Quote from: KindaMeh on March 30, 2025, 11:21:11 AMI'd imagine climbing and parkour would be pretty straightforward to adjudicate and narrate in a system like that.

Especially if you yourself happen to have done it in real life. I have some climbing experience, which makes it easy for me to imagine what a "5.9" climb feels like (a.k.a. target number 9 in my system).

Quote from: KindaMeh on March 30, 2025, 11:21:11 AMD12 needs more love, just in general.

My favorite die!

Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 30, 2025, 01:45:32 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on March 30, 2025, 01:39:34 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 30, 2025, 11:51:21 AM

Quote5.  Weapons and armor traits so each type has a use. None should be statistically better than the others.

I don't totally agree with #5. Weapons should be different and thus statistically better-at certain things. Longer weapons provide superior reach, lighter weapons are faster, etc. Weapons need more traits besides just damage to differentiate them.

I like this idea on paper, but I've never seen a good application of it. Part of the problem is just that most RPG writers aren't also martial artists and/or HEMA enthusiasts, but most of it is that the relative merits different weapons are very complicated, nuanced and situational. Some of them you can easily model in RPG rules and some you can't. Games will end up only modeling the pros of some weapons and only the cons of others (and often they even get those wrong), and then you get a situation where some weapons have arbitrarily been made non-viable with no benefit in terms of balance or realism. 

I would say that balance in the game is more important than realism (at least as far as fantasy goes) In purely realistic sense, a hand and a half sword is much better than a stick, assuming equal skill, but it is more important for game play that the stick offer something attractive in play else why even have it.

I agree, though I do think immersion/verisimilitude is important. I don't care much about realistic simulation, except for where the absence of it becomes jarring.

To me at least, the more your system tries to simulate, the more it invites that kind of scrutiny. Hand me a game where every weapon does the same damage, and my reaction will be "Ok, sure. Any weapon can kill you, so that makes sense." With standard D&D damage numbers, the reaction is more like "Eh, it's dumb that a scimitar does less damage than a straight sword, but whatever". Once you start adding on weapon qualities, that's where I'm like "Wait, how the flying fuck does a broadsword have a bonus to armor piercing?"

Quote from: ForgottenF on March 30, 2025, 02:52:28 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 30, 2025, 01:45:32 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on March 30, 2025, 01:39:34 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 30, 2025, 11:51:21 AM

Quote5.  Weapons and armor traits so each type has a use. None should be statistically better than the others.

I don't totally agree with #5. Weapons should be different and thus statistically better-at certain things. Longer weapons provide superior reach, lighter weapons are faster, etc. Weapons need more traits besides just damage to differentiate them.

I like this idea on paper, but I've never seen a good application of it. Part of the problem is just that most RPG writers aren't also martial artists and/or HEMA enthusiasts, but most of it is that the relative merits different weapons are very complicated, nuanced and situational. Some of them you can easily model in RPG rules and some you can't. Games will end up only modeling the pros of some weapons and only the cons of others (and often they even get those wrong), and then you get a situation where some weapons have arbitrarily been made non-viable with no benefit in terms of balance or realism. 

I would say that balance in the game is more important than realism (at least as far as fantasy goes) In purely realistic sense, a hand and a half sword is much better than a stick, assuming equal skill, but it is more important for game play that the stick offer something attractive in play else why even have it.

I agree, though I do think immersion/verisimilitude is important. I don't care much about realistic simulation, except for where the absence of it becomes jarring.

To me at least, the more your system tries to simulate, the more it invites that kind of scrutiny. Hand me a game where every weapon does the same damage, and my reaction will be "Ok, sure. Any weapon can kill you, so that makes sense." With standard D&D damage numbers, the reaction is more like "Eh, it's dumb that a scimitar does less damage than a straight sword, but whatever". Once you start adding on weapon qualities, that's where I'm like "Wait, how the flying fuck does a broadsword have a bonus to armor piercing?"

The way out of that quandary is to not get too attached to the reality being simulated or to the game play or to the mechanics, but to let each one have some influence.  It need not be a balanced influence, either, and in most cases won't and shouldn't be.  However, when you call something a sword, give it mechanics, and attach it to something a character can do, you've automatically invoked some of all three, at least a little.

Where I see games go wrong is nearly always some variant of:

- These parts are nearly all the same. So we'll just make them exactly the same.
- These parts are different. So we need to add in all the other differences that seem like them.
- These parts are all color/flavor. So it doesn't matter how we add them.
- These parts have this mechanics. So those parts need to have the same mechanic (or maybe symmetrical one flavored to look different).

Any or all of those may actually be correct for a given design intent. None of those are automatically correct for just about any design intent. Yes, every difference adds complexity. So choose wisely lest you become the second coming of Phoenix Command.  However, there's too far the other way too, given some design goals.

I find that a handful of meaningful, well-chosen differences that map to "good enough" reality are the difference between something that pulls the players into the game versus a thin veneer that wears off when it gets rubbed against one too many times. 

Quote from: Exploderwizard on March 30, 2025, 11:51:21 AM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on March 29, 2025, 08:34:46 PMI prefer games with these bits.

1.  You don't roll your stats.  You just are given some that you put where you want them.

2.  Warrior classes that get customization so they're just as interesting as wizards.

3.  Armor as a saving throw to reduce damage or even block all of it.

4.  Spells that use a skill check to pull off instead of slots.

5.  Weapons and armor traits so each type has a use. None should be statistically better than the others.

I don't totally agree with #5. Weapons should be different and thus statistically better-at certain things. Longer weapons provide superior reach, lighter weapons are faster, etc. Weapons need more traits besides just damage to differentiate them.

I prefer weapons to be different too, but I had to find something besides damage to vary them because in my game damage depends primarily on weapon skill, and the weapon itself doesn't play into it at all.  There are about 20 different ways you can attack, so the differences mostly went there.  Frex quarterstaff has +2 to defense, -1 to strike and heavy attack, and +2 to flurry and light attack.  The weapon list is not long, but every one of them is unique.

The Runequest resistance roll table. I have found some interesting uses for it.

Typically, mechanics that I toy with are unpopular for very good reasons. They tend to be much more difficult to control than your standard RPG mechanics.

That said, I can think of a few.

Pushing Dice (YZE): I think this is a fantastic mechanic only held back by the fact that pushing dice really likes there to be several step dice, not just two, and that pushing works far better on the less popular step die version of YZE than the D6 pool version. It is like everyone is determined to use the worse version of the game.

Mixed Step Die Pools: This is a case where I think the design trope is probably objectively the best tool in the industry, but there are about three games using the trope, two of which have terrible politics attached and all three are pretty poor at recognizing the potential of the design trope.

Drafting or random seeds for character generation: For some reason I typically find it easier to make a character when I am given an ability by the character creation process. I don't recall doing this for any formal systems, but multiple playtests or campaigns I have been in had the GM give the players special abilities before level.

Quote from: Ruprecht on March 28, 2025, 10:34:05 AMUsage Dice.
They were designed to be used for arrows and consumables but forget that nonsense, the concept is better used for things like Sanity, replacement for spell slots, or for hireