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Post by notbowen on Sept 3, 2014 17:23:04 GMT -8
I might be reading this wrong but this seems strange to me. Consider the following: Jeskal the Arcane needs to reach a high ledge to disable a magical barrier barring passage into the next room. His Agility is only Blue but luckily a pair of his compatriots elect to give him a boost and assist his character in making the jump. Both of his allies succeed on their flip, boosting up his attempt from Blue to Yellow. Great! Now Jeskal makes the flip:  With this Resolution card he would have succeeded if no one tried to help or if only one of his two allies had succeeded in helping. I realize that mathematically flipping Yellow was more likely to give a success but it seems strange that it's clearly obvious to the players upon flipping a card like this that the two other successes in fact hampered the final result. Would it perhaps be better if allies successfully helping granted more flips of the same color and then choosing the better result? |
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 3, 2014 23:48:04 GMT -8
I like that idea, from the standpoint that even if you flip multiple cards and still fail you are not left comparing your result to what "might have been" as you show in the example above. That is one aspect of using cards that differs from dice, in that you don't get to see with dice what you might have rolled had you been rolling differently. However this can be used in interesting ways, perhaps via skills or powers that allow you to use a different result from the same card (on a limited use basis of course).
In the end, failing is a part of the game and can contribute to the story. For example, using your example above, maybe the group gives Jeskal such a mighty boost that he completely overshoots the ledge and goes crashing to the ground on the other side! To which the others respond, "Whoops!". Jeskal dusts himself off and gets a perseverance point (as per the new perseverance engine) while he thinks of another way to get up on that ledge.
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Ziphion
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Post by Ziphion on Sept 4, 2014 6:08:03 GMT -8
There's an easy solution to this: Don't randomize the distribution of checks on each card. Arrange all the checks/strikes in initiative order. Here's what I mean:
Cards 1-3 (initiative = 1-3): Critical failures, identical other than initiative and direction
Card 4: 3 blue strikes, 3 green strikes, 3 yellow strikes, 3 red strikes
Card 5 & 6: 3 blue strikes, 3 green strikes, 3 yellow strikes, 2 red strikes
Card 7: 3 blue strikes, 3 green strikes, 3 yellow strikes, 1 red strike
Card 8: 3 blue strikes, 3 green strikes, 2 yellow strikes, 1 red strike
...
Card 26: 1 blue strike, 2 green checks, 2 yellow checks, 3 red checks
Card 27: 1 blue strike, 2 green checks, 3 yellow checks, 3 red checks
Card 28: 1 blue check, 2 green checks, 3 yellow checks, 3 red checks
...
etc.
That way there are "good cards" and "bad cards", just like how critical successes/failures are currently all good or all bad. The randomness comes in purely from shuffling.
You can't do the same thing with pips, though, since that would lead to very strong correlation between pips and strikes, and they would no longer be independent variables. For example, you can't have the first half of the cards with one blue pip and the second half with two blue pips, since the first half of the deck is full of strikes, and therefore most of your successful strikes will be on two-pip cards. You instead need to cycle the pips, so Card 4 would have 1 green pip, Card 5 would have 2 green pips, Card 6 would have 3 green pips, Card 7 has 1, Card 8 has 2, Card 9 has 3, 1, 2, 3, etc. OH! Actually! I just realized a wonderful way to improve pip distribution, but I'll save it for another post. (Edit: Here it is!)
Anyway, if the cards are distributed like this, you completely remove the element of "Well, if I hadn't had that bonus I would have succeeded!" which isn't a fun feeling. And you don't damage the balance or randomness of the game at all by doing this.
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Post by LordAnubis on Sept 4, 2014 6:33:45 GMT -8
Eliminating the, "bah if I didn't have *insert circumstance that turned my flip up* (sharp shooter for me) I would have hit" feeling I had during the demo would be a real good thing.
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Post by Arcanet on Sept 4, 2014 6:53:51 GMT -8
Oo, you're right. Randomly distributing the checks, strikes and pips is unnecessary, as the card decks by definition will be random after shuffling. Doubling the randomness makes no difference in propability per color, but screws up when you go up in color.
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 4, 2014 7:46:20 GMT -8
Flipping a card with a lesser result after taking steps to improve your chances is one of the more 'sticky' elements of the design in practice. In all reality, there is no guarantee that you will roll a higher result on a d10 than a d6 as in other systems, simply a higher probability of doing so (which is the case when turning your attempts up in Simple System). The problem is that players can clearly see the other potential results which can lead to disappointment. You can explain it to them, and reason that turning up their flips was a smart decision regardless the result, but it's hard for a player to ignore the better result they missed out on when it's sitting right in front of them. I originally wanted to avoid "good cards" and "bad cards", which is why I did a mixed distribution, even thinking that some skills or powers could allow players to turn cards up or down that have already been flipped, thus changing it from a bad result to a good one (or visa versa). I guess this would still be possible with the distribution above, just to a lesser extent.
I think this is an important discussion to continue, but please take some time to consider this before responding: The distribution you propose would be more viscerally pleasing, but I'm not sure about allowing skills that turn up your attempts to guarantee a better result (pass or fail). The opposite is even more troubling, that anything that causes you to turn your attempts down guarantees a worse result (again, pass or fail). It's one thing to say doing this or that will improve your chances, but another to remove that important element of uncertainty that creates tension and suspense. Sure it stings when it means failure, but it makes it that much sweeter when it means success. In the end the resolution deck is not meant to be a "win generator", but a way to tell stories that don't already have foregone conclusions.
