Quote from: Silverlion;502098Compressing the dice/range of attributes needed, rather than having dead weight that does nothing?

That "dead weight" isn't meaningless. To the contrary, it moderates extreme dice rolls. It moderates extreme skill values (putting a break on munchkins.) It allows for extraordinary, mega-awesome successes, without mandating them at low rolls.

The goal with this game system is vividness and descriptive events. The GM is encouraged to translate game results into interesting descriptions that bring the world alive.

(Not required, encouraged. The mechanics are designed to give them enough information to know what to describe—failure, success, spectacular success—then get the hell out of the way.)

"Dead Weight" enables me to have a chart like the following:

General Success

1 SL = Basic success (no frills, barely succeeded)
2 or 3 SL = Solid Success (did well)
4+ SL = Superior Success (did remarkably well)

That can be easily translated into descriptive terms.

 1 SL = "You barely made it across the gorge. You scrabble at the edge of the cliff for a second, trying to find a vine or crack to get a grip on. After a moment of panic, you pull yourself up."

2 or 3 SL = "You jump the gorge and land on the other side. You're a little winded, but exhilarated."

4 SL = "You easily clear the vast distance to the other side, lightly landing on your feet. The extreme height doesn't bother you; you own this mountain."

Awesome. Interesting. Vivid.

Removing Dead Weight kills the core design principle of my mechanics. It makes it impossible.

If we eliminated "Dead Weight", then every single point of die roll/result on a charm check (or any other skill check) would have to have a mechanically and descriptively distinct meaning.

Can you imagine the burden on the GM having to make each and every point of skill success meaningful descriptively? That'd be insane.

Take the above example, and give me a meaningful description of results at each point from 1 to 10. 10 different and separate descriptions, at a minimum, each and every time a skill check is made.

No. That way lies madness.

So, I simplify.

With most skill or attribute checks, players don't need specific mechanical results at every single point of result, they just wants to know "Did I succeed and if so, how well?" "Dead Weight" makes it easy for the GM's to describe things vividly, and easier for them to implement the mechanics.

Quote from: Silverlion;502098When 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.

X is where you get Success Level 1. A result of 1 = 1 Success Level. It takes a 4, 7, 10, 13 to get 2, 3, 4, or 5 Success Levels.

But 1 Success Level only requires 1 point of result.

Quote from: Silverlion;502098Not a specific post, but the general need I'm seeing for dead weight in results.

"Dead weight" is used in RPG mechanics because a direct 1 to 1 correspondence of die roll to game effect isn't always a good or balanced thing. Let's look at examples from various games.

Savage Worlds

• Attack rolls succeed at 4. You get a raise, and extra damage at 8. 5, 6, and 7 are by your terminology "dead weight" and hence bad.

What's the alternative? Succeed at 4, raise at 5?

• Damage. Shaken at 4, wounded at 8, another wound at 12, another wound at 16, and so forth. Chock full of Dead Weight. For a reason.

It'd be crazy to keep track of characters with 10, 20, 50 wounds. Each wound is a -1 to all rolls. That's a simple and direct mechanic. But if we have 10 or 20 wounds, we can't do that.

2 wounds (-2) would become 12 wounds. Which means Savage Worlds would have -12 for the exact same relative damage value. Or, we can say "every 4 wounds is -1", and we're back to Dead Weight because 2, 3, 4, Wounds mean nothing.

• Soak rolls. Succeed at 4 (reducing 1 wound), raise at 8 (reducing 2 wounds), another raise at 12 (reducing 3 wounds) and so on.

That's shot through with "dead weight." The alternative you suggest would be soak 1 wound at 4, another at 5, another at 6, another at 7, etc.

8 wound attack? Just get a roll of 12. With the "has Dead Weight" method, that's only 3 wounds gone. With the "no Dead Weight allowed" method, that's all 8.

• Why the base TN of 4 anyway? 1-3 are just Dead Weight, and we should avoid that. So any roll of 1 should be failure, 2 success, and 3 a raise, 5 another raise, and so forth up the line.

• And what about "to hit" rolls higher than 8? Those Raises mean nothing for increasing damage, so they're just Dead Weight. Not only should those rolls mean something, they should do so on a 1 to 1 basis.

"Dead Weight" exists because a design maxim that all individual points on all dice rolls must mean something is a bad idea. Sometimes its best to have Success be at 4, rather than 1. Sometimes it's required.

