Maybe it's just how I'm feeling now, but I have an issue with my core dice mechanic. I'll copy and paste the mechanic in so you know what I'm talking about, and then get to the issues. Assume that the dice we're talking about are d6s for now.

Attribute Ranks

Attributes are measured on an infinite logarithmic scale, with 0 being considered average for a human. The effective range possible in a campaign will vary.

Effect Ranks

Effect Ranks are independent of Attribute ranks, and range from 1-5. 1 being a minimal effect such as dealing light damage, and 5 being a total Effect such as killing a foe in one blow. When you are successful in a Test, you deliver the Effect at the rank you bought it at, unless the dice modify the rank upwards or downwards. Effects can optionally have several sub-Ranks for the various Features they contain, like damage, range, duration, etc.

Making Tests

When you make a Test with no modifiers for aptitude, situation, or handicaps,

1. Roll 1 white "FOCUS" die, and 1 black "BURDEN" die.

2. Subtract the rolled value of the black BURDEN die from the value of the white FOCUS die.

3. Add the final value of your test to your appropriate Attribute's Rank.

4. Compare the result to your opposition's Result.

5. If your result is higher you Win the test, if your Result is lower you Fail, and if your results are equal, you Match.


FOCUS Dice

When you are above average at something or the situation make something easier, you receive up to 5 additional white FOCUS dice. Add these dice to the 1 that you would otherwise roll for an unmodified test . This gives a possible total of 6 white dice. Roll them and choose the die with the highest value as your FOCUS die, and then perform steps 2-5 as you would for a Test without modification.

BURDEN Dice

When you are below average at something or the situation makes something harder, you receive up to 5 additional black BURDEN Dice. Add these dice to the 1 that you would otherwise roll for an unmodified test. This gives a possible total of 6 black dice. Roll them and choose the highest value as your BURDEN die, and then perform steps 2-5 as you would for a Test without Modification.

You can have up to 6 FOCUS dice and 6 BURDEN Dice at once, for a total of 12 dice to be rolled.

Profit and Waste

Profit

Profit can be gained when you Match or Win a Test. Any FOCUS dice other than the first one that meet or exceed the highest BURDEN die are considered Profit.

Profit can be added to the Rank of any Features in the Effect you're Testing. When an Effect has multiple Features, you can divide your Profit dice among those Features any way you like.

Profit can't raise an Effect or Feature of an Effect's final Rank beyond 5.

Profit can also be used to activate certain bonus Effects altogether, such as knocking a foe backwards when hitting them with a club.

Waste

Waste can apply when you Match or Win a Test. If you Fail a Test, Waste is irrelevant- nothing happens.

Any BURDEN dice other than the first one that meet or exceed the highest FOCUS die are considered Waste.

Waste is subtracted from the Rank of any Features in the Effect you're Testing. When an Effect has multiple Features, you can divide your Waste dice among those Features any way you like.

Waste can't lower an Effect or Feature of an Effect's final Rank below 0 (Non-existent).

Waste can also be used to activate negative Effects or complications in the scene such as breaking the table that you're fighting on top of, or starting a fire.


Getting Both

It is possible to receive both Profit and Waste to your action when the result of your highest FOCUS die equals the result of your highest BURDEN die. Profit can cancel Waste out on a 1 for 1 basis at your option, but you can also apply both to separate Features of Effects. An example of this might be adding profit to the damaging Feature of an Attack, but subtracting from its duration or taking a consequence.

Optional Rules:

Core Dice Mechanic (CDM) Option 1: My Trash is your Treasure, and Vice-Versa.

When you have Profit on a Test, you have the option to apply it to the opposition, where it's treated as Waste.

Conversely, you can give your Waste to the opposition, which they use as if it was Profit. This choice is best if you have nowhere else to apply the Waste.

Unless you're using "Profit and Waste on a Failure", below, this only applies when you Match.  

CDM Option 1a: Profit and Waste on a Failure

This rule requires the use of "My Trash is Your Treasure..."

With this rule, Failure is no longer a binary matter; you can come close to succeeding and thereby mitigate an Effect. On the other hand, you can Fail very badly, and make a moderate Effect worse.
When you Fail a Test, you should still count up any Profit and Waste. However, since you can't spend it on Effects, you must give it all to the opposition as described in "My Trash is your Treasure...".  

Example 1:

Both the Player and the GM are rolling to modify an Attribute at Rank 0 - the roll will be the final result.


The Player rolls 3 FOCUS dice [5,3,2] and 2 BURDEN dice [5,5], for a roll of 0 with 1 Profit.


