TheRPGSite

So this is split off from a thread from Pundit's rant, "Only Players Roll" is the Exact Opposite of Good Design (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=853097#post853097), as it doesn't have to do with who rolls.

One of my pet peeves in RPG design has to do with the effect of skill. In the real world - and in many fictional worlds - someone with expert skill can reliably do tasks that a beginner has no chance at. Examples I gave from the earlier thread include,

Quote from: jhkim;8530971) An expert professional acrobat can do a back flip hundreds of times on stage without failing. A beginner can try a back flip over and over and never succeed.

2) An expert computer programmer can write a quick program to do something that someone new to computers has no chance at. Say, find the frequency that each of a given list of names appears in a given ebook.

3) An expert locksmith can reliably pop open a door that a beginner can't get through at all.

4) A grandmaster at chess can reliably beat someone who is middle-ranked. In turn, a middle-ranked chess expert can reliably beat someone who is a beginner to chess.

5) An expert sniper can reliably make a shot that a beginner can't hit even after dozens of tries.

6) An expert mountain climber can reliably make it up a cliff face that a beginner can't get up after dozens of tries.

This is not reflected by many systems. For example, in BRP, rifle skill starts out at 25% for someone with no training, and 90% is considered high expert skill.

My preferred way to deal with this is to have this built into the skill system.  For example, suppose my resolution mechanic is to take stat total + 1d10 and compare to a difficulty number (like Eden Studio's Unisystem).

I can say that a backflip is difficulty 15, an expert professional acrobat has stat total 14 or more, and a beginner might have a stat total more like 3 or 4. Then I can easily scale this, so that a legendary acrobat might have a skill of 22, and reliably perform feats that even experts regularly fail at.

Quote from: jhkim;853122CORPS (1990) is a generic universal RPG by Greg Porter, which can be a little drily generic, but has a lot of good features. I used a version of it for several Star Trek campaigns that I quite enjoyed.

I find that this sort of niche protection is actually quite fun for game-play, and indeed many RPG designs seem to downplay their skill system as niches, and instead play up non-skill abilities that are more absolute.

In the Star Trek games, say, there was no problem that other officers couldn't do the tricky engineering tasks that the engineer could. It's just like when other characters can't do magic like the wizard can, or can't fly the way the energy projector can in a superhero game.

On the other hand, there are other systems where skills are in a narrower range. Bren replied on the earlier thread,

Quote from: Bren;853137It sounds like you are saying characters either have Engineering - in which case they can fix the Jefferies tube - or they don't have Engineering - in which case they can't fix the Jeffries tube at all.

That doesn't sound that different to saying that a character with professional level skill in Drive Auto (40%) can driver the car without needing to roll unless the circumstance is very unusual and a character with 0% can't drive the car at all. (Not all characters get all skills above 0%.) A character with >0% and less than 40% might need to make a roll under some circumstances where the professional would not - say driving at speed in the rain or some such.

I'm not seeing what you find significantly different between the two systems. Can you elaborate?

Let's say we have four characters - one with skill 6%, one with skill 17%, one with skill 33%, and one with skill 40%. They want to drive to Arkham quickly. You say that the one with skill 40% doesn't have to roll. Does the one with skill 33% have to roll? What should his chance be? What should be the chances for the others?

In my preferred system, I'd just set a difficulty for the driving task, and everyone would roll their skill against that difficulty. There's no need for me to make judgement calls about who needs to roll and who doesn't - that's handled by setting the difficulty level.

I'm not saying that engineering is a binary case of either (a) has engineering means automatic success, or (b) not having engineering means automatic failure. Some characters might have a little engineering skill, some characters might be somewhat skilled and can do middling tasks, and some characters are masters. What you can do automatically is described by your level of skill.

Over on BGG a similar argument came up.

Thing is, in the real world even an expert will slip up now and then. And when they do, for some reason it tends to be catastrophically half the time.

I like 5es system as it allows even the unskilled to give something a try. They might fail, but they might not. And the DM or player can call where something might actually be outside the characters realm due to the required skills needed to accomplish.

Quote from: jhkim;853180My preferred way to deal with this is to have this built into the skill system.  For example, suppose my resolution mechanic is to take stat total + 1d10 and compare to a difficulty number (like Eden Studio's Unisystem).

I can say that a backflip is difficulty 15, an expert professional acrobat has stat total 14 or more, and a beginner might have a stat total more like 3 or 4.

That seems like a very elaborate way of figuring out that, neither character needs to roll, since the professional can't fail and the beginner can't succeed.

On the other hand, if the difficulty is set to 20 we have a very swinging success chance for the acrobat. About the same as what we get for a good driver with a 50% skill having to avoid incoming tommy-gun fire or a soldier with a 50% parry blocking a blow.

That seems like it could be a terrible system for combat as., depending on the difficulty good fighters would never even be threatened by lesser fighters. That hardly seems realistic except in the most artificial of dueling set ups.

QuoteLet's say we have four characters - one with skill 6%, one with skill 17%, one with skill 33%, and one with skill 40%. They want to drive to Arkham quickly. You say that the one with skill 40% doesn't have to roll. Does the one with skill 33% have to roll? What should his chance be? What should be the chances for the others?

Well, in CoC the characters with the 6% and the 17% must be from some primitive tribe since base for drive is 20%.

20% is good enough to drive on a smooth, level road, at a slow speed, with nothing difficult to deal with. I'd probably call for a roll at the beginning in part because the potential fumble for the 20% indicating that they weren't sure where the starter was would be funny.

40% is professional so 33% is fine for routine, recreational driving. Plenty of people drive I-270, I-495, and I-95 around my area with 33% skills. They don't get into accidents 2 out of 3 times they get behind the wheel. The drive roll is for more interesting situations. I mentioned them before. Depending on how interesting they would roll at skill x2 (for sort of interesting). Let's say to avoid the truck that is over the line and into your lane. Roll <= 33, you're fine, 34-66 a narrow escape kind of scary, maybe someone else should take the wheel from now on, 67-95 lose a fender, scrape up the side of the car, forced to drive off the road and stop, etc, 96-00 CRASH!

A saloon car full of mobsters driving parallel while the guy in the back cuts loose with his chopper? That's roll under your skill or take incoming fire.

QuoteIn my preferred system, I'd just set a difficulty for the driving task, and everyone would roll their skill against that difficulty. There's no need for me to make judgement calls about who needs to roll and who doesn't - that's handled by setting the difficulty level.

Except by setting the difficulty you are in fact deciding who needs to roll and who doesn't. You just aren't doing so explicitly, but implicitly.

QuoteI'm not saying that engineering is a binary case of either (a) has engineering means automatic success, or (b) not having engineering means automatic failure. Some characters might have a little engineering skill, some characters might be somewhat skilled and can do middling tasks, and some characters are masters. What you can do automatically is described by your level of skill.

That's OK. A little uninteresting from a game standpoint. A little unrealistic for a lot of cases. But it's OK. That's one way that Careers work in Honor+Intrigue. I just don't see it as superior in general.

I wouldn't bother basing a roleplaying system in real world too much.

As a player, I prefer GM saying 'it's not possible for your character' to my face, rather than him dishing out a number I have no chance to beat. I guess this could fall into 'don't roll if the result isn't interesting' category of thinking.

Quote from: Moracai;853215As a player, I prefer GM saying 'it's not possible for your character' to my face, rather than him dishing out a number I have no chance to beat. I guess this could fall into 'don't roll if the result isn't interesting' category of thinking.

That's fine. I'm talking about the underlying mechanics, not the words being spoken at the table.

If I know someone has only a 3 skill and the task is difficulty 18 (in a d10 system), then I'll just say "It's not possible for your character".

Got it.

In your example you mentioned unisystem. I'm not super familiar with it. How does it handle critical successes?

More importantly, how in your ideal system critical successes would be handled, or would it even have such things?

Quote from: Moracai;853256In your example you mentioned unisystem. I'm not super familiar with it. How does it handle critical successes?

More importantly, how in your ideal system critical successes would be handled, or would it even have such things?

Unisystem has degree of success but not critical successes per se. A "critical success" is just getting a result much higher than the target number.

I don't have a single ideal system. Especially depending on genre, a lot of different systems can fit reasonably well.

Note that in a lot of genres, the reliability of experts is even greater than reality. Star Trek is one - where Spock can do ridiculously good scientific feats all the time. There is similar in shows like Mission Impossible and Leverage, where experts are extremely competent.

In many RPGs, if Spock fails at a understanding some puzzling scientific problem, then he could copy the data over to all the other bridge crew, and if they all roll, then one of them would likely succeed and figure out what stumped him.


I tend to dislike critical failures as they usually encourage absurd results, but I like some critical success mechanics. Open-ended rolling can be OK depending on genre, but it can also be hugely overdone and make randomness overshadow skill and ability. In my Star Trek game, we used taking the lower of 2d6, where doubles normally cancel for a result from zero to five - but boxcars (double sixes) was a special result.

Quote from: jhkimMy preferred way to deal with this is to have this built into the skill system. For example, suppose my resolution mechanic is to take stat total + 1d10 and compare to a difficulty number (like Eden Studio's Unisystem).

I can say that a backflip is difficulty 15, an expert professional acrobat has stat total 14 or more, and a beginner might have a stat total more like 3 or 4.

Quote from: Bren;853202That seems like a very elaborate way of figuring out that, neither character needs to roll, since the professional can't fail and the beginner can't succeed.

If the only possible cases were an expert professional at skill 14 and a beginner at skill 4, then sure. But like all skill systems, this handles a lot more cases - like the relative chances of an intermediate acrobat (skill 9) and an expert, and lots of other skills and tasks.

Quote from: Bren;853202On the other hand, if the difficulty is set to 20 we have a very swinging success chance for the acrobat. About the same as what we get for a good driver with a 50% skill having to avoid incoming tommy-gun fire or a soldier with a 50% parry blocking a blow.

That seems like it could be a terrible system for combat as., depending on the difficulty good fighters would never even be threatened by lesser fighters. That hardly seems realistic except in the most artificial of dueling set ups.

I think even without an artificial dueling setup, a one-on-one fight between an untrained person and an expert combatant is not a significant contest. So if you have an Navy SEAL and some civilian dude, the SEAL is just going to shut him down - no rolls necessary.

If there are a bunch of guys, then they would get a bonus if they are rushing him all at once. Still, civilians aren't great fighters. For example, I found the ending of Unforgiven fairly believable - they can panic, get in each others' way, and otherwise fail to be effective.

I think that's fine for a game. There are some opponents who are just rabble that can't threaten the PCs; and there are some opponents just so tough they would be overwhelmed.

Quote from: Bren;85320220% is good enough to drive on a smooth, level road, at a slow speed, with nothing difficult to deal with. I'd probably call for a roll at the beginning in part because the potential fumble for the 20% indicating that they weren't sure where the starter was would be funny.

40% is professional so 33% is fine for routine, recreational driving. Plenty of people drive I-270, I-495, and I-95 around my area with 33% skills. They don't get into accidents 2 out of 3 times they get behind the wheel. The drive roll is for more interesting situations. I mentioned them before. Depending on how interesting they would roll at skill x2 (for sort of interesting). Let's say to avoid the truck that is over the line and into your lane. Roll <= 33, you're fine, 34-66 a narrow escape kind of scary, maybe someone else should take the wheel from now on, 67-95 lose a fender, scrape up the side of the car, forced to drive off the road and stop, etc, 96-00 CRASH!

The thing is that these numbers and results seem fairly arbitrary. What if I'm an expert stock car driver with a 75% skill? Are the results going to be:

Roll <= 75 you're fine
76-95 a narrow escape kind of scary, maybe someone else should take the wheel from now on
96-00 ???

Or maybe you just wouldn't make the stock car driver roll at all to deal with a truck over the line? If so, it just seems very arbitrary where you're effectively frequently saying the 75% means 100%, and 17% means 0%, and otherwise making up numbers. I feel that having a wider range of skill (like in my example) handles this much more simply and easily.

In particular, let's say you've got an expert stock car driver with skill 75% and a driver's ed student with skill 20% or so. Can you suggest a task where the student has a chance of 20% to succeed, and the expert has a chance of 75% at the same task?