Hypothetical System (That's really Savage Worlds.)

Let us suppose a system where the defender's skill matters in combat. So the TN to hit them isn't 4, but rather 5, 6, 7, etc. depending on their skill. This seems apt, for example, when talking about hand to hand or swordfighting.

If "no Dead Weight" were a categorical imperative, that mechanic would be verboten. Anything below their skill number is Dead Weight, where the dice roll is meaningless. So the TN for all Combat is 2, and each and every point above that is 1 wound and each and every wound is -1 to all checks.

D&D 3.0/d20

• In D&D your "to-hit" roll is chock full of Dead Weight. Any points above their AC, but below the weapon's Threat Range are meaningless. They're Dead Weight. They do nothing. If their AC is 12, and I roll a 13, 14, 15, 16, or 17, it's all just meaningless Dead Weight.

In fact, even scoring a potential Threat can be meaningless, if I don't confirm. Then even 18-20 was Dead Weight, not to mention the confirm roll being chock full of Dead Weight itself. I only have to beat their AC, and points below are Dead Weight, any points above Dead Weight.

Hypothetical Pass/Fail System

• Pass/fail systems are full of Dead Weight. You beat the TN? You succeed. You beat by 10, 100, 1000? Meaningless. You didn't do any better. Yet you should, to avoid Dead Weight.

• And what of failure? Shouldn't every point below the TN be significant? Yet it isn't. In Pass/Fail, every single die point that isn't exactly equaling the TN is Dead Weight.

So, why does Destiny have Success start at 1, and increase at 4, 7, 10, etc.? Because the mechanics of Skill use, Social Conflict, Wounds, and Lift and Speed pushing work better on a 1/3 basis.

The Rule of 3 moderates extreme dice rolls. It moderates extreme skill values (putting a break on munchkins.) In play, it works.

Like Savage Worlds. d20 Crit mechanics. Pass/Fail.

"No Dead Weight" is a bad design principle because it is too restrictive and not all dice/game mechanics can or should be designed such that each and every possible result on a roll has a meaningful impact. And there is no reason each and every point should have a direct 1-to-1 effect.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;502159That "dead weight" isn't meaningless. To the contrary, it moderates extreme dice rolls. It moderates extreme skill values (putting a break on munchkins.) It allows for extraordinary, mega-awesome successes, without mandating them at low rolls.


"No Dead Weight" is a bad design principle because it is too restrictive and not all dice/game mechanics can or should be designed such that each and every possible result on a roll has a meaningful impact. And there is no reason each and every point should have a direct 1-to-1 effect.

Fair enough. Your reasoning makes perfect sens. Carry on.

Quote from: Silverlion;502521Fair enough. Your reasoning makes perfect sens. Carry on.

Really? I expected some fireworks.

You, sir, are level-headed and reasonable. Not for agreeing with me, but for refusing to get angry or snarky. That's admirable.

And thanks for the questions and comments.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;502531Really? I expected some fireworks.

You, sir, are level-headed and reasonable. Not for agreeing with me, but for refusing to get angry or snarky. That's admirable.

And thanks for the questions and comments.

I look forward to see the finished product and I think your reasoning is sound.

As for fireworks, I try too not do them myself because it isn't helpful to getting a better game system out there.

For the record my own RPG, High Valor has a range of results. (Mostly its get X or higher type results, since I worry about more what people are  TRYING to achieve, when they roll, rather than what they NEED.)  

 My supers game, Hearts & Souls used a range as well, and I think 2E will retain that, but I am always interested in why someone does something and if we can get the same results in any game more simply/faster/with less cruft.  A lot of older games simply have a lot of wasted space--things that we can look at and see is unnecessary for making actual play interesting.

If your reason is sound, I'm more than happy to roll with it and try it out!

I tend to go with intuitive mechanics rather than carefully engineered ones, so my views often differ a lot with others. Part of that is I realize my players, and many other players out there, don't have the time most of us had at 13 and want the game's adventure to be exciting and fun every single time we sit at the table, and not detract from that with unnecessary meandering with the system and rulebooks. (Understand, I test my games a LOT, before I set final mechanics in place though, intuitive or not, testing happens to be the big decision maker in keeping or tossing something.)

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;502159"No Dead Weight" is a bad design principle because it is too restrictive and not all dice/game mechanics can or should be designed such that each and every possible result on a roll has a meaningful impact. And there is no reason each and every point should have a direct 1-to-1 effect.

