Quote from: daniel_ream;501394you've become a touchy, defensive prick

:huhsign: This was a colossal overreaction.

You: "Counting by three is too complicated."

Me: "It may be for some. I don't think so for most people. I'll playtest and see. But if it is for you, play what you wish."

You: "You defensive prick! How dare you!"

So, yeah, I'm going to disagree with your rant. And note that I have made substantive points you haven't addressed.

You like FATE. That's cool. Play it.

You don't want to play using Destiny? That's cool. Don't.

Your game. Your rules. Your fun.

Quote from: daniel_ream;501394And you've been given some, positive and negative.  Like the authors of most heartbreakers, you've become a touchy, defensive prick when people don't tongue-bathe your heartbreaking work of staggering genius.  That by itself is enough reason for me not to consider ever using your rules for anything - you won't listen to anything that isn't ego-stroking your masterpiece.

Are you reading a different thread to the rest of us?

Daddy Warpig has taken the time to answer every question that's came up, and explain the why of every design decision he's made, which is an important part of this stage of design. He's got some good feedback from the other members of this forum and taken it well, an ability that isn't as common as it should be in this hobby.

Fact is, a lot of people aren't as good at maths as they should be, and in our culture it's somehow okay to be "not very good with numbers", and flaunt that. All it takes to solve this is a simple "levels of success" table in the mechanics section - problem solved, everyone wins.

If you and your group find a relatively complex game easy, great! Celebrate that, don't use it as a cudgel to put other people down.

A levels of success table would actually make the system more complex than the initial TORG setup, I think; that's what, 2d10 added together and consult a table to get the modifier? (At least that's how MasterBook does it; and I gather it and TORG are related; it also rolled up 10s on either d10, unless you were "stymied").
 
I've been told off before for dividing by 3 myself, I used to have a system where you divided power ratings by 3 to figure out how much damage you did, which was disapproved of by my wife, even though it could be prefigured and listed on the character sheet.
 
If you're going with divisors, 2, 5 or 10 are probably all easier. The other tricky thing about division operations is that you also have to remember whether the operation is supposed to round up, round down or round appropriately (and I've also seen systems where you roll against the remainder to see if its an extra success, instead of any of those - the Phoenix Command Amatorial Rules). This is probably not too bad as long as its consistent throughout the system and and used frequently, but most systems (e.g. Savage Worlds again) seem to "round down" by default which could give some confusion for new players here.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501613A levels of success table would actually make the system more complex than the initial TORG setup, I think; that's what, 2d10 added together and consult a table to get the modifier? (At least that's how MasterBook does it; and I gather it and TORG are related; it also rolled up 10s on either d10, unless you were "stymied").

While that's a reasonable summary of Masterbook's die system, it's nothing like what we are discussing here. Here, the dice are functionally equivalent to a (d10-d10) system with one or more bonus d10 for maxing out the roll and one or more penalty -d10 for getting the lowest possible roll. The rule of 3 determines how successful something is once it exceeds difficulty.

As for being more complex than TORG's original, I must beg to differ vociferously. In TORG, if a person rolled a 17 against a target number of 10, it could mean:

• A combat result of a Knockdown, "K", and 4 shock points against and "Ord"
• A Knockdown, "O" and 4 shock points against that same Ord if he already has a "K"
• Knockdown, "O" and 3 shock points against a possibility-rated character, regardless of the presence of another "O"
• Causing the defender to be "Unskilled" if the action was a Test, Taunt, Trick, or Intimidate
• A result of "Stymied" if the action was a Maneuver
• A modicum of success against a Hostile target in Charm or Persuasion
• A better result in Charm or Persuasion if the target has a Neutral or better attitude
• The ability to extract information through interrogation if the attitude is no worse than Neutrally affiliated to the information sought
• A +2 value modifier (x2.5) to a target's base speed for a round
• a +3 modifier (x4 value) to a character's lifting capacity for a round
• Whatever the GM interpreted as a "superior" success in any other situation. This may or may not include a spell result, depending on how the spell was created.

Furthermore, the breakpoints on these were arbitrary. Interactions were mostly on a Rule of 5; Speed gave you +1 if the result was anywhere from +0 to +6 above difficulty and a flat +2 afterward; Power was a Rule of 3; and the General Success levels were "Minimal" if you hit difficulty exactly, "Average" if you hit by 1 or 2, "Good" from +3 to +6, "Superior" from +7 to +11, and "Spectacular" above that. Some things need more than that, but that's another story. A flat three points per success level is much easier.
 