Quote from: jhkim;853357I tend to dislike critical failures as they usually encourage absurd results, but I like some critical success mechanics. Open-ended rolling can be OK depending on genre, but it can also be hugely overdone and make randomness overshadow skill and ability. In my Star Trek game, we used taking the lower of 2d6, where doubles normally cancel for a result from zero to five - but boxcars (double sixes) was a special result.

I too dislike critical failures, and have written about it on this board also. I especially dislike Apocalypse World and its deriatives where the 'crit fail' chance is so high, even when it is left for the GM to arbitrarily decide the result.

By saying that depending on genre open-ended rolling can be OK, you are a bit contradicting what you said earlier, like

QuoteA beginner can try a back flip over and over and never succeed.

QuoteAn expert computer programmer can write a quick program to do something that someone new to computers has no chance at.

QuoteAn expert locksmith can reliably pop open a door that a beginner can't get through at all.

And so on...

I agree with your previous statement that determining results should not be a binary process. I just observe some confict of interest in your statements (which is natural, because of the nature of roleplaying games).

Quote from: Moracai;853370By saying that depending on genre open-ended rolling can be OK, you are a bit contradicting what you said earlier

Those were examples of roughly what things are like in reality.

I don't think that RPGs have to necessarily match reality or any particular genre. RPGs are their own thing. However, sometimes rules generate ridiculous results that differ a lot from both reality and many genres. In this case, a lot of the most popular RPGs are very different from what reality - and I prefer them to be closer. If lucky beginners regularly outperform experts (say 5% of the time or more), then it nags a little at my suspension of disbelief.

Many open-ended rolls tend to regularly generate enormous swings of luck, which is what I'm opposed to - but it's the total size of the luck factor that is the issue. Open-ending in principle generates a tail in a curved distribution, which is reasonable.

Quote from: jhkim;853046Thus, I prefer to use a system where the result of applying the rules more closely matches reality - in this case, meaning that the difference between beginner and expert in most skills is bigger than random variance.

Reading this in the other thread, I'm now curious. Do you really think that's particularly realistic?
You slip as a beginner punches you in the jaw. I'm not persuaded that all experts can deal with that. No need for the beginner to actually be doing anything.

Personally, I like how EABA 2 is doing it. If your skill times two equals or beats the difficulty, don't roll:).
Simple, to the point and makes gaining extra dice really important, as it might mean not even having a chance to fail. Also, it means that enough modifiers actually guarantee success, which would be impossible otherwise due to the RollXd6 Keep(best) 3 dice system.

That said, was CORPS really that different? Never played it, I'm planning to simply wait for the next edition. But if I remember explaining me that tasks have skill levels, and you don't need to roll unless you're within a couple levels of the skill required.
Still, that's not so different from just getting modifiers in many systems. Most just don't make it explicitly a feature. But it still is, in any system that includes dice+modifiers against a target number. Opinions to whether this is a good thing vary wildly, though;).

Well, one of my pet peeves is how most RPGs don't bother accounting for the effect of mental state, and modifiers often are undervalued. It can make all the difference, and actually is often more important than skill. So it's not like I don't understand disliking an inaccurate representation...:D
And yes, this means Pendragon is a better representation of combat than most systems. It's simply true, although RQ6 with Pendragon Passions would be even better.

Quote from: jhkim;853398If lucky beginners regularly outperform experts (say 5% of the time or more), then it nags a little at my suspension of disbelief.

Likewise, but from where I'm coming from (in the regard of rpgs), that is the stuff of legends. Like a goblin stabbing a giant-hunter through the liver. Or some such equivalent.

Memorable by the players through the years.

In my new Fudge-based Cyberpunk game (Cyberblues City) I came with a neat solution to reflect the advantage experts have over amateurs. I wanted to keep things simple not have a whole lot of ad-hoc rules and modifiers or arbitrary restriction so I  took advantage of the fact that Fudge dice produce results that span from +4 to -4 and introduced the concept of Expert Dice.

If you are an expert in a specific field (as defined by the system) you can roll Expert Dice on related test. When you roll Expert Dice results less than zero and treated as zero.

There are a couple of caveats in that a -4 is still a failure and Expert Dice aren't used in combat. I was worried at first that this might be too much of a bonus but in play it has worked out really well.

I've also have the concept of Rookie Dice for skills that require specialist training which as probably guessed rolls above zero are treated as zero.

This isn't a universal fix, it's tightly tied with how the rest of the system works and the over all design goal of keeping things simple but I am rather  pleased with how it's worked out. Fudge and Fudge dice are very, very versatile. It does make tinkering with the rules a lot of fun.

Also, I am a total fan of 'player only rolls' systems. :-)  I enjoy GMing 'handsfree". Each to his own I guess.

Quote from: jhkim;853362The thing is that these numbers and results seem fairly arbitrary.

I have the same reaction to the system you describe. Setting the difficulty seems arbitrary and in the example you gave it was pointless. Sure maybe if you had 5+ characters with skills ranging from 4 to 14 we might care about the difficulty, but (a) that wasn't the example you used and (b) other than combat, I seldom see 5+ PC trying to do the same thing. For many things (e.g. perception, persuasion, first aid, cooking, calculation, craft object) allowing everyone to try makes very little sense and in some cases would actually be counterproductive.

QuoteWhat if I'm an expert stock car driver with a 75% skill? Are the results going to be:

Roll <= 75 you're fine
76-95 a narrow escape kind of scary, maybe someone else should take the wheel from now on
96-00 ???

Yeah that sounds reasonable.

• 76-95 But do you have anyone better to take the wheel? And if you do, why weren't they driving the car in the first place?
• 96-00 I'd align with the fumble rules so 96-98 is a minor accident, 99-00 CRASH! would work.

QuoteI feel that having a wider range of skill (like in my example) handles this much more simply and easily.

I addressed that above. In practice the two systems seem about the same to me as far as success and failure. As far as I can tell, you are setting an arbitrary difficulty for the number used that varies by situation.

Quote from: jhkim;853357Unisystem has degree of success but not critical successes per se. A "critical success" is just getting a result much higher than the target number.

I suspected that it might. I tend to dislike degrees of success based on rolling above a target number.

QuoteIn many RPGs, if Spock fails at a understanding some puzzling scientific problem, then he could copy the data over to all the other bridge crew, and if they all roll, then one of them would likely succeed and figure out what stumped him.

I alluded to this above. I know of very few people who play that way, because in many if not most cases the process just seems really silly.

Imagine Spock actually passing the data around. Chekov might know something, but what are Sulu and Uhura going to make of it, much less that red or blue shirted nameless crew person on the upper level?

I see this as a problem with players metagaming not a rules problem. Aside from just disallowing it in the first place, the desire to try that goes away if the GM treats the die roll as OOC information. If the GM rolls for the players so that none of them know who rolled what the desire to try to use OOC knowledge goes away. You don't know what anyone rolled, so now who do you want explain the nature of that gaseous cloud, Mr. Spock or Lt. Sulu or nameless crew person #7?

QuoteI tend to dislike critical failures as they usually encourage absurd results...

I find that depends a lot on what critical failure results look like and how the participants view and explain the result occurring.

Unless the game is TOON, "Hit self in head with hammer" isn't likely to improve many people's gaming experiences. But if you treat that as the opponent getting in a free strike or, depending on situation, the PC crashing helmet first into a wall when they slip in someone's blood it may seem less like slapstick and more like a chaotic, in-motion battle scene. In addition, I find that critical failures are a good way to include events like weapons breaking, armor failing or being hacked loose, guns misfiring or malfunctioning, etc. And since I don't play games where the odds of a critical failure are more than about 3% it isn't like they are going to come up every round.  Moreover, some failures are just funny in a gallows humor kind of way which I like having in the game. But that is certainly a matter of taste.

Quote from: AsenRG;853410Reading this in the other thread, I'm now curious. Do you really think that's particularly realistic?
You slip as a beginner punches you in the jaw. I'm not persuaded that all experts can deal with that. No need for the beginner to actually be doing anything.

I don't have any particular knowledge about real-life hand-to-hand fighting, so it's not something I would make claims about.

There are certainly some activities where randomness makes a bigger difference than others. If hand-to-hand fighting is one of those fields where an expert can be more regularly outdone by a beginner, this can be handled by restricting how high a skill number characters actually have. (This could be increased cost, level limits, or whatever depending on the rest of the system.)

I do think it is true about the skills I cited. Seeing expert climbers, or expert breakdancers, there's no way that a beginner could do what they do - and they do it over and over again repeatedly. This goes equally for intellectual skills. There's just no way for a beginner to solve the issues that an expert in the field can. Note that an expert can guard against slipping - and indeed climbers in particular learn to be very careful about that.

Quote from: AsenRG;853410Personally, I like how EABA 2 is doing it. If your skill times two equals or beats the difficulty, don't roll:).
Simple, to the point and makes gaining extra dice really important, as it might mean not even having a chance to fail. Also, it means that enough modifiers actually guarantee success, which would be impossible otherwise due to the RollXd6 Keep(best) 3 dice system.

That said, was CORPS really that different? Never played it, I'm planning to simply wait for the next edition.

I haven't tried EABA, but I suspect since Greg Porter designed them both that they are similar.

Quote from: Bren;853202Well, in CoC the characters with the 6% and the 17% must be from some primitive tribe since base for drive is 20%.

Well...from this thread's older brother...

Quote from: jhkim;548294Now let's take a native Pacific Islander - a player character from my last night's Call of Cthulhu game.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;853443Well...from this thread's older brother...

What fool let A'alona behind the wheel again?

Quote from: Moracai;853215As a player, I prefer GM saying 'it's not possible for your character' to my face, rather than him dishing out a number I have no chance to beat. I guess this could fall into 'don't roll if the result isn't interesting' category of thinking.

I find the number more interesting because, in most systems, there are ways to adjust the difficulty.

"You can't climb that wall."

"What if I borrow Becca's boots of climbing and use prestidigitation to attach a rope to the top of it?"

This is why I prefer to make consistent rulings in a system that produces consistent, logical results. Having to continually route around a system that produces nonsensical results by using GM fiat to overrule the system (which Bren suggests as his ideal) sounds like a frickin' nightmare.

It's like the guy who talks about how his 15 year old beater of a car "works great"... you just have to stop every 25 miles to let the engine cool down. I'd much rather just have a car that actually works.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;853664This is why I prefer to make consistent rulings in a system that produces consistent, logical results. Having to continually route around a system that produces nonsensical results by using GM fiat to overrule the system (which Bren suggests as his ideal) sounds like a frickin' nightmare.

:rolleyes: Yes a BRP-style system is too strange and weird for ordinary people, like Jason, to comprehend. Meanwhile, those of us who do understand and like that system will continue to use it successfully as we have for the past 36 years.

I have seen games where is your skill was sufficient relative to the task difficulty you could choose to take a low level of success automatically or roll accepting the risk of failure for a chance at a greater level of success.

Not entirely dissimilar to the "take 10" and "take 20" of d20 games.

Quote from: DavetheLost;853684I have seen games where is your skill was sufficient relative to the task difficulty you could choose to take a low level of success automatically or roll accepting the risk of failure for a chance at a greater level of success.

Not entirely dissimilar to the "take 10" and "take 20" of d20 games.

I've seen that where, for example, you could roll 6d6 or take 3 points per die. On average, you are better off rolling, but you might roll low.  That sort of choice tends to be more interesting if the player doesn't know the exact target number. Otherwise they will only roll when the default value isn't good enough. And in that case, the GM should speed up play by skipping the player 'choice' step by going straight to "you succeed."

This is one reason I appreciate GURPS; people who know a skill are competent.  The only time I've (reluctantly) tried d20 in the last twenty years involved my wife blowing her top because she failed her first aid skill to revive my (barely unconscious) character nine straight times.  Familiar with GURPS, where she'd never had a character with less than 87% to make a First Aid roll, she wanted nothing more to do with the system.

As one witty fellow said in a thread on the subject a few years back, in real life, a sailor who only managed to tie his knots 50% of the time would be pitched overboard halfway through the voyage.  ;)

Saying something takes a minimum level of training/experience (and may be done reliably with the right level) is an old familiar thing in D&D, Traveller and other games.