The GM rolls 1 FOCUS die [4] and 1 BURDEN die [2], for a roll of +2, and no Profit or Waste.


The Player Failed, and so has nowhere to spend the Profit, other than to give it to the Opposition.


The Player then gives his Profit to the GM, which means that the GM now has a roll of +2 with 1 Waste. His successful roll is now mitigated.  

Example 2:

Both the Player and the GM are rolling to modify an Attribute at Rank 0 - the roll will be the final result.

The Player rolls 2 FOCUS dice [3,3] and 3 BURDEN dice [6,5,1] for a result of -3 with 1 Waste.


The GM rolls 1 FOCUS die [5] and 1 BURDEN die [1] for a roll of +4.


The Player then gives his Waste to the GM, which means that the GM now has a roll of +4 with 1 Profit. The Effect the GM was going for is that much more powerful.


My Issues

The main problem with this dice mechanic are that when you have a situation where you can barely affect an enemy, you need to roll high on the FOCUS dice, and low on the BURDEN dice. This means that if you're likely to barely hit, you're less likely to get Waste if you succeed, and more likely to get Profit. So you tend to "crit" enemies that are almost too powerful for you. This is undesirable.

I'm sick right now so I can't think straight, but do the optional rules mitigate or eliminate my issue? Should they be made core?

If not, what can I do to the mechanic to get rid of this issue and ensure that a near failure works out worse than a good success? Bonus points for keeping the solution simple. I'd love to just be able to change how Profit and Waste are calculated.

Thank you in advance.

Interesting.

So we have separate good and bad dice pools, with the highest bad subtracted from the highest good and each extra roll that matches/beats it giving an effect bonus or penalty (which optionally you can apply to your opponent)...

An effect boost (profit) seems to require a large-ish dice pool to generate; with a normal 1 positive/1 negative die, your maximum Profit is 1.
Perhaps that reduces the problem you outlined?? (where a high Focus/low Burden generates a lot of 'Profit'). Because they would need not just a low Burden, but also lots of extra positive dice.
The optional rules for Trash-and-Treasure would sometimes reduce this, but only if the opponent fails the opposed roll and still generate a significant Profit themselves, which seems unlikely.


Other than that:
Not sure but it seems like there's a bit of unnecessary redundancy in that (I assume) the player rolls positive dice/negative dice, and then the opponent rolls positive dice/negative dice. If you're going to let effect bonuses/penalties transfer to the other participant anyway, perhaps you may as well just compare their dice pools directly to determine how much of an effect bonus/penalty is applicable
(i.e. A rolls 3 dice and gets 3,4,5 - B rolls 3 dice and gets 3,5,5 - tie so neither gets a stat bonus, but B gets a 'profit' of 1, which they could apply to A as 'waste' if they were attacking and it would've hit).
Whether that works I suppose does depend on how many contests you envisage will require both sides to generate an 'effect'.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;698947An effect boost (profit) seems to require a large-ish dice pool to generate; with a normal 1 positive/1 negative die, your maximum Profit is 1.

Actually with one of each, you can't get any Profit or Waste. It's the dice other than the ones that determine success or failure that address Profit and Waste.

QuotePerhaps that reduces the problem you outlined?? (where a high Focus/low Burden generates a lot of 'Profit'). Because they would need not just a low Burden, but also lots of extra positive dice.
The optional rules for Trash-and-Treasure would sometimes reduce this, but only if the opponent fails the opposed roll and still generate a significant Profit themselves, which seems unlikely.

You can fail the opposed roll while rolling nearly as high as possible on the dice. This happens when you are nearly outmatched. The quirk in the system 'd like to do away with is that if you're rolling that high of a modifier, your BURDEN Dice have to be low, and therefore, more of your dice will be profit. For example if you rolled BURDEN [1] and FOCUS [5] you'd have a result of +4. Every die you rolled for FOCUS other than the first one would be Profit since they all meet or exceed the value of 1.

QuoteOther than that:
Not sure but it seems like there's a bit of unnecessary redundancy in that (I assume) the player rolls positive dice/negative dice, and then the opponent rolls positive dice/negative dice. If you're going to let effect bonuses/penalties transfer to the other participant anyway, perhaps you may as well just compare their dice pools directly to determine how much of an effect bonus/penalty is applicable
(i.e. A rolls 3 dice and gets 3,4,5 - B rolls 3 dice and gets 3,5,5 - tie so neither gets a stat bonus, but B gets a 'profit' of 1, which they could apply to A as 'waste' if they were attacking and it would've hit).
Whether that works I suppose does depend on how many contests you envisage will require both sides to generate an 'effect'.