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501613I've been told off before for dividing by 3 myself, I used to have a system where you divided power ratings by 3 to figure out how much damage you did, which was disapproved of by my wife, even though it could be prefigured and listed on the character sheet.

Division by three is not as friendly at larger numbers, but for translating the amount you exceeded difficulty into success levels, it's not that bad.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501613If you're going with divisors, 2, 5 or 10 are probably all easier. The other tricky thing about division operations is that you also have to remember whether the operation is supposed to round up, round down or round appropriately (and I've also seen systems where you roll against the remainder to see if its an extra success, instead of any of those - the Phoenix Command Amatorial Rules). This is probably not too bad as long as its consistent throughout the system and and used frequently, but most systems (e.g. Savage Worlds again) seem to "round down" by default which could give some confusion for new players here.

While the "rock stupid" rule (judging the effectiveness of a rule by how "rock stupid" one has to be to misinterpret it) has its merits, exactly how far one must exceed a difficulty to get extra success needs to be judged by the system's needs, not an unthinking application of a "rock stupid" rule.

Hi rabbitball, thanks for the clarification. A scary list there!
When I said what I did above, I was responding mostly to this bit
 

Quote from: Ladybird;501493All it takes to solve this is a simple "levels of success" table in the mechanics section - problem solved, everyone wins.

and I had forgotten (or repressed...!)the details of how Masterbook worked. Checked it again just now. I'd thought for some reason it used the 2d10 roll to determine an effect number directly, rather than giving a "bonus number" and then needing to go check the Success Table to give results like those you described.
 
Possibly it could be done that way though: instead of the hot die/cold die setup you just have a 2d10 roll added together (+bonuses, - penalties) which then converts to effect levels by using a table i.e. a modified roll of 10-12 is an effect level of 1, 13-15 is level 2, 16-18 is level 3, etc. Then interpret those levels to specific situations via whatever results system Jasyn was proposing ?
 
(As in, if you were going to use a table to tell people that +5 = level 2 anyway, you might as well do it in such a way as to streamline out extra steps like the hot/cold dice...?)
 
Just thinking out loud here so feel free to ignore - I've admitted before I'm fairly vague as to TORG...
 
Oh and you surmised correctly that my old /3 system used larger numbers; it went up to 100 or so.

Don't forget that odds are players won't necessarily have to care how success levels are calculated. Any group that was so inclined can always just give their GM the roll and have him figure the success levels.

That's pretty much what we did when we would play TORG, although it's method was more complicated than /3 round up.

If the difficulty number isn't being disclosed, as is often the case in combat, then that's the only choice anyway.

So, if any given player finds the Rule of Three to be too complicated, they can pretty much just ignore it. The only place they can't (unless I'm missing something) is how much attributes add to skill totals, and a simple Bonus column next to the attributes on the character sheet will solve that.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501613A levels of success table would actually make the system more complex than the initial TORG setup, I think; that's what, 2d10 added together and consult a table to get the modifier? (At least that's how MasterBook does it; and I gather it and TORG are related; it also rolled up 10s on either d10, unless you were "stymied").

Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough - on the same page as the core "rule of three" mechanic is explained, include a table with the levels of success for a roll (ie, the three-times-table). It's just another way of presenting the rule:

Beat target by... Degrees of Success
0 0
1 - 3 1
4 - 6 2
7 - 9 3
10 - 12 4
13 - 15 5
16 - 18 6
19 - 21 7
22 - 24 8
25 - 27 9
28 - 30 10

If you need degrees of failure, the table works in the same way. Scores over 30 are possible, but will be rare; it's a reasonable end point to use for this table (Balancing the increased usability the table adds to the game against the additional space the table will include in the rules).

As a bonus, the table even gives you the base modifier for your attributes, although the 3 - 13 bit should be in the character gen chapter anyway.

I've never read or played TORG / Masterbook - I'm reading these threads entirely as their own thing, and the game mechanics on their own merits.

Quote from: Ladybird;501782on the same page as the core "rule of three" mechanic is explained, include a table with the levels of success for a roll

Quote from: Ladybird;501782As a bonus, the table even gives you the base modifier for your attributes, although the 3 - 13 bit should be in the character gen chapter anyway.

Both the above quotes are excellent ideas that should have been obvious. The first one, I admit, I overlooked. I made a note of both these.

