Post by Ziphion on Feb 21, 2015 10:17:47 GMT -8
Hi everyone!
While we continue to wait with bated breath for Simple System's release, I thought I'd start a discussion about future product possibilities. Namely, new resolution decks. I've done a bit more playtesting recently, and realized something that didn't occur to me before. As you may already know, when making an attempt at baseline level (flipping red, stat = 0), or one rotation up from that (flipping yellow, stat = 1), your chances of success are less than 50%. That means if your defense is red or yellow, you are better off not attempting to dodge incoming attacks at all and just hope your opponent misses, because you are more likely to dodge into the path of a bullet then out of it. If you are playing in a "high power level" setting, this may be a problem for you, since you want your player characters to feel capable right at the start.
You can mitigate this somewhat by slightly skewing the distribution of checks and strikes in the resolution deck (found here, note that the color sequence has since changed to RYGB): simply subtract 1 from each number of strikes, and add 1 to each number of checks. So here's the new distribution:
For unopposed attempts,
Red chance of success: 33.33% (up from 25%)
Yellow chance of success: 50% (up from 41.67%)
Green chance of success: 66.67% (up from 58.33%)
Blue chance of success: 83.33% (up from 75%)
Opposed attempt probabilities (red vs yellow, yellow vs blue, etc., as measured by little c++ simulation I made a while back) are identical to what they were before: about 9.5 (±1)% improvement per color upgrade, or if you include "double red" (turn down from red = flip two reds and pick worst) and "double blue" (turn up from blue = flip two blues and pick best), the average improvement per color upgrade is 8.8 (±3.5)%.
This deck, however, still has a less-than-50%-chance of success with an unopposed attempt on the "default" color. With a little more work, we can set red's chance of success to 50% and still have a pretty check/strike distribution, but it requires a more dramatic redesign. Here, I've made something work by removing one critical success and one critical failure (bringing the probability to get a critical from 8.33% down to 5.56%, which if we're being honest, I kinda prefer anyway!).
For unopposed attempts,
Red chance of success: 50% (up from 25%)
Yellow chance of success: 63.89% (up from 41.67%)
Green chance of success: 77.78% (up from 58.33%)
Blue chance of success: 91.67% (up from 75%)
This way, when you reach the level of Blue for one of your attempts, you really feel like an expert at whatever that thing is. The only way you can fail an unopposed attempt is by drawing the ONE strike in your deck, or one of the two critical failures.
Opposed attempts: 8.5 (± 0.6)% improvement per color upgrade, or 9.5 (± 4.0)% including double red / double blue. Very close to what it is now, so making this change doesn't seem to break the game.
Anyway, these special decks don't have to be the ones included in the Simple System Starter Set, but they could be a cool option for people who want to add a bit more of a "heroic" feel to their campaign (or simply don't enjoy missing their attempts 75% of the time). How do you guys feel about that?
[EDIT: Made a slight change to the second deck's check/strike distribution.]
While we continue to wait with bated breath for Simple System's release, I thought I'd start a discussion about future product possibilities. Namely, new resolution decks. I've done a bit more playtesting recently, and realized something that didn't occur to me before. As you may already know, when making an attempt at baseline level (flipping red, stat = 0), or one rotation up from that (flipping yellow, stat = 1), your chances of success are less than 50%. That means if your defense is red or yellow, you are better off not attempting to dodge incoming attacks at all and just hope your opponent misses, because you are more likely to dodge into the path of a bullet then out of it. If you are playing in a "high power level" setting, this may be a problem for you, since you want your player characters to feel capable right at the start.
You can mitigate this somewhat by slightly skewing the distribution of checks and strikes in the resolution deck (found here, note that the color sequence has since changed to RYGB): simply subtract 1 from each number of strikes, and add 1 to each number of checks. So here's the new distribution:
| red | yellow | green | blue | |
| -crit | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| -3 | 9 | 6 | 3 | 0 |
| -2 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 |
| -1 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| +1 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| +2 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 9 |
| +3 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 11 |
| +crit | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
For unopposed attempts,
Red chance of success: 33.33% (up from 25%)
Yellow chance of success: 50% (up from 41.67%)
Green chance of success: 66.67% (up from 58.33%)
Blue chance of success: 83.33% (up from 75%)
Opposed attempt probabilities (red vs yellow, yellow vs blue, etc., as measured by little c++ simulation I made a while back) are identical to what they were before: about 9.5 (±1)% improvement per color upgrade, or if you include "double red" (turn down from red = flip two reds and pick worst) and "double blue" (turn up from blue = flip two blues and pick best), the average improvement per color upgrade is 8.8 (±3.5)%.
This deck, however, still has a less-than-50%-chance of success with an unopposed attempt on the "default" color. With a little more work, we can set red's chance of success to 50% and still have a pretty check/strike distribution, but it requires a more dramatic redesign. Here, I've made something work by removing one critical success and one critical failure (bringing the probability to get a critical from 8.33% down to 5.56%, which if we're being honest, I kinda prefer anyway!).
| red | yellow | green | blue | |
| -crit | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| -3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| -2 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| -1 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 1 |
| +1 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| +2 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 11 |
| +3 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 10 |
| +crit | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
For unopposed attempts,
Red chance of success: 50% (up from 25%)
Yellow chance of success: 63.89% (up from 41.67%)
Green chance of success: 77.78% (up from 58.33%)
Blue chance of success: 91.67% (up from 75%)
This way, when you reach the level of Blue for one of your attempts, you really feel like an expert at whatever that thing is. The only way you can fail an unopposed attempt is by drawing the ONE strike in your deck, or one of the two critical failures.
Opposed attempts: 8.5 (± 0.6)% improvement per color upgrade, or 9.5 (± 4.0)% including double red / double blue. Very close to what it is now, so making this change doesn't seem to break the game.
Anyway, these special decks don't have to be the ones included in the Simple System Starter Set, but they could be a cool option for people who want to add a bit more of a "heroic" feel to their campaign (or simply don't enjoy missing their attempts 75% of the time). How do you guys feel about that?
[EDIT: Made a slight change to the second deck's check/strike distribution.]