Lords of Creation comes to mind as one in which the emphasis was very much on that, on what professionals at some level in field could be expected to accomplish, with cases of less than assured success pretty much being left to the GM.

Quote from: Ravenswing;853965This is one reason I appreciate GURPS; people who know a skill are competent.  The only time I've (reluctantly) tried d20 in the last twenty years involved my wife blowing her top because she failed her first aid skill to revive my (barely unconscious) character nine straight times.  Familiar with GURPS, where she'd never had a character with less than 87% to make a First Aid roll, she wanted nothing more to do with the system.

As one witty fellow said in a thread on the subject a few years back, in real life, a sailor who only managed to tie his knots 50% of the time would be pitched overboard halfway through the voyage.  ;)

That's why we don't give able seamen a mere 50% chance in the games of my acquaintance, regardless of dice used when a toss is called for.

My bottom line:

wtf with all this ndx +/-y,  ad nauseum?

World First, Abstraction Last

Should you even be freaking rolling in the first place is the question. If you should, then realistically (which isn't necessarily the issue) some really impressive, headline-making blunders are freakishly rare. Whatever your real assessment of the situation, put that first -- and anyone who can write a fraction can make a randomizer if need be.

This isn't rocket science unless you've got the whole thing ass-backwards.

Quote from: Phillip;853978This isn't rocket science unless you've got the whole thing ass-backwards.

:D That made me laugh.

Quote from: Bren;854015:D That made me laugh.

Well, I think it is astoundingly ludicrous that people have made their imaginations slaves to whatever abstraction rather than the reverse that is the real foundation of FRP.

Numbers and dice should be your servants not your masters, the expression rather than the dictators of your conception.

Before you can have abstraction of a something, you've got to have the something.

I think generally I don't want experts to perform >>> than non-experts,  because I don't want too much divergence in character abilities, realism notwithstanding. For me I'll say its probably most fun to have most rolls sitting at somewhere between 25% and 75% or the equivalent, say. (5E, Savage Worlds and Palladium being my go-to games currently).

Quote from: Phillip;854031Well, I think it is astoundingly ludicrous that people have made their imaginations slaves to whatever abstraction rather than the reverse that is the real foundation of FRP.

Numbers and dice should be your servants not your masters, the expression rather than the dictators of your conception.

Before you can have abstraction of a something, you've got to have the something.

Ideally you should decide  what you want the results of the system to be, then design a system that gives those results, and then use the system as an arbiter.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;854463I think generally I don't want experts to perform >>> than non-experts,  because I don't want too much divergence in character abilities, realism notwithstanding.

It should be possible for an expert to miss punching an amateur, and it should be possible for the amateur to land a punch.
Also it should be possible for the amateur to spot something hidden in the undergrowth which the expert missed.
However rolling every time a pianist performs Beethoven's Hammerklavier with the potential for an amateur to mostly fail abysmally, but occasionally play a stunning performance, would be ridiculous.
Similarly it might make sense for it to be impossible for a PC to climb something, but it should not be impossible (just very unlikely) for the expert to fail.

How to model such different situations though is tricky to do well.

I handle the situation by only calling for a dice roll where the outcome is uncertain, and the drama and fun of the game will be improved by letting the dice decide.  Sometimes it's just fun to roll the bones.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;854556Ideally you should decide  what you want the results of the system to be, then design a system that gives those results, and then use the system as an arbiter.

It should be possible for an expert to miss punching an amateur, and it should be possible for the amateur to land a punch.
Also it should be possible for the amateur to spot something hidden in the undergrowth which the expert missed.
However rolling every time a pianist performs Beethoven's Hammerklavier with the potential for an amateur to mostly fail abysmally, but occasionally play a stunning performance, would be ridiculous.
Similarly it might make sense for it to be impossible for a PC to climb something, but it should not be impossible (just very unlikely) for the expert to fail.

How to model such different situations though is tricky to do well.

Yup.

One solution is simple: just DO NOT use the same system for throwing a punch and for climbing. For D&D, for example, use 1d20 for throwing a punch and some other method (1d6, 2d6, 3d6 roll under, dice pools, etc) for skills, comparison of abilities, etc.

I know most "modern" systems believe that using a single mechanic is the right thing to do, but it just doesn't work, unless the GM modifies the rule on the fly (okay, he is twice as strong as you, so you have no chance of beating him, don't roll).

I wrote extensively about it here (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2015/02/dungeons-dice-part-iii-comparing-sizes.html), although my examples are all D&D.

TBH, I cannot think of an easy way to make this work with d%.

And I like d%.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;854463I think generally I don't want experts to perform >>> than non-experts,  because I don't want too much divergence in character abilities, realism notwithstanding. For me I'll say its probably most fun to have most rolls sitting at somewhere between 25% and 75% or the equivalent, say. (5E, Savage Worlds and Palladium being my go-to games currently).

It seems to me that in 5E and in Palladium, I think there is a lot of divergence in character abilities between different classes. For example, in 5E, there is a lot of divergence not just between a fighter and a wizard, say, but also between a fighter, a rogue, and a barbarian.

Do you think that divergence between classes is OK, but divergence between different skills chosen is a problem?

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854577One solution is simple: just DO NOT use the same system for throwing a punch and for climbing. For D&D, for example, use 1d20 for throwing a punch and some other method (1d6, 2d6, 3d6 roll under, dice pools, etc) for skills, comparison of abilities, etc.

The other methods you refer to are ways of making the bonus count for more, which are very similar in their effect to Bren's suggestion of doubling the % chance.
The issue with this method is that it's not clear which circumstances you should use which system (no roll, d6 roll, d20 roll). E.g.  in my examples above climbing is a case where skill matters a lot, but perception isn't, so I don't think it's clear cut when you should use which system.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;854608The other methods you refer to are ways of making the bonus count for more, which are very similar in their effect to Brett's suggestion of doubling the % chance.
The issue with this method is that it's not clear which circumstances you should use which system (no roll, d6 roll, d20 roll). E.g.  in my examples above climbing is a case where skill matters a lot, but perception isn't, so I don't think it's clear cut when you should use which system.

Doubling the % chance is good, and I guess it might be enough if an expert has at least, say, 48% chance to begin with (failing at an average task more than 4% sounds like too much for a specialist IMO). But what can you do when you face a hard task? If you halve the score, for example, the difference between expert and novice is diminished. And how do you compare two different scores, like in a car chase, for example?

If you use 2d6 or 3d6, you have the advantage of creating a bell curve, which is a bit harder to do with d%.

Circumstances are pretty clear to me: combat and non-combat, or "high action and no high action" if you prefer. Things that take a moment should be "swingy" (throwing a punch, shooting an arrow), things that take more than that shouldn't (playing a song, climbing a wall, etc). BTW, I think the character with the best perception should succeed more often, too, like the climber, the piano player, etc.

Quote from: Eric DiazOne solution is simple: just DO NOT use the same system for throwing a punch and for climbing. For D&D, for example, use 1d20 for throwing a punch and some other method (1d6, 2d6, 3d6 roll under, dice pools, etc) for skills, comparison of abilities, etc.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;854608The other methods you refer to are ways of making the bonus count for more, which are very similar in their effect to Brett's suggestion of doubling the % chance.
The issue with this method is that it's not clear which circumstances you should use which system (no roll, d6 roll, d20 roll). E.g.  in my examples above climbing is a case where skill matters a lot, but perception isn't, so I don't think it's clear cut when you should use which system.

Another way to approach this is to have it built into how the numbers for each skill work out.

For example, if maximum skill is 15, then if everyone starts out with a default of Perception 10 - then being an expert perceiver doesn't make as much of a difference. (Whereas, say, skill in speaking Chinese could start at zero - so a beginner has no chance to get a result like an expert.) Similarly, if you wanted, default for combat skills could be high so that an expert doesn't completely outclass a beginner.

In other words, you can change the range of the other numbers, rather than changing the number rolled on the die. Any 1d6 roll mechanics can be pretty trivially mapped to 1d20 roll mechanics.

Quote from: jhkim;854622Another way to approach this is to have it built into how the numbers for each skill work out.

For example, if maximum skill is 15, then if everyone starts out with a default of Perception 10 - then being an expert perceiver doesn't make as much of a difference. (Whereas, say, skill in speaking Chinese could start at zero - so a beginner has no chance to get a result like an expert.) Similarly, if you wanted, default for combat skills could be high so that an expert doesn't completely outclass a beginner.

In other words, you can change the range of the other numbers, rather than changing the number rolled on the die. Any 1d6 roll mechanics can be pretty trivially mapped to 1d20 roll mechanics.

Yes, this makes sense, although it can get complicated: not only you need different "base" numbers for each different skill, you also have to be careful that investing some skill-points to learn Chinese won't completely ruin all your chances on being a good fighter (TBH I don't play any game in which you'd invest skill points to learn Chinese, right now).

In any case, it might work, and it is a good fit to that versions of BRP with lots of skill defaults in the blank character sheet.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854618Circumstances are pretty clear to me: combat and non-combat, or "high action and no high action" if you prefer. Things that take a moment should be "swingy" (throwing a punch, shooting an arrow), things that take more than that shouldn't (playing a song, climbing a wall, etc).

An interesting perspective. How would you count a careful measured arrow shot e.g. an ambush? Or climbing a wall during combat?
 

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854618BTW, I think the character with the best perception should succeed more often, too, like the climber, the piano player, etc.

I meant that the novice climber / piano player should never be able to perform an expert level task, whereas the better perception should *mostly* do better.

Silhouette system (by Dream Pod 9) had a system where characters skills were rated as Skill Level/Complexity. The Skill level was the raw talent and ability to get the job done while Complexity was breath of knowledge (experience and well rounded education). Thus you could have something like Negotiation 2/1 or Negotiation 3/3.

It worked on principle that every task would have a complexity rating and if it was more than character's skill's complexity, there would be negative modifier. If task had complexity less than character's skill's complexity there would be positive modifier to roll.

This was a neat idea but in my memory it was ignored by most people I know who played Silhouette based systems as too cumbersome.

I have toyed (for my homebrew RPG) a skill system where chance of critical failure is normally very low (natural 3 with 3D6) but it is much higher if character tries something very complex (say complexity of 3 and character's expertise of 1 would mean the natural roll for critical failure would be 3 + 3-1 --> 5 so all natural die rolls of 3, 4 and 5 with 3D6 would lead to disaster. However, a mountaineering expert would have 3 + 3-3 = 3 as the critical failure. This system is intended to make more skilled people more safe to work with in adversarial weather...

Quote from: JoeNuttall;854627An interesting perspective. How would you count a careful measured arrow shot e.g. an ambush? Or climbing a wall during combat?

I would still call  a careful measured arrow shot during an ambush "combat" (highly unpredictable on a second-by-second basis).

Climbing a wall is not a "combat" task IMO, even in the middle of combat.

I would save the d20 for actions that are resolved in a moment (maybe a few seconds); if I were to reduce combat to a single roll, I wouldn't use 1d20.

Outside of combat, I would only use it against other threats that are resolved in a moment, like dodging a fire ball trap.

I can see the argument for using 3d6 (etc) for a careful measured arrow shot, specially at an archery contest, stationary target, etc, but I don't think this applies to combat.

Quote from: jhkim;854586It seems to me that in 5E and in Palladium, I think there is a lot of divergence in character abilities between different classes. For example, in 5E, there is a lot of divergence not just between a fighter and a wizard, say, but also between a fighter, a rogue, and a barbarian.

Do you think that divergence between classes is OK, but divergence between different skills chosen is a problem?

In 5E I don't think there's that much divergence classes, actually. Characters pick up many of their skills from background (and sometimes one or two from race); all classes have the same base to-hit chance; a proficiency bonus is only a +2 (1st level) to +6 (at 17th), though occasionally a character may have Expertise and double that, or have some other ability that grants Advantage (roll twice and take the best).
So I can't answer the second part of your question for 5E specifically, but in general I think its best if all characters can contribute in some fashion toward achieving a majority of challenges, and have an adequate chance of succeeding an attack or challenge directed specifically at them (the sort of business that gets covered off under saving throws in D&D). Different classes may be able to get around a problem or contribute to a solution in different ways, which is OK.

