Maybe the subject is a bit misleading. I'm not only thinking about combat here, but any other situation where you start out with a game theory resolution of and want to be able to mix that with soliloquy to cover up all conceivable situations within the resolution mechanics.

And yes, of course I'm talking about an illusionist type of game here.

To get more to the point, imagine the following situation:

Standard type of attack:
Bob: "I attack the fiend with my sword" <roll>
GM: "You miss!"/"you hit roll for damage"

Variations:
Bob: "I try to pull down my opponent's trousers down to his ankles"

or

Bob: "I try to wrestle him down!"

or whatever.

Now some games only provide rules for the "Standard type of attack". You roll something and hit or miss. That's it. If you want to do something else it's up to the GM to figure it out how to deal with it.

Some GMs totally disallow anything deviating from the Standard Rules (tm), so you run in to ridicilous situations when you try to apply any type of drama or cleverness to combat.
Others allow them, but this runs into the problem of game balance. If made too easy, there is no reason why the players shouldn't always do tweaks because it makes them better in combat. But won't they scream foul when the GM does the same? If it's too easy it feels like the GM is punishing the players for being clever or coming up with nice scenes.

Many games patch things up by adding more moves within the system, but this is ultimately futile as all possible scenarios can't possibly be covered.

A workaround suggested here on the Forge and elsewhere would be to have some rule to arbiter WHEN and HOW the players can improvise and get advantages in combat.

A simple mechanic might be something like this:

Divide the results into MISS, HIT, ADVANTAGE HIT, IMPROVISED HIT.

If you just make a "Standard Attack" you'd hit on anything but "MISS". If you rolled good enough to get an "IMPROVISED HIT" you actually get a chance to state an "advantage move" instead of a normal hit (if you want to).

An "advantage move" would be defined as any move impairing the opponent in any way beyond doing damage. For example a throw would be an advantage move as it puts the opponent on the ground. Or an armbar, or an aimed hit to the groin. All advantageous for some reason.

If you choose to do an "advantage move" straight away (pulling down the trousers, wrestle someone down or whatever), you'd only manage to do it on a result of "ADVANTAGE HIT" or better. "MISS" and "HIT" both miss. Or possibly a result of "HIT" gives you the opportunity to choose if you want to hit with a normal hit or cancel it entirely, and maybe "IMPROVISED HIT" doesn't do anything at all if you're aiming for an advantage move.

Whatever.

Do you think this is a viable approach or are there better solutions without drastically changing the stances within the game?

If I could find some good general principle I could apply it to other aspects too, like the magic in my game.

Color me cynical, maybe this is a tad on the complex side of things?

More likely it just isn't my cup of tea, but I'll give it a go anyway.

It sounds to me like a variant of a critical hit system except where, instead of a boring bonus like double damage for instance, you get to make a special manuver such as disarming an opponent, tripping them, making a judo throw or whatever the player can come up with.

Hmm... This is actually not a bad idea. It would certainly make the critical hit that much more critical. I don't think it's that new since Rolemaster had a wonderful critical hit chart with this sort of thing on it. Actually the Rolemaster chart was just the double damage thing made more complex with extra hit, bleeding hits per round and, for some reason, instant death on a roll of 66.

You idea sound like it's just damage then a special advantage point. You need to flesh this idea out since, and this is high praise from a guy like me, it sounds pretty good.

But whatever you do, do not call it "critical hit" It's been ingrained into the hobby that this means extra damage. A critical hit system that basically just gives you some sort of advantage in some way would go over like a lead fish.

And for the love of god, do not make an option more damage or to hit again or else no one in their right mind would use it for anything else.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Color me cynical, maybe this is a tad on the complex side of things?

It sounds to me like a variant of a critical hit system except where, instead of a boring bonus like double damage for instance, you get to make a special manuver such as disarming an opponent, tripping them, making a judo throw or whatever the player can come up with.

I don't think it's that new since Rolemaster had a wonderful critical hit chart with this sort of thing on it. Actually the Rolemaster chart was just the double damage thing made more complex with extra hit, bleeding hits per round and, for some reason, instant death on a roll of 66.

I really like this sort of concept, but I'd prefer to see it executed without charts (personal opinion, I detest charts).

Take a look at the concept of Raises in 7th Sea, or whatever the similiar concept was called in Brave New World.

