In the recent Suggest a game system for me PLEASE! topic on the RPG Theory forum, Nuadha said the following:

The problem with using Heroquest, is that it only uses one die. It sounds like you want a system with more of a dice curve, where skill ratings are more important than lucky dice rolls.

I would suggest trying GURPS, but I personally don't like combat in GURPS. However, GURPS combat can be pretty simple. It uses 3d6, so it has a strong dice curve.

Hero System also uses 3d6 but it tends to be more "crunchy."

I second the suggestion that you try creating your own system or adapting a system you like. For example, if you like everything else about Heroquest, I'm sure you can adapt it to use 2d6 or some other dice pool.

I'm pretty sure that I'd miss the criticals and fumbles a lot. Even on the 2D10, they're five times more rare. Part of the charm of the system is how often these results occur, IMO.

Note, too, that the effect would be more pronounced than you think. Rolling 2d10 against 2d10 would result in differences of far less than a whole mastery being very pronounced. 5 points would be about as good as a mastery is now in most cases.

Much worse with 3d6 where the range is even narrower, too. And only one in 54 rolls will produce any sort of crit or fumble. Complete Success for mathed opponents would only occur naturally once in 46,000 attempts (same for Complete Failure).

Also, as I noted in that thread, since you roll against each other in HQ, the result is already a curve (OK, a pyramid, but who cares). So you already do have this effect to an extent. Going with more dice would just push this curve to a very unfun place. Basically, HP would become a currency for buying success, instead of adjusting the level of success.

I don't usually worry about realism, but in this case you're throwing out both realism and drama, I think.

Mike

I'm with Mike on this. Everything about the HQ system screams out loud "LINEAR". Probability curves favour the average, since when did the concept of a Hero ever do that?

Question: Are there any systems that favour extreme dice rolls. Obviously it would have to be very "Nar" driven to be any sort of fun, but do such RPGs exist?

Cheers

Graeme

I have heard HeroQuest variants using 1d12 and 1d10 suggested (each of which leads progressively to greater cinematic play, and even faster hero development), but none that use multiple dice of any sort. I can understand why one might introduce such a change. If one wanted a grittier game, it would be an easy way to do it... though you would need to alter Hero Points even more, as they would have much greater impact on die rolls. Perhaps a rolled critical should merit awarding a Hero Point, much as in James Bond 007. Advancement would have to be made separate from Hero Points, else the players will tend to hoard them as a means to achieve those increasingly rare critical rolls at vital junctures in the story. Alas, I think switching to 3d6 or 2d10 would require more than a little retooling to the entire currency mechanism... establishing a proper balance would no doubt be one of the first orders of business if one had such a change in mind.

buserian,

I understand you problem. I myself like curved distributons much better than liner ones (might be my GURPS background coming thorugh).

What I am going to try in our Planescape campaign is this:
Just let the player roll 2d10 and the GM nothing at all. Since most people suggest rolling the GM die openly (no fudging), you might as well let the player roll it.
The dice are added with the effective skill of the character. The skill of the npc / obstacle ist subtracted. The you look up the result in a table that looks somewhat like this:
smaller than 0 : total failure
smaller than 10: marginal failure
10 :tie
bigger than 10: marginal success
bigger than 20: total success

This changes the probabilities of the game, I know, but it might be acceptable. It will take a bit of playtesting to figure that out.

Nicolas

This seems realy screwy to me.

Suppose I've got an ability rating of 10 and we're rolling 2D10s. Each HP I spend increasing my ability from here generates a reduced payback untill I hit an ability rating of 20. After that, each HP I spend generates an increased payback untill I reach a rating of 10w.

I don't see how the payback on ability ratings see-sawing back and forth as you go up the ability scale is so desirable.


Simon Hibbs

The linear nature of HQ threw me at first too. In general, I hate linear curves, at least ones where the random range is sizeable compared to the fixed modifier. Two things really mitigate this for me in HQ.

1) the fixed score of the character's best abilities are quite substantial relative to the random outcome. A 2 mastery character is still going to give you a 2 mastery result. The randomness only effects whether you get an additional 3rd mastery result.

This isn't always obvious because the system has you cancel masteries first and then just use them to "bump" success levels. But go ahead and roll a few times without cancelling masteries. 2W3 may FEEL like your only rolling against a 3 on 1d20, but in reality, you're rolling d20+43, with every increment of 20 being a success level.

Since the random range is so much less than the fixed modifier, the whiff factor inherent to linear curves like d20 or BRP is almost non existant (for your best skills anyway).


2) HQ is really a die pool system in disguise. D20 combat is also really a die pool system in disguise. You roll so many to-hits on single d20s that over the course of a battle you get a reasonable normal distribution of expected results. Where d20 breaks down is when it shifts to non combat where the entire task is handled with a single roll, and you don't get this faux pool effect. This is why Take 10 and Take 20 were invented. Basically to patch the weakness of using single rolls for everything other than combat as a way of increasing the likely hood of getting the expected result.

HQ solves this problem by using the same degree of resolution for everything. What you have to keep in mind is Augment Augment Augment. When you make 5 or 6 or 12 Augment rolls leading into your main roll you're accomplishing 2 things. First the number of rolls is basically equivelent to rolling a die pool (even more so if all of your abilities that you're augmenting from are the same level)...you're just doing it 1 die at a time. And second you're boosting the fixed modifier on your final roll by a substantial amount, which enhances the effect of #1 above.

So ultimately. Hero Quest really doesn't suffer from the usual foibles of a linear curve resolution. It probably has the best distributed results curve of any single die system I've seen.

simon_hibbs wrote: This seems realy screwy to me.

Suppose I've got an ability rating of 10 and we're rolling 2D10s. Each HP I spend increasing my ability from here generates a reduced payback untill I hit an ability rating of 20. After that, each HP I spend generates an increased payback untill I reach a rating of 10w.

Valamir wrote: 2W3 may FEEL like your only rolling against a 3 on 1d20, but in reality, you're rolling d20+43, with every increment of 20 being a success level.

Valamir wrote:
2) HQ is really a die pool system in disguise.
[...]
Where d20 breaks down is when it shifts to non combat where the entire task is handled with a single roll, and you don't get this faux pool effect. This is why Take 10 and Take 20 were invented. Basically to patch the weakness of using single rolls for everything other than combat as a way of increasing the likely hood of getting the expected result.

HQ solves this problem by using the same degree of resolution for everything. What you have to keep in mind is Augment Augment Augment.
[...]
So ultimately. Hero Quest really doesn't suffer from the usual foibles of a linear curve resolution.

I've said this before, but apparently I have to say this again. HQ is not linear. Two dice are always rolled. The results are pyrimidal.

It looks linear, since each side only rolls one die, but that's decieving. Hence there is an expected value determined by only one roll - which is what I think people like about curves. That is, if I roll 2d10 against a TN, the expected value of the roll is 11. With HQ, the expected value of the 2d20 is 21. No that number isn't used as is, but all of the 400 potential combinations of the two dice do fall into one of ten results.

Let's say we've got two guys each with 10W fighting. That becomes 10 for each with the masteries cancelling. The odds of each result are (for either individual in this case):

[code]00.25% Complete Victory
02.50% Major Victory
25.00% Minor Victory
19.75% Marginal Victory
04.75% Tie
19.75% Marginal Defeat
25.00% Minor Defeat
02.50% Major Defeat
00.25% Complete Defeat
00.25% Mutual Fumble[/code]

See the curve in there? Yes the curve gets all weird as the abilities move apart, but in general it has areas with higher and lower outcome probabilities, which is what we're seeking. The important thing to do is just ignore the "success" and "failure" results. I mean, if you fail, and I critically fail leaving you with a Minor Victory, that's not much of a failure, is it? Especially when bumps and cancelled masteries were involved.

Note how the tails are very small already? With more dice they practically vanish from play, and the far end results become so rare as to make bumping to the most extreme results very rare.

Mike

Since Mike posted already, I will add it here... :)

One more thing is strange with the standard HQ resolution:
If two opponents both have the rating of 19, you will get lots and lots of ties. Both have 90% chance of rolling a success leading to over 80% chance of a tie (both successes) all in all.
Well, you could argue that with two people being equal, that would be expected.
But look at two opponents with 10w (cancelling out the masteries): both have a chance of 45% chance of a success (20% tie) and 45% of a failure (20% tie). So, added up they get a bit more than 40% ties.
That doesn´t make any sense. Basically the distribution of ties changes if you move from the middle of the 1-20 region to the outer ends.
And that is not all, the same thing holds true for different types of successes. With 19 vs. 19 it is almost impossible for someone to score a minor victory (critical success vs normal success: under 5%). With 10w vs. 10w it will be rather common (around 40%).
What the??
Now talk about screwy distribution and different payback of increases in different parts of the range!
I have to add, that I love HQ and think that it is one of the best systems available, but the distributions of the resolution system are ... a bit whonky (is that even a word? sorry, my english). And nothing is as good as to be unimprovable (no word for sure).

Nicolas

EDIT: Damn, sorry again. Got confused about the ties. Forget about that. And the marginal victories should be minor victories (i changed that already).
Mike, I don´t know how you did that neat table in your post, but could you repeat it for a contest 19 vs. 19? My statistics-skill seems to be getting worse...

Keep in mind that in the case of a tie, the lowest roll wins with a marginal victory. In the case of 19 vs 19, the chance of an acutual tie is 5%.

I suck at working out percentages through math, beyond the very basics. What I did instead is write a simple program that, given a certain ability and resistance, runs through all 400 possibilities tabulating the results.

For the curious, I have a CSV (comma-separated values) file with the results for all combinations of ability and resistance 6 through 10W6, showing all the percentage chance of all levels of defeat and victory. Its a smidge over 1MB. If anyone wants me to mail it to them, just send me a PM.

Edit: Its about 161 KB zipped.

Hey, everyone, I was just speculating! I have no problem with the current system, just wondered how it would be change, and whether it would appeal to anyone.

Having said that, I turn to what Mike said:

Let's say we've got two guys each with 10W fighting. That becomes 10 for each with the masteries cancelling. The odds of each result are (for either individual in this case):

00.25% Complete Victory
02.50% Major Victory
25.00% Minor Victory
19.75% Marginal Victory
04.75% Tie
19.75% Marginal Defeat
25.00% Minor Defeat
02.50% Major Defeat
00.25% Complete Defeat
00.25% Mutual Fumble

Nick, you're not playing right. Re-read the rules. The distributions are odd, but in a good way. Play a lot, and you'll see what I mean. Really, the system is downright brilliant. At first, I too, thought it was just some odd hack, but if you look at it carefully and in play, you'll find that it really is substantially beneficial in it's normal form.

buserian wrote: Why is mutual fumble relevant? It was in HeroQuest, but as far as I can tell it is not in HeroQuest -- it is a tie like any other.

Mike Holmes wrote: There is a slight difference in that if both fumble in a Group Extended Contest, then the book says that they should both lose with respect to all the other sides in the contest. Kinda vague, but I'm seeing them both losing the bid or something.

Mutual fumbles in group contests -- I had forgotten about this. (And the post spoke of them generally, leading me to assume he meant all contests.)

So, yeah, 10 results, depending on the type of contest.

buserian

Mike Holmes wrote: Nick, you're not playing right. Re-read the rules.

The wonkiness comes from how the masteries cancel out.

Someone who is skill 20 vs 15 is 33% better than their opponent.
Someone who is skill 10 vs 5 is 50% better than their opponent.

The chart shows what I would expect. That the curve for the 50% better guy is skewed more towards minor victories, while the curve for the 33% better guy tend more towards marginal victories. Makes perfect sense.

Until you put Masteries into it.

A 10W guy vs a 5W guy is really 30 vs 25 which is only 20% better.
But because the Masteries cancel before the roll, the roll is made 10 vs 5 so you get the statistical effect of being 50% better.

This gets really screwy at the super high masteries.
19W6 vs 1W6 is really 139 vs 121. The 19W6 guy is only 15% better.
But because the Masteries cancel before the roll, the roll is made 19 vs 1
which is 1800% better.

Whether this is a bad thing or not...but it definitely is a wierd artifact of the mechanic.

Pendragon didn't have this problem because anything above a 20 was just added to the die roll.

Valamir wrote: Someone who is skill 20 vs 15 is 33% better than their opponent.
Someone who is skill 10 vs 5 is 50% better than their opponent.

A 10W guy vs a 5W guy is really 30 vs 25 which is only 20% better.
But because the Masteries cancel before the roll, the roll is made 10 vs 5 so you get the statistical effect of being 50% better.

