Quote from: gleichman;633318So,  Black Vulmea and Benoist have nothing better to do than jump in and agree with my original post...

...I think I like it better when they threadcapped.

And so goes another episode in the never-ending middle-school that is the life of Brian Gleichman.

You're the one popping into a thread and adding nothing.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;633337No one-size-fits-all solution from me, but there are surely options in between improvising on the spot and having a fixed table.

Like, you could have a table which speaks in generalities or is subject to flexible interpretation--anything from a taxonomy of causes to an oracular card draw (tarot, Everway, etc.) to word-association as in Mythic.

I wouldn't be interested in something like Dungeon World's taxonomy of causes - too limited and too limiting.

I use Mythic Events for developing random encounters and events in the lives of the characters, along with the occasional random Event which arises from using the Fate Table.

If I was going to consider using them as seeds for describing failures, I would definitely roll them in advance and keep a list handy, and simply work my way down the list, crossing them off as they get used.

I would only use these for exceptional failures or successes, however; that's much too fiddly for my tastes for anything routine.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;633519I wouldn't be interested in something like Dungeon World's taxonomy of causes - too limited and too limiting.

I use Mythic Events for developing random encounters and events in the lives of the characters, along with the occasional random Event which arises from using the Fate Table.

That's better.

Now, give a actual example of how you'd use that idea.

Quote from: gleichman;633504Which is why I never have multiple people roll, as I consider the perversion to work both ways (i.e. it's better for multiple people to have low or middling skills in a lot things than it is to specialize in a few when every one gets to roll against a task).

You already had a Perverse Incentive problem before you ever reached the question of external failure.

It's another problem of modeling success using dice rolls. Classic case is "pick locks." Does failure mean you're not up to it (and maybe can't roll again), or that you just haven't done it within a certain defined time? In the former case you can easily have silliness where the neophyte picks the lock that stymies the master. "Spot" is another problematic case. Both rolls are all too often modeled on the single case without considering multiple people. If you do, then you have to start thinking about whether the rolls should represent independent probabilities, and if not, how to decompose a single roll into separate skill and situational factors.

The only game off the top of my head that explicitly does this is CORPS. There, a task has a difficulty and if your skill exceeds that, you succeed, period. If not, there's a chance you'll do it. Devil is in the details, but I think this setup may help get things right.

If you want more variance than the CORPS method, then I think what you do is randomize the difficulty, and then have everyone try to beat that. This allows you to increase the correlation between separate actors' attempts, while also having a high variance in the individual's likelihood of success.

No time to provide a worked example at the moment, though. As always: devil in the details.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;633588The only game off the top of my head that explicitly does this is CORPS.

I spent some time considering the subject for Age of Heroes and am content with the result.

It's more of a problem with HERO System, and while I can carry over some of the concepts and make it work- it's not as cleanly done.

@Eliott: I'm not sure how randomizing the difficulty helps??
 
I'm starting to see the problems Gleichman points out with multiple rolls, although in many cases, only allowing one roll per task is something that bothers me (for reasons I find difficult to explain).
Some games do have specific sub-systems for situations where multiple rolls are applicable (e.g. "skill challenges" [4E D&D] or "complex skill checks" [3E D&D] or "extended rolls" [Shadowrun]). Might be something I should think about some more.
 
PS you guys have sold me on Mythic, BTW. Purchased it through Drivethru, although I haven't checked it out yet; they also had Gygax magazine, I bought that too and got distracted.

N.B. Basically, randomizing the difficulty, with a high enough variance or a long enough tail (almost the same) is a way of making external factors explicit. Then it's just a matter of whether you want/need to add a description. Say you use an exploding dice method and the result yields an improbable high difficulty that your expert assassin fails to over overcome. It's a matter of taste whether this needs to be explained by a pigeon, unexpected movement, etc., or if you just accept it and move on.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;633614N.B. Basically, randomizing the difficulty, with a high enough variance or a long enough tail (almost the same) is a way of making external factors explicit. Then it's just a matter of whether you want/need to add a description. Say you use an exploding dice method and the result yields an improbable high difficulty that your expert assassin fails to over overcome. It's a matter of taste whether this needs to be explained by a pigeon, unexpected movement, etc., or if you just accept it and move on.