In 7th Sea you had a Target Number. If you called for a raise, the Target Number went up by 5. If you made it any way you succeed plus whatever special effect the raise was, you could call for multiple raises and jack the TN up in increments of 5.

In BNW the idea was similiar but I liked it better because you didn't have to call for the raise in advance. If you rolled above the TN (IIRC also in increments of 5) you could spend those raises (or whatever they were called) to activate special effects. BNW was a super hero-esque game (similiar in conception to Godlike) so many of the special effects were cool additional features you could do with the power. For example, a flame strike would do X damage, if you hit with a raise, you could set the target on fire as well...that sort of thing.

I love the ability of the system you describe to allow for free form tactical description without getting bogged down in Advanced Squad Leader-esque lists of rules (frankly the list of maneuvers in Riddle of Steel push my limits of what I'd be willing to look up in the middle of a game). What you have to decide early is your attitude on balance.

If you're worried about balance (too much) you'll go crazy trying to figure out how to keep such a system from being abused. You'll spend alot of time plugging "loop holes" and in the end you'll wind up with something like that essay Jack linked to in another thread about the clay horse.

In order for a system like this to really work you first have to realize there's no way to make it bullet proof (but then all of the complex rules in the world can't really do that anyway), and second be willing to shrug and say, yeah, if you're an ass you could do that with the rules. But I'm not writing rules for asses when someone complains that the rules are broken.

Third a really clever means of provideing indirect balance can be found. Sometimes that can be as simple as allowing the bad guys to use whatever abusive tactic the players do, but not using them if the players don't. Other times a little mechanical reinforcement can help, but it would need to be inobtrusive, easy to apply, and not require looking stuff up in an index.

But yeah, I recommend going with your idea and seeing where it takes you. Scenes will resemble scenes from movie a lot more if players can do really cool things (like overturn the cauldron of people soup from the Conan movie) without having to stop and look up how much damage people soup does in Chapter 3 subsection 2.1.8.6

Just remember that an "attack roll" becomes more of a "do cool stuff in an offensive manner roll" and less of a "I swing my sword, what happens" roll and design the roll mechanics accordingly.

Whatever your mechanic, I argue that it should be easy (as in, both seek and handling time are quick). And you don't want to change stance? Which stance is that? Check out Donjon (www.anvilwerks.com for an interesting take on "no-whiffs").

Also, instead of your list of combat outcomes, try this:
Utter Failure - GM describes entire result of failure
Failure - GM describes failure, Player provides a fact.
Success - GM describes success, Player provides a fact.
Utter Success - GM describes success, Player is allowed to restate his original intentions as something much cooler (placing this mechanic squarely into Drama/Fortune//Karma in the Middle) in full

In this case, the Player can provide disadvantages, advantages and what-not all by adding facts. And you can provide a bonus for something other than a generic attack. That way the Player gets more control over the outcome.

Pale Fire wrote: If I could find some good general principle I could apply it to other aspects too, like the magic in my game.

The way that many games coming out nowadays handle this is really very simple. There are no "attack" rules per se. There are simply conflict resolution rules. Which means that you simply use the same rules to adjudicate every possible situation.

So, if my character has Melee Skill, and I say that I attack something, I roll my Melee skill to see what happens. I do the same for whatever else I might declare. Pull my opponent's pants down? Roll against my Melee skill using the exact same rules as for the "attack". Or against whatever skill makes the most sense. I do something that's outside of my skills? Make a default roll of some sort instead. In the end, describe the results of the roll in terms of what was being attempted. Succedded in an attack? Enemy hurt. Succeeded on you pants pulling attempt? Pants down.

This is totally balanced, as you gain no disadvantage from being either creative or uncreative. Most GMs prefer creative, so they give an incentive of some sort, usually a bonus to your chances of success for creativity. But you don't have to. You can just leave it totally balanced if you want.

Problem solved.

Mike

Sure, pull down the pants, roll to do it, succeed, yes you do it.

Really simple, but give this game to a 10 year old to learn as his first game, will he be able to play it easily? Maybe, but I'm not 100% convinced. It's simple though, it might work.

What about putting it into a fantasy rpg where the gamist objective is to move your character through danger and see he or she steadily improve in fighting ability? Maybe, but probably not.

