool.  /METAGAME

Silvanus arrives at the cave entrance to the Mushroom King's lair.  Realizing he doesn't have any torches (or any Provisions left), he Summons Magic Powah and gives himself bat-like echolocation.  He heads into the caverns and eventually approaches an intersection.  Silvanus carefully scans the intervening passageway to see if there are any mushroom men there.  There IS a sentry, but he seems to be asleep.  As Silvanus creeps past the sleeping sentry, he spots a pool of glowing, bubbly, "tapioca-like" liquid.  Silvanus realizes that it's actually a natural narcotic for the mushroom men, like strong liquor.  The sleeping sentry is actually drunk and passed out.  METAGAME: Again, all this stuff about the narcotic and the existence of the sentry is coming from me and Jared is weaving it in  /METAGAME.  Silvanus dips his spear and hunting knife into the liquid, creating a one-use poison-type situation.  He also puts some in a gourd in case he needs it later to re-apply on the weapons.  

Silvanus makes it to the intersection and sees that one branch actually leads back up to the surface.  He creeps to the top and finds an old orc with a grudge against the mushroom men.  They kicked him out of his nice tunnels and he hates them.  He tells Silvanus to watch out for the spore breath of the bigger mushrooms.  He also points the fastest way to the Mushroom King's lair.  Silvanus heads back into the caves.

After a couple of twists and turns, Silvanus is near the King's chamber.  He turns a corner and runs into a pair of guards/sentries.  After a brief battle, Silvanus wins by simultaneously frying them with lightning.

At the entrance to the King's chamber, Silvanus casts an "Eagle Eye" spell on himself.  His plan is to fill the room with fog, dash in, pluck the emerald from its resting place, and escape before he can be grabbed and pounded on.  But he twice fails to Summon Magic Powah as the two Spraycap guards try to hurt him.

Silvanus decides to screw the fancy fog idea.  He Summons Magic Powah and so does the Mushroom King, who has funky Fungal Mojo.  The King's spell causes him to swell and fill the room, trying to block any escape, as well as using a second magic word to fill the room with a vile stench.  Silvanus is going for a "cheetah speed" spell.  Silvanus previously used a bonus die from a "perception roll" to establish that he has a clear and unimpeded dash to the stalagmite holding the emerald.

Silvanus' spell finishes first and he reaches the emerald.  Before he can turn and run, he dodges a pair of spore sprays from the Spraycaps.  The King's spell finishes and he begins to swell.  But Silvanus has one action left and uses it to sprint from the room before the exit is blocked, leaving the King and his guards trapped.  

After that, Silvanus simply used his cheetah speed (which had a scene-long duration) to run back to the village and receive the adulation he so richly deserved.

I had a great time, I think Jared did too.  Kudos to you, Clinton.  :-)

EDIT: I forgot.  During the fight with the King's guards, I had a chance to use the mushroom narcotic goo I had found earlier.  It's interesting to note that my decision to use my weapons rather than my magic was partly a stylistic one.  My magic use up until that point had been spectacularily successful.  My initial inclination was "Well, I'll just blast them with lightning like I did all the other enemies so far".  But another part of me decided that was boring and repetitive, so I whipped out my spear and hunting knife.  It turned out that the narcotic goo gave me some good bonuses.  ;-)

Well, I ain't Clinton, but I'd love to jump in on the discussion.

Quote from: Dave TurnerYeah, so here's the thread where I talk about Donjon.  ;-)

First off, I must confess that I was ripping on Clinton a bit as Jared explained the rules to me.  Clinton uses words like "dial" and "flurry" to stand in for "optional rules" or "combat round/turn".  I can appreciate the indie spirit and all, but I see this kind of thing crop up frequently in indie RPGs.  It's a bit like the old White Wolf tendency to suddenly choose a Particular Word and making it Important by capitalizing it.  This is a cheeky criticism, really, so don't take it too seriously.  :-P

Heh heh, I agree fully with the sentiment, even though few indie designers used as much gratuitous capitalization as I did in Universalis...

In defense of the term Dial, however, I actually think its a word useful enough to enter the standard lexicon.  It refers to not so much an optional rule but an optional way of approaching the entire game (that would color all rules interpretations), usually between 2 extremes with a variety of moderate settings in the middle.  What the GM should allow players to do with their Facts should be much different in a game with a Dial set to "serious" vs. one cranked up to "over the top".  I think that the visual image of a dial here is actually appropriate.

Quote
Now, onto the game itself.

The character stats are fine.  I do think that "Cerebrality" looks good on paper but is a bitch to consistently use without tripping over your tongue.  I know it's a tongue-in-cheek jab at D&D, so it's not a big fat hairy deal.