Even if you're not directly using every possible result, a character who scores a 9 (3SL) has still scored a better result than a character who scores a 8 (3SL);it might not come up much, but it could be useful as a tiebreaker.

Quote from: Ladybird;502653Even if you're not directly using every possible result, a character who scores a 9 (3SL) has still scored a better result than a character who scores a 8 (3SL);it might not come up much, but it could be useful as a tiebreaker.

Every character has a Lift value (how much they can lift) and a Speed value (how fast they can move).

They can Push either of these. 1 SL = +50%, 2 SL = +100%. Pushes are always against a DN of 8.

In contests, like races or weightlifting, when two people score the same Push result, the highest Skill Check or result wins. (These two are essentially the same thing. Result = Skill Check - 8.)

So, yes, that bit is in the rules. It was the only reasonable way to determine who won, while still keeping pushes direct and streamlined.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538I look forward to see the finished product

Thank you. So do I.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538and I think your reasoning is sound.

I should not that "no dead weight" isn't a bad design principle for some games or specific situations. I just don't think it works as a universal maxim.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538As for fireworks, I try too not do them myself because it isn't helpful to getting a better game system out there.

I agree. I try to avoid them myself. The Internet being what it is, I'm just used to them erupting anyway.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538For the record my own RPG

I'm very glad to be getting feedback from a professional. I'll try not to embarass myself too horribly.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538A lot of older games simply have a lot of wasted space--things that we can look at and see is unnecessary for making actual play interesting.

I agree. For a 3.0 campaign, I wrote up some House Rules on Reputation. This tied into Followers and Henchmen, and gave reaction bonuses to those aware of it. They were cool in concept, balanced, and modeled what I wanted to.

They were also too cumbersome to track in play. They were wasted space. They didn't add to the fun part of the game. So I axed them after the 3rd session.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538Part of that is I realize my players, and many other players out there, don't have the time most of us had at 13 and want the game's adventure to be exciting and fun every single time we sit at the table,

I agree.

My assumption, when looking at adventure length and advancement, is that people have at most 6 hours a week to play, probably less. So I'm assuming that an individual session is no more than 6 hours long, and that advancement speed is tailored to how often one can game.

More often = slower advancement. Less often = faster advancement.

The rules for this aren't even written up yet, but that's the direction I'm going in.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538I tend to go with intuitive mechanics rather than carefully engineered ones, so my views often differ a lot with others.

This I don't understand. Can you explain further.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538and not detract from that with unnecessary meandering with the system and rulebooks.

Simple. Clear. Direct. Obvious.

That's my ideal design. I don't always reach that, but that's my intention.

Quote from: Silverlion;502538(Understand, I test my games a LOT, before I set final mechanics in place though, intuitive or not, testing happens to be the big decision maker in keeping or tossing something.)

This is wise.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;501127There's a repeating dice mechanic, like Torg's Roll-Agains or Savage World's Aces. Anytime a player rolls the highest possible result on a dice, they have Maxed the Die.

For the normal 2d10 roll, this is +9 or -9. When you Max the Hot die, you get to roll another d10 (read as 1-10) and add it to the +9. If this roll also maxes (+19), you get repeat and add again. So long as you roll 10's, you get to repeat and add. Rolling a +29, +39, +49, or more is possible. Maxing the Cold die is the exact same process, only you subtract the rolled number from the -9: -19, -29, -39.

But this doesn't matter, as you're always taking the result closest to 0. The Hot die could result in 100, but if the Cold die is a 3, I'm still taking a -3.

See, you've established a certain way of looking at the results, and then added an additional way of interpreting special results which is intuitively inconsistent with it. And that's bad.

Quote from: Rabbitball;501206The "Rule of 3" is not that hard, especially in the context of TORG from which it came.

Who cares? It's unnecessary. Division like this can be done by simply choosing dice with the right range of probabilities.

For example, when I ran TORG waaaay back, I used 3d6 take lowest for push, with 6s = 0s. A player could roll to push every action and try and get a higher result, but each attempt cost them stamina or something.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;501397This was a colossal overreaction.

A confirmation on WTF.

Quote from: Rabbitball;501630The rule of 3 determines how successful something is once it exceeds difficulty.

