<a href="http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php?topic=30254.0">[Chrysalis] Initial Thoughts

Things happen in games that may affect the players ability to take an action or it's effectiveness and my question is how to apply this to my game.

Stats are broken down into 3 categories: Mind, Body, Spirit

All skills and attributes can be filed under these 3 stats which operate on a 5 star system I made up. (It's been done already I'm sure.) Each stat can have up to 5 stars/pip slots and each player starts out with 5 they can assign to any given stat. So if they want to be a muscle bound jock with ridiculous amounts of physical prowess with no other thoughts than "Eat, sleep, Sport" they can put their 5 stars into Body. A more balanced character may spend their points a little differently, it's really all up to the player and the character they are trying to portray.

All rolls use a pass/fail d20 roll and the stars/pips just represent an increase to their roll: 1d20 + Stat (0-5)

I need to come up with a penalty system that works with this. I suppose the Gm could roll a d6 to use as the penalty if the player fails their save against it. I could come up with a mirrored version of it for the GM but that wouldn't be very versatile or fair to the other players if say the player gets the same penalty from being drugged as say having the sniffles because the GM's Mind, Body, Spirit stats are all at 5 stars.

Any thoughts?

Here are my thoughts. First of all, I like the term "stars." Neat.

1d20 is very random

Right off the bat, I think your 1d20 + stat (0-5) system basically makes stats meaningless. Each +1 adds 5% success chance. You're saying that the most skilled character has a 25% better chance of succeeding than a completely unskilled character.

Consider the difference if you made this a 1d6 + stat (0-5). In that case, each +1 adds 17% success chance. The most skilled character is 83% more likely to succeed than a completely unskilled character.

You might want finer granularity in your rolls, and thus the d20. In that case, consider a wide stat range.

If you think the amount of "sway" of randomness compared to skill is fine, then there's nothing to see here, but I suspect this is not your intent.

1d20 + stat vs. what?

I think we need to understand how this d20 roll is used before we can give you more solid advice.

Is it roll versus a fixed target number ("Roll 1d20 + Mind. You need a 20 to succeed")? If so, what are the target numbers for a typical task, or a dramatically difficult task? Do the math, which is pretty easy with a d20+stat system, and figure out what percent of the time a typical character succeeds and fails. Is that the gameplay you want? How do you handle character vs. character conflicts?

Is it opposed rolls? This is more or less a special case of the above, only substituting a d20+modifier roll for a fixed target number.

Whence penalties?

What does a penalty mean? How does it tie to the fiction? You're talking about versatility and fairness and stuff. This is about tying the modifier to the fiction. It's okay to say, "The GM sets the penalty based on how hard she thinks the task is. Here are some guidelines."

It helps to narrow the choices down to a few. For example, if the GM can set any penalty from -10 to +10, then that's 21 options. Worse, it's not immediately clear if a -4 or -5 is better in any given situation, since the 5% difference is so small. If you make a rule like "apply penalties in increments of +5 or -5," then there are only five options in the same -10 to +10 range (-10, -5, +0, +5, +10). Five options are easier to choose from than 21. There's a lot more difference between a -5 and a -0, or a -5 and a -10, than between -5 and -4.

Other oddities

How wedded are you to the d20? It produces a linear probability curve and gives you very few mechanical techniques to play with as a designer: roll, reroll, modify up or down. If you went with a 3d6 roll (total), you'd have a similar range (3-18 instead of 1-20), slightly longer handling time (addition), and more tricks: reroll one or more dice, add or subtract dice, modify up or down, roll extra dice and throw out some, etc.

What's this "fail their save against it" stuff? This is directly from D&D terminology. What do you mean by it. How can a player "save against" a penalty that is imposed by some element of the fiction (like being drugged)? Do you need the complication of additional rolls outside the normal conflict system to handle modifiers? This could just be a preamble conflict ("let's see you get drugged: roll d20 + Body against the poison... okay you're drugged so you get a -5 penalty to your next roll"). Or since there's already so much randomness in the d20 roll, just apply the penalty ("you're drugged so you get a -5 penalty to this roll").

Eep! Terminology. Sorry about that. I was going to have the player roll a d20 and try to get a 12 or higher for success for normal tasks while harder tasks would require a 14 or higher depending on how the GM has it set up. So there was/is a fixed target for the roll. As for what by "saving" players get a chance to avoid a negative stat for whatever reason if they roll a 12 or higher.

I see where you are coming from and why you have been pushing for d6 dice. The percentages don't make enough of a difference to matter and trying to force them could end in awkwardness in the numbers. The older system I tried actually had a 3d6 system where the characters had to roll in between certain numbers in order to be successful.

As for penalties maybe I'm over-thinking it. A penalty table to be included might work better like you mentioned. So if say, the player is poisoned and they want to try to do something with their Body stat the GM can choose from the table depending on how severe the poisoning is. If I decide to stick with a d20 I could do increments of 3 for the table maybe.

As for the d20 and I well, I'm ready to settle down and have a few dice with it....or not.