Why? Because with a little ingenuity you might get a lot of milage out of clever skill tests. And I'm not talking about abuse here, I'm just talking about being clever versus just saying "I attack".

And yet from a gamist view, this might be a problem, unless of course the gamist objective is to figure out clever skill tests to survive, but that's usually not what people are looking for.

I love to play this way Mike, especially with horror or present day settings, but again, with fantasy where the characters are supposed to fight "fair" battles it doesn't quite cut it. Not in my view anyway.

So, the solution is good, very good, but it just doesn't seem appropriate.

Maybe a better way to view this is: imagine you're playing a dungeon crawl board game, but you want more interesting descriptions on what's happening so you try to find a way to figure out how to deal with improvised maneuvres and stuff.

You still use dice, and move around on the map looking for treasure. Those are the established "rules" of how to play. The question is, within these boundaries how far can one go in introducing flexible actions?

Pale Fire, what was the goal of the game system again?

Does your above post get at least one step closer to your goal? If not, I'd suggest you discard everything you've mentioned above, and try again.

Pale Fire wrote:
You still use dice, and move around on the map looking for treasure. Those are the established "rules" of how to play. The question is, within these boundaries how far can one go in introducing flexible actions?

Pale Fire wrote: Sure, pull down the pants, roll to do it, succeed, yes you do it.

Really simple, but give this game to a 10 year old to learn as his first game, will he be able to play it easily? Maybe, but I'm not 100% convinced. It's simple though, it might work.?

What about putting it into a fantasy rpg where the gamist objective is to move your character through danger and see he or she steadily improve in fighting ability? Maybe, but probably not.

Why? Because with a little ingenuity you might get a lot of milage out of clever skill tests. And I'm not talking about abuse here, I'm just talking about being clever versus just saying "I attack".

And yet from a gamist view, this might be a problem, unless of course the gamist objective is to figure out clever skill tests to survive, but that's usually not what people are looking for.

I love to play this way Mike, especially with horror or present day settings, but again, with fantasy where the characters are supposed to fight "fair" battles it doesn't quite cut it. Not in my view anyway.

So, the solution is good, very good, but it just doesn't seem appropriate.

Perhaps it's my work-for-hire background showing, but I believe there's a point where it's time to start designing what the client wants, and stop trying to convince him he really wants something else. So if it were my game, I'd go with Mike's approach, but...

I suggest you implement a simple point pool system that's overlaid on top of your conventional success roll mechanism. The point pool establishes a currency of modifiers on the to-hit roll that can be carried over from round to round. This is the smallest and simplest step toward flexible actions I could think of, that would still make a noticeable difference in play.

Here's how it might work in combat: You decide to attempt a special maneuver. You describe the effect you're attempting, and the GM determines a point value that represents both the manuever's difficulty, and the amount of advantage it confers if it succeeds. The point value is a negative modifier on your success roll. If you fail, nothing happens. If you succeed, you gain a number of advantage points (APs) equal to the difficulty assigned. You gain these in addition to doing standard damage for the attack. You can elect to do less than the standard amount of damage, down to none, but you don't get any extra APs for doing so.

You can then spend those APs for positive modifiers on your future attacks on that opponent. These can be used to attempt whatever advantageous effects are built into the system for high-success or high-difficulty attacks, such as called-location shots, critical hits, or disarms. When spending the APs, the player must plausibly describe how the previous actions that gained APs now result in the current advantage.

So, when Athos duels the Cardinal's cannon fodder guardsman, he can stun him with a blow to the head, pull his hat down over his eyes, and trip him up, accumulating APs in the process while electing to do no standard damage. This gives him enough APs to be able to almost guarantee success with a called location shot, which he enacts by putting his sword to the guardsman's throat and saying, "yield!" (or "yieldez-vous" or whatever the heck they say in France).

To keep things lively and sharp, I recommend that you do not allow APs to be used for defense, to nullify opponents' use of APs, or to gain extra damage directly.

Besides combat, this could be used in any situation where success is plausibly cumulative. For example, if a character is breaking into a guarded vault, he might attempt to pick the outer lock very quickly (accepting a -4 modifier for the extra difficulty of doing so without making noise that would draw the guards' attention) in return for, if successful, 4 APs that represent that the charcter now has extra time to deal with the next obstacle.