I actually lobbied for having the names of the stats vary with the Dial setting for the game.  If I'm playing a "serious" game of Donjon, I really don't want to be tripping over Cerebrality, or making Save vs Poison, Paralysis, and Transmogrification rolls... :-)

Quote
As Jared said, we were using d10s, because we had more of them.  I understand that Clinton recommends d20s.  The d10s felt a bit weird.  The limited range of the die led to some counter-intuitive moments.  For example, I rolled 10 dice or so and had results like 9, 9, 9, 8, 8, 7, and a few smaller numbers.  Jared rolled less dice and got a single 10, which trumped all my 9s and 8s, leaving me with no successes.  If he had rolled a 7, though, I would have had 5 successes.  So, there was a bit of a "feast or famine" vibe in that one die could swing me from 0 to 5 successes.  Admittedly, we were using d10s, so this probably isn't as much of an issue with d20s.

Actually the problem is exactly the same using d20s as d10 (you roll 18, 18, 18, 17.... he rolls a single 20).  Its leads to A HUGE whiff factor in actual play.  Fortuneately Donjon virtually completely mitigates this whiff factor by the way narrative power is distributed.  Regardless of the roll (success or defeat) you as a player are going to have some control over the outcome.  Many times one can actually have more control of a whiff than of a success.

Given the rule is "Narrate your success, other player narrates the rest" having 5 success to narrate as 5 facts while the GM fills in the details, is almost the same thing as the GM getting 1 success to narrate a single fact while you get to narrate the rest.

QuoteWe had a bit of trouble figuring out how certain magical effects would work.  For example, I wanted to grow bear claws to rend my enemies with.  Jared had trouble finding rules that covered this option.  It wasn't a "one-time" magical blast, like a lightning bolt.  Eventually, we decided that lasting magical effects were like creating temporary magic items.  So, we used the magic item creation table to determine what effects my spell had.  So, if my Bear Claw spell netted 6 successes, those successes were filtered through the magic item creation table and I received a "Worth 3 magic weapon".  

The way I always handled this sort of thing, is to just use the regular roll over mechanics...the same thing that would allow you to roll Ambush and then roll the successes over into a to-hit roll.  I'd have you make a magic roll and roll the successes over into your damage roll for the bear claws.  I *think* somewhere there is a cost for duration...but I may be misremembering that.

That said, building a temporary magic item with the successes seems like a great alternative.

QuoteSpeaking of magic, it seemed to be very useful.  I understand that a character's main ability is supposed to be broad and useful in a wide variety of situations, but magic seemed almost too useful.  Part of it might be the words I chose.  I chose very broad words, namely "weather", "plants", "animals", and "vigorous".  I got a lot of mileage out of "animals", since I was able to grow wings, claws, develop echolocation, eagle sight, and underwater breathing (which technically failed in the Gather Magic Powah phase, but the intent was there).  I can't see how a non-magic-based Main Skill (like Weapons Mastery or Prodigous Charm) could be as flexible as the word-based magic system.  We were playing a solo session, but I could see how other non-magical characters in a game could be overwhelmed (unless the magic-using player consciously avoided hogging the limelight).  In hindsight, I should chosen less broad words, such as "storms", "tree", and "bear".

I don't know if its an official rule or not, but when I played you actually had to use the word (or at least a word form of it) in the actual name of your spell.  For example "Claws of the Bear" wouldn't be possible unless you had "Bear" or "Claws" as a word.  I might buy "Claws of the Ravaging Animal" as GM...but then to try "Wings of the flying animal" would stretch my generosity a bit.

Quote
Donjon has an interesting take on the whole "players as narrators" thing.  Our understanding was that a player can describe facts about a scene, but it's up to the GM to incorporate those facts into the narrative.  This seems to be a compromise approach between the two extremes of pure GM control vs. collaborative GM/player narration.  Donjon would be a good game to use if you're trying to wean your players from the pure GM extreme.

Its a perfect game for that, and I believe that was one of the design goals.

Don't forget your description works the other way too.  If the player looses the roll, than the GM describes facts about the scene (up to his limit in successes) and then the player incorporates those facts into the narrative.

QuoteI definitely liked the treasure system.  Instead of the GM placing items he thinks the players might like, the players dream up items and they roll to see if they're present.  I used this feature to find a map to the Crimson Forest on the body of a dead blood goblin.  I suggested it, we hashed out what game effects it would have, we rolled dice, I won, and the map was therefore present.  The same system came into play when I needed to know if my character had a gourd on him.  I spent a point of Provisions and rolled.  It kept the game focused on story rather than equipment lists.

I love it, and the Provisions system is so well suited to a variety of other genres.  From Batman's utility belt to a 'road kit.

Quote
Heh heh, I agree fully with the sentiment, even though few indie designers used as much gratuitous capitalization as I did in Universalis...