In pratical terms what this does, especially with Skill Threshold Systems (i.e. if you're good enough- you automatically succeed) is move the skill roll from the player to the GM.

Personally, I think few players will approve of the idea, although it does handle external factors really well.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;633613I'm starting to see the problems Gleichman points out with multiple rolls, although in many cases, only allowing one roll per task is something that bothers me (for reasons I find difficult to explain).

One problem is that it's asking the other players (i.e. the ones not making a roll) to sit on their hands during task resolution- even if they are adding a bonus or making a 'supporting roll' (and the later is a big time waste in both the player's and GM's eyes IME).

This works for a group like my that really enjoys watching other characters shine (or perhaps 'take the heat'). But could be a real problem for other types of players.

I do like the idea of supporting rolls instead of a straight bonus. Like, it breaks things down into a little more detail and may let you say things such as "Okay, Fudlow tries to help with tracking, but instead of succeeding and adding a bonus to the final roll, he fumbles (tramps over some of the tracks), adding to the difficulty. But Alan still rolls well enough to succeed."

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;633626I do like the idea of supporting rolls instead of a straight bonus. Like, it breaks things down into a little more detail and may let you say things such as "Okay, Fudlow tries to help with tracking, but instead of succeeding and adding a bonus to the final roll, he fumbles (tramps over some of the tracks), adding to the difficulty. But Alan still rolls well enough to succeed."

I think that when you go and play under such a system for a while, the shine will wear off as the players realized that their time spent rolling is only doing one of two things:

1) The lower skill players realizes that once in a great while they are making a difference but most of the time it's just a wasted roll. Along with this assuming if the chance is equal for hurt/help- the high skill player will object to being whammed half the time when it does matter, better to just not have the help. Depending upon the system and detail, such help might be worse than none under bad conditions.

OR

2) The player with the high skill realizes that his skill doesn't matter as much as all the also rans who are rolling before him.


Lastly it possible that either might apply depending upon the exact test being made. So either the players break out calculator to determine if they are better off helping or not (something I don't want to see during a game)- or they make the choice blind.

Again, devil in details. Here I was assuming that the lesser-skilled people would only cause an increase in difficulty if they fumbled. So the math for a city slicker trying to help track in the forest might be 15% provide a bonus to the final roll, 83% do nothing, 2% add to the difficulty.

Depending on what those numbers really are, along with the experienced person's skill and all the other numbers, there will be times that the experienced person will say, "Please stay out of my way." Which is fine IMO.

But yeah, breaking out the calculators is annoying. I'd rather have the experienced know, from experience, whether to accept help or not. I.e., it should be pretty obvious.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;633647Again, devil in details. Here I was assuming that the lesser-skilled people would only cause an increase in difficulty if they fumbled. So the math for a city slicker trying to help track in the forest might be 15% provide a bonus to the final roll, 83% do nothing, 2% add to the difficulty.

Having the reduction only happen on a crit would help, depending upon the systems. If Age of Heroes used that method the 15% chance of success would have only 30% of doining nothing and a 55% chance of adding to the difficulty.

In the actual rules, the 15% skill chance would be highly unlikely to be useful at all unless everyone sucked at what was going on.

Plus I must ask what type of bonus does that 15% actually provide if successful and what does it inflict if it critically fails.


For my part I'm glad my players are happy skipping the aiding players rolls. but I can see where that wouldn't appeal to everyone.

Yep. The details of modeling aiding are a whole other ball of wax. It seems, in many situations, an expert is going to benefit less from help than will a newb or journeyman. But then you have to ask if "benefit" is to be compared linearly or proportionally, etc.

But IMO the most important thing is to avoid penalizing things that, in real life, would be beneficial. Next is making beneficial things beneficial, which is almost the same, if there's an opportunity cost. (Like, if spending money to get information doesn't actually help get information, you're effectively penalizing it.) Next is getting the relative balance of cost:benefit right when comparing options, which is a special case of opportunity costs. Last is getting the costs:benefits literally, exactly, absolutely right.

In more straighforward terms, if it would make sense "in real life" then it should make sense in the rules.