xiombarg wrote:
Would Cynthia (or Mike, since he did the quickie analysis) explain how this mechanic differs signifigantly from the rules of Godlike?

Right on, Mike. So, statistically, is it worth the difference to do "chains" rather than "matches"? My gut says "no", but I'm curious what other people think.

Well, I think the chain has a slightly wider and more interesting distribution. The matches have fifty pecent or higher chance that the most likely result will occur. This is much lower with the chains, especially at higher levels of dice (which we might expect to be the most interesting in Cartoon Action Hour). Does the higher handling time justify it? Well, probably not, especially considering that there are probably other ways to acheive the same curves.

OTOH, if there were more feedback based on the complex handling of the dice, that might well warrant using the system. For example, looking at the highest die in the chain for something (perhaps resolution order or something). The skill system is tied into the system, but adds handling time without taking advantage of the system. For example, one thing you could do is to note how many successes were due to skill (a potentially neat feature of the system), and make the result different because of that.

Stuff like that. Use the unique nature of the complex (relatively, compare to the twistedness of Isolation) dice system to generate more interesting feedback.

Mike

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for your input. It was extremely helpful and has given me a lot of food for thought. Skitchie and myself worked hard on revising the rules tonight.

Our primary goal was to simplify it a bit, thus decreasing the handling time. We also wanted to make the highest number in the chain actually mean something.

Hopefully, this revised version works better than the first one. Here goes.....


ATTRIBUTES
All characters have six Attributes;

Strength: Raw physical power
Agility: Dexterity and coordination
Grit: Stamina and hardiness
Brains: Knowledge and perception
Willpower: Mental strength
Charisma: Charm and leadership

Each Attribute has a rating between 2 and 12. The higher the rating, the better the character is at the Attribute in question.

2: Poor
3: Fair
4: Average
5: Good
6: Great
7: Maximum Unaltered Human
8: Enhanced
9: Superhuman
10: Megahuman
11: Ultrahuman
12: Cosmic


SKILLS
Characters may have certain Skills that reflect training, knowledge or talents. Each Skill a character possesses is rated from 1 to 4. The higher the rating, the better the character is at the Skill.

1: Basic
2: Advanced
3: Expert
4: Master

((Insert Skill list when appropriate))

ACTION CHECKS
Whenever a character attempts an action that isn't terribly simple, the GM may require an action check. ;

First, roll a number of d10s equal to the rating of the most appropriate Attribute. If the character has a relevant Skill, add a number of dice equal to it's rating as well.

Look at each of the dice separately (i.e., don't add them together). Try to create a string of numerically sequential die results (for example a 3, 4 and 5). This is called a chain. The more numbers in the chain, the better the character does. In most cases a chain of 2 will suffice, but harder tasks may require more.

Multiple Chains
It's quite possible to have more than one chain in a single action check. Only the chain with the most sequential numbers counts. If more than one chain has an equal amount of sequential numbers (e.g., two chains with 3 sequential numbers each), only the chain with the highest number counts.

Duplicate Sequential Numbers
Sometimes, a chain will consist of duplicates (called "extras") of the same number(s). Extras are disregarded altogether.

Rolling 10's
If one or more dice come up 10, they automatically become part of the chain! Each 10 doesn't represent a specific number, but is still considered a part of the chain.

Harder Tasks
As mentioned previously, some tasks will prove to be more difficult than others. Harder tasks require more sequential numbers in the chain.

Basic Tasks: 2
Hard Tasks: 3
Very Hard Tasks: 4
Extremely Hard Tasks: 5
Nearly Impossible Tasks: 6+

The Top Die
The top die is the highest roll in the chain. For example, if your chain consists of 4, 5 and 6, your top die is 6. The higher the top die is, the more benefit the character will generally receive. The GM can use this to determine any number of things such as;

the amount of time it takes to perform the action.
the duration of the action (e.g., the character temporarily disables a security system. But for how long?)

Also, when rolling to hit an opponent in combat, the top die will affect the amount of damage inflicted.


AN EXAMPLE OF AN ACTION CHECK:
Ryan's character is attempting to leap out of the way of falling debris. His Agility is 6 and he has the Jumping Skill at 1, so he rolls 7d10. He gets 1, 1, 3, 8, 8, 9 and 10. With his 8, 9 and 10, he has a chain of 3. But, he also rolled a 10, which automatically becomes part of the chain. This elevates his result to a chain of 4! The GM had figured this to be a Hard Task, which required at least a chain of 3. Needless to say, the character was wildly successful! Furthermore, due to the top die being a 10, the GM determines that the character dodged in enough time to allow him to attempt to save the nearby pedestrian as well.

Thats much simpler. I'd suggest another change as well. Treat 10s as 0s. Treat 0s as Wildcards.