The thing about TORG is that it really was a system that determined the amount of something, and only in strange places (IMHO) became about determining success and failure. For example, if I'm trying to jump over a chasm, the system doesn't determine if I fail, it determines how far I jump. And that's what made TORG awesome.

But the minute you divide the concepts of probability of success and magnitude of success as you are doing here, you lose this.

Quote from: Rabbitball;501630While 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.

Then it sounds like you're amiable to using d6s instead of 2d10 to determine results, as you're primary concern is the system's needs

Quote from: Silverlion;502098Not 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?")

Indeed, but don't worry, they're putting system needs at the forefront.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;502159That "dead weight" isn't meaningless. To the contrary, it moderates extreme dice rolls. It moderates extreme skill values (putting a break on munchkins.) It allows for extraordinary, mega-awesome successes, without mandating them at low rolls.

Then use FUDGE dice instead of 2d10, or 2d6 and a pos/neg die like I use to run with.

'dead weight' as described here is a design flaw, plain and simple, especially when it comes to TORG like RPGs which have consistent quantifiable conversion ratios between measures.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408But this doesn't matter, as you're always taking the result closest to 0. The Hot die could result in 100, but if the Cold die is a 3, I'm still taking a -3.

That's not how the mechanic works. This is:

"Take two dice. Roll them. Throw away the highest. (If tied, throw away both.) If the kept dice is maxed (a 9), reroll and add the result to the 9. And so forth."

"Result closest to 0" is irrelevant to the actual instructions, as neither can reach 0. The lowest any single dice can roll is 1.

What matters is which is the lowest. Once you've identified that, the other is thrown away and no longer matters.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408See, you've established a certain way of looking at the results, and then added an additional way of interpreting special results which is intuitively inconsistent with it. And that's bad.

I don't understand what you mean by this.

There is no "closest to zero" in the conceptual framework. Instead it's "Take lowest. Discard highest."

Any conceptual confusion, it seems to me, comes from describing it in a way I don't. If I described it that way, it might be confusing. But I didn't.

"Closest to zero" is a frame that may be mathematically consistent with the original rolls, but it isn't one I ever mention in the instructions. I'm sure that, mathematically, one could come up with any number of ways to explain the same thing, and maybe all of them would introduce confusion. That doesn't mean the specific framework I've chosen is confusing.

I'm not trying to argue with you, or contradict your feedback. Just explaining the way I see it. Please feel free to clarify.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408Who cares? It's unnecessary. Division like this can be done by simply choosing dice with the right range of probabilities.

Unnecessary as a categorical imperative, or unnecessary in this specific case? I've already given examples where it is necessary (or, at least, integral to the mechanics.)

Here's another: Shadowrun Staging.

Roll a pile of D6's. Each = to or above the TN is a success. Every 3 successes increases the damage one stage, for example from M to S to D.

That's another example of "dead weight". (That is, not using a direct 1-to-1 ratio between rolled successes and actual effect. A better name is "effect brake". That's what I'm going to use.)

This kind of mechanic is used often enough, and in popular systems, that is can't either be wholly unnecessary all the time, nor can it be wholly wrong to use it.

I concede that FATE is a 1-to-1 system. That works, for FATE. That doesn't mean all other systems must follow its example. (FATE doesn't have attributes. That doesn't mean... etc.)

Especially in my case, where (as I gave an example earlier), having a vast constellation of results isn't desirable for general skill use. I want 4 results, for that: failed, barely succeeded, succeeded, succeeded well.

Each of these exists to provide the GM with the knowledge he needs to describe the situation. Narration, as an optional, but encouraged consequence of the mechanical roll.

(Gods, this is going to be a long response. I apologize for that.)

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408The thing about TORG is that it really was a system that determined the amount of something, and only in strange places (IMHO) became about determining success and failure.

That's an interesting take on the mechanics, one I disagree with. General success chart, Taunt, Test, etc. All about Success or Failure, and if so how well. There's even an optional "Failing" rule, to describe "you didn't Succeed, but you can try again."

Honestly, that's neither here nor there. "Storm Knights" doesn't use the Torg system. For good reason. In the end, despite all its virtues, Torg failed at being what it should have been: a cinematic, action-movie game system.

"Storm Knights" (and by extension, Destiny) is about playing a cinematic character in an action-movie world. What is important in such a setting is that people get a visceral description of Success and Failure. They get a vivid description of what happens when they succeed or fail.