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Post by LordAnubis on Sept 4, 2014 8:28:02 GMT -8
Ziphion said that the probabilities would stay the same with this distribution that would alleviate the feeling of having screwed yourself by improving your chances. While the proposed skill/power your talking about would be cool, I don't think it out weighs the feeling of if I'd stayed Green instead of turning up. It could easily be replaced with skills that let you multiflip after a fail.
I understand that it's effectively the same as going from a d6 to a d10, but you're not rolling that d6 along with your d10 like in simple system. Because you see what all the results would have been it feels weird (and a bit annoying) to have that success from the, probability wise, worse color staring at you. I have accidentally rolled a d6 after using enlarge person which made it so I should have rolled a d8 and laughed at myself when the d6 was better and wished I hadn't drank that potion (or remembered that I was suppose to use d8 instead).
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Ziphion
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Post by Ziphion on Sept 4, 2014 8:53:39 GMT -8
Instead of comparing it to upgrading your d6 to a d10, think of it as adding a +5 to your next d20 roll. You still have a chance of failure, you haven't removed the element of uncertainty, you've just given yourself a clear boost to your odds. You can look at your d20 result and say "Man, if it hadn't been for that +5, I would have missed!"
With a non-random, ascending distribution of check results like this, turning up or down your flip doesn't preclude you from getting a critical success, critical failure, triple check, triple strike, or anything. It just makes it more like adding to a d20 than upgrading your die size.
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 4, 2014 9:47:13 GMT -8
LordAnubis - You are 100% correct, and I agree that the potential feelings of disappointment outweigh the benefits of any fancy skills (that could easily be replaced by something else). Good points. Ziphion - You, sir, are extremely intelligent and oh so good-looking. (I'm guessing on the second one!) Thank you for putting it that way, that makes perfect sense. To be clear I liked you new distribution from the start, but I guess I couldn't see past my own nose on this one. I've avoided actual modifiers like the plague when designing Simple System, as one of its biggest advantages is there is no math required to play. But now it seems we can have have all of the advantages of modifiers with none of the drawbacks, as well as a more predictable model to base skill/power/item effects on. And it essentially eliminates the only real drawback to the resolution deck that I couldn't seem to overcome by myself. Good work.
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Ziphion
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Post by Ziphion on Sept 4, 2014 10:00:08 GMT -8
Cheers! Right back at you.
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Post by paulooshun on Sept 4, 2014 11:36:06 GMT -8
I'm thinking of making a zombie game right now simply because the brains on this forum are so damn juicy.
+1 to this elegant solution.
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Post by fotostuf on Sept 4, 2014 15:29:39 GMT -8
I would consider it this way... getting others to assist you in a task can help... or hinder. I remember one game I was in (back in the dark ages of the late 70's!) where I was alone in a dungeon and had to complete a puzzle to get out of it. The DM had told me it took forever to figure it out every time he had other parties try it... I figured it out in a day. It drove him nuts and he couldn't figure out how I did it so quickly. Well, when one person is working uninterrupted, they don't get frustrated, are able to think more clearly, and well... get out of dungeons quicker!
A good game master will look at the above example and explain that although others tried to help, it made the task more difficult... easy as that!
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 4, 2014 22:56:46 GMT -8
Good GM technique makes a huge difference, and a good GM can turn a potential disappointment into a memorable highlight. (Kind of like when a small child falls down, the way the adult reacts can influence whether or not the child will laugh or cry!) I intended to demonstrate how this could be done using the op's example, hope it came across. Good point fotostuf and that's something I hope all Simple System GMs keep in mind.
From a mechanical standpoint, how do we feel about assisting characters who fail in their attempt to assist actually causing the one they are assisting to turn their attempt down? That way, you may actually ask that overconfident character in your party with the terrible agility NOT to "help" you pilot the ship as it will most likely hinder your effort. I think that would be a lot of fun and make the decision to assist or not a more considered one.
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Post by paulooshun on Sept 5, 2014 7:58:11 GMT -8
If you're saying that a help on an attempt which then fails actually incurs a turn down from the base level of the one attempting it then I'd say no. Doesn't follow that an assist in a bungled attempt will definitely make a bigger cockup than someone alone.
Also that kind of discourages people working together. Some of the best tabletop games I've played worked because the team was stronger than an individual effort. Not mechanically mind you, but I mean we would set up shots to make each other feel more heroic.
That said I would inflict consequences for a bungled attempt on everyone who helps. Gotta be some downside.
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 5, 2014 8:26:40 GMT -8
What I'm proposing is assisting characters allowing the one being assisted to turn up their attempts if they succeed in their assist flip, but conversely requiring the character they are assisting to turn their attempt down if they fail their assist flip.
For example, the group finds a bomb on their boat that needs to be defused before it explodes and kills everyone on board. The player with the highest intelligence decides to tackle the task, and several other members of the group offer to help. One of them has a decent intelligence, or a high perception, and therefore a pretty good chance of succeeding in an assist flip to improve the first player's odds of successfully disarming the bomb. The second player has a low intelligence, and frequently fails their intelligence based attempts. When he offers to help the rest of the groups shouts "NO!!!", since he would most likely fail his assist flip which would cause the player he was assisting to turn his attempt down (like, inadvertently crossing some wires he was supposed to hold causes the timer to speed up). Finally, if two characters with reasonable intelligence attempted to assist, and one succeeded the assist flip and the other failed, the assists would cancel each other out and the original character would just flip his unmodified intelligence.
All of the assist flips would take place before the one being assisted flipped his card. I don't think it would discourage players assisting one another, it would simply encourage players to only offer assistance if it made sense that their character do so. If there is no potential drawback, you could end up with scenarios where everyone is flipping to assist without thinking it through first, which is not ideal.
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