This is an unsettled idea; I can't quite wrap my head all around it because I have all the various goals in mind. However, I want to share it to see if others can spot an obvious failing, or a better means, or a way to clarify it.

The goals are:

In conflicts (be they social, physical or mental), I would like there to be some usage of more detailed actions (feint, disarm, logic trap, distraction, whatever) without them being either useless, or constantly used which is rather dull.

I would like there to be some suspense attached to die rolling. I would like some windows of opportunity to be out of the players control.

Last, I would like to avoid the sense of disappointment that comes from setting up a beautiful moment, then having bad dice completely ruin it. I prefer to have any extra modifiers happen after the dice are thrown, so one isn't wasting whatever limited  "coolness factor" one has in a given game (chips, fate points, fortune, luck, drama dice, whatever).

The idea is something like this:

I am using a customized version of 7Th Sea task resolution system, known as Roll and Keep I believe.. That's add an Attribute to a Skill to make a pool of d10s, roll all, and keep the best N dice as a total, where N is half the pool rounded down). So to hit someone with a rapier might look like Agility+Rapier vs Tareget Number 15, someone with 4 Agility and 3 Rapier would roll 7 dice, and take the best 3 as a total. This is written as 7K3 for roll 7d10, keep the best 3d10 as a total.

My idea is that fairly standard fighting will be resolved with a plain roll. However, the player will acculumate an Opportunity  Pool, which they can spend to activate more interesting actions such as a disarm attempt, or manuevering on the battle field, or setting up a trick or con.

For the moment I was thinking that every time you roll a 10, you can remove it from the roll, and it turns in an Opportinity Point. (If this is too slow for accumulating a pool, perhaps they don't get removed, or perhaps). On an successful basic combat action, you may spend Opportunity from your pool to transform the attack into a given special move.

The special move will likely still have it's own contest, but weighted towards a minimal result. So if one attacks succesfully and spends the points to add on a Disarm, you would still have some sort of contest to actually disarm, but the minimum result might be a penalty to the oppositions attack or defense next action. The original attack could be considered to have happened as well, causing damage.

I'd like the special chances to a be a moment of excitement when they come up, without being a pure gimme. our groups sensibilities require that this be up to chance in some fashion.

Comments? Boring? Too reliant on many special case move descriptions with their minimum results? Too restrictive on regular combat narrative?

Well, this is a tricky kind of thing to emulate. Games (both tabletop and virtual) have been trying to get players to do things other that brute force for a while now. I'm thinking in terms of melee combat here, because that was the example you used, but this could probably apply to anything.

In game terms, you want your enemy dead as fast as possible. This means you want to deal maximum damage per round, so you strait-up attack all the time. The only reason to do anything else is to protect yourself or help out an ally, usually you can get that done by killing the baddie. If I spend my action disarming my enemy, he doesn't get any closer to dead, so the action isn't terribly useful. You need something that motivates the players to take an action that adjusts things in their favor without dealing damage.

Something to consider would be a kind of momentum or flow mechanic. When the momentum of the conflict is with you, your chances of succes are greatly increased. The benefit would have to be sizey enough that it's worth an action to take it away from the bad guy. Something about winning rolls keep the momentum moving in your favor, letting you, I dunno, act first, gain more dice, automatic successes, some kind of tangible bonus that can increase/decrease as the conflicts swings around. Then, in order to defeat the really bad guys, the players have to build up some momentum before they can take him out. I think in order to get combat to play out the way you're describing, you need some way to represent the flow of the conflict, and allow the players to influence that.

Just some initial thoughts on the idea

-sneakie.

Thanks for the reply. I agree, and for a long time have sought some sort of conceptually higher details to conflicts, both in terms of expertise, and actual resulting flow of combat. The hard part is keeping conflict momentum from becoming a death spiral where the loser just accumulates more and more penalties that will prevent them from getting the momentum back on their side.

For the opportunity idea, I wanted the good die rolls and the chances to use the pool to pop out as moments of excitement. Hopefully accumulating the Pool leads to anticipation and tension, while the uses of it are highlight moments of a conflict, that offer enough of a payoff.

If something works every time, why wouldn't you use it every time?

If something doesn't work every time, what prevents it from working?

If something is suitable for every situation, then it makes sense to use it in every situation.

Most people find that they can walk with no problems, but if they want to get places faster they'll need to run or they'll need some form of transport.

Are you trying to get somewhere that will not allow a car or motorbike to pass? Then running becomes the option.

