I work as a contractor for NASA. Some of you may remember the infamous Faster, Better, Cheaper slogan NASA was pushing a while back.

Well, the joke going around NASA was: "Faster, Better, Cheaper? Pick two."

I was thinking about this the other day, and considered trying to build a RPG engine around it. So of course I thought of the people here at the Forge and what they could do with it. This is in the very rough "here's an idea" stage, I'm looking for people's ideas and for people to poke holes in it and make suggestions on how to make it work.

Basically, I was thinking a PC would have so many Over-the-Edge style player-defined Traits. For the best Trait, one gets to pick two out of "Faster, Better, Cheaper", while for the other traits, one picks one of those adjectives. I'm thinking one can pick the same adjective more than once, tho that might not work out in practice.

The idea here is for people with the same "score" (number of adjectives) in a similar attribute to have very different qualitative differences in how they perform, while keeping the game simple.

The baseline is the mythical "average". The adjectives are in relation to how good the average person would be at the task in question.

Faster: The character can perform an average task as well as the average person, with the same chance of success, but faster than the average person can. For extremely fast tasks (like firing a gun), this means one can peform the task twice in the time it takes an average person to perform the task.

Better: This is the simplest case. Whatever resolution mechanic is decided on (see below), someone who is better has a better chance of succeeding and does it better than the average person. Someone who is Better and Faster can do things well AND quickly.

Cheaper: This is the most complicated adjective. In the case of a mercantile Trait, it's literally cheaper: The character can peform the average task in the average time at the average rate of success, but with less money involved, from cheaper materials or by motivating his employees to excel or whatever. In the case of (say) physical skills, the character can perform the task with less effort. That is, they get less tired, and can keep going longer. For those of you familiar with the Amber DRPG, think Endurance.

Okay, now I'm considering linking this to a Pool-like mechanic. Every PC has so many dice in their Pool at the start of the session. Like Sorcerer, it doesn't matter what die type you use, tho that has an effect on how much more effective "Better" is.

The Success Number is half the number of sides of the die. If you're using d6s, the Success Number is 3. If you're using d30s, the Success Number is 15.

That base Success Number is what you're aiming for for an average task. The GM can modify the Success Number up or down depending on how hard or easy what the character is attempting is. Higher is harder.

When performing a task, the player decides how many dice out of their Pool to roll. Every dice that meets or beats the Success Number is a Success. If the character is Better at the task in question, add one (or some other pre-determined number) to each die roll, which should result in more Successes. If the character can do that task Cheaper, the player gets to roll three dice for every two he spends. If the character is Faster, he just peforms the the task faster, or gets to go first, whichever seems more appropriate.

Number of Successes determines how well the task was done, in a sort of White-Wolf Storyteller fashion.

Now, naturally, peforming tasks depletes the Pool somehow. I'm not sure what method would work best, so I'm asking for suggestions on that as well. I'm thinking all the dice you got successes on go back into your Pool, with a minimum of one die in your Pool, but I forsee problems with that...

Comments? Questions? Rude Remarks?

As you will perhaps remember from Back In The Day, I've messed around with a "descriptor:list of traits" style of character description. I like 'em. They offer a wealth of character customization and interesting detail possibilities that single-metric stats don't.

D'you mind if I steal the system and show it to an Amber friend of mine, with, of course, credit attached?

I like it - it's cool!

But - I think the payoff on being the BEST is a bit more advantageous than the other two traits. CHEAP is the hardest to define - maybe CHEAP would reduce the target number BY one - BEST would raise each of your rolls by 1 - and FASTEST would let you roll - but take switch with someone else's higher roll.. or something.

Really, a very clever idea. I could see it working also with a OtE style mechanic - where average is 2d6. BEST gives you an extra die, CHEAP gives you an easier TN to beat, and FASTEST lets try the action twice (if you fail the first one)...

Okay, so there are some other ideas... Cool stuff!

Thanks,
Nathan

I really like this idea. Here's how I might imagine it working.

I'm going to use d10's for these examples.

I think the depleting pool idea should stay as written - you lose all non-successful dice. I'd add these two caveats: Cheaper (instead of extra dice), means you get to keep one failed die out of each roll. If you have Better, dice that would be a failure (dice rolling 4 with d10's), but are a success because of Better are still lost.

Hmm:

Jack's Fighting skill is Better. He rolls 4 dice, and gets: 2, 4, 5, 6. These are raised to 3, 5, 6, and 7, giving him 3 successes. The 4 would have been a failure, though, so he still loses two dice.