In defense of the term Dial, however, I actually think its a word useful enough to enter the standard lexicon. It refers to not so much an optional rule but an optional way of approaching the entire game (that would color all rules interpretations), usually between 2 extremes with a variety of moderate settings in the middle. - Jared

Couldn't resist, could ya?!  :-P

Quote
I actually lobbied for having the names of the stats vary with the Dial setting for the game. If I'm playing a "serious" game of Donjon, I really don't want to be tripping over Cerebrality, or making Save vs Poison, Paralysis, and Transmogrification rolls... - Jared

This is a neato idea.

Quote
Given the rule is "Narrate your success, other player narrates the rest" having 5 success to narrate as 5 facts while the GM fills in the details, is almost the same thing as the GM getting 1 success to narrate a single fact while you get to narrate the rest. - Jared

Agreed.  Like I said before, the feeling I had was just that, a feeling.  Nothing specific, it just seemed...odd.   :)

Quote
The way I always handled this sort of thing, is to just use the regular roll over mechanics...the same thing that would allow you to roll Ambush and then roll the successes over into a to-hit roll. I'd have you make a magic roll and roll the successes over into your damage roll for the bear claws. I *think* somewhere there is a cost for duration...but I may be misremembering that.  - Jared

I remember discussing that, but I think we agreed that it didn't make sense for spells with long-term (more than instant/flurry) duration.  I think Clinton's suggestion above (Long duration spells become temporary Abilities with a value equal to remaining bonus dice) is a great one.  That would make lots o' sense in the system, I think.

Quote
I don't know if its an official rule or not, but when I played you actually had to use the word (or at least a word form of it) in the actual name of your spell. For example "Claws of the Bear" wouldn't be possible unless you had "Bear" or "Claws" as a word. I might buy "Claws of the Ravaging Animal" as GM...but then to try "Wings of the flying animal" would stretch my generosity a bit.  - Jared

Agreed again.  I was trying to use the words, but we were coming up with some awkward phrasing like you describe.  Well, I was, anyway.  ;-)

its great to get some first person Donjon goodies.


I'm playing with a couple of Magic dials for an anime fantasy variant of Donjon.  One dials up and down the raw power of magic... but a version of this for normal donjon might be in order.  

As for something like a bear claw spell (or a flaming fist or a decaying touch) as simply a spell which creates a temporary ability with a number of dice equal to the spell's successes.  You score 4 successes, you get a damage adder ability on the order of a secondary ability.

In some way limiting the number of spells a character can have 'active' at any given time might be in order.  Perhaps Words tied up in spells can't be used for anything else unitl the spell expires or is cancled.  For example, while that Bear Claw spell is working, the word "Bear" can't be used for anything else... no Strength of the Bear or Fury of the Bear or Crispy Bear Claw Crust.

Quote from: jdagnaHey all!
clinton, I'd like to see the narrative element carried over better into combat and magic.  For example, if you could assemble your spell using the facts generated by a die roll (instead of assembling it first and rolling to see if you succeed).  It seemed too much of a realistic departure from a system that drew most of its fun from being unrealistic.  Likewise, in combat, facts tend to fall to the wayside compared to damage (although perhaps there are tactics I haven't explored yet).

I was in this game, too, playing the poor fighter, outclassed by a pair of 1st level magic users!

The idea that excited me about Donjon was the 1 Success = 1 Fact rule, but the game hasn't realized its full potential, especially in combat.  The damage mechanic encouraged me to use my combat successes as bonus dice to the damage roll, rather than as facts.  The result was, I fell into a D&D-like combat trance.

Is there a way to make facts more important in combat?  How about eliminating the damage roll altogether?  The number combat successes might define how much latitude the player gets on declaring his facts.

- Alan

Quote from: AlanThe idea that excited me about Donjon was the 1 Success = 1 Fact rule, but the game hasn't realized its full potential, especially in combat.  The damage mechanic encouraged me to use my combat successes as bonus dice to the damage roll, rather than as facts.  The result was, I fell into a D&D-like combat trance.

I noticed this as well when I ran Donjon. The spellcasters had a lot of variety in their actions due to the spell system, but not so much the fighters.

Perhaps there should be "combat styles" that work kinda like the spell system -- adjectives you can put into your combat moves to get certain effects?

Actually the first thing I did when playtesting Donjon, was scratch the "or" out of the rule for rolling over dice OR declaring facts.  I replaced it with an AND.

This works much better in all situations of the game.  If the player comes up with some cool description for what he did...there is a built in effect...1 die rolled into some other roll (plus any other successes he earned to make it a bigger effect).

I also permitted dice to roll into difficulty against an opponent.

So in combat I get 4 successes.  I declare that I "dodge to the left" then try to "Leg Sweep" my opponent.  I take 1 success and roll it over into my next defense roll (to cover the "dodge")  I then take the other 3 successes and make a 3 die difficulty for my opponent to roll against his Adroitness.  If he fails I'd use those successes to describe him falling and then roll them into what ever effect his falling should have.