(Movies are visual. Books vividly sensory, while also presenting a character's thoughts. Both require engaging depictions, depictions that draw the audience into the action. In Destiny, the DM is the describer. It's his role to do the describing. He doesn't have to, but the mechanics are built to facilitate this, to encourage it.)

"The bandit leapt from the roof of his speeding, spiked hot rod and landed on the hood of your semi. He looks pissed." (I.e. enemy Succeeded. Not Well, not Barely, just succeeded.)

"The bandit leaps from his gore-festooned speed buggy and lands on the hood of your semi. He scrabbles for a bit, trying to get a grip, then slides down the front of the semi. You loose sight of him, then feel a bump as the tires of your truck crush him flat." (i.e. he Failed.)

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408For example, if I'm trying to jump over a chasm, the system doesn't determine if I fail, it determines how far I jump.

And in the case of Pushes, so is Destiny. Even so, what's important isn't the exact distance you jumped, but being able to describe it in such a way that its vivid and interesting.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408And that's what made TORG awesome.

The Values and Measures chart is a conceptual and practical failure. It implemented the mindset of physicists and engineers. It implemented the mindset of pedantically tracking mass and speed and such... a failure for a Cinematic Action-Movie game.

It would have been right for a Science Fiction game, like Traveller. It implemented a technical, engineering, scientific mindset.

I know, we have 2 astrophysicists on the List. (One works at the VLBA. Ever seen Contact? The control room where they receive the message? An exact duplicate of his workspace.) The early years of the List are filled with engineers debating physics of, for example, blast deformation and rads of radiation and calibrating the Decibel scale with the V&M chart.

(Worse, the Push mechanics and logarithmic chart were incapable of pedantically tracking the mass and speed of things. They weren't granular enough. They were too technical for an action-movie game, a systemic design flaw, and failed to accurately represent the intended technical details, a fundamental design flaw.)

This is exactly the wrong mindset when playing an action-movie game. What it should have been implementing was the mindset of:

These are cinematic heroes. When they succeed, they do so in a visceral, evocative fashion. Even if its a boring old Success, describe the vast chasm they jumped, to remind them of why Success was important, what could have happened if they failed.

This isn't a "narrative system." It's a type of game where evoking emotions through description matters. Old-school GM'ing, but encouraging and facilitating the kind of descriptions the best GM's did anyway.

I just want to make it easy for them to know what they should be describing. And with the vast majority of skill checks, 4 types of Success/Failure are simple enough and clear enough to be amenable to improvisational description.

And to implement those, there doesn't need to be a 1-to-1 effect ratio in place. Effect brakes are needed. And desirable.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408But the minute you divide the concepts of probability of success and magnitude of success as you are doing here, you lose this.

Once again, I don't understand what you mean. Please feel free to elaborate.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408Indeed, but don't worry, they're putting system needs at the forefront.

I honestly feel this is intended to be a criticism, but I'm not sure what it means. That the design I've chosen is more concerned with numbers than with people?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, just understand your meaning.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408when it comes to TORG like RPGs which have consistent quantifiable conversion ratios between measures.

Which I don't, for a reason. V&M failed on nearly every level it could have failed on.

• It was too overwhelming for casual GM's and players.
• It pushed a mindset alien to what the game needed (technical and pedantic vs. evocative and vivid.)
• It attempted to implement a 1-to-1 link between Values (game numbers) and Measures (real world numbers), but failed as human mass, speed, and so forth didn't match the chosen chart.
• To correct this failure, it had to implement even more complex mechanics which slowed the system down during play and further pushed the technical and pedantic mindset. (Limit Values and Pushes.)
• It failed at pedantically tracking these Measures, its sole reason to exist.
• It put such pervasive design constraints on the system, that there were few or no changes that could be made to fundamental mechanics, without violating the 1-to-1 V:M ratio. This made the game's design rigid and inflexible, thus hard to change.

Up and down, left and right, it was a failure. It drove people away from the game, limited its commercial appeal, and wasn't suited to the game's genre in the first place. V&M sucked, plain and simple.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408'dead weight' as described here is a design flaw, plain and simple

I disagree. Not out of stubbornness, but because I need the following features:

• 4-scale success failure, for descriptive purposes. Simple to know what to describe, simple to describe.

• While being able to use the same mechanic to generate more granular results for use in damage and combat. (Impediments are -1 bonus modifier for each Success Level.)

