EDIT::: To put this thread out of its misery

I have to disagree on a couple of points:

1) I think ramping up the mechanics is a useful means of ramping up the illusion. To use your Exalted example, if Solars roled 3 dice instead of 20, what would the Extras roll? When you compare the character, be it a Solar, Superhero, or 2nd level Barbarian against the baseline of that universe (usually a human) there has to be a measurable difference. It doesn't have to be more dice, but it has to be more something.

2) Scion's mechanics are ramped up. The difference is that you get free successes instead of more dice. But one of the biggest complaints about the Scion system is how rapidly things escalate to a point where someone one Legend rung above or below you is either no threat at all or cannot be beaten.

Mechanistically it might not matter if you're rolling 3 dice or 30, but thematically it does. People* who like to play high powered games like to use high powered systems. And usually that illusion of power comes from more.

You (or at least I) wouldn't say "ok guys, we're going to play a game of Galctus vs. Thanos. We'll be rolling a d6 for success, anything over a 3 succeeds." The system would not support the illusion. It needs more.

* This is an extrapolation based on my own preferences and the belief that I'm not a unique and special snowflake. It doesn't apply to anyone, but I'd wager it applies to a decent percentage.

EDIT::: Ditto

Nice. Well I have a question. How can you scale fun?
Basically I think thats what your trying to get out. If the mechanic is too complex, at higher levels it becomes less fun becuase its bogged down, while a turned system can use the limited array of options and tweak it to get the desired effect. I think again, in your comment that thats why oblivion failed. The monsters all scaled with your power level, so that when or if you wanted to do a quest later that it didnt feel like you had leveled. It was all vanilia.

I think the way out of this, is imagination. Rather, a higher level encounter should be more dynamic. The monsters or problem should do things you wouldn't expect them to do, then you can use your new leveled tools to deal with them, giving that same level of fun that you had defeating the orcs becuase you were level one. So turning back to the problem, perhaps giving unusuall options or more options is the key to wrestle out the stagnation of precived power vrs problem? (For instance lets say your high level character battling a balrog or some other nasty..) You would have several other options other than blasting it away at your disposal would be a better approach than simply trying to match its hit points to a 4 person encounter..

thats my thought on the matter.

If we're calling Ramping Up more dice, and Tuning anyhting else, then yeah, ramping up isn't necessary.

I'm not familiar with M&M or Wushu. Where do they get their "more" from?

EDIT::: See Post One.

In that case Scion definitely ramps up, as the bonus successes you get from epic attributes increases drastically.


Legend      Successes
   1             1
   2             2
   3             4
   4             7
   5             11
   6             16
   7             22
   8             29
   9             37
  10             46
  11             56


It makes it so that after Legend 4 or so, you can't possibly get enough dice to compete with their bonus successes without using a few cornercase boons like Animal 3 or Tsuruki-gami 2. (those rating numbers may be wrong).

Quote from: SpikeHowever: at the end of the day, the system merely exists to resolve conflict in a mechanistic way.

I disagree.  I think "conflict" is a forced way to look at the focus of systems.  Systems exist to tell the players and GMs what happens in a particular circumstance when they don't already know, need some help, or want an objective process by which to determine it.  Thus a game might have rules for jumping across a chasm, painting, repairing a car, forging a sword, etc. that may have nothing to do with any particular conflict but simply determine what happens in the game.  And framing everything that a character does as a "conflict" is a pretty warped way of looking at both the game and the purpose of the rules, in my opinion.  Maybe that's why I have little use for the current trend of "conflict resolution systems".  Give me a physics engine.  I want to know if my character can leap the chasm or not without having to frame it as some sort of conflict with the chasm or in terms of what my character's ultimate goal is (maybe it's simply to get to the other side).

Intresting. John what are your feelings of a non commital process then with regards to the leaping over a chaism? Example, lets say on your character sheet you could figure out that you could leap x amount of distance. Should a roll be called for when you reach the jump, or should it auto succeed due to what you can figure out? Or perhaps, lets say jumping over chaism wile firing gun and dodging arrows?

One of the most intresting and irritating part about alot of games is the roll to notice.. or roll to spot this or that. Why GMs dont simply say you, x character saw this? Im thinking that yes, perhaps there is to many senarios where a roll isn't need yet the mechanic needs to be there if its crucial. I think alot of people get hanged up on having to use the mechanic instead of visually representing? Ah. Sorry rambling.

Quote from: sithsonIntresting. John what are your feelings of a non commital process then with regards to the leaping over a chaism? Example, lets say on your character sheet you could figure out that you could leap x amount of distance. Should a roll be called for when you reach the jump, or should it auto succeed due to what you can figure out? Or perhaps, lets say jumping over chaism wile firing gun and dodging arrows?

