So, one of the quirks of the TROS system is that TN 11 and TN 10 are functionally the same (if you open-end on a 10, then you must at least get an 11...) Also TNs 20 and 21, for those who care...
I was wondering if this was a problem in actual play.

yrs--
--Ben

i kinda get what you mean...its just how the cookie crumbles

to get an 11 you need to roll a 10... sure man i can grasp that concept... so if i roll a 10, damn skippy i wanna succeed... but how much of a margin will it be?...if for some reason my TN in combat is 11 (it could be..lol) then just 1 success isnt likely going to matter

if on skills.... well refer to the degrees of success chart, on page 6..

a 1 is a narrow success, if you look at it from a white wolf standpoint... that is the most basic success... if i get 1 success on a basketweaving roll... well it'll get done, but there may be some wrong sections, or just some sections that dont look quite right

That's actually a good point, one valid in any open-ended die rolling system. One way to mess with players who try to exploit this problem -- i.e. that a TN of 10 is about the same as 11-13 -- is to curse them so that they don't get bonus rolls. Have some mage work mojo on them that limits their 10s to 10s. Players hate that. Characters hate that. And when the Players and their Characters find the NPC who did that to them, terrible things happen. But at least they're terribly fun.

Ben Lehman wrote: So, one of the quirks of the TROS system is that TN 11 and TN 10 are functionally the same (if you open-end on a 10, then you must at least get an 11...) Also TNs 20 and 21, for those who care...
I was wondering if this was a problem in actual play.

yrs--
--Ben

I like Bob Richter's idea. It keeps the probability curve very smooth. Personally, this is how I would use his idea.

For a normal d10 roll, read the dice normally with a "0" counting as 10. A die result of 10 stacks, so roll another d10 and add it to the 10.

HOWEVER, for stacking dice, read "0" as 0. Rolls of 9 get another stacking die on top.

Example: (this is improbable) So I roll a pool of 3d10. All are 0's. Each one stacks. So for each one I roll another d10. The first one gets another 0. So I add (10+0) and stop at 10. The second stacking die gets a 5, so (10+5) yields 15. The third die gets a 9, so it gets another stacking die. That roll is an 8, so (10+9+8) is 27. The final results are rolls of 10, 15, and 27.

I'm not sure I see the point of having 11 as a TN at all, since as you note, it has exactly the same statistical probability as TN10. I'd just boost it to TN 12.

MrGeneHa wrote: I like Bob Richter's idea. It keeps the probability curve very smooth. Personally, this is how I would use his idea.

For a normal d10 roll, read the dice normally with a "0" counting as 10. A die result of 10 stacks, so roll another d10 and add it to the 10.

HOWEVER, for stacking dice, read "0" as 0. Rolls of 9 get another stacking die on top.

Example: (this is improbable) So I roll a pool of 3d10. All are 0's. Each one stacks. So for each one I roll another d10. The first one gets another 0. So I add (10+0) and stop at 10. The second stacking die gets a 5, so (10+5) yields 15. The third die gets a 9, so it gets another stacking die. That roll is an 8, so (10+9+8) is 27. The final results are rolls of 10, 15, and 27.

If for some strange reason your TN is 20...then you would have to roll 10 then 9 then 1...so 20 becomes a fake TN......19 and 20 are the same....as long as you know what the probabilities are you can do whatever you like.....we just make 11's into 12's....

toli wrote: If for some strange reason your TN is 20...then you would have to roll 10 then 9 then 1...so 20 becomes a fake TN......19 and 20 are the same....as long as you know what the probabilities are you can do whatever you like.....we just make 11's into 12's....

Sounds great. I only have one beef with the solution. That is, I think it's a lot worse than the problem. A TN of 10 is frikkin' hard to get any appreciable number of successes with... most of the players in my group tend to deal with TNs around 4-7, maybe a little higher, but only if they have to. By the time your TN is 10, there's a good chance you won't succeed, even with six or seven dice!

MikeSands wrote:

No it wouldn't - remember that you are now reading 0 as 0, not ten. So a 19 is 10, 9, 0 and 20 requires 10, 9, 1

Ok, I've been reading this forum. I don't really want to offend anyone here, but honestly, What's the point? I mean, re-doing the entire d-10 based system just to enable a tn of 11? Why not just skip 11 go to 12 and be done with it. This method has the merit of somplicity on it's side. It also works with 21, 31, 41, 51 and so forth. I mean, what's the point,

Warboss Grock wrote: Ok, I've been reading this forum. I don't really want to offend anyone here, but honestly, What's the point? I mean, re-doing the entire d-10 based system just to enable a tn of 11? Why not just skip 11 go to 12 and be done with it. This method has the merit of somplicity on it's side. It also works with 21, 31, 41, 51 and so forth. I mean, what's the point,

It's no more simple to "just remove TN 11" than it is to "just read the 0 as a 0 on subsequent die rolls."