On Palladium, I listed it above because if you have the skill its going to be, probably, at a range where rolling it is going to have a possibility of failing. The thing to note is that while it does have substantial divergence between classes (e.g. the old Vagabond vs. Dragon Hatchling problem in Rifts), thats not so much a case of individual skills differing as a case of the character's aggregate capabilities across dozens of skills (how many skills a character has, combat abilities, magic, psionics, etc). Mostly my solution to this to not to play Vagabonds.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854636I can see the argument for using 3d6 (etc) for a careful measured arrow shot, specially at an archery contest, stationary target, etc, but I don't think this applies to combat.

Shooting in a contest seems like it should be easier than shooting in a combat situation or at least any combat situation where the shooter is also under fire or could come under other attack.

One option to avoid single roll luck and unluck is to use more than one roll. One could make the contest 2 out of 3. This decreases the odds that a good shooter will bomb out in the early rounds. Use multiple rounds to decrease the odds that a lucky shooter will win. I did this when I created rules for Shooting Tournament (with black powder muskets) for my Honor+Intrigue game. I talk about it and list the rules on my blog: Rules for a Shooting Contest (http://honorandintrigue.blogspot.com/2015/09/rules-for-shooting-contest.html).

Quote from: Phillip;853974That's why we don't give able seamen a mere 50% chance in the games of my acquaintance, regardless of dice used when a toss is called for.

Good for you, but that's obviously not how the mechanic works in a pressure situation in D&D, nor for a number of other games.

Isn't all this why we have a GM? To decide that, well, some things don't need a roll.

Or that if you're rolling, it's not for success or failure, it's to see how well you do. The locksmith will open that door, but will it take 1 minute or 10? The surgeon will save your leg, but do you need 1 week of physio or 10? And so on.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854577I wrote extensively about it here (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2015/02/dungeons-dice-part-iii-comparing-sizes.html), although my examples are all D&D.

TBH, I cannot think of an easy way to make this work with d%.

And I like d%.

3d34-2 instead of d100 :) I've heard d34s are out there somewhere - though I imagine they're expensive.

The equivalent of the 'double %' method (Bren's?) with d20, or a similar additive system, might be just to have both sides double or halve their bonus. That works to shift the relative balance of power on opposed contests, anyway. An additive system could also use a die size based on how uncertain the task is (a character might roll d4+bonuses for an arm wrestle, d10+bonuses for archery, d20+bonuses in combat...).
(EDIT: to be clear, I think that's easier with the lower-size dice, d4 to d12, so you might have a scale like
d4+bonuses: A foregone conclusion. Mostly determined by ability e.g. contests of strength or speed under controlled conditions (arm wrestling, foot races).
d6+bonuses: Slightly chancy. (?)
d8+bonuses: Not very random. Running in uncertain terrain, no-holds-barred grappling (in melee conditions).
d10+bonuses: Fairly random. Notable external factors (outdoor archery with varying winds).
d12+bonuses: Pretty chancy. (social situations?)
d20+bonuses: Wildly erratic. Games of chance where skill is only slightly useful, chaotic melee, fishing or other tasks where success is heavily influenced by external factors.  )

Non-opposed tasks might be vs. a target numbers of [average die roll + an extra difficulty modifier].

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;8547253d34-2 instead of d100 :) I've heard d34s are out there somewhere - though I imagine they're expensive.

The equivalent of the 'double %' method (Bren's?) with d20, or a similar additive system, might be just to have both sides double or halve their bonus. That works to shift the relative balance of power on opposed contests, anyway. An additive system could also use a die size based on how uncertain the task is (a character might roll d4+bonuses for an arm wrestle, d10+bonuses for archery, d20+bonuses in combat...).
(EDIT: to be clear, I think that's easier with the lower-size dice, d4 to d12, so you might have a scale like
d4+bonuses: A foregone conclusion. Mostly determined by ability e.g. contests of strength or speed under controlled conditions (arm wrestling, foot races).
d6+bonuses: Slightly chancy. (?)
d8+bonuses: Not very random. Running in uncertain terrain, no-holds-barred grappling (in melee conditions).
d10+bonuses: Fairly random. Notable external factors (outdoor archery with varying winds).
d12+bonuses: Pretty chancy. (social situations?)
d20+bonuses: Wildly erratic. Games of chance where skill is only slightly useful, chaotic melee, fishing or other tasks where success is heavily influenced by external factors.  )

Non-opposed tasks might be vs. a target numbers of [average die roll + an extra difficulty modifier].

For d100, you could also use 5d20, I guess... although 17+9+12+4+15 isn't something Id like to do often.

About the rest, yes, this could work. I prefer using 3d6 instead of 1d20 because I wouldn't need to change TNs, but 1d10+5 would work well too.

GM experience and understanding of odds makes a big difference.

So does an appreciation by the GM and/or by the rules, of the different kinds of situations, skills, and results. Naive rules and GMs may just take some standard mechanic like % skill and apply it everywhere, which gives silly/inappropriate results in many cases.

In each situation, for every level of ability, there are different answers to whether one or more rolls are called for are not, what the modifiers are, and what the results of each sort of roll are. I find my sense of this has steadily improved and refined itself over the decades of GM'ing and making simulation programs. At first, characters were dying because we didn't realize the rules were too severe in cases such as "roll climbing and if you fail once, you fall...".

Quote from: jhkim;853432I don't have any particular knowledge about real-life hand-to-hand fighting, so it's not something I would make claims about.

Truth is, nobody does know as much about hand-to-hand fighting as we know about other fields, those that we've been able to explore scientifically.
Fine, let's leave it aside.

QuoteThere are certainly some activities where randomness makes a bigger difference than others. If hand-to-hand fighting is one of those fields where an expert can be more regularly outdone by a beginner, this can be handled by restricting how high a skill number characters actually have. (This could be increased cost, level limits, or whatever depending on the rest of the system.)

No. At least that much I can tell you. The ease of overcoming someone in a field where you know more, is almost scary.
And still, freak incidents can and do happen:).

QuoteI do think it is true about the skills I cited. Seeing expert climbers, or expert breakdancers, there's no way that a beginner could do what they do - and they do it over and over again repeatedly. This goes equally for intellectual skills. There's just no way for a beginner to solve the issues that an expert in the field can. Note that an expert can guard against slipping - and indeed climbers in particular learn to be very careful about that.

Yes, but can they guard against all the freak accidents particular to their field? An expert climber can still fall due to a rope going bad without being noticed, I'd presume.

QuoteI haven't tried EABA, but I suspect since Greg Porter designed them both that they are similar.

Well, EABA is supposedly the more cinematic-oriented one...

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854577Yup.

One solution is simple: just DO NOT use the same system for throwing a punch and for climbing. For D&D, for example, use 1d20 for throwing a punch and some other method (1d6, 2d6, 3d6 roll under, dice pools, etc) for skills, comparison of abilities, etc.

I know most "modern" systems believe that using a single mechanic is the right thing to do, but it just doesn't work, unless the GM modifies the rule on the fly (okay, he is twice as strong as you, so you have no chance of beating him, don't roll).

I wrote extensively about it here (http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/2015/02/dungeons-dice-part-iii-comparing-sizes.html), although my examples are all D&D.

TBH, I cannot think of an easy way to make this work with d%.

And I like d%.

That's one approach, yes.
Then again, Unknown Armies 2e manages to have three different kinds of rolls for different situations. And they all use the same d100 system and the same skill number;).

So different systems are one approach, but it's not the only approach. UA2's approach is more versatile, since it can be applied to fighting, for a less violent situation, or the high-stress rolls can be applied to cooking, if someone is making you cook with a gun next to your head...

Traveller5 is kinda using a mix between the two, by using the same numbers but rolling a different number of dice against them.

Quote from: AsenRG;854819That's one approach, yes.
Then again, Unknown Armies 2e manages to have three different kinds of rolls for different situations. And they all use the same d100 system and the same skill number;).

So different systems are one approach, but it's not the only approach. UA2's approach is more versatile, since it can be applied to fighting, for a less violent situation, or the high-stress rolls can be applied to cooking, if someone is making you cook with a gun next to your head...

Yeah, UA is great.

Quote from: AsenRG;854819Traveller5 is kinda using a mix between the two, by using the same numbers but rolling a different number of dice against them.

This works very well for D&D, too.

Say, in 5e, the chance of the level 20, STR 20, fighter against someone with STR 10 and no proficiency is about 92% IIRC. So, every time this "legendary hero" walks into a village of 15 people (assuming no proficiency, 3d6 in order), he can be pretty sure someone will be able to beat him in arm-wrestling.

If you use 3d6, the chance fall to less than 1%, which sounds about right to me.

But TBH I like 2d6 even better, as it makes the level 10 fighter beat the level 1 wizard in a STR match almost all of the time - like he would in a fight.

It is a matter of taste - I like my 20 level fighters with STR 20 to be strong almost all of the time, but IMMV.

Quote from: AsenRG;854819That's one approach, yes.
Then again, Unknown Armies 2e manages to have three different kinds of rolls for different situations. And they all use the same d100 system and the same skill number;).

WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?!

(Seriously though, how does that work?)

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854839This works very well for D&D, too.

Say, in 5e, the chance of the level 20, STR 20, fighter against someone with STR 10 and no proficiency is about 92% IIRC. So, every time this "legendary hero" walks into a village of 15 people (assuming no proficiency, 3d6 in order), he can be pretty sure someone will be able to beat him in arm-wrestling.

You are right that repeated rolling where there is a chance of failure means eventually the strong guy fails. Personally, if the 15 villagers are all STR 10, I wouldn't bother rolling. I'd just decide Mighty Fighty the PC beats everyone in the village of Tinholm.

If the 15 villagers are presumed to have a range of possible Strengths rather than all STR 10, I'd do one of two things.

1) Figure out who is the strongest person in the village and what their strength is. Assume Mighty Fighty beats all the weaker villagers and roll out the contest between Mighty and the strongest person in Tinholm village.

2) Roll against a representative sample of villagers (because rolling for all 15 is boring as well as doomed to eventual failure) as if they each had a STR=10. If a villager wins, decide how strong the villager was after the fact so that Mighty is beaten by one of the strongest people in Tinholm village, not by some puny 140 pound weakling.

Quote from: Bren;854855You are right that repeated rolling where there is a chance of failure means eventually the strong guy fails. Personally, if the 15 villagers are all STR 10, I wouldn't bother rolling. I'd just decide Mighty Fighty the PC beats everyone in the village of Tinholm.

If the 15 villagers are presumed to have a range of possible Strengths rather than all STR 10, I'd do one of two things.

1) Figure out who is the strongest person in the village and what their strength is. Assume Mighty Fighty beats all the weaker villagers and roll out the contest between Mighty and the strongest person in Tinholm village.

2) Roll against a representative sample of villagers (because rolling for all 15 is boring as well as doomed to eventual failure) as if they each had a STR=10. If a villager wins, decide how strong the villager was after the fact so that Mighty is beaten by one of the strongest people in Tinholm village, not by some puny 140 pound weakling.

Yes, that works too. It all comes down to personal taste. I actually LIKE that weak guy being able to win every once in a while. Even champions may have a bad day. Sometimes rolling when the chances are less than 1% is cool, IMMV, etc.

Besides, "not rolling" is a good solution to extreme cases, but not to less extreme situations... say, a STR 16 guy vs a STR 10 guy. I feel the STR 16 guy should lose less than 10% of the time (around 5% would be near ideal I guess, which is what we get using 2d6, ties go to highest score), not 30% or 0%.

Again, your group might feel differently, preferring, say, 10-20% (3d6, 2d10, etc), or just let the stronger guy always win - which is reasonable too.