This means the first will always have an effect brake of one kind or another. It has to.

This is a deliberate and necessary choice. As I said before, trying to give meaningful descriptions for FATE's 13 possible stages of success or failure is impossible. You can narrate things, but what you're narrating is less distinct, more amorphous.

How to distinguish between a +5 and +6 success, descriptively? Fine, it may not matter in FATE. It matters to me.

In Destiny, what you can describe as a GM is clear:

Failure.
Almost-failure.
Success.
Incredible success.

4 states. 4 clear, easily known and described results of a check. It gives GM's, especially new ones, distinct and suggestive benchmarks. (That is, results which suggest what can be described, and what that description should be.)

And the Success Level mechanic, and it attendant effect brakes, makes it possible.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;503408Then use FUDGE dice instead of 2d10

I dislike Fudge Dice, for many reasons. Most critically, they don't allow for reroll mechanics, which are key to a cinematic system and serve as cool "Awesome!" moments, like Acing a roll in Savage Worlds.

That said, I've spent some time over the last 2 days translating FATE mechanics into a d10-d10 framework (analogous to its optional d6-d6), seeing if I can arrive at a satisfactory 1-to-1 rolling mechanic. The results don't appeal to me, especially as FATE assumes that no such thing as Attributes exist.

More, even if I could devise such a mechanic, rerolls would break it and I would still want effect brakes to implement the 4 types of Success.

Trust me, I don't just ignore advice. I'm prototyping systems, to see if they work, or work better than what I'm using. In this case the results aren't encouraging.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501975OK...
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

Code Select Expand

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.

I understand the idea, but it would need to be morphed a bit to conform to the desired math. Fortunately, that's what I do...

The hot/cold die and (d10-d10) systems both center on zero. (By this, I mean that the average die roll is zero.) In the case of a character whose "attack" was equal to the opponent's "defense", this means that a roll needs to be above average (+1 or more) to score a basic success.

Now take 2d10 directly. Instead of going from -9 to +9, it goes from 2 to 20, with the probabilities exactly matching. In short, 2d10-11 is topologically equivalent to the hot/cold model without reroll, and a simple adjustment of where the rerolls go (making them at 2 and 20 respectively instead of -9 and +9) even fixes that difference.

So now with this information, the way to fix the difficulty numbers is clear. Take the original difficulty number and add 11. Now you can take the skill and add the 2d10 (rerolling up on 20 or down on 2) and compare to this new DN using the whole Rule of 3 as is.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501975example: 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.

Taking the math above into account, the resistance is 7, adding 11 is 18. A skill roll of 12 plus skill of 8 is 20. This is 2 higher than the difficulty, so 1 success level is applied.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;501975The 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.

It works out mostly the same, with a few bumps based on rounding. I think just creating the difficulty as either flat number (such as "average" difficulty being a 19 to reflect the average 11 die roll) or as some resistance number +11 and applying Rule of 3 to the final difference is easier.

Hey rabbitball, good stuff. I don't know where I pulled those example numbers from, I should know that the average of 2d10 is [5.5*2=11]....

As far as values/measures go, if you did want to try and implement something that worked out real-world effect precisely, I'd have to have to recommend you guys check out DC Heroes by Greg Gordon, if you can find it (reprinted later as Blood of Heroes). It has a universal logarithmic scale for everything, where 0 APs has a defined value in terms of information, distance, mass, etc. and successive numbers double the value. I didn't like its multiple table cross-referencing on most checks - much prefer the simplicity of say MSH - but it might be of interest. The review of Shatterzone [Masterbook system] in Dragon magazine thought the values system there looked reminiscent of DC Heroes, but not as good.

Also, I dub this thread the Probability Wars.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;503739As far as values/measures go, if you did want to try and implement something that worked out real-world effect precisely, I'd have to have to recommend you guys check out DC Heroes by Greg Gordon,

I looked at the x2 log scale, prototyping one for the Torg Measures. I even prototyped a +2=x2, a more granular but similar scale. Both were even worse than the standard V&M chart, as far as compressing usable values and making the system less granular.

Like I posted on the List, log scales are perfect for superhero type games, where you are at or above human maximums. When all your play is taking place in the 10-20 range (x2 log), who cares if the rules suck for 1-3 (normal human) characters.