I'm with Warboss here; if adjustments land a TN on 11, 21, 31, etc. then I'm just going to +1 to get it to 12, 22, 32, etc. Just look at something simple like rolling two dice. A TN of 9 has a 36.0% chance of getting at least one success. With a TN of 10 (and 11), you have a 19.0% of getting at least one success. A TN of 12 has a 17.2% chance of getting at least one success.

I guess if you are a generous Seneschal, you could just have the TN 11 stand, which is the same as a TN 10, and give the character a break.

I'm with warboss, here. I think the issue is pretty inane, but if it floats your boat...game on.

Jake

Personally, I think it depends on what's most intuitive for you.

Let's say you're making an Evasive Attack, and you're totting up the new TN for your opponent (he's using a poleaxe, TN 7, I increase it by +4).

If you prefer to keep it orthodox, keep TN 11 statistically the same as TN 10.

If you REALLY want the term TN 11 (or 21) to mean something, roll die 0-9.

If messing with dice bugs you more than messing with TNs, turn that TN 11 into 12.

It's not gonna mess up anyone else's game. Personally, I don't know which I'll use. I could easily use any of the last two.

Gene

statistics suck.... in theory, if you raise the tn to 12, they will have a chance for failure, which is what you are looking for... why punish them?

prophet118 wrote: statistics suck.... in theory, if you raise the tn to 12, they will have a chance for failure, which is what you are looking for... why punish them?

strictly speaking from the system mechanics, where are you going to get the "extra +1", and why add it... how are you going to explain it to your players?...

"oh sorry man, i cant let you have a TN of 11, even though it adds up perfectly to that, so im going to give you a TN of 12 instead, to satisfy statistics"

you know there are 3 kinds of lies...

lies, damned lies, and statistics

If you want to talk reality, then there is no such thing as a TN of 11. If a player rolls a 10, then there is no sense to have them roll again, it is automatic. Another thing too is that if you just spring it on the players in the middle of a game, then I'd expect them to get pissed. I'd simply explain that because of the mathematics, an 11, 21, or 31 is really a 12, 22, or 32. And by the way, the numbers don't lie. You can look at them in different ways, not account for everything, or take them out of context, but unless your math is wrong, the numbers don't lie.

Warboss Grock wrote:

It's no more simple to "just remove TN 11" than it is to "just read the 0 as a 0 on subsequent die rolls."

Actually it's a bit more difficult to do that in my opinion, because now you have to do a contest of 9's, so to get TN 20 you have to get a 10, a 9, and a 1, because 0 is 0 therefore the roll over die changed to 9 because 0 cannot be used for that anymore. It's bieng 0 and all. this doesn't seem to be much of a prob untill you realize TN 56 is also like this (10+9+9+9+9+9+1) It begins to be a bit confusing for some players. Time is the reason that they didn't do this in the first place. It's easier to count 10's than 9+1's.

At least that's my opinion. Leaving the rule as stands speeds up gameplay, rather than counting up dice.

I went to bed thinking on this subject, prophet118. Would it work to add a number equal to the tens number of the resulting TN? example: you compute a TN of 13, add 1, it is now 14. The only one it doesn't work for is 10; just leave 10 alone. An 18 becomes 19, 19 becomes 20, and 20 becomes a 22. Do you see what I'm talking about?

Here's a table I just thought up. This should cover any possibility.
[code]
Computed TN Resulting TN
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
7 7
8 8
9 9
10 10
11 12
12 13
13 14
14 15
15 16
16 17
17 18
18 19
19 20
20 22
21 23
22 24
23 25
24 26
25 27
26 28
27 29
28 30
29 32
30 33
31 34
32 35
33 36
34 37
35 38
36 39
37 40
38 42
39 43
40 44
41 45
42 46
43 47
44 48
45 49
46 50
47 52
48 53
49 54
50 55
[/code]

so now you increase the tns making it more difficult?... somehow you didnt make it work better thn the others... you still have the problem i mentioned

"sorry your tn isnt 11 although it is supposed to be"....

im all about being fair to my players, would you guys realize how friggin hard it is to even roll a 10 anyway?.. granted in theory you have a 1 in 10 chance for each number, but real world applications do not show that, some people are more lucky, some people arent, some people roll on carpet, some people roll on a firm surface, some people have those cut d10 whos side are fairly sharp, and dont roll much, and some people have those rounded d10s..

that all comes down to this: statistics get thrown out because there is no way to duplicate the results of any given die roll... get a random number generator.... use any of the online die rolling... those are more random..so in my wifes sorcery pool, she has 6 dice, her tn got pretty high, lets say shes doing the regrowth spell, her CTN is 11... on 6 dice what are the odds that she will roll a 10, then a 1...not as high as you think... then she has to turn around, and roll her aging roll, at the same CTN...