Specially, for the STR 20 level 20 guy I would expect 100% chance of success against STR 10, so I agree with you there.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;854639In 5E I don't think there's that much divergence classes, actually. Characters pick up many of their skills from background (and sometimes one or two from race); all classes have the same base to-hit chance; a proficiency bonus is only a +2 (1st level) to +6 (at 17th), though occasionally a character may have Expertise and double that, or have some other ability that grants Advantage (roll twice and take the best).
So I can't answer the second part of your question for 5E specifically, but in general I think its best if all characters can contribute in some fashion toward achieving a majority of challenges

It seems like you're talking only about skill rolls, but I'm talking instead about abilities more generally. There are a lot of specific things that a wizard can do without a roll that the fighter has 0% chance of succeeding at.

Now, this might be obvious. "Of course a fighter has a 0% chance to cast fly or invisibility. Duh."

But if it's OK for the wizard to be able to be able to do things the fighter has 0% chance to do, why isn't it OK for, say, a bard to be able to do a musical performance that the fighter has a 0% chance to manage?

Personally, I think that all characters should be able to participate in the main activities of the party - like combat in most games, or intrigue if that is a main activity, etc.  However, that doesn't mean that some characters can't do *specific* things that the others can't. For example, they're negotiating with a dragon, and only one character speaks the Draconic language. It's not important that other characters be able to have a chance to communicate.

I handle this partly by requirements for PCs.  If this is a starship combat game, I don't allow untrained people to have a chance to successfully fly starfighters. Instead, I make piloting skill a requirement for all PCs.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854896Besides, "not rolling" is a good solution to extreme cases, but not to less extreme situations... say, a STR 16 guy vs a STR 10 guy. I feel the STR 16 guy should lose less than 10% of the time (around 5% would be near ideal I guess, which is what we get using 2d6, ties go to highest score), not 30% or 0%.

Again, your group might feel differently, preferring, say, 10-20% (3d6, 2d10, etc), or just let the stronger guy always win - which is reasonable too.

Specially, for the STR 20 level 20 guy I would expect 100% chance of success against STR 10, so I agree with you there.

For stats in the D&D/BRP range I'd use the Resistance table from Runequest.

• So STR 16 vs STR 10 would have odds of 80-20 or 4x the chance for the STR 16 guy to win.

• STR 20 vs STR 10 is either 95% chance of success (if we assume a minimum 5% chance of failure no matter what) or 100% chance of success. Unless the outcome was important, I'd use the 100% chance for success.

Quote from: jhkim;854905It seems like you're talking only about skill rolls, but I'm talking instead about abilities more generally. There are a lot of specific things that a wizard can do without a roll that the fighter has 0% chance of succeeding at.

Now, this might be obvious. "Of course a fighter has a 0% chance to cast fly or invisibility. Duh."

But if it's OK for the wizard to be able to be able to do things the fighter has 0% chance to do, why isn't it OK for, say, a bard to be able to do a musical performance that the fighter has a 0% chance to manage?

Personally, I think that all characters should be able to participate in the main activities of the party - like combat in most games, or intrigue if that is a main activity, etc.  However, that doesn't mean that some characters can't do *specific* things that the others can't. For example, they're negotiating with a dragon, and only one character speaks the Draconic language. It's not important that other characters be able to have a chance to communicate.

I handle this partly by requirements for PCs.  If this is a starship combat game, I don't allow untrained people to have a chance to successfully fly starfighters. Instead, I make piloting skill a requirement for all PCs.

I don't think a character without the appropriate tool proficiency can play a musical instrument in 5E (though I might be wrong, as I don't have a lot of experience with bards). For characters who have invested resources into it, they should probably be able to do at least a decent proportion of what a bard can do... Which is basically what happens due to all skills using the level-based proficiency bonus.
I'm not sure if it still applies in 5E, but certainly 3E had bard spells or features which keyed off actual check result (e.g. Understong in Spell Compendium letting you use your Perform check result as a Concentration check result). These sort of abilities can be written most easily if you do have a unified mechanic describing what's a good, poor, etc results. Otherwise, I don't really care about musical challenges that much since it takes some contortion by the DM to make these a 'challenge' of the kind I would actually care about.

Spells are another question. If its a party utility, or duplicateable by an item, its less problematic. Invisibility is a wizard's way of doing Stealth and damage-dealing spells are often (asside from AoE) generally something that can be replicated with normal fighting or shooting, for instance.

In my view the question of what skill system should accomplish is beginning and end of it. Naturally they are going to be different as people do want different things out of them.

For instance:
A) Character with skill has better chance of being successful than non-skilled.
B) Character with higher skill has better chance of being successful than low skilled character.

First real decision point:
Should there be tasks that are a challenge to low skilled character but automatically successful to highly skilled character? This is surprisingly common occurrence in heroic fiction. Furthermore, if you have automatic successes, do you need to have skill tasks that low skilled person will never ever succeed?

Some of what's being discussed here, is what I'd call "having actual good (simulationist) rules for different activities", as opposed to the seeming "hey, we've got stats and a die-roll mechanic - we can tell GM's to apply it to everything and let them make up what it means" approach that I've seen to one degree or another in almost every RPG, but which seems to be more common in more recent games.

I might also call it "abandoning the GM", "hand-wavy", and/or "not really providing rules for much".

I even find my preferred RPG systems (mainly TFT & GURPS) somewhat lacking in some of these areas, but at least there are some well-defined areas (mainly combat) to compare to. It seems to me that one at least needs to have seen some examples of actual good detailed rules for things, to have much if any hope to be able to just "use GM discretion" to represent situations without good rules well.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854839Yeah, UA is great.

I'm probably the last one to dispute that:).

QuoteThis works very well for D&D, too.

Sure it does. I'm mentioning Traveller5 because it's the core mechanic of T5, as opposed to D&D, where it's at best an additional one;).

QuoteSay, in 5e, the chance of the level 20, STR 20, fighter against someone with STR 10 and no proficiency is about 92% IIRC. So, every time this "legendary hero" walks into a village of 15 people (assuming no proficiency, 3d6 in order), he can be pretty sure someone will be able to beat him in arm-wrestling.

If you use 3d6, the chance fall to less than 1%, which sounds about right to me.

Not sure how you got those numbers, but yes, rolling for every single thing is, perhaps counterintuitively, not the most realistic approach;).

QuoteBut TBH I like 2d6 even better, as it makes the level 10 fighter beat the level 1 wizard in a STR match almost all of the time - like he would in a fight.

Well, a fight is more than strength. That said, the wizard would actually have less chances in arm-wrestling, where either the fighter has pulled a muscle, or he just wins. There simply aren't any variables if you set it properly;).

QuoteIt is a matter of taste - I like my 20 level fighters with STR 20 to be strong almost all of the time, but IMMV.

I don't see why the strong should not be strong some of the time. Sure, there is psychology, but in arm-wrestling it would only matter among opponents that are at least roughly matched.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;854849WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?!

(Seriously though, how does that work?)

You have Minor, Significant and Major Skill Checks.
Minor Skill Checks are a relaxed situations where you have plenty of time and are not at risk. Mostly it comes down to having the applicable skill, or if you do, how well.
Significant Skill Checks are situations where there is uncertainty but little actual risk, and you mostly succeed if have a suitable skill, the question is how well. Even untrained people stand a relatively decent chance.
Major Skill Checks are for tense situations where time is important and/or you are at risk, such as in combat. You can fail with an applicable skill, and without it you're hoping on odds that might well be below 3%, so you'd better have the skill.
Of course, this is the least of the things UA does for skills. Accounting for your passions, check. Accounting for difficulty, as opposed to for trying something that's harder than the default, check and check. And so on and so forth, I'm yet to see a better model for mental stability, though the Four Pillars in GUMSHOE systems tend to be close.
Impressive for a game where the actual rules-text could fit in 20 pages or so, isn't it:D?

Quote from: Bren;854855You are right that repeated rolling where there is a chance of failure means eventually the strong guy fails. Personally, if the 15 villagers are all STR 10, I wouldn't bother rolling. I'd just decide Mighty Fighty the PC beats everyone in the village of Tinholm.

If the 15 villagers are presumed to have a range of possible Strengths rather than all STR 10, I'd do one of two things.

1) Figure out who is the strongest person in the village and what their strength is. Assume Mighty Fighty beats all the weaker villagers and roll out the contest between Mighty and the strongest person in Tinholm village.

So, Let It Ride?
(I keep repeating that Let It Ride is actually a simulationist rule, even if it wasn't intended as such. For some reason, people are dismayed).

Quote from: Skarg;855055Some of what's being discussed here, is what I'd call "having actual good (simulationist) rules for different activities",

Isn't this the whole purpose of the thread?

Quote from: AsenRG;855083You have Minor, Significant and Major Skill Checks.
Minor Skill Checks are a relaxed situations where you have plenty of time and are not at risk. Mostly it comes down to having the applicable skill, or if you do, how well.
Significant Skill Checks are situations where there is uncertainty but little actual risk, and you mostly succeed if have a suitable skill, the question is how well. Even untrained people stand a relatively decent chance.
Major Skill Checks are for tense situations where time is important and/or you are at risk, such as in combat. You can fail with an applicable skill, and without it you're hoping on odds that might well be below 3%, so you'd better have the skill.
Of course, this is the least of the things UA does for skills. Accounting for your passions, check. Accounting for difficulty, as opposed to for trying something that's harder than the default, check and check. And so on and so forth, I'm yet to see a better model for mental stability, though the Four Pillars in GUMSHOE systems tend to be close.
Impressive for a game where the actual rules-text could fit in 20 pages or so, isn't it:D?

Thanks for clarifying. I'm still not quite sure how that works at the exact numbers level. I also don't quite yet the distinction between 'accounting for difficulty vs. 'trying for something that's harder than the default' - as in tasks where you'll still succeed as often but with a separate chance of a secondary effect?
Maybe I'll have to investigate further.

Quote from: AsenRG;855083Not sure how you got those numbers, but yes, rolling for every single thing is, perhaps counterintuitively, not the most realistic approach;).

Yes, I agree. But when I feel like rolling, I want to have a system that I trust to rely on. For me, this is 2d6 (in 5e), but for others might be 1d20, 2d10, or just let the GM decide.

BTW, about the numbers, just used anydice and the standard 5e modifiers (output 1d20+11-1d20 ,
output 3d6+11-3d6).

Quote from: AsenRG;855083Well, a fight is more than strength. That said, the wizard would actually have less chances in arm-wrestling, where either the fighter has pulled a muscle, or he just wins. There simply aren't any variables if you set it properly;).

Yes, exactly this! I don't know if I expressed myself clearly, I meant in the game, not in "real" life. Like, if you run a RAW combat in D&D, the 1st level wizard has NO chance in a melee against the STR 20 5th fighter. But if you compared their STR mods using 1d20, the wizard would win quite often.

Which is exactly the opposite of I would expect, I guess. I would give the wizard say, 5% chance of stabbing the fighter in the heart by surprise, but less than 1% when arm-wrestling.

So, in this circumstances, either use some alternative to the d20, or just say "the fighter wins the match because he is stronger".

Quote from: AsenRG;855083So, Let It Ride?
(I keep repeating that Let It Ride is actually a simulationist rule, even if it wasn't intended as such. For some reason, people are dismayed).

I don't think that has the same effect.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;855144Yes, I agree. But when I feel like rolling, I want to have a system that I trust to rely on.

Don't we all:)?

QuoteFor me, this is 2d6 (in 5e), but for others might be 1d20, 2d10, or just let the GM decide.

I prefer either 2d6, 2d8 or 3d6, FWIW.
"The GM decides" is a great system until you fall to an area where the GM doesn't know enough, but thinks he (or she) does!

QuoteBTW, about the numbers, just used anydice and the standard 5e modifiers (output 1d20+11-1d20 ,
output 3d6+11-3d6).

Oh, you're calculating the opposed rolls? OK, question retracted.

QuoteYes, exactly this! I don't know if I expressed myself clearly, I meant in the game, not in "real" life.

You were clear. I was talking "the weak wizard-type has no chances in arm wrestling, and has at least some chances in a fight...depending on their respective mental state, tools and environment, 'some' might be as close to 0 as to be undistinguishable".

QuoteLike, if you run a RAW combat in D&D, the 1st level wizard has NO chance in a melee against the STR 20 5th fighter. But if you compared their STR mods using 1d20, the wizard would win quite often.