I don't think my character should necessarily be able to jump a chasm without a roll unless jumping the chasm is a sure thing.  Often, things like jumping a chasm contain an element of uncertainty that one has to evaluate before undertaking a course of action.  The die roll, in that case, represents the resolution of the uncertainty.  If I know I can succeed, there is no uncertainty and my consideration of that course of action may be very different.  Why I need to jump across the chasm is irrelevant and my point is that framing it as a "conflict" seems pretty silly to me.  The chasm isn't fighting back, nor does the challenge of leaping it change because of why I'm trying to do it.

Quote from: sithsonOne of the most intresting and irritating part about alot of games is the roll to notice.. or roll to spot this or that. Why GMs dont simply say you, x character saw this? Im thinking that yes, perhaps there is to many senarios where a roll isn't need yet the mechanic needs to be there if its crucial. I think alot of people get hanged up on having to use the mechanic instead of visually representing? Ah. Sorry rambling.

Why roll for a spot check and not simply say, "Your character saw..."?  Because sometimes the characters miss things.  Just because something is in the setting doesn't mean that the PCs need to notice it.  Timing can also be crucial.  Which PC notices something and when they notice it can change everything.  For example, if all of the PCs make their spot check and notice the skulking assassin upon entering a room, an encounter can go very differently than if only one PC notice the assassin after the PCs have dispersed through the room and they only notice the assassin just before they strike, after a string of failed notice rolls.

I think the bigger problem there has to do with GMs who craft (plot) scenarios where the PCs have to notice something or do something to make the adventure work out properly or to their satisfaction, then make that thing they have to notice or do dependent on a die roll. The better way to craft scenarios is at a higher level, where there isn't one way to play through it or one thing that the PCs must do or succeed at to make the whole thing work.

Understanding the odds that the dice produce and what that means in play goes a long way toward avoiding fudging and disconnects like that.  Many GMs seem to be walking around with this odd idea that the PCs should constantly be faced by challenges that they only have a 50% chance of succeeding at to create tension and then expect the PCs to succeed 100% of the time.  Basic math suggests that 100% <> 50%.  One way to solve that disconnect is to give the players a 100% chance of success.  Another way is to accept that the players can and will fail, and to adjust the odds to match the failure rate desired instead of having ridiculously high failure rates.  In other words, instead of giving the players a 50% chance of success and expecting them to succeed 100% of the time, give the players a 95% chance of success and expect them to succeed 95% of the time.

EDIT::: One Guess.

Quote from: SpikeIt is simply unfun or potentially illusion breaking for the heroes to fail and die.

Now: If there is a way to hard code into the mechanics that failure should never equal death on a single roll or even a very short sequence of rolls, then the probabilty of failure can be tweaked to appropriate levels without risking end-game failures.  The hero jumps the chasm and botches the roll: instead of falling to his death, the typical outcome, he winds up dangling from his fingertips. Bring on difficult climb checks and endurance rolls to pull himself up/hang on until another can get to him.  Likewise, searching for THE secret door to continue the adventure: Failure should not equate to missing the secret door, that ends the adventure. Instead perhaps they find it, but only after some negative consequence of their intial failure: perhaps the lizardmen trap them in the chamber and start burning the place down the only way out barred: there must be another option.

And I can hear the counter argument, Spike.  That is, all of this merely leads to the idea the the characters can not die/fail.  For a certain segment of the player population, this is a violation of the simulator. It's is unfun for the heroes not to be able to fail/die.

And, of course, points out the flaws in the argument that there are no differences in how people play (style).

Quote from: SpikeJohn: I'm perfectly willing to frame leaping a chasm as a conflict. True, the chasm is not fighting back, but success or failure matters. In fact there is, obviously, a distinct chance of failure.  If you like we could replace conflict with tension.

Well, one can frame just about anything in any way they want, but at some point, I think it's a matter of forcing a square peg through a round hole.  I don't want to have to try to figure out what I'm competing with when my character jumps a chasm.

Quote from: SpikeThat is the mechanics exist to provide a source of tension and the resolution of said tension in service to the Illusion?

Tension isn't quite the right word, but I think it's closer to the concept in question.  Traditionally, the word "challenge" has been used for such situations.

Quote from: SpikeSounds about right. But I fear the entire topic of conflict vs tension as a word choice reduces the discussion to semantics rather than viability of the initial concept.

I think conflict carries a lot of baggage into the picture that's many people are better off not having to deal with.

Quote from: SpikeObviously, the players can not succeed 100% of the time. First of all that eliminates the necessity of the mechanical portions of the rules (with the attendant boredom already expressed: illusion cannot exist unsupported for very long).  On the other hand, any probability of failure tends to have drastic results, particularly in binary situations such as chasm leaping. (compare to more fluid/dynamic situations as combat, where trends in successes and failures tend to be more important than individual rolls).  It is simply unfun or potentially illusion breaking for the heroes to fail and die.