Quote from: Ladybird;501782I've never read or played TORG / Masterbook - I'm reading these threads entirely as their own thing, and the game mechanics on their own merits.roll

That's one of the benefits of posting here, being able to reach out to people who don't know about Torg. It's a different POV, and that's valuable.

Thanks for the comments.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501767Possibly it could be done that way though: instead of the hot die/cold die setup you just have a 2d10 roll added together (+bonuses, - penalties) which then converts to effect levels by using a table i.e. a modified roll of 10-12 is an effect level of 1, 13-15 is level 2, 16-18 is level 3, etc.

I don't understand what you're proposing. Could you rework this in a little more detail, with some example rolls?

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501767I've admitted before I'm fairly vague as to TORG...

That's a good thing. I know a lot of people knowledgeable about Torg, including Salvador, Dominick, Mark, Ks. Jim, and others.

In addition to their feedback (which has been and continues to be valuable), I'm looking for the reactions of people exactly like you and Ladybird: people who know other systems well, so can give me a new perspective.

So feel free to comment, say anything you like. Don't worry about what Masterbook or Torg were. I just want to hear your opinions.

Why the dead weight between success levels? You can compress them to smaller dice ranges, and visible success rates.

Quote from: Ladybird;501782Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough - on the same page as the core "rule of three" mechanic is explained, include a table with the levels of success for a roll (ie, the three-times-table).

No that's clear!
I think in retrospect I gotten too hung up on the /3 thing, oh well.

Quote from: Daddy WarpigI don't understand what you're proposing. Could you rework this in a little more detail, with some example rolls?

OK...
You roll two ten-sided dice and add them together, then add your bonus and subtract the defender's attribute (no need to designate hot or cold or ignore one). Then consult the table

Total of 2d10...    Degrees of Success
9 or less           Failure
10 - 12            1
13 - 15            2
16 - 18            3
19 - 21            4
22 - 24            5
25 - 27            6
28 - 30            7
Basically what this does is streamline out the hot/cold dice comparison to go with an (easier) 2d10 roll. It requires a table, but the thought is  if you're using a table further downstream anyway at the /3 step, you may as well.

example: a character trying an Intimidate (skill vs. an opponent (Intimidate resistance of 7) roll 2d10, getting a 3 and a 9. The dice total is 12.
Grand total is [12+8-7]=13. This gives the character a success level of 2.

The main downside, thinking about it, is that the player ends up having to be told the target number and subtract it, so the GM can't hide difficulties.

However, another variation on this would be to have a target difficulty measured in "levels"; the player rolls dice+(skill or attribute score) on the table above, tells the GM their final result, and then the GM subtracts a target difficulty rated in levels with an 0 or less indicating failure.

e.g. #2 (same numbers) the player rolls a 12 and adds 8 (their skill) to a total of 20. They consult the chart, and get a success level of 4.
However, the opponent has a defence of [7/3], rounded down = 2 success levels.
The PCs total success level is base 4 (off the table) - 2 (defender "defense levels") for a net total of 2 success levels.

Quote from: Silverlion;501950Why the dead weight between success levels? You can compress them to smaller dice ranges, and visible success rates.

I'm not sure which part of whose post your question refers to. If you could clarify, and it was one of mine, I'd be happy to give an answer.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501975It requires a table, but the thought is  if you're using a table further downstream anyway at the /3 step, you may as well.

Well, as is often the case with mechanics, your way may be a simpler, more direct method. However, and this is only my first reaction, it seems that overall the Rule of 3 is less complicated. The proposed method requires a table, the Rule of 3 does not.

A table can be used, people can divide by three, they can count the Success Levels (1-2-3, 4-5-6), or just count by threes (3, 6, 9, 12, stop when you exceeded the result, that's your SL).

Rule of 3 does require an extra step of math, I readily concede, but for me it seems simpler overall.

BUT...

That is only my first reaction. I may change my mind after more consideration. Is that fair?

No problem...I'm not too precious over ideas/designs, many of mine have been rather dubious.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;501992I'm not sure which part of whose post your question refers to. If you could clarify, and it was one of mine, I'd be happy to give an answer.

Not a specific post, but the general need I'm seeing for dead weight in results. When you have a range of X to Y, to get Success Level 1. Why not just make the dice mechanic work so that X is where you get Success Level 1. Compressing the dice/range of attributes needed, rather than having dead weight that does nothing? (Much like D&D's 3-18 scores, where all are we concerned about fundamentally in later iterations is "does it give a negative, average, or positive modifier, and where?")