- Walt

Let me see if I can piece together what we've got so far. I'm heavily editing the terminology and grammar, but not the phrasing.

Pale Fire wrote: A simple mechanic might be something like this:

The results are divided into Miss, Move, Advantage Move, Improvised Move.

You make a Standard Move

Pale Fire wrote: No big table just maybe something like this:[code]Defense 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Hit 2+ 2+ 2+ 3+ 4+ 5+ 6+ 7+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+
Advantage 4+ 5+ 6+ 7+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 11+ 12 12 12
Improvised 7+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12 12 12 12 - - -[/code]

Pale Fire wrote: An Advantage Move is any move impairing the opponent in any way beyond doing damage. For example a throw would be an advantage move as it puts the opponent on the ground.

If you roll an Improvised Move you can also state an Advantage Move instead of a Standard Move if you don't want to improvise.

Valamir wrote: You start with a Target Number. You may call for a 'raise' to produce some kind of 'special effect' and then Target Number goes up by 3. If you make it still, you succeed plus whatever 'special effect' called for by the 'raise,' you could call for multiple raises and jack the TN up in increments of 3. This is the same as 'called shots' in many other rules.

If you roll above the TN by increments of 3, you could spend those 'raises' (or whatever they were called) to activate further 'special effects' such as Advantage Moves or Improvised Moves.

Scenes will resemble scenes from movie a lot more because players can do really cool things.

Andrew Martin wrote: The idea of concessions is the use of a quality of success roll. Then one can simply roll for a task, get the quality of success and use that for the number of complications/concessions or things resolved.

Fang's post cleared up a few things regarding concessions/complications, Hero Wars, Scattershot, my own Star Odyssey game and Ratio system. I've been approaching Ratio's resolution from the point of view of concessions (choose failure or success with negative things happening or total success), and then "adding" in partial success. Seeing that it's really FitM (with teeth), cleared my thoughts substantially. Thanks Fang!

Le Joueur wrote: Let me see if I can piece together what we've got so far. I'm heavily editing the terminology and grammar, but not the phrasing.

Pale Fire wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: Let me see if I can piece together what we've got so far. I'm heavily editing the terminology and grammar, but not the phrasing.

Whooa. You're right. It's fortune-in-the-middle... I didn't see how things connected until you wrote it down Fang.

Pale Fire wrote: Now please all of you don't hate me for stating this, but it seems to work nicely because you can take the system and institute some fixed "advantage moves" and voila! People could play it as a Fortune-at-the-End (FatE) game, you could even put it into a computer game, it could be that mechanical. And that, I think, is exactly what I was looking for.

Hi Christoffer (Pale Fire),

It looks as if the thread has helped you generate what you wanted. Is that true? If so, that's excellent.

When you get the system written out in a usable way (-end or -middle, either way), let us know.

Best,
Ron

Just let me see if I'm really getting what Fang is saying with his example and if everyone agrees with this approach.

You start out choosing your action, either general ("I try to jump to the other side") or specific ("I kick him in the groin").

If the action is advantageous to the player, add +3 to the (or "one advantage"), if it's brutally advantageous, add +6 ("two advantages") or even further +9 ("three advantages"). You can also start out making concessions for -3 (for example "I aim for a round") or -6 ("I let him impale me on his dagger and then hold on to it so that he loses his hold on his weapon")

If the die roll is enough 1D12+skill+modification as per above>target number, the stated action occurs, general or specific.

In opposed rolls with active participants (two fighters for example) you can't make concessions after the roll (this wouldn't make sense.. if the opponent tries to hit me but fails his roll but can make concessions to hit me anyway, then I should be able to make concessions to prevent him from hitting me too, even though it is his roll - do people understand what I mean? Opposed rolls are treated as rolls against a static target number but is actually a simplified version of a system where both defender and attacker rolls. Anyway, the logical thing seems to do away with concessions in this situation... I'm talking about concessions made after the roll is made).

In other rolls (say jumping over that broken bridge), you can make concessions after the roll, to prevent total failure (the "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa *splat*" thing), for example spraining one's ankle when landing badly or just chickening out (if the orc horde is coming and the jump has to be done now or never).