Well, the wizard actually has some chances in a fight in the old-school D&D, if the fighter keeps missing and he keeps hitting. And that's before critical hits...
Similarly, they might well be rolling 2d6+modifiers for skills in an OSR game.

QuoteWhich is exactly the opposite of I would expect, I guess. I would give the wizard say, 5% chance of stabbing the fighter in the heart by surprise, but less than 1% when arm-wrestling.

What's the 1% representing:D? The fighter not paying attention to when the contest starts?
Still too high as odds, but whatever...
Similarly, 5% is too high for an unskilled enemy against a skilled one. I think UA2 or Traveller would have it better.

QuoteSo, in this circumstances, either use some alternative to the d20, or just say "the fighter wins the match because he is stronger".

I'm fine with either, obviously;).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;855090Thanks for clarifying. I'm still not quite sure how that works at the exact numbers level. I also don't quite yet the distinction between 'accounting for difficulty vs. 'trying for something that's harder than the default' - as in tasks where you'll still succeed as often but with a separate chance of a secondary effect?
Maybe I'll have to investigate further.

...I can explain this, but it will lead to more questions, because all parts of UA2 are interconnected. If we're ever talking "tight" games, that's the one!
It's also very much worth investigating;).
(And FFS, if you can try and run it, pay attention to the 6 Ways To Stop A Fight, and try to run it by the book at least once! It's second only to Savage Worlds in seeming like a mess until you try it out - that is, less people have the impulse to houserule it immediately, but there are a few of those, too).

Quote from: Bren;855225I don't think that has the same effect.

Why? You roll once for the arm wrestling and compare the result to any opposed rolls by the villagers, in order to avoid failure by compound probabilities.
Avoiding failure by compound probabilities is exactly the reasoning given in the Burning Wheel (check the Hub and Spikes edition - it is the only one I own, because I fucking hate the lack of a PDF of the Gold Edition).
If there's something I'm missing, I'd like to know. But if you're doing the same for the same reasons, well, I'd say you're actually doing the same!

Quote from: AsenRG;855298"The GM decides" is a great system until you fall to an area where the GM doesn't know enough, but thinks he (or she) does!

Basically agree with the whole post, but specially this.

In general about the GM and the rules.

Sure, the GM overrides the rules, and what makes sense for the world takes priority over rules as written. But it's OK to change the rules - and a change I like is to make the standard skill rules reflect what I think make sense.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;855144I don't know if I expressed myself clearly, I meant in the game, not in "real" life. Like, if you run a RAW combat in D&D, the 1st level wizard has NO chance in a melee against the STR 20 5th fighter. But if you compared their STR mods using 1d20, the wizard would win quite often.

Which is exactly the opposite of I would expect, I guess. I would give the wizard say, 5% chance of stabbing the fighter in the heart by surprise, but less than 1% when arm-wrestling.

So, in this circumstances, either use some alternative to the d20, or just say "the fighter wins the match because he is stronger".

I generally agree with this - and this was exactly the point behind my original post for this thread.

The high combat inequality happens through a lot of non-skill abilities like feats, proficiency, class abilities, and so forth. However, for basic things like Strength or skill rolls, the characters have fairly little difference. It's not just arm wrestling. The 5e Player's Handbook gives examples of raw Strength checks as forcing open a door, breaking free of bonds, or tipping over a statue. If a Strength 20 brute has an 80% on a given raw Strength roll, then a Strength 8 weakling has a 50% chance to do the same task. (In a contest, there is a 26% chance that Str 8 will match or beat the Str 20 roll.)

I find that hard to picture.

Hence, I prefer to either have a lower-variance roll, or more difference in skill numbers.

Quote from: Ravenswing;854716Good for you, but that's obviously not how the mechanic works in a pressure situation in D&D, nor for a number of other games.

The D&D you're talking about is not the one I know. The whole notion you seem to imply is usual is not at all that in my almost 40 years of experience.

Nor does the GURPS with which I am acquainted (from the original through 3rd Ed. Revised) stand out as inherently distinctive. If indeed there are set factors for sailors tying knots, that's a "black swan" exception compared with the huge mass of things -- almost everything not directly related to combat -- on which GURPS has no more to say than than it's up to the GM.

From what I've seen of WotC's 3e and 4e rules sets, those do stand out for giving quantified answers to many things. Perhaps that itself is a problem, firstly as it involves a host of assumptions and secondly as readers read in different assumptions.

Quote from: AsenRG;855298Why? You roll once for the arm wrestling and compare the result to any opposed rolls by the villagers, in order to avoid failure by compound probabilities.

I wasn't suggesting doing that though. I was suggesting that the GM would figure out who in the village has the strongest STR. The only roll the PC vs. that character.

Differences:
(1) I said roll at the end of the contest where its Mighty Fighty vs. the strongest villager only. With Let it ride Mighty Fighting rolls at the beginning of the contest vs. a STR 10 villager. The PC can then let the die roll stand vs. the next villager(s).

(2) Only one NPC (the strongest rolls). For Let it Ride, don't each of the villagers roll?
 

QuoteAvoiding failure by compound probabilities is exactly the reasoning given in the Burning Wheel

The reason sounds the same. The process seems different. (Though I could be wrong, I haven't played and don't own Burning Wheel.)

Quote from: AsenRG"The GM decides" is a great system until you fall to an area where the GM doesn't know enough, but thinks he (or she) does!

"This one player decides" is a great system until you fall to an area where this one player doesn't know enough, but thinks he (or she) does!

"Somebody we don't know decides" is a great system until you fall to an area where the somebody we don't know doesn't know enough, but thinks he (or she) does!

As a player, my only concern is the one widely expressed: it's disruptive if the character's failures are totally at odds with the character description, or where a much less skillful character outdoes the expert against all expectation.

As a GM preparing the game world, I want to efficiently classify challenges that may never come up, like finding or knowing something (secret door, clue, tracking, cryptic symbols) that bypasses a pointless encounter. I want to assign a number or numbers that encodes my opinion of the difficulty and move on, because there's an entire world to map out. And I need something simple that will recover what I was thinking when the players eventually encounter it. And I don't want to get too many weird outcomes that exceed the group's ability to rationalize.

I like a lot of the suggested solutions and have used some of them: just declaring success or failure without randomization, multiplying the skill level or bonus, or using a different die size to reduce randomness. I just need to figure out how to express them briefly and which expresses my idea of a given situation best.

This is one of many reasons why I really like the Pendragon skill and task resolution system. If you don't know it, tasks are rolled on 1d20 and skills commonly start in the 5-15 range, which sounds like a standard set of chances for almost any game you want to name. But skills scale up to 40 and values over 20 are common among experienced players and NPC's. And every point you have above 20 increases your chance of a crit by 5%. I.e., when you reach 29 you crit every other roll. This puts skilled characters in a totally different league from noobs.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;855305Basically agree with the whole post, but specially this.

Glad we have an agreement:).

Quote from: jhkim;855405However, for basic things like Strength or skill rolls, the characters have fairly little difference. It's not just arm wrestling. The 5e Player's Handbook gives examples of raw Strength checks as forcing open a door, breaking free of bonds, or tipping over a statue. If a Strength 20 brute has an 80% on a given raw Strength roll, then a Strength 8 weakling has a 50% chance to do the same task. (In a contest, there is a 26% chance that Str 8 will match or beat the Str 20 roll.)

I find that hard to picture.

Hence, I prefer to either have a lower-variance roll, or more difference in skill numbers.

See, those examples...aren't the same at all.
Tipping over a statue depends on how tall and how heavy it is comparatively to the character, then on body mechanics, and strength comes after that. Forcing open a door depends on body mass a lot, unless you're kicking it down. Breaking out of bonds might well be impossible for the Strength brute, but easy for the Dexterity monkey - or, depending on the exact tie, it might be impossible for anyone but people born with certain rare body shapes.

Quote from: Bren;855437I wasn't suggesting doing that though. I was suggesting that the GM would figure out who in the village has the strongest STR. The only roll the PC vs. that character.

Differences:
(1) I said roll at the end of the contest where its Mighty Fighty vs. the strongest villager only. With Let it ride Mighty Fighting rolls at the beginning of the contest vs. a STR 10 villager. The PC can then let the die roll stand vs. the next villager(s).

(2) Only one NPC (the strongest rolls). For Let it Ride, don't each of the villagers roll?
 
The reason sounds the same. The process seems different. (Though I could be wrong, I haven't played and don't own Burning Wheel.)

OK, the process might look different, but if you ask me, it's not.
It's an obstacle where I could be opposed by different people, but my performance doesn't really change. Thus, I roll once. The GM can compare this to the roll of the strongest, or the rolls of anyone (which would all but guarantee someone makes it, in the case of exploding dice). Bottom line, I don't need to roll until I fail.
Shrug. Seems pretty similar to me (though probably not in intent).

Quote from: Phillip;855445"This one player decides" is a great system until you fall to an area where this one player doesn't know enough, but thinks he (or she) does!

This is what I said, yes. The GM is a player, OOC.

Quote"Somebody we don't know decides" is a great system until you fall to an area where the somebody we don't know doesn't know enough, but thinks he (or she) does!

Yes, of course. But with the "someone we don't know" thing, the unknown participant can only express his or her opinion via the system. It means we have his or her opinions in advance, so we have the time to review the potential results.
If anyone in the group knows more, he or she can explain what's wrong with the system and we can change it in advance. If nobody knows better, we're unlikely to notice, but referring to the system at least has the advantage of being consistent;).

Quote from: Larsdangly;855553This is one of many reasons why I really like the Pendragon skill and task resolution system. If you don't know it, tasks are rolled on 1d20 and skills commonly start in the 5-15 range, which sounds like a standard set of chances for almost any game you want to name. But skills scale up to 40 and values over 20 are common among experienced players and NPC's. And every point you have above 20 increases your chance of a crit by 5%. I.e., when you reach 29 you crit every other roll. This puts skilled characters in a totally different league from noobs.

Yeah, Pendragon is great! The only thing I don't like is capping skills at 39, which is, well, occasionally surpassed.
For such occasions I've adapted the Heroquest mechanic, which solves the issue and creates different "leagues" of people, depending on how many "masteries" one has in a given skill.

Quote from: AsenRG;855587OK, the process might look different, but if you ask me, it's not.

It's an obstacle where I could be opposed by different people, but my performance doesn't really change. Thus, I roll once. The GM can compare this to the roll of the strongest, or the rolls of anyone (which would all but guarantee someone makes it, in the case of exploding dice). Bottom line, I don't need to roll until I fail.

Except in what I proposed, once you fail. You, ya know, fail. You don't get to roll again.

QuoteShrug. Seems pretty similar to me (though probably not in intent).

It is somewhat similar (in that it is addressing the same problem), but it is not the same. For example, statistically the two methods are not similar. To see the difference, increase the size of the opponent population. For a sufficiently high population, the PC using "let it ride" will fail a second roll long before you get to the strong guy in the population which I set up as the only contest that includes competing rolls.

There is obviously a lot that can be said on this subject (enough for several pages at least, apparently!). But I'm struck with the simple truth of the issue the OP raises: you would struggle to find a game that does much of a job accurately representing even something as simple as an arm wrestling match. Perhaps it is an indication that any game that really showed the inequality of contests between people of significantly different ability would be no fun. Or perhaps we are all so influenced by what has come before that we naturally make new games that just replicate the mistakes of old ones.

Quote from: Larsdangly;855667There is obviously a lot that can be said on this subject (enough for several pages at least, apparently!). But I'm struck with the simple truth of the issue the OP raises: you would struggle to find a game that does much of a job accurately representing even something as simple as an arm wrestling match. Perhaps it is an indication that any game that really showed the inequality of contests between people of significantly different ability would be no fun. Or perhaps we are all so influenced by what has come before that we naturally make new games that just replicate the mistakes of old ones.