But for games focused around normal characters, where all your play takes place around that 1-3 all the time, those rules sucking is a serious problem. Log charts are terrible, for normal humans. And when your game centers around them specifically, that matters.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;503739The review of Shatterzone [Masterbook system] in Dragon magazine thought the values system there looked reminiscent of DC Heroes, but not as good.

The resemblance to DC Heroes isn't an accident. The same guy designed both: Greg Gorden.

So far as the review goes, I'd disagree sharply, especially for a game meant to center around human or just above human characters. +5=x10 (Torg's scale) is also easier to grasp, being a repeating decimal-based chart, not powers of two. 10, 16, 25, 40, 60, 100, 160, 250, etc.

(Programmers love Po2, normal people not so much. Thanks to calculating disk sizes and the like, I can recite them up to 2048 easily, not so much after that. But I'm unusual in that regard.)

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;503812So far as the review goes, I'd disagree sharply, especially for a game meant to center around human or just above human characters. +5=x10 (Torg's scale) is also easier to grasp, being a repeating decimal-based chart, not powers of two. 10, 16, 25, 40, 60, 100, 160, 250, etc.

(Programmers love Po2, normal people not so much. Thanks to calculating disk sizes and the like, I can recite them up to 2048 easily, not so much after that. But I'm unusual in that regard.)

Yeah, I understand the Po2 well enough, thanks to really old school programming in BASIC where line numbers went from 0 to 32767 (creating 32768 possible line numbers, the maximum number of lines the assembler could handle).

As for log charts, I was personally considering doing stuff in the "half-values" for TORG. That would have allowed for a more granular division of things: 1, 1.25, 1.58, 2.0, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12.5, 16, etc. The problem lies in choosing a small enough value to allow for gradation but still having it large enough to allow the larger values to not be extremely large, even as a value. If this had been adopted, the values would have all doubled (the current STR 8 would have been a 16 instead) but it would have made for more meaningful results.

Quote from: Rabbitball;503910Yeah, I understand the Po2 well enough, thanks to really old school programming in BASIC

I did Basic. 10, 20, 30... Not extensively, mind, but I did it. Ages and ages ago.

Quote from: Rabbitball;503910As for log charts, I was personally considering doing stuff in the "half-values" for TORG.

Fundamentally speaking, the Log chart inspires exactly the wrong approach to Torg.

Mechanics should reinforce the feel of the game.

The Value chart doesn't.

"Your Speed is 10, which is 100 meters a round. The other car is moving at a rate of 11, which is 150 meters a round, so they've gained 50 meters this round, so they're now at a range of 8. The gun has a max range of 7, 25 meters, so you can't shoot the other car."

What? Are you kidding me? Meters to Values to other meters and kilos to Values, minus a number to convert to pounds... That implements the feel of an action movie?

No. That implements the feel of a High School physics class. All it's missing is some dimensional analysis (making sure to cancel out the units) and a goddamn slide ruler.

Mechanics tell players and GM's what is considered important in play. They focus the players' attentions on specific things. By this, they influence what people think of at the table.

Mechanics speak is inevitable in an RPG. But mechanics can at least focus on those elements that are important to the type of game being contemplated. Instead of a focus on physics and conversion factors, we could have a focus on elements important to action movies, even if only in a mechanical way.

"I'll make a Drive check to aid your attack," roll "2 SL means I got a +2, plus I'll toss this Supporter on the pile. If we can get a successful attack, we'll keep them off balance and increase our Advantage."

That's at least in character for the milieu: working together to beat the enemies is the focus, not SI math and log charts. The mechanics hint at what players should be focusing on.

Just my opinion, but the V&M chart isn't a good thing.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;503812The resemblance to DC Heroes isn't an accident. The same guy designed both: Greg Gorden.
 
So far as the review goes, I'd disagree sharply, especially for a game meant to center around human or just above human characters. +5=x10 (Torg's scale) is also easier to grasp, being a repeating decimal-based chart, not powers of two. 10, 16, 25, 40, 60, 100, 160, 250, etc.
 
(Programmers love Po2, normal people not so much. Thanks to calculating disk sizes and the like, I can recite them up to 2048 easily, not so much after that. But I'm unusual in that regard.)

That explains a few things. Completely understand your perspective on the log values.
I'm definitely getting that the physics thing is not the way you're going, but for the record, the review (Dragon #203) was actually complaining about specific errors that resulted from the chart (though its also by Rick Swan, who hated rules-heavy games. And gave 2E 3-armed rangers, the bastard).