If the result is a success you count by how much. If it's a success by +6 or more above target number ("two advantages") you get to add one free advantage. If it's by +9 or more ("three advantages") you get to add two free advantages after the roll.
(If target number for a normal move was 2, and you did an advantage move (+3) for a target number of 5, you'd have to roll 11 or more to get your advantage more PLUS a free advantage)

(Advantage=special effect)

The only difference I worked out would be to eliminate concessions in opposed rolls.

Am I getting it or am I playing on the wrong soccer field again?

I think you're on to it PF! The only two things I'd raise would be:

1) don't dismiss concessions to opposed rolls just yet. You may find that the back and forth "I missed, but I make a concession to hit you, then you make a concession to make me miss again, then I make another concession to be back to hitting you" to actually be desireable. You could resolve a whole fight scene as a single roll with each party makeing back and forth concession.

Me: "I try to stab him with my spear"
GM: You missed. He hopped back out of reach (just color but I'll use that to power my concession)
Me: "ok, I'll make a concession that I continued with the thrust, extending my reach so that I can still hit him, but leaving me leaning way forward and off balance (a penelty to the future).
GM: Ok you hit
Opponent: Alright, I'll make a concession that I dropped my sword (the concession) but grabbed the shaft of his spear as it was driving towards my belly allowing me to twist it out of the way so it misses me by inches.
GM: Ok, its back to missing.

You may decide not to go with that after all, but give it some thought, it might allow some really dramatic "moves" without having any rules more difficult than shifting a roll back and forth from success to failure.


2) In the examples I gave on raises, one required you to call for the raises in advance (i.e. rack up all of the special effects you want and raise the difficulty one increment for each), and if you fail the new higher difficulty you fail period. In the second you roll first, and after seeing the roll (if its high enough) can begin adding however many raises will "fit".

This provides two very different effects on game play, so be sure to choose which one you'd want to go with. I personally like the second one better because its faster in play...less time spent agonizing over whether to take the risk of increasing the difficulty. Instead you just roll, and if you roll high enough to get an "Advantage Move" than make one up at that point, if you didn't, then don't.


I definitely think the ideas you have in this direction will promote the sense of dramatic fighting you wanted from novels and movies. You'll note that alot of the dramatic effects will come from the players themselves adding and inventing things on their own that the other players and the GM didn't know was coming (i.e. using their imagination rather than lists of moves). Unlike say, with D&D3E Feats where after seeing the "Power Cleave" combo move several times, all of the other players already know whats coming next.

One of the things you'll have to do in the game rules is to encourage play groups to set the level of "over-the-top-ness" they want in their game. When players are making up "Advantage" and "Improv" moves, should they strive to make those moves realistic (like something out of Riddle of Steel), should they adhere to the "realism" of sword and sorcery like moves out of Conan or The Scorpion King, or can they go completely outrageous like Xena and Hercules. You can give some guidance on this as far as how you the designer percieved the world, but ultimately each group can set its own happy level.

Greatly looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Valamir wrote:
1) don't dismiss concessions to opposed rolls just yet. You may find that the back and forth "I missed, but I make a concession to hit you, then you make a concession to make me miss again, then I make another concession to be back to hitting you" to actually be desireable. You could resolve a whole fight scene as a single roll with each party makeing back and forth concession.

2) In the examples I gave on raises, one required you to call for the raises in advance (i.e. rack up all of the special effects you want and raise the difficulty one increment for each), and if you fail the new higher difficulty you fail period. In the second you roll first, and after seeing the roll (if its high enough) can begin adding however many raises will "fit".

One of the things you'll have to do in the game rules is to encourage play groups to set the level of "over-the-top-ness" they want in their game.

Pale Fire wrote:

Valamir wrote:
1) don't dismiss concessions to opposed rolls just yet. You may find that the back and forth "I missed, but I make a concession to hit you, then you make a concession to make me miss again, then I make another concession to be back to hitting you" to actually be desireable. You could resolve a whole fight scene as a single roll with each party makeing back and forth concession.

True, but in the spirit of having the rules reducable to fortune-in-the-end, this might be a problem. Also I'm thinking it can quickly get out of hand ;) It's fun though, I agree with that. :)
So, ok, I'll think about it a little, but odds are I don't allow it.

Right now my game is a hybrid... I mean isn't the first version really about fortune-in-the-end with concessions tucked in?