Do you want to avoid spending exertion, so that you arrive fresh and unfatigued? Then a car would be better than running.

Whats my point?

Plenty of games just let you apply a bonus if you use a specific technique or piece of equipment. They leave it in the hands of the GM and players to see whether that technique is appropriate...and this can often result in out-of-play discussions about whether a situation is appropriate for the technique/equipment. This really slows down combat and other action scenes, because most of the table dialogue concerns whether something is appropriate rather than just doing it.

[hr]

There's a couple of ways that I can think of for addressing this.

One is to allow special character bonuses to come into play a finite number of times. This can be done by expenditure of a generic resource point (but this still means that most payers will just use a single advantage numerous times until they run out of points), or it could be done by allocating a number of uses to each bonus.

You've got two levels in "dodge bullets", and one level in armour. Which one are you going to use to avoid the spray of gunfire heading your way? If you use the armour, you'll have to dodge the next incoming volley.

In this example, a player might get the chance to regenerate a level of their "dodge bullets" talent between scenes, or maybe they could spend the time between scenes repairing their armour. Depending on the nature of the game, a player might automatically replenish a single bonus usage of their choice between each scene.

This allows players to choose a bunch of special effects that they can introduce into play for their characters, while ensuring these effects don't become too monotonous. I've encountered a few games starting to follow this idea (even 4th edition D&D seems to be following this route at some degree).

[hr]

A second option for keeping things interesting is to have dynamic situational modifiers. Roll a pair of d10s at the start of every round, abilities might only be possible if a certain die roll comes up. A character might have Disarm [6]...If a 6 is rolled on one of the dice, this character gets the chance to disarm their opponent during this round, if both the dice are 6s, then the character not only disarms their opponent, but they get to keep the weapon as well (or perform some other bonus effect). By rolling 2 dice every round, a character has a 19% chance that their benefit will be applicable in any given round and a 1% chance that they'll be able to pull off a truly memorable feat. [The number in parenthesis is not a skill level, it's simple the natural die facing when this ability becomes available].

If characters are given four or five of these possible bonuses...then there is a better than average chance that they'll be able to do something cool every round. But there will be some rounds that just don't provide the right situations for them, while other rounds might give them a variety of options to choose from.

It's like the running and the car that I mentioned earlier, in this case a character has running [4] and car [6].

Dice come up 4 and 8. The character can use their running advantage, but the car isn't viable. This can be explained by saying that the chase is occurring down a narrow alleyway.
Dice come up 6 and 9. The character can use their car but not their running advantage. An explanation for this could be that the opponent gets in a car, and running simply won't catch them.
Dice come up 4 and 6. Both are available. The target is on foot and there is wide open space around, either advantage would be beneficial.
Dice come up 3 and 8. The target has hidden somewhere, running or moving more quickly simply won't give you time to adequately search the area for them...thus neither advantage is a benefit in this situation.
Dice come up double 4's. Extra bonus to Running. The target is on slippery ground that would simply cause skidding and loss of control in a car...but the character has such athletic agility that they'll easily reach their prey with no problems.

[hr]

If you were still running with you're opportunity pool idea, this could be applied in the first case by allowing traits to regenerate every time a 10 comes up on a die roll. In the second case, a 10 might allow a character to improve the benefit from the advantage they are using.

No situational benefit, and no 10's for the skill: this effect can't be used.
1 die of situational benefit, or a 10 rolled for the skill: effect comes into play at a basic level.
2 dice of situational benefit, or 1 die of benefit and a 10 rolled for the skill: effect comes into play at a special level.
2 dice of situational benefit and a 10 rolled for the skill: effect is phenomenal.

This is a bit more complicated, and probably slows down play a bit. But the focus is now on the final effects rather than the discussion of what causes go into those effects. I've always found describing the outcome to be far more fun.

V

Thank you for the thoughts. The last thing suggested hit fairly well on the spot of one part I was hoping to achieve: that the resulting level of success would be easy to resolve, and part choice and partly luck.

I also forgot to mention that in some ways this idea was inspired by the River in Weapons of the Gods, changing out must roll doubles/triples of something to put it in the River, it just has to be a 10.

I have a reservation that this just ends up being a sort of luck saving device, you take good rolls from unimportant rolls, and use it to add to rolls that might have been lackluster.

At the moment, I am finding the idea lackluster itself, I'll have to re-examine it in a week or so.