I think that depends on the player expectations.  For some people, it's unfun or potentially illusion break if the heroes never fail or die.  The middle ground, which requires a little compromise from both sides and a little consideration of plausibility from the GM, is to frame the odds such that the odds of failure and death are low but existent, and that those odds adjust a bit in or against the player's favor depending on how clever or stupid they are about taking advantage of the situation.  My group has played several Fudge games with very little use of Fudge points yet low player character mortality because I explained to the various GMs how to balance the encounters to get that effect.  Even in action movies, the characters often succeed because they are so much better than most of their opponents, or more clever, or more stubborn, or have some other edge.  It's usually not dumb luck that they win.

Quote from: SpikeNow: If there is a way to hard code into the mechanics that failure should never equal death on a single roll or even a very short sequence of rolls, then the probabilty of failure can be tweaked to appropriate levels without risking end-game failures.  The hero jumps the chasm and botches the roll: instead of falling to his death, the typical outcome, he winds up dangling from his fingertips. Bring on difficult climb checks and endurance rolls to pull himself up/hang on until another can get to him.

Well, I think "second chances" are fine and a good way to handle many of those situations so long as they are second chances and not "thirty-seventh chances".  At some point, I do think a series of bad rolls should lead to a character's death.  And there are, of course, times when a second chance doesn't make sense, too.  So I have a problem with the idea of "never" and "always" in situations like that, because it boils down to 0% or 100% in practice, even if you hide it behind a lot of rolls.  

Quote from: SpikeLikewise, searching for THE secret door to continue the adventure: Failure should not equate to missing the secret door, that ends the adventure. Instead perhaps they find it, but only after some negative consequence of their intial failure: perhaps the lizardmen trap them in the chamber and start burning the place down the only way out barred: there must be another option.

I'd much rather have GMs not design scenarios that hinge on the players finding THE secret door to continue the adventure.  And removing the possibility of the characters failing to protect GMs from badly designed scenarios that require a player success at some point, despite rolling dice, seem to be a case of the tail wagging the dog to me.  

Quote from: SpikeHowever, this leads us the misfortune of having to rule the GM instead of allowing him free reign.   Also: It seems that a great number of players ENJOY the lethality of various games and might view such hard coding as 'mollycoddling'. :raise:

Well, either you allow failure or you don't.  You either allow choices to have negative consequences or you don't.

Years ago, I played a computer-moderated PBEM game called Olympia and was part of the design list for the game.  Invariably, turns would go badly for some players so they'd complain, leading the designer to quip, at one point, that he should just rip out all the turn processing coding that leads to failure and replace the players' turn reports with, "You do better this turn!" no matter what commands they send it, because that's all a lot of people really wanted to hear.

And the idea that choices have consequences applies to the GM as well as the players.  If the GM designs a scenario where the PCs have a 50% chance of finding THE secret door to continue the adventure or to defeat THE bad guy at the end, don't be surprised if they fail half the time.  If the players decide to have their characters jump the chasm with only a 50% chance of success, don't be surprised if a character or two plummets to their death, even with a second chance.  

The alternative is that choices don't really matter and no matter what the players do, it turns out OK or as planned.  And that's one of the things I object to about highly abstract conflict resolution systems.  If you reduce sneaking into a castle as a challenge against the guards trying to spot the character sneaking in, then the specific choices that the player might have their character make in the course of sneaking in to the castle become fairly meaningless.  Rather than making the players' input more important, it marginalizes it.

What I would much prefer games to do is to actually explain to GMs that if you do X, then you can expect Y to happen.  Advice telling a GM how to produce a certain feel, set the odds, and how to avoid mistakes like requiring the players to succeed on a spot roll to find THE secret door needed to complete the adventure without understanding just how likely or unlikely that is would be more valuable, in my opinion, than making failure all but impossible or strategies such as "Say yes or roll."  Or maybe I'm just old fashioned in wanting choices to have consequences and maybe I'm out of touch with the majority of gamers who perhaps simply do want to be told, "You do better this turn," no matter what they choose to do.

Quote from: James J SkachAnd I can hear the counter argument, Spike.  That is, all of this merely leads to the idea the the characters can not die/fail.  For a certain segment of the player population, this is a violation of the simulator. It's is unfun for the heroes not to be able to fail/die.

Correct.  One of the people that I used to role-play with used to be notorious in my group for not killing player characters, no matter how much sense it made for them to die.  I watched players get so fed up with it that they had their characters behave in overtly suicidal behavior in order to dare the GM to kill their characters.

Quote from: James J SkachAnd, of course, points out the flaws in the argument that there are no differences in how people play (style).

Yes it does.

EDIT::: It would be a shame, if it weren't for the fact that it went nose first into the ground.