Pale Fire wrote: In the spirit of having the rules reducable to fortune-in-the-end, this might be a problem. Also I'm thinking it can quickly get out of hand ;) It's fun though, I agree with that. :)
So, ok, I'll think about it a little, but odds are I don't allow it.

I was thinking of it in terms of "actual reality" like this:

• Standard move/action: here you basically check what your best opportunity is and go with that, if you succeed high enough on your roll that means you got a good enough result (+6) to do what you want.

• Advantage move/action: here you dedicate yourself to a certain move, because you think this is a good thing to do. Or in other words, you have some specific intent. Compared to the standard move it's a little harder to succeed with (+3 required), but it's easier to gain advantage with. It's also harder to get to improvise (+9 compared to the original target number) because you're kind of set on a specific course of action.

Or do I misunderstand your point?

Valamir wrote: One of the things you'll have to do in the game rules is to encourage play groups to set the level of "over-the-top-ness" they want in their game.

Ah, good point, I'll try to keep that in mind.

Interesting question Fang, because thats not how I read it at all. I read it as a player having 2 options

1) "I'm just going to do a standard thing" that will be difficulty X. Oh look I rolled X+6, I can actually turn my standard thing into a special "Improvised" thing.

or

2) "I'm going to select a special Advantage move like "power strike" or "trip". that will be difficulty X+3. Oh look, I actually rolled X+9. I can Improvise instead.

Definitely intrigues me as an option, I'm looking forward to seeing it fleshed out.

Valamir wrote: Interesting question Fang, because thats not how I read it at all. I read it as a player having 2 options

• "I'm just going to do a standard thing" that will be difficulty X. Oh look I rolled X+6, I can actually turn my standard thing into a special "Improvised" thing.
• "I'm going to select a special Advantage move like "power strike" or "trip". that will be difficulty X+3. Oh look, I actually rolled X+9. I can Improvise instead.

Definitely intrigues me as an option, I'm looking forward to seeing it fleshed out.

What I don't understand is how you can have an apparent list of Advantage moves... and yet you want to allow Improvised moves that, by definition, cannot come from a list.

I could, though, see having a finite list of advantage effects which could be any granularity from low (e.g. "impaired" = loses next attack) to high (e.g. "vision reduced," "partial leg entanglement", "drops weapon", etc.). An advantage move would be any improvised move that would result in one of the effects.

- Walt

Le Joueur wrote: Pale Fire keeps stressing FatE and in order to do that you'd have to 'shoot for the stars' and let the dice sort it out (although even this might be FitM, that's what I was asking). The big problem I see is that if any improvisation can take place, in FatE it has to be done before (what happens if you don't succeed completely?) and in FitM it can be done after (arguably a 'push' towards cinematic play).

I think if you keep a common currency to the game you've got the makings of a great combat system.

By common currency I mean construct the scales such that a +3 damage or a +3 to hit or a -3 to the opponents to hit or a -3 to the opponents damage or a -3 to the opponents "saving throw/attribute check" all equate to roughly the same degree of importance. In other words so its not ALWAYS better to take the extra to-hit than the extra damage.

It obviously can't be (and doesn't need to be) perfectly balanced, but they should be in the same ball park as each other.

That way equating improvised moves to a certain game effect to a certain difficulty (does it need a +3 or a +6 or a +9) becomes a simple excersize that doesn't require tables or alot of math.

I'm really likeing the sounds of this.

Yes, this sounds lke a very good start.

However, the crpg sounds like it'll be an incompatible comparison with the FitM rpg. If that's okay then go for it, we're all watching.

Fang Langford

Le Joueur wrote: However, the crpg sounds like it'll be an incompatible comparison with the FitM rpg. If that's okay then go for it, we're all watching.

Pale Fire wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: However, the crpg sounds like it'll be an incompatible comparison with the FitM rpg. If that's okay then go for it, we're all watching.

Why you feel they are incompatible?

Le Joueur wrote:

Pale Fire wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: However, the crpg sounds like it'll be an incompatible comparison with the FitM rpg. If that's okay then go for it, we're all watching.

Why you feel they are incompatible?

Simple, the FitM system has improvisation doesn't it? The only way I know to improvise in a computer game is to alter the programming. In the more sophisticated graphic interfaces, that requires months of development.