Perhaps both of those. Or maybe arm-wrestling contests are harder to model than you might think.
I think perhaps most systems have more variability in a straight-up ability contest than they do in a skill check since the ability check is +stat, while a skill check is [+stat+skill]. In say any version of d20 system (& 4E & 5E) its very noticeable, but its also noticeable in some dice pool games (e.g. Storyteller) than the more dice the more of a bell-curve, or for Cortex [die for Stat of d2 to d12 + die for skill of d2 to d12) I think a stat check is going to be a simple linear 1-die-roll distribution while [stat+skill] will be a v-curve or truncated bell-curve. A few games with use [double stat] for raw stat checks or similar, but its an oft-unrealized problem.

I just meant that, if you line up 10 people chosen at random on the street and have the strongest one arm wrestle the weakest, the outcome will be so one sided you would hesitate to even let them proceed. This is basically equivalent to having a ST 6 person arm wrestle a ST 15 person in D&D. In the versions of the game I can easily think of, this would be close enough you would have to roll, with a decent chance the weaker person would win.

This thread has got me musing. I agree with Eric that there are situations in which skill has the upper hand, and situations where chance has a bigger role to play.

Assuming the system is some sort of a roll + a bonus versus a target number, then the only solution is a narrowing of the spread of the results.

For example, switch from d20 to d10 (again, as per Eric's suggestion). You would also have to alter the target number. For example you might make d20 versus 11 into d10 versus 6. This keeps a base 50% chance of success but makes the stat worth double.

You could alternatively double the bonuses, but that makes adjusting the target number more tricky. You'd have to do something like target 10=>10, 11=>12, 12=>14 etc. (i.e double the units).

Percentile systems don't seem amenable to this approach.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;857331This thread has got me musing. I agree with Eric that there are situations in which skill has the upper hand, and situations where chance has a bigger role to play.

Assuming the system is some sort of a roll + a bonus versus a target number, then the only solution is a narrowing of the spread of the results.

For example, switch from d20 to d10 (again, as per Eric's suggestion). You would also have to alter the target number. For example you might make d20 versus 11 into d10 versus 6. This keeps a base 50% chance of success but makes the stat worth double.

Some other options:

1) Roll 3d20 and keep the middle result - variance 20.1
2) Roll 3d6 - variance 8.75

Note that 1d20 has a variance of 33.25The first can also work for percentile systems - roll 3d100 and keep the middle result.

Quote from: jhkim;857339Some other options:

1) Roll 3d20 and keep the middle result - variance 20.1
2) Roll 3d6 - variance 8.75

Note that 1d20 has a variance of 33.25The first can also work for percentile systems - roll 3d100 and keep the middle result.

Good options jhkim.
The "middle of three" seems like too much rolling.
Switching from flat (1d20) to bell curve (3d6) has other implications, which may or may not be appropriate.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;857348Good options jhkim.
The "middle of three" seems like too much rolling.
Switching from flat (1d20) to bell curve (3d6) has other implications, which may or may not be appropriate.

If rolling three dice and adding them together is OK, why is rolling three dice and taking the middle too much rolling?

Quote from: jhkim;857362If rolling three dice and adding them together is OK, why is rolling three dice and taking the middle too much rolling?

Actually you're right - the middle of three d20 is probably fine. I think it was your talk of three d% that sounded too much!

Jhkim you’re a genius :-)

Three rolls isn’t too many – in fact it’s just the right number – if all the rolls mean something.

I got to wondering if all three were over the target then that would be absolute success, and if all three were under that would be abject failure.
So zero successes = abject failure, one success = partial succes, two successes (i.e. middle of three) = success, three successes = absolute success.

This:
1) gives different levels of success.
2) builds up tension for an abject failure or absolute success.
3) doesn’t require you to change the target number or do any maths.

If you use it with my open 2d10 system (replace any zeros with another 2d10 – below 50% chance of success it drops away at x80% per +1 difficulty), then in addition:

4) increasing difficulty has more impact on chance of partial success than absolute success. That is, an inept can fluke a partial success, but not an absolute success. (+1 makes partial success 80% as likely, but success only 64% as likely, and absolute success only 50% as likely. Similarly there is a reduced standard deviation from partial success (4.7) through to absolute success (2.9)).

Here are some numbers:

If you need to roll 8+ then you have only 99% chance of partial success, 88% chance of success, 48% chance of absolute success.

If you need to roll 11+ then it's 89% partial, 54% success, 14% absolute.
 
If you need to roll 15+ then it’s 48% partial, 12% success, 1% absolute.

If you need to roll 20+ then it’s 28% partial, 1% success, 0.01% absolute.

Applying this to climbing, absolute success means you got up it in double quick time, a failure would mean you didn’t climb it, but partial success could mean you get half way up and can either choose to abandon it, or try again. A second partial success would get you to the top, but a failure means you fall…

Applying it to arm wrestling, the multiple rolls idea makes it more of a contest, so it should be adapted to be a generic grappling solution. Each round you are grappling you make three opposed rolls (each side rolls only a single d10, not 2d10, so it’s the same odds). The first person to get three successes in a row wins. This means you *can* win in a single round. For evenly matched opponents average duration = 2.3 rnds, 99% won in 8 rounds or less. If you have +3 then you’ll win 95% of the time, +5 and it’s 99% of the time. So if you’re good you’ll beat all the village.

Quote from: Larsdangly;855933I just meant that, if you line up 10 people chosen at random on the street and have the strongest one arm wrestle the weakest, the outcome will be so one sided you would hesitate to even let them proceed. This is basically equivalent to having a ST 6 person arm wrestle a ST 15 person in D&D. In the versions of the game I can easily think of, this would be close enough you would have to roll, with a decent chance the weaker person would win.

Taking a base of 50-50 for equal ST, and reflexively shifting a point each way on the d20 (so sum is always 100%), a 9-point difference gives 19:1 odds.

That's how Chaosium has done it ever since 1st ed. RuneQuest (1977 or 78).

Going back to Metamorphosis Alpha (1976) the usual factor comparison is similar but on 3d6, so a mere 5-point difference gives about 21:1.

In Tunnels & Trolls (1975), if you merely had each try to make a Level 1 Saving Roll, the odds would be only about 9:1; but more probably you'd compare the actual totals with the higher winning, which I'm guessing would do much more than roughly double the ratio.

These are all using 3d6 for normal "man on the street" spread.

Quote from: Phillip;857462Taking a base of 50-50 for equal ST, and reflexively shifting a point each way on the d20 (so sum is always 100%), a 9-point difference gives 19:1 odds.

That's how Chaosium has done it ever since 1st ed. RuneQuest (1977 or 78).

Going back to Metamorphosis Alpha (1976) the usual factor comparison is similar but on 3d6, so a mere 5-point difference gives about 21:1.

Yes, there are games that do this better than others; I was referring to the 'base line' of various D&D editions. Though you could argue that even the Chaosium approach is unrealistic in this particular case. It is like imagining that a withered, 100 pound old man could beat a 200 pound dock worker 1 time out of 20 at arm wrestling. In reality, he would get his arm broken a million times out of a million.

In reality magicians fail to work magic a million times out of a million. Assuming an affirmative answer to whether a Giant could even exist, ankle-biters might seem to be in rather more of a fix to fight it than typically depicted.

Quote from: Larsdangly;857464Yes, there are games that do this better than others; I was referring to the 'base line' of various D&D editions. Though you could argue that even the Chaosium approach is unrealistic in this particular case. It is like imagining that a withered, 100 pound old man could beat a 200 pound dock worker 1 time out of 20 at arm wrestling. In reality, he would get his arm broken a million times out of a million.

Depends on what the roll includes. I'd say there's a greater than 0/1,000,000 chance that the old man does something sneaky to win the contest, or that the dock worker does something stupid or clumsy or has bad luck or an old injury messes him up or something. But if almost all of those things are out of scope for the roll, then yeah the Arm Wrestling Rules or GM Discretion should include that a certain amount of difference in actual arm strength results in a win. And lazily using a game's standard mechanic, especially when it includes a minimum 5% chance of a surprising result, is flawed. Especially if the consequences are serious (e.g. chance not to fall off a cliff to your death, regardless of skill or precautions). That's when lazy rules lazily applied mess things up.

Well, really the line where things are messed up is determined by what players are sensitive to. You can give some young kids an immersive experience by leading them to an arcade video game with an "attract" mode, letting them touch the controls and not even putting a quarter in. Older players may complain when you do or don't use certain types of rules, according to their personal tastes and ideas.

I'm really not able to be around much, so this slipped by.

QuoteOne of my pet peeves in RPG design has to do with the effect of skill. In the real world - and in many fictional worlds - someone with expert skill can reliably do tasks that a beginner has no chance at. Examples I gave from the earlier thread include,


Originally Posted by jhkim  View Post
1) An expert professional acrobat can do a back flip hundreds of times on stage without failing. A beginner can try a back flip over and over and never succeed.

2) An expert computer programmer can write a quick program to do something that someone new to computers has no chance at. Say, find the frequency that each of a given list of names appears in a given ebook.

3) An expert locksmith can reliably pop open a door that a beginner can't get through at all.

4) A grandmaster at chess can reliably beat someone who is middle-ranked. In turn, a middle-ranked chess expert can reliably beat someone who is a beginner to chess.

5) An expert sniper can reliably make a shot that a beginner can't hit even after dozens of tries.

6) An expert mountain climber can reliably make it up a cliff face that a beginner can't get up after dozens of tries.

This is not reflected by many systems. For example, in BRP, rifle skill starts out at 25% for someone with no training, and 90% is considered high expert skill.
My preferred way to deal with this is to have this built into the skill system. For example, suppose my resolution mechanic is to take stat total + 1d10 and compare to a difficulty number (like Eden Studio's Unisystem).

I can say that a backflip is difficulty 15, an expert professional acrobat has stat total 14 or more, and a beginner might have a stat total more like 3 or 4. Then I can easily scale this, so that a legendary acrobat might have a skill of 22, and reliably perform feats that even experts regularly fail at.

Your system must take into account the difficulty level of the skill as well as rate of gain in that skill.  Cumulative skill trees/pyramids make this easier.  SO that you can have Stat+ basic skills+ advanced skills.
This makes the most sense in your computer example, where computer programming is an advanced skill, and all the familiarity in the world won't allow you to do something without that advanced knowledge.

 So maybe 0-5% attribute bonus for your rifle example, basic gun skill at +1-4% per level of the skill, rifles at 2-7 per lvel of the sub skill, and maybe sniper skill as a sub of rifle at 2-12 per level.  If your difficult shot is a -5% difficulty, and you have a beginner with no skill, or even someone with 3 or four levels of gun skill, at an average of 2.5% ability per level, that's going to need a critical hit basically.
But your expert, with level 7 gun, level 4 rifle, and level 3 in sniper (sub skills have to be lower level than parent, more general skills)?  (7*2.5)+(4*4.5)+(3*7)=52% skill    

Also a % skill system will have greater gradation and allow for smaller incremental growth.  Note that the more specific and advanced the skill, the slower the level gain.

Quote from: LordVreeg;857491So maybe 0-5% attribute bonus for your rifle example, basic gun skill at +1-4% per level of the skill, rifles at 2-7 per lvel of the sub skill, and maybe sniper skill as a sub of rifle at 2-12 per level.  If your difficult shot is a -5% difficulty, and you have a beginner with no skill, or even someone with 3 or four levels of gun skill, at an average of 2.5% ability per level, that's going to need a critical hit basically.
But your expert, with level 7 gun, level 4 rifle, and level 3 in sniper (sub skills have to be lower level than parent, more general skills)?  (7*2.5)+(4*4.5)+(3*7)=52% skill

That still means that expert skill is making fairly little difference. To take another example, let's say there's a slightly easier shot, +20% difficulty.

Now the beginner has 7+20=27%, while the expert sniper has 56+20=76%. That means that the beginner is going to match or outperform the sniper pretty regularly.

Quote from: JoeNuttall;857446Jhkim you're a genius :-)

Three rolls isn't too many – in fact it's just the right number – if all the rolls mean something.

I got to wondering if all three were over the target then that would be absolute success, and if all three were under that would be abject failure.
So zero successes = abject failure, one success = partial succes, two successes (i.e. middle of three) = success, three successes = absolute success.

This:
1) gives different levels of success.
2) builds up tension for an abject failure or absolute success.
3) doesn't require you to change the target number or do any maths.