John's Fighting skill is Cheaper. He rolls 3 dice, and gets: 2, 5, 9. Even though one of his dice is a failure, he does not lose it. If two dice had been failures, he'd have only lost 1.

I think the depleting pool idea should stay as written - you lose all non-successful dice. I'd add these two caveats: Cheaper (instead of extra dice), means you get to keep one failed die out of each roll. If you have Better, dice that would be a failure (dice rolling 4 with d10's), but are a success because of Better are still lost.

Scott Knipe told me that when he read Matchmaker, he groaned. Now I know how he felt. The number of times I've had the better/faster/cheaper conversation at work...geez...Kirt, Clinton, what a great game mechanic!

Paul

And just to get the ball rolling, let me stat you a major NPC:

Steve Austin

Faster and Better across the board
No traits with Cheaper

Paul

Not to be confused with Terry Austin, who's Faster, Better, and Cheaper in his professional skills and Faster, Cheaper, and Ruder in his interpersonal skills.

Tragically, I'm probably the only person on the Forge who gets that.

I'm replying to several parts of this thread, different messages accross the board, quoting all sorts of people, so bear with me here...

D'you mind if I steal the system and show it to an Amber friend of mine, with, of course, credit attached?

Please do. The more feedback I get, the better.

I think the depleting pool idea should stay as written - you lose all non-successful dice. I'd add these two caveats: Cheaper (instead of extra dice), means you get to keep one failed die out of each roll. If you have Better, dice that would be a failure (dice rolling 4 with d10's), but are a success because of Better are still lost.

Ooooh, Clinton, you rule. I really like this idea. I think I'm going to go with this.

The only remaining question is... Should there be a way to refresh one's pool? And if so, what should it be?

Perhaps if you roll a max on the die (10 for d10s, 6 for d6s) you get an extra die in your pool, in addition to everything else. This is, of course, on an unmodified roll... Better doesn't help for that.

Scott Knipe told me that when he read Matchmaker, he groaned. Now I know how he felt. The number of times I've had the better/faster/cheaper conversation at work...geez...Kirt, Clinton, what a great game mechanic!

I'm glad to hear y'all like it. I feel like Jared... while it sort of came out from mulling over faster/better/cheaper at work, it linked itself to RPGs during a dream. It's in my dream journal somewhere...

Not to be confused with Terry Austin, who's Faster, Better, and Cheaper in his professional skills and Faster, Cheaper, and Ruder in his interpersonal skills.

There's a tickle in the back of my brain that says I know what you're talking about, but I need to be reminded.

Regardless, this gives me an idea: Perhaps every trait should have a "style" adjective that's not in the F/B/C triad, and has no game-mechanical effect, but explains *how* the character engages in the activity for description/flavor purposes.

For example:

* James Bond's Seduction trait is Faster, Better, and Smoother.
* Ex-President Clinton's Seduction trait is Faster, Cheaper, and Sophmoric.
* Conan's Fighting style is Better, Cheaper, and Harder. (Parse that any way you want.)
* Sonja Blue's Fashion trait is Cheaper, Better, and Punk.

Further comments? Questions? Rude remarks?

_________________
love * Eris * RPGs * Anime * Magick * Carroll * techno * hats * cats * Dada
xiombarg@io.com -- Dance, damn you, dance!

[ This Message was edited by: xiombarg on 2001-12-09 06:05 ]

Terry Austin is the proprietor of Hyperbooks, and online bookstore and, I think, publisher. He is apparantly (I've never interacted with him on a professional level) prompt, reliable, and courteous in a business which is often none of the above.

He was also the biggest troll on rec.games.frp.misc when I was active on that newsgroup. Self-admitted trolling, flagrant and often. He got amusing once you realized you couldn't do anything about him.

He was also the biggest troll on rec.games.frp.misc when I was active on that newsgroup. Self-admitted trolling, flagrant and often. He got amusing once you realized you couldn't do anything about him.

That's where I remember hearing the name. Yes, I remember that. I didn't know he was actually excellent to deal with on a professional level.

_________________
love * Eris * RPGs * Anime * Magick * Carroll * techno * hats * cats * Dada
xiombarg@io.com -- Dance, damn you, dance!

[ This Message was edited by: xiombarg on 2001-12-09 15:28 ]

Terry Austin is the proprietor of Hyperbooks, and online