Pale Fire wrote:

Le Joueur wrote:

Pale Fire wrote:

Le Joueur wrote: However, the crpg sounds like it'll be an incompatible comparison with the FitM rpg. If that's okay then go for it, we're all watching.

Why you feel they are incompatible?

Simple, the FitM system has improvisation doesn't it? The only way I know to improvise in a computer game is to alter the programming. In the more sophisticated graphic interfaces, that requires months of development.

Ok, maybe some clarification is needed here. I use "improvisation" as in "you get to chose what you want, you don't need to use the move you originally declared".

I don't mean "do anything you could possibly think of"

Because that is already allowed by the "advantage move"

The advantage move is anything that isn't a standard general attack. It might be pulling down the opponent's pants or tickle him, or just try to cut off an ear.

Actually my list was also intended as check for myself to see if the system could handle these situations.

Can you help me come up with situations that ought to be covered by the system but which might not be covered.

And what concessions vs no concessions in combat? I feel without concessions is easier to handle, but doesn't provide as much flexibility. Since simplicity is important I'm a little unsure of what way is the better one. I'd like to hear your opinions before I make up my mind about that.

Pale Fire wrote: Actually my list was also intended as check for myself to see if the system could handle these situations.

Can you help me come up with situations that ought to be covered by the system but which might not be covered.

Pale Fire wrote: And what concessions vs no concessions in combat? I feel without concessions it is easier to handle, but doesn't provide as much flexibility. Since simplicity is important I'm a little unsure of what way is the better one. I'd like to hear your opinions before I make up my mind about that.

Maybe I should really start a new thread. I dunno.

Anyway, I still don't have it quite fleshed out yet. I keep considering details which in the end will have a lot of impact on the actual play.

For example, I'm using a D12. That means if I use +3/advantage There are effectively 4 levels of increasing difficulty. With the last few being pretty much useless.

+3 to hit translates to a -25% chance to hit, right? At equal skill levels, you'd start out with a 50% chance to hit your opponent.

This leaves you with a 25% to land an advantage move if you try it, and a 1/12 chance to get an improvise move (due to flattening of the curve at the ends of the scale).

A double advantage move would also only have a 1 in 12 chance and so on.

Of course if you'd usually beat up your opponent without thinking about it, let's say you start with an 75% chance to hit or something like that, advantage moves go to a 50% chance and improvisation moves are at 25% to occur.

Still, this strikes me as a bit boring. I was considering letting the modifier be +2 to target value instead, but this introduces a lot of detail which might be difficult to work out.

The advantage is that you can make it like this:
Single advantage +2
Double advantage +4
Single improvise +4
Triple advantage +6
Double improvise +6
Quad advantage +8
Triple improvise +8
n-multiple advantage + 2 x n
n-multiple improvise + 2 x n +2

In theory you could beat up a really weak foe and get a +10 in difference which would translate to a 5 advantage move or a 4 improvise move.

This seems to have advantages as well as disadvantages. The immediate disadvantage is that it is harder to fit into a table. Instead of providing three levels (0,+3,+6) one is talking about at least 5 (0,+2,+4,+6,+8)

In addition there is suddenly introduced the element of calculating the advantage. What is a +2 advantage move, when does it become a +4.
An obvious move would be to introduce even finer granularity with +1 modifiers.

But all this is something I really want to get away from. I don't want the players to get bogged down by game mechanical distractions.

Now, some people argued that tables are a BAD THING, but my experience is that instead of calculating if 1D12+6>=13 it's nicer to just check the table which says I need a 7+ roll to hit. It's clear and it can't be mistaken, and it's really really quick.

Providing three numbers (for example 4+/7+/10+) works but it's getting a bit painful already. At the +1 granularity tables suck. The best thing would still be to have a single simple table.

Those issues aside, let's look at the problem with advantage effects. I haven't developed any system for it, so whatever I think up will be a little ad hoc. I still like my system of diminishing dice as you have more disadvantages (one disadvantage and you're down to rolling D10 instead of D12, two disadvantages and it's D8 and so on), if I'd go for the +2/advantage system this really fits right in. Otherwise a -3 disadvantage "one size fits all" seems to be a problem because -3 is such a huge difference on a D12.

Another thing I'm thinking about is that I don't want all advantages created equal. I don't really want a "I do a +2 advantage move, which automatically translates to the opponent getting a -2 disadvantage" system. It screws up the whole reason for me introducing advantage moves and improvise moves to begin with.