I also frequently allowed successes to remove dice from an opponent's pool.  So the effect of falling might be to reduce my opponent's next defense roll (or add to the next attack roll against him).  

The system is really extraordinarily versatile....just ignore that "or" in the rule.

A note on the dial thing. As it was an important concept in the Fuzion game system, and probaby has been in other games as well, I think that its incorporation into the lexicon is a fait acompli at this point.

Mike

Quote from: ValamirActually the first thing I did when playtesting Donjon, was scratch the "or" out of the rule for rolling over dice OR declaring facts.  I replaced it with an AND.

If something works for you, I'm not one to tell you not to do it.

I will, however, at least defend the current system. The "fact or die" system is meant to provide a way to assign importance to facts. If I have, for example, three successes, I could state three different facts. Let's say that I'm searching for a door. I might state as one of these facts, "The door seems to be made of a flimsy material."

Now, I could go on to state two more facts. However, I could also use my two other successes to back up this statement - to assign importance to it. I can use my two other successes as bonus dice when bashing down the door. If I do not, the GM will probably make breaking down the door a Medium task, or even Easy because of my fact, but it's not as flimsy as it would be if I had assigned more dice to it.

Combat works this same way. You can feel free to state facts about anything with a successful attack roll. You might say, "I swing my sword, pulling it back at the last minute in a feint" for a fact, and spend the rest of your successes to increase your next attack roll (or decrease your opponent's next defense roll - the math works the same either way.) With damage, you can still state facts about where you hit, and what it does. Examples:

With three damage successes, I might say, "I slash the cretin above the eyes and blood obscures his vision. I'm using the other two successes as damage against his Discernment."

With four damage successes, and my character using brass knuckles, I might say, "I slam my fists into his face until it's hamburger. The other three successes damage his Sociality."

Right...That's exactly what I do.  The only difference is I don't (didn't) require "wasting" one of the roll over dice on the Fact.  Instead of having 3 Successes...spending 1 to get the fact and then reinforcing it with 2 rolled into bashing it down (or subtracted from its resist bashing or whatever), then I'd just give all 3 to roll over into bashing it down.

Reasons are 3 fold:

1) What happens if you only get 1 Success (which happens alot)...its now a "fact" that the door is flimsy...but you've got no mechanical back up.  My way, you at least get 1 bonus die (so the door IS flimsy...just not as flimsy as if you'd had 3 bonus dice to spend.)

2) In combat, rollover dice for damage is hugely important.  Giving up a damage die to get a fact most of the time is a Bad Idea tactically speaking.  This tends to limit the flamboyant use of facts in combat...damage roll over is just too important.  By not requireing facts to mean giving up a bonus die (i.e. you can get both) there is no motivation to avoid facts in Combat.

3) While it is possible to get some extremely high levels of success (especially when using the new rule for ties, and especially if using d10s instead of 20s with the new rule), the actual number of successes rolled in the system in a single roll is relatively conservative.  That makes giving up roll over dice for facts even more costly.


In the end I just didn't see the down side to making the change.  The whole idea is to empower players through facts...why make it "expensive" for them to do this.  Instead of making them choose, I'd just let them have their cake and eat it too.

Quote from: Clinton R. NixonWith four damage successes, and my character using brass knuckles, I might say, "I slam my fists into his face until it's hamburger. The other three successes damage his Sociality."

Why not roll all four successes into damage to Sociality? I think this is the problem that leads to a D&D-like feeling that's been mentioned. The damage mechanism actually discourages declaring facts, as you get more utility by just *doing* whatever damage you want. (Of course, this may be a "Narrativism vs. Gamism" GNS issue, but...)

Now if you were required to state a fact before damaging a stat, that would be abother thing entirely...

NOTE: This is based on the "Donjon Krawl" version of the rules, which is what I ran. If it's different in the new version, then cool.

Quote from: xiombarg
Why not roll all four successes into damage to Sociality? I think this is the problem that leads to a D&D-like feeling that's been mentioned. The damage mechanism actually discourages declaring facts, as you get more utility by just *doing* whatever damage you want. (Of course, this may be a "Narrativism vs. Gamism" GNS issue, but...)

It's completely a Narrativism vs. Gamism issue. Donjon is unashamedly meant for Gamist play, and a move from "fact or die" to "fact and die" looks to be Narrativist drift.

If that's what you're looking for, then by all means, drift. That's not the intention of the system, though, and I can't agree that it's a better way, because it's a better way to do something else - something not intended.

Quote
Now if you were required to state a fact before damaging a stat, that would be abother thing entirely...

That's exactly what you're required to do - where's the confusion? The "I pound his face into hamburger, damaging Sociality" fact is just a descriptive way to say, "I spend my first die to direct damage to Sociality."