I like it for it's simplicity and the fast pace it has given the games I have played but it is not the end all be all. This is not my baby, more like FrankenAdri's monster so I have no problems with change. If I did decide to try out the 3d6 idea again with your twist to it, I could lower the number of Stars a player can get to 3 total or maybe I can give the player a choice...

Oh! Random idea, unskilled players have to roll a d20 and score a 12 or higher while those with skill can roll 2d6 + their Star modifier and still have to roll 12 or more? So a Player with 3 Stars in Mind would be able to roll 5d6? Or not....

...I think I'm going off on a tangent...

Hmmmmm 3d6........

I wonder if I could have it set up so that the player is trying to roll between numbers in order to succeed at the action... I mention this only because the average roll for 3d6 is 10.5 and I could play with that. So a successful roll would be between 9-12, anything below is a fail anything above is a success but with a consequence because the player overshot it. So for example if the player shoots a bb gun and overshoots it by rolling higher than a 12 they do hit the target but also the window behind them or something along those lines. Or maybe the stars can represent how many dice they can reroll. So they can choose to use 3 stars to do a complete redo or maybe just one to reroll one die depending on how many they have.

I think my brain is spinning in circles, but they are crop circles so it's ok because it's relevant to the game...

I think 3d6 can work in a basic or simple system.  The problem with using multiple dice and adding them is your base roll is predictable.

you will mostly roll an 11 and 9-12 will be most common.  This means that everyone will roll an 11 mostly.  SO if the fighter has a +6 then he will mostly roll 17+.  And if his target's defense is 16 or below than he will mostly hit.  But not just mostly, the chance will be weighted to the number of dice.  The more you add the more standard the distribution becomes.

So you start to create a circumstance where the fighter always hits.  Which is fine if the mechanics anticipate that.

D20 works fairly well in the ranges of class levels of about 2 to 8.  But since it works on a 5% grade you need A LOT of variables to get the system to do what you want it to.  The ting with d20 is that over high levels the system blows itself out and encourages a "keep up with the jonses" mechanic.  At high levels the +bonus can be greater than the dice itself therefore making the actual roll more based on arbitrary values (monster levels ect...) than the roll itself.

I like your attribute system idea.  You could easily adapt to a success based system that uses d6's.  Check out savage worlds or Earthdawn they both have a more unique system that might apply better than what you use.

I see what you mean Locke and thanks for the game titles, I'll definitely check them out. Since I don't want too many variables and it's a very story driven game I have an idea I'm going to try taking what I learned from my last discussion with my department head and this is what I came up with. Let me know what you guys think?

The player still gets the three stats Mind, Body, and Spirit and they are reusable resources. The player will roll 3d6 for action and the result will fall into ranges. The 9-12 range is success while anything above is success with consequences and/or a comedic aspect, and anything below is just failure or just the consequences. Consequences are things that happen as a result that can be bad for the player or just make them look bad for example.

So say a teacher is holding a friend captive and demands the player gives him their symbiote. The player has somehow overpowered the teacher and has the opportunity to find out information on their friends whereabouts. The player decides to "convince" the teacher to tell them where their friend is by choking him the action is not as important as the result in this case, the result being getting the information, not choking the teacher. ^_^

So a 9-12 roll would be that the teacher caves and gives them information. A roll of 13 or higher would be the teacher caves but only gives a hint as tot he friends whereabouts and gets away, or the player gets caught and is mistaken for the aggressor but still gets the information or hint. Essentially, something that is interesting will happen to the player or in the story. Now, a roll of 8 or less would just be the consequences so the player may not get the information at all, may get caught harassing the teacher, or may just be captured by the badguys. Character death is not really an option but that is going to be another thread.

The modifiers come in as a way for the player to have some sort of control over their fate. The new limit is 3 stars per stat and they can be used at the players discretion. So in this case since the player was trying to strong-arm their teacher with violence they are using the Body modifier which has, say, 2 stars. That means they can reroll up to 2 dice at their discretion and if none of their rolls are successful they lose a star. It's pretty much exploding dice but using a limited resource as the catalyst instead of the typical roll of 6. There is no limit to the use of stars for an action roll, they can use all of them but only from one stat. If the player wants to try a different means that uses Mind for example counts as a whole new action and if turns are being taken or the GM has something happen the player may not have time for another action.

Recharging the stars is different for each player. Each character will have it's own list of "Quirks", possibly 5, that are decided by the players some examples could be "Afraid of Spiders" and "Has a Hero Complex". If something happens in the game that incorporates these Quirks such as the player overcomes their fear of spiders or a damsel is in distress/a person must be "saved" than one of the stars would refill. Note that it doesn't always have to be about the player "overcoming" their Quirks.

Each player would start out with 3 stars that they can assign to the 3 stats at their discretion. If the Quirks are really specific obviously that could make it difficult to recharge the Stars so the player may need to keep that in mind but it is also true that the player does not have to use the stat modifier at all. The player will have to mention that before they roll for their action. If they aren't going to use their stars that's fine but then they can't change their mind after already rolling.

Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms?

Too much text?