I've had someone suggest the same thing. I don't know if I want to tie a player's success directly to an enemy's failure though. With separate rolls, there's more variability and Profit and Waste flying around. Something to think about though.

Some way to convert Profit into a boost on the die roll perhaps - characters can trade white dice for extra +1s to hit before rolling?

Quote from: Monster Manuel;699014For example if you rolled BURDEN [1] and FOCUS [5] you'd have a result of +4. Every die you rolled for FOCUS other than the first one would be Profit since they all meet or exceed the value of 1.

Seems very swingy.
You could also switch 'extra rolls higher than 'Burden' give extra profit' for some flat number, like 6 or 5+. That would make Profit in general much rarer though, not just in the case you want.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;699020Some way to convert Profit into a boost on the die roll perhaps - characters can trade white dice for extra +1s to hit before rolling?

I do have a mechanic for that. Character Drives (motivations) can be activated to push a little harder at the expense of reliability.

QuoteSeems very swingy.
You could also switch 'extra rolls higher than 'Burden' give extra profit' for some flat number, like 6 or 5+. That would make Profit in general much rarer though, not just in the case you want.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

I guess I could just accept it, and treat it like the situation in D&D where you need a 20 to hit (without all the threat stuff of 3rd Edition and beyond).

Another thought I had was that you could change from using highest Focus dice to determining the net bonus, to choosing which Focus dice to use, and dice that equal or better than become Profit.
So say you roll 3,4,5,6...the player might choose between using the '6' to hit and getting 0 profit, and using the '3' to hit and getting 3 profit.

Maybe not close enough to your existing system, but I thought I'd mention it in case.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;699029Another thought I had was that you could change from using highest Focus dice to determining the net bonus, to choosing which Focus dice to use, and dice that equal or better than become Profit.
So say you roll 3,4,5,6...the player might choose between using the '6' to hit and getting 0 profit, and using the '3' to hit and getting 3 profit.

Maybe not close enough to your existing system, but I thought I'd mention it in case.

I do see that that could make it less likely to get Profit on a roll that you need to roll high on. That could work.

When I was playing around with the mechanic originally, I did think of doing something like this.

This might be the winner, but I'll have to play around with the dice to make sure.

Is there a way to make BURDEN work in a similar way, such that you can choose a low value in order to succeed, at the cost of more chance of Waste?

Doing it as an exact mirror (any dice that are higher are Waste) makes it so every time you get a 1 on a BURDEN die the rest of your BURDEN dice are automatically Waste, which is too far in that direction.

Thanks again. I'm under the weather so if I seem particularly dense, I apologize.

I think you're fine though I'm starting to get a bit confused.

Wouldn't you pick which Burden dice is the action penalty the same as with focus dice, and the bigger the penalty the less waste you get? In other words same setup as for focus, except in a mostly-bad rather than mostly-good situation??


You could add other constraints like them having to pick the same number for Focus as for Burden, though not sure that helps (I guess most rolls are probably mostly-white or mostly-black, rather than lots of each?).

I figured out that if determining Profit and Waste was about dice that exceeded your choice (rather than meet or exceed), there would still be room for unqualified success.

You could roll FOCUS [3,4,5,6] and BURDEN [1,1,6] and get a +2 roll with 3 Profit and 1 Waste. You can use the Waste to cancel out a point of Profit for a final roll of +2 with 2 Profit- a pretty good success.  

That's good enough for me. I appreciate the help.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;699040I think you're fine though I'm starting to get a bit confused.

Wouldn't you pick which Burden dice is the action penalty the same as with focus dice, and the bigger the penalty the less waste you get? In other words same setup as for focus, except in a mostly-bad rather than mostly-good situation??

Yeah, that's how it worked. My issue was that every time you got a 1 on the chosen BURDEN die, even if you rolled all 1s, you'd end up with the rest of your dice being Waste. I think I addressed that well enough by making Profit and Waste have to exceed the value you choose.

No problem. Glad to be of service - should be interesting to see what sort of final structure gets built around this.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;699044No problem. Glad to be of service - should be interesting to see what sort of final structure gets built around this.

Well, right now the rest of the game is a bit overcomplicated for some people. I'm working on a simpler version, to publish alongside the complex version, sort of a Rules Cyclopedia D&D vs. AD&D thing, except easier to convert between.