Dear Lord! I think you've reinvented Mutant Chronicles' "2d20 system", but with 3 dice. Points for finding a use for it, though.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;857513Dear Lord! I think you've reinvented Mutant Chronicles' "2d20 system", but with 3 dice. Points for finding a use for it, though.

As far as I can tell the Mutant Chronicles system is a universal resolution system, that's not what's needed nor what I'm proposing. I'm sure the mechanic of "count number of successes" has been around a long time.

I'm suggesting that we combine

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854577One solution is simple: just DO NOT use the same system for throwing a punch and for climbing.

with

Quote from: AsenRG;854819Then again, Unknown Armies 2e manages to have three different kinds of rolls for different situations. And they all use the same d100 system and the same skill number;).

i.e. two variants of a single system, using one variant in one sort of situation, another variant in another. As in

Quote from: Eric Diaz;854618Things that take a moment should be "swingy" (throwing a punch, shooting an arrow), things that take more than that shouldn't (playing a song, climbing a wall, etc).

The argument on the issues is still going on in the thread, some arguing you can have the same system for combat and all other contests

Quote from: Phillip;857462That's how Chaosium has done it ever since 1st ed. RuneQuest (1977 or 78).

And some insisting it should be different

Quote from: Larsdangly;857464It is like imagining that a withered, 100 pound old man could beat a 200 pound dock worker 1 time out of 20 at arm wrestling. In reality, he would get his arm broken a million times out of a million.

And some blaming the system or the players

Quote from: Skarg;857476That's when lazy rules lazily applied mess things up.

I wrote down a set of requirements for such a system, in particular (as I posted here) I wanted something where +1 skill meant twice as much or three times as much as it did in combat.
My system has an exponential tail off (+1 means x80%) so I wanted +1 to mean x80%, x80% squared, x80% cubed, i.e. x80%, x64%, x51%. Via a complete fluke not only did jhkim's suggestion solve all my other requirements, it matches the probabilities I specified *precisely*.

That is I decided to follow Phillips advice:

Quote from: Phillip;853978Whatever your real assessment of the situation, put that first -- and anyone who can write a fraction can make a randomizer if need be.

This isn't rocket science unless you've got the whole thing ass-backwards.

Make an assessment of the situation, worked out what I wanted the randomiser to be, and came up with one.

It might not be rocket science, but I'm very pleased with the resultant system.

Quote from: jhkim;857506That still means that expert skill is making fairly little difference. To take another example, let's say there's a slightly easier shot, +20% difficulty.

Now the beginner has 7+20=27%, while the expert sniper has 56+20=76%. That means that the beginner is going to match or outperform the sniper pretty regularly.

Again, easy to adjust the numbers to get the exact feel you want.  In my games, I prefer having chance have more of an effect.  Do rifles at 2-12 per level and sniper at 2-20 per level (since sniper is a rarer skill and requires time and preparation) and you end with 7% skill vs 81.5% skill.

On rifle (or other firearm) skill: To the extent that statistics have been collected, a 90% hit rate in actual combat (which is what most game rules are concerned with) would be not just 'expert' but amazing.

It's different enough from being on a range shooting at targets that don't shoot back, that one is not terribly predictive of performance in the other.

A) If you've already made up your mind, WTF ask a book for an opinion you don't want? Never mind that it might not be intended to give that opinion in the first place, so you're the rules' bitch by playing your fool self twice.

B) In most cases, you're supposed to be playing with others. In a group of 4 or 5, odds of 3:1 or 4:1 for the best vs. the rest mean the rest can make a worthwhile contribution. Again, WTF with arguing over numbers pulled out of your ass when what you want is simply ALL YOU BASE IS BELONG TO ME?

"Only Brad Hammer could handle this, and he's dead, so game over."
"Not so fast! Mack Steele can't disarm a bomb, but he can make an anti-nerve-gas bomb with common household ingredients and a lottery ticket."

There's a near-infinite variety in gaming tastes, and players' tastes change over time. Also there's a wide variety in people's math abilities, both in terms of speed and appreciation of probability and how it actually maps to what they think they want.

Quote from: Phillip;857608On rifle (or other firearm) skill: To the extent that statistics have been collected, a 90% hit rate in actual combat (which is what most game rules are concerned with) would be not just 'expert' but amazing.

It's different enough from being on a range shooting at targets that don't shoot back, that one is not terribly predictive of performance in the other.

I don't have strong opinions about combat in general, because it's not a field I know a lot about. From what non-fiction on combat that I've read, I'd agree that 90% is unrealistic for most actual combat. However, my understanding is still that there is a huge difference between an expert veteran sniper and a new recruit fresh out of basic training. New recruits have an incredibly low chance of hitting enemies in actual combat, on average, and they should probably roll for a large series of shots rather than rolling once per trigger pull.

Quote from: Phillip;857611A) If you've already made up your mind, WTF ask a book for an opinion you don't want? Never mind that it might not be intended to give that opinion in the first place, so you're the rules' bitch by playing your fool self twice.

B) In most cases, you're supposed to be playing with others. In a group of 4 or 5, odds of 3:1 or 4:1 for the best vs. the rest mean the rest can make a worthwhile contribution. Again, WTF with arguing over numbers pulled out of your ass when what you want is simply ALL YOU BASE IS BELONG TO ME?

Starting with the latter first. I use "expert" versus "beginner" to illustrate my believability problem with how skill systems work. However, in a real game, not all characters fall neatly into just one or the other. There are characters with moderate skill, and there are characters who will have differing levels of expert skill, and there may be characters who have superhuman skill.

As for the former, I can and do change the rules. I'm explaining *how* and *why* I sometimes change the rules (or prefer different rules), rather than being limited by them.

By putting in house rules that give more like what I'd expect between beginner and expert, I can handle a wide variety of characters without having to do a lot of off-the-cuff rulings on who can roll for what task, and/or changing around their chances.

Quote from: Phillip;857608On rifle (or other firearm) skill: To the extent that statistics have been collected, a 90% hit rate in actual combat (which is what most game rules are concerned with) would be not just 'expert' but amazing.

It's different enough from being on a range shooting at targets that don't shoot back, that one is not terribly predictive of performance in the other.

Statistically Australian army squad versus squad firefight in a thick covered terrain (jungles) has firing ranges at few meters and hit probability of 2% with average firefight being over in 2 minutes. All data from patrol versus patrol meetings in Vietnam. Peace time soldiering is not so much different. Hit rates are 10% for defender and 3% for attacker per hit. I cannot remember which army clocked those but those were force on force tests between two squads in a hardwood forest.

Oh, the only RPG with a decent combat system is Grunt by Zozer Games.

Quote from: Nikita;857651Statistically Australian army squad versus squad firefight in a thick covered terrain (jungles) has firing ranges at few meters and hit probability of 2% with average firefight being over in 2 minutes. All data from patrol versus patrol meetings in Vietnam. Peace time soldiering is not so much different. Hit rates are 10% for defender and 3% for attacker per hit. I cannot remember which army clocked those but those were force on force tests between two squads in a hardwood forest.

Oh, the only RPG with a decent combat system is Grunt by Zozer Games.

That's not a 100% apples-to-apples comparison. Most fire in a combat environment is suppressive.

Which is a nice way to say "Shooting over Yonder in the Hopes they won't stand up."

Police and civilian use of force statistics give numbers closer to 20% hit rate.

Quote from: Nikita;857651Statistically Australian army squad versus squad firefight in a thick covered terrain (jungles) has firing ranges at few meters and hit probability of 2% with average firefight being over in 2 minutes. All data from patrol versus patrol meetings in Vietnam. Peace time soldiering is not so much different. Hit rates are 10% for defender and 3% for attacker per hit. I cannot remember which army clocked those but those were force on force tests between two squads in a hardwood forest.

Oh, the only RPG with a decent combat system is Grunt by Zozer Games.

And this flies pretty well with others I've read about.

If it were routinely as high as 50%, then battles would be at an end -- a staggeringly costly one! -- in a minute or less.

There surely was great slaughter on the Western Front in WWI, with machineguns in emplacements strafing men struggling across a hundred yards of open ground whilst burdened with provisions and sundry implements (including such things as caged birds).

That's not a very appealing subject for a role-playing game, though.

Nobody wants to sit there waiting for their turn to roll the dice and miss. Or fail.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;857973Nobody wants to sit there waiting for their turn to roll the dice and miss. Or fail.

While people in general don't want to fail, without a chance to fail there isn't much reason to roll the dice. And non-stop success is boring. So in fact sometimes I do want to fail. Not in any particular round, but in some round(s).

Clearly, not everyone is a fan of Trenchfoot, the wargame of battles between squads during The Great War, where each soldier trying to move about in the mud has to roll not to fall down, and they often do. But there are players who do like that. I think it's a pretty fun game.

And, as I've mentioned before in other threads, I often find that players given an average simple character to start with, have more fun than the players allowed to start with high-level characters who have high and fancy skills.

Personally, I like games that try to be more or less realistic, so that they actually offer a chance to play something like the actual situation it purports to be about. Even if it's about extremely skilled people, I'd like the system to have a realistic foundation, so it's actually about that too, and not a case of "we're pretending it's about X, but the rules are like Y."

And then of course there are players who like games where they never fail anything, especially nothing mundane. Even GURPS has (in supplemental material) some optional rules for things like the "Truly Badass" advantage, which allows automatic successes including just taking out oridinary foes with no roll needed.

Again, there are many different types of tastes in games, about all sorts of things.

Quote from: jhkim;857339Some other options:

1) Roll 3d20 and keep the middle result - variance 20.1
2) Roll 3d6 - variance 8.75

Note that 1d20 has a variance of 33.25The first can also work for percentile systems - roll 3d100 and keep the middle result.

That's actually a great way to do that:)!
(And no, it's not Mutant Chronicles or anything. 3d20 take middle has been around for ages, used by people that believe 1d20 is an awful mechanic, probabillity-wise. The trick jhkim is doing is alternating it with 3d6, also a well-known mechanic, since it's got the same average number as 1d20, but 10 times lower odds to roll either extreme.
Personally, I'd add a 2d10 intermediate step, but that's me).

Quote from: Nikita;857651Statistically Australian army squad versus squad firefight in a thick covered terrain (jungles) has firing ranges at few meters and hit probability of 2% with average firefight being over in 2 minutes. All data from patrol versus patrol meetings in Vietnam. Peace time soldiering is not so much different. Hit rates are 10% for defender and 3% for attacker per hit. I cannot remember which army clocked those but those were force on force tests between two squads in a hardwood forest.

Oh, the only RPG with a decent combat system is Grunt by Zozer Games.

Quote from: JonWake;857656That's not a 100% apples-to-apples comparison. Most fire in a combat environment is suppressive.

Which is a nice way to say "Shooting over Yonder in the Hopes they won't stand up."

Police and civilian use of force statistics give numbers closer to 20% hit rate.

I don't think either of these contradicts each other. Although most people shooting in a city are untrained, there's way less cover and less distance in a street shooting than in a jungle;).

Necessary disclaimer, I know next to nothing about shootings, like most of you. But Grunts is great, indeed!
(I admit to liking the other Zozer-produced games as well).

Quote from: Skarg;857992And, as I've mentioned before in other threads, I often find that players given an average simple character to start with, have more fun than the players allowed to start with high-level characters who have high and fancy skills.

Been thinking about this lately by comparing many of my own characters.
Long story short, I agree.

QuotePersonally, I like games that try to be more or less realistic, so that they actually offer a chance to play something like the actual situation it purports to be about. Even if it's about extremely skilled people, I'd like the system to have a realistic foundation, so it's actually about that too, and not a case of "we're pretending it's about X, but the rules are like Y."

:D
Exactly my feelings! A lot of people think that makes me a bad roleplayer or something, of course (and I think the same about them).

Thanks guys for this thread - it was very useful in helping me order my thoughts which resulted in some posts on my blog about when I want to roll dice, and what I'm rolling them for. (http://explorebeneathandbeyond.blogspot.com/2015/10/to-roll-or-not-to-roll-that-is-question.html) I even changed my mind on some things!