Maybe advantage move is a misnomer, I think of it more as a "special" move. Kind of a "everything that isn't a standard move" thing. I don't want "balance". Balance screws up a good story every time! ;)

What I'm thinking about is that some moves "I pull down his pants" might be very useful sometimes (If my opponent's clothes are bound to interfere with his actions a lot) or pretty useless at others. What I want is the GM to arbiter these events and maybe even add a seperate task resolution for the effects.

For example consider two cases:
A) I try to grab the ogre's wrist to wrestle his sword away
B) I try to grab the little girl's wrist to wrestle her dagger away

Now you could do this by setting the difficulty of doing A higher than B (might be problematic if the modifiers start at +3 though, at finer granularity it's easier), but that's not really telling the story, is it?

Consider the case where the actual grab would be equally difficult.

In case A) you might grab the wrist but GOOD LUCK in wrestling it away since he's about 10 times your weight to being with. With B) you could probably just squeeze a little to get the girl to drop the dagger.

Naturally we can call on the GM to decide on all this, but it would be neat to have some Karma or Fortune mechanism for it instead of relying on drama.

If you're not convinced about +x advantage move gives a +x advantage might be a bad thing, consider the situation where you are fighting someone near the edge of a cliff. You want to do a trip to land the opponent on the ground at a -3 disadvantage. But in this case if you succeed you'll send him falling 300 feet or something. So the disadvantage is really much bigger than that. Can you only throw the opponent to the ground (and not off the cliff) for +3 advantage? Or do we screw up the balance by making one advantage actually more of an advantage than "paid for"?

I think it's obvious the +x advantage becomes a -3 disadvantage is not a useful thing, not even as a guide.

Sorry I'm not presenting a full system yet, but I still have a lot of things I feel I'm undecided about.

(I might seem like I have everything nailed down and I'm not listening to advice, but the truth is I do listen and consider everything you write me, just so you know ;) )

For simplicities sake you might want to scrap altogether the difference between Advantaged Move and Improvise Move.

In this way you have a target number, makeing the target number gives basic success. Each X increment above the target number is an "effect level". That effect is improvised between the player and the GM based on how many effect levels were actually rolled.

A concession is then easy to define. It is a + to the die roll equal to how ever many points are necessary to reach the next effect level. The severity of the concession is improvised between the player and the GM based on how many +s were actually necessary.

In fact, after this thread, I'm tempted to steal the idea myself :-)

Valamir wrote: For simplicities sake you might want to scrap altogether the difference between Advantaged Move and Improvise Move.

In this way you have a target number, makeing the target number gives basic success. Each X increment above the target number is an "effect level". That effect is improvised between the player and the GM based on how many effect levels were actually rolled.

Pale Fire wrote: For example consider two cases:
A) I try to grab the ogre's wrist to wrestle his sword away
B) I try to grab the little girl's wrist to wrestle her dagger away

Now you could do this by setting the difficulty of doing A higher than B (might be problematic if the modifiers start at +3 though, at finer granularity it's easier), but that's not really telling the story, is it?

Consider the case where the actual grab would be equally difficult.

In case A) you might grab the wrist but GOOD LUCK in wrestling it away since he's about 10 times your weight to being with. With B) you could probably just squeeze a little to get the girl to drop the dagger.

Naturally we can call on the GM to decide on all this, but it would be neat to have some Karma or Fortune mechanism for it instead of relying on drama.

Pale Fire wrote: Now if there was a way to get both without introducing effect level counting...

Yes, Andrew, I was thinking of some contest thing, but the question is if this doesn't become an infinite loop, because it could be argued that the same improv rules should apply to this test... :)

Also this the contest rule should be written with care. It's something I need to think a little about.

The roll-under system you describe is neat, but it relies on the target number being adjusted to the roll. Basically if I take my scale and simply reverse it (12->1, 11->2) I get that, so I'm still stuck with a table although in this case it's only one. The rather counter-intuitive but clever mechanism of "being close to the target number is good" is required and this also makes me a little wary. As have been argued elsewhere, roll under is simple but not intuitive.

I don't really know about this one. It's clever and would work, but something tells me I would have made it clever but not easier to understand. So, I'm gonna have to think about it a little.