apply this to combat, someone is using some god aweful unwieldy weapon, his tn is 11.. if thast dude somehow manages to score a 10... thats great man... but again, thats 1 success... how likely is that player going to roll those successes... and dont tell me about "statistics" they never take in to account the human element

i just rolled 12 d10s, as i would normally roll them, heres my results

2,8,1,8,3,9,5,9,5,5,7,7

second roll
8,4,5,3,6,1,1,2,3,10,9,7

third roll
8,4,4,9,9,10,2,4,7,9,9,2

fourth
8,6,4,7,10,10,7,8,4,1,2,6

as you can see the results are very very varied

i would roll some more, but its time for breakfast

I really don't what to tell you. I believe in tweeking a game a bit to correct some percieved problem or increase the realism, but if you have that much of a problem with this game's basic dice mechanic, maybe you should just move on. I know I am from this post. Good luck and Happy New Year.

Uh... guys? Is there any reason this TN10=TN11 thing would actually cause a problem in play? 'Cause I'm not seeing why this is a problem.

The odds for making a TN of 10 is the same as a TN of 11 (90% per die rolled). You only get to roll the dice again if you roll a 10, if you roll that then all you need to roll is a 1, which is the lowest number you can roll.

Henry Fitch wrote: Uh... guys? Is there any reason this TN10=TN11 thing would actually cause a problem in play? 'Cause I'm not seeing why this is a problem.

The difference between any two consequtive numbers between 1-10 is 10%, between 11-20 the difference is 1%, and between 21-30 there is only 0.1%. The chance is reduced by a factor of 10 as you continue to go up. The problem comes up between 10 and 11, 20 and 21, etc. There is no difference in the odds for those TN's.

Let say you have a player who starts off with the default skill rating of 13 (beginner) in Streetwise. He works on this skill and brings this rating down to 11. At the end of another successful adventure, the Seneschal rules that rating goes down another point to 10. Without any change in the Attributes used to determine the size of the dice pool used, the character receives no change in his overall chance to succeed at performing this skill. Should the Seneschal rule that his new skill rating should drop to 9 or maybe it should have gone from 12 to 10, or he could rule that nothing changes. I kind of like to see a regular progression, so I created the above tables for my own game just incase this situation occurs.

You also run into this sort of problem when a character's TN is altered do to their choice of actions such as an Evasive Attack. In the end you do what feels right and fair to you I guess.

Personally I find this whole conversation a bit silly, but whatever floats your boat I guess.

Anyway, all I was going to say is that there is a difference between skill levels of 10 and 11, because of bonuses and penalties. Yes, some just affect the die pool, but others affect the TN, making a 10 more desireable than an 11, so it's not a waste of experience (or whatever) to improve from a TN11 to TN10.

Just my 2c.

Brian.

Okay, I can see how it would be annoying when it made a character advancement or tactical decision worthless. Easy to workaround by just subtracting another point from the TN for free if the player complains, through. I definitely wouldn't advise giving up on the game for this reason; seems like swearing off a novelist because they end sentences with prepositions, or something.

Durgil wrote: I went to bed thinking on this subject, prophet118. Would it work to add a number equal to the tens number of the resulting TN? example: you compute a TN of 13, add 1, it is now 14. The only one it doesn't work for is 10; just leave 10 alone. An 18 becomes 19, 19 becomes 20, and 20 becomes a 22. Do you see what I'm talking about?

Henry Fitch wrote: Uh... guys? Is there any reason this TN10=TN11 thing would actually cause a problem in play? 'Cause I'm not seeing why this is a problem.

This whole discussion seems a bit silly at this point, to me. Statistically when rolling dice vs a TV 10 and 11 are the same. UNLESS one uses the previously suggested method of making the added die roll a 0 - 9 not 1 - 10 OR just skips TN 11 for either TN10 or TN12 (depending upon whether you are going up or down).

How you chose to solve it depends a little bit on your view of the 10-11-12 break. One might also consider this glitch as a realistic cost for going from 10 to 12 or 12 to 10. That is, learing a bit of a skill from the default of 13 isn't too hard (13 to 12) but your chance of success per die is still below 10%. Really getting it down to functioning levels ( >10% chance of success per die, 9 or below) is harder hence the additional cost of the "meaningless" 11TN. A PC would simply have to go a bit longer at a 10% probability of success per die (TN 10 or 11) before learing enough to really improve. Likewise when doing an evasive attack it might cost more to increase your opponents TN at this higher level indicating some added difficulty in making the increase. Hence TN11 doesn't really get you any higher than TN10.

NT