This gets really screwy at the super high masteries.
19W6 vs 1W6 is really 139 vs 121. The 19W6 guy is only 15% better.
But because the Masteries cancel before the roll, the roll is made 19 vs 1
which is 1800% better.

Whether this is a bad thing or not...but it definitely is a wierd artifact of the mechanic.

At the risk of following immediately on the post directly above this one...

Nicolas Crost wrote: Well, I hope I made it clear that while it is of course curved, there is some inherent problem with the HQ distribution. You might say that it doesn´t matter that the chances for Marginal and Minor Victories and Failure double and halve over the range of 5 skill points (and i would tend to agree, given that HQ is great otherwise), but the problem is still there and I can see people being uncomfortable with it.

I didn't say it was bad, I was pointing out where the source of the wonkiness that Nicolas identified came from.

And it is wonky...where wonky here means "doesn't intuitively follow"

It doesn't intuitively follow that someone who is just a hair worse than someone else has an enormous difference in the odds. You may well be right that its actually a beneficial feature of the system, but it isn't at all intuitive.

consider...2 characters whose skill starts at 13. Over the course of many many sessions character A buys that skill up to 10W4 and character B buys that skill up to 5W4.

I don't have the actual hero point cost for what it would have cost to get there handy, but it will be pretty substantial.

I would bet however, that character A did not spend twice as many hero points as character B. Yet in the end he wound up twice as effective.

Character B likely spent very nearly as many points as character A did. Yet because of the manner in which Masteries cancel, A winds up twice as good...statistically 10W4 vs 5W4 is identical to 10 vs 5 (this is the statistical effect I noted and you queried).


To give an extreme illustration...what this means is that someone who increases their character's ability by 10,000 points, is going to win 95% of the time against someone who increases their characters ability by 9981 points.

No matter how you cut it...that's wonky.

May be good wonky.
But its wonky.

Well, I've said that from the start. It is different from other systems out there, sure. But as soon as you start to look at the difference in abilities as, well, the difference (subtraction) instead of the proportion (division), you'll see that it's actually quite intuitive.

Most importantly, like Ron says about Sorcerer, more is better, and that's all the player needs to know, really. I think that Ron would agree with me that it's good precisely because it's odd.

Further, again, the things that you point out are irrellevant outside of play. For example, nobody uses abilities unaugmented. Your actual level in an ability is almost irrellevant. In one contest recently Brand had a 5W augment to 5W2 (actually it was more, wasn't it)? So the HP that you spend on an ability is kinda irrellevant to the outcome. What really matters is, overall, how you've managed to keep your character aimed at goals that are important to him and in which he can shine (very TROS SA that).

In the end it all works out great. Again, I think they may have lucked into it. But the more I play the system, the more I notice it doing all manner of things that I wouldn't have thought before playing it a lot.

I'm not saying it can't be outdone or that there aren't ways to improve the system. I'm just pointing out that the things that some people think are strange or damaged in the system are actually of benefit in play.

Mike

In the end it all works out great. Again, I think they may have lucked into it. But the more I play the system, the more I notice it doing all manner of things that I wouldn't have thought before playing it a lot.

Valamir wrote: If it were necessary to determine, I'd support the "they lucked into it" idea myself. I suspect that the primary purpose of going to a Masteries-cancel-out system rather than a straight up add-the-difference system like Pendragon was for no deeper reason than to cut down on the need to perform math with larger numbers.

The reason HQ might seem illogical is that people tend to think 20W as 40, which it isn't! 20W is 20W is 20W.

Each point in the skill that is a mastery ahead of you is kinda twice as effective. In my campaign it can be seen in the characters Gownar and Turak. Both players have attended an equal amount of gaming sessions. Turak has Sword and Shield Fighting 17W, but Gownars highest ability is Dragon Staff 3W. You might say that Gownar is a more multi-faced or fleshed-out character, but the fact is that Turak is a thane and Gownar is a cottar nowadays. (He has been acting strangely. )

There are some problems that arise from the fact that 1W is't a very good ability if you are going against someone with more masteries than you, but that's what augments are for. Still 1W is better than 20 against a fellow with 15W. Getting into the same mastery level radically lowers the chance of a major defeat.