In a roll with 4, 6, 8, 5, 0 You'd have a Chain of 4, 5, 6 Plus a Wild Card making it a 4 length chain with a high of 6.

In this way you avoid the 8, 9, 10 plus the 10 counts twice effect. And you also avoid increasing the number of chains whose high is a 10.

Very good idea. Treating 10's as 10's would create more ambiguity than it's worth. I'll definitely implement your suggestion into the rules.

Thank you. :)

And if you're lucky and get lots of 10s, you should be able to get top results higher than 10 with the wildcard...

Frex: You roll 9, 0, 0, 0. That's a chain of 4 with a top die of 12 (9 10 11 12).

Of course, if you use that, you'll have to specify something like: "A wildcard must be paired with at least one non-wild die to make a chain, or if all wildcards are rolled, the chain must start with the value of [x]..." (Where x is whatever you think is good for game balance purposes... I want to say 9 or 10, since there should be some reward for rolling all wildcards IMHO...) This is to prevent someone from rolling all wilds and saying: "Okay, my chain starts at 100... Wow, that's a lot of combat damage!"

"And if you're lucky and get lots of 10s, you should be able to get top results higher than 10 with the wildcard... "

I disagree. The benifits of having a wildcard are enough without being able to go above 10. Having a wildcard should add to the length of the chain without adding to the top-number.

I think that if a roll has all 10's, thus all wild, the bottom number of the chain should be the number of dice rolled. Since it is less and less likely to roll all 10's the higher the number of rolled dice, having higher die pools should be rewarded. (ie. 3 dice all come up 10's, your chain is 3,4,5. 5 dice all come up 10's, your chain is 5,6,7,8,9.)

Rolling all 10's should be the only way that having the top-number of the chain go above 9 (if you are assuming that 10's are wild and don't have a number of their own).

Just some thoughts....



TheMouse

The only problem I see with this is that everybody can do the max damage, 10, even if they are the weakest character alive. They have a 2% chance to do so, which isn't all that bad. As soon as you add a die or two the odds of getting a ten goes up fairly proportionally, but yet never really becomes all that high for high numbers of dice rolled. At twelve dice rolled you still only have about an 18% chance to get a ten result. In other words, characters with high stats and skills are not all that much more likely to do high damage than characters that have poor stats. Without going too in depth, I'd guess that the expected value of results only increases by two points or so going from 2 dice to 12.

Ralph's system of wild-cards fixes this only marginally, as scores above ten would be fairly rare, and not really much higher when they were. For example, if I'm rolling ten dice my max potential is eighteen (a nine and nine tens, a longshot). Less than twice as much as a character with only two dice who's max is ten (a nine and a ten, two percent).

OTOH, this might be something that makes sense in the world of Cartoons.

Mike

What do you think of incorporating this into my game...I have nothing!!!! LOL...I will understand if you say no.

LOL,
Brad

~NO ideas yet~

All;

I was reading it over, and thought there was some fun stuff here.

I have two suggestions:

To avoid the damage issue Mike pointed-out: you could have damage be a directly tied to not only the high die in the chain, but also to the # of dice creating the chain, thus more STR means more dice, means more potential damage.

Also: I was wondering, you wrote that the chain w/ the most dice is the one that counts. May I instead choose a smaller chain with a higher die count? For instance, I have 1,2,3,4 and I have 7,8,9. Can I optionally choose the latter chain? Would that ever be to my benefit?

Thanks,

Dav

To Xiombarg:
The numbers range from 1 to 9. 10's don't count as 10's....they're simply "wild" with no particular numerical value attached. I'll explain that in more detail on my next revision.


To The Mouse:
I agree with you about the numbers not going beyond what's rolled on the dice. Everything maxes out at 9.

Additionally, I like your idea for handling rolls that produce all 10's. This will be added to the next revision.


To Mike Holmes:
The top die in a chain will only modify damage, rather than determining the bulk of it.

I would also like to point out that this system isn't the one found in Cartoon Action Hour. Rather, it is going to be used for a superhero rpg called Omlevex. And, for the record, the name will make sense in context of the setting. ;)


To Mallninja:
I'm sorry you've been unable to devise a game system of your own. I know how that is, believe me. lol. But, as the chain system will be appearing in a game I'll be publishing, I'd really rather not "loan" it out for someone else's game. Besides, it's always much better to design your own system. It's not always easy, but keep plugging away at it and I think you'll come out with something good.


To Dav:
I'm not so sure about the damage thing, since the to-hit roll itself will only modify any damage done (see above).

You raise a really good point about being able to choose between multiple chains. In fact, I believe I'll allow that in the system. It very well could be beneficial to do the task faster but less proficiently than to do it extremely well, but at a slower pace.

I think I may have something anyways. Let me take a couple days to get it ready and I will post it up here!

:-)