All in all, I think that masteries are a good bargain. What you lose in minor wonkyness, you gain by making the contests simple even when "high level" characters are going against each other.

BTW, I too wrote a program that calculates all the possibilities in simple contests. ;)

RaconteurX wrote: An unstated-but-hinted-at design goal was to discourage the tendency of many people to "play it safe" by calculating their chances in advance and avoiding high-risk activities... decidedly unheroic, and not the least bit mythic. Given the cinematic idiom to which they aspired, the weird probability distribution gave Robin and Greg exactly the effect they desired. Players started to throw caution to Orlanth, take Storm Bull by the horns, dive headfirst into Magasta's Pool, etc. and genuinely embrace the epic possibilities.

RaconteurX wrote: I have heard HeroQuest variants using 1d12 and 1d10 suggested (each of which leads progressively to greater cinematic play, and even faster hero development)

Valamir wrote: The wonkiness comes from how the masteries cancel out.

Someone who is skill 20 vs 15 is 33% better than their opponent.
Someone who is skill 10 vs 5 is 50% better than their opponent.

[...]

This gets really screwy at the super high masteries.
19W6 vs 1W6 is really 139 vs 121. The 19W6 guy is only 15% better.
But because the Masteries cancel before the roll, the roll is made 19 vs 1
which is 1800% better.

Alai wrote: As the infractor responsible for the original of the former, those weren't really the intent...

RaconteurX wrote:
Actually, Alex, I was referring to a variant which a friend of mine came up with which used the existing rules with no change other than in the type of die rolled. It was motivated by a desire to finally use all the twelve-sided dice that came with the twenty-odd dice sets he purchased over the years. :)

RaconteurX wrote:
Welcome to the Forge, by the way.

Alai wrote: Bah, I'll fight him for precedence! I'll take ye all on! *self-medicates heavily*

Don't you get a rather odd-looking ability progression using d12s and no other mods, though?

Well, the range of ability ratings changes along with the die type, so you would progress from 12 to 1W. You critical on a roll of 1, as before, and fumble on a roll of 12.

In that version, is "1" also always a crit? 'Cause I can see it going either way, but I suspect "1" is removed from crit status (which I like muchly, 'cause it puts both the exremes OUTSIDE the 1-10). Hmm. I'm sorely tempted to try out that alternative, now that it's been mentioned.

Lxndr wrote: In that version, is "1" also always a crit?

Peter Nordstrand wrote: One d12 variant that I have seen, but never used, is to progress from 10 to 1W, with 11 always a fumble and 12 always a crit. :-0

reading old posts and such, I'll stick my big nose in. :)

I have to admit I like the 1d12 thing with 1-10 normal and 11 and 12 as the crit and fumble in theory for th elegance of removing the hiccup that happens at 20 and 1 because they overlap the crits and fumbles. But doesn't making the progression from 1-10 drastically screw with the odds? You have a much narrower range within the same mastery, and as discussed above, a mastery advantage is huge. Also, crits and fumble happen a lot more often (1 in 12 for each instead of 1 in 20).

Mind you, I suppose you could just roll 2 dice, one the normal 1d20 and the other JUST to determine crit or fumble (1 or 20 only). Still puts the crit and fumble outside the range in a way, but doesn't touch anything else. Although that seems a little cumbersome to have a die just for that.

lightcastle wrote: I have to admit I like the 1d12 thing with 1-10 normal and 11 and 12 as the crit and fumble in theory for th elegance of removing the hiccup that happens at 20 and 1 because they overlap the crits and fumbles. But doesn't making the progression from 1-10 drastically screw with the odds? You have a much narrower range within the same mastery, and as discussed above, a mastery advantage is huge.

lightcastle wrote: Also, crits and fumble happen a lot more often (1 in 12 for each instead of 1 in 20).

Hi lightcastle,

May I suggest that you try out the HeroQuest rules as written before changing them? :-) They are actually a fairly smooth machinery as is, but it may take you a few sessions to get used to. So, try it out before you discard or replace it, is my humble suggestion.

All the best,

/Peter N

May I suggest that you try out the HeroQuest rules as written before changing them? :-) They are actually a fairly smooth machinery as is, but it may take you a few sessions to get used to. So, try it out before you discard or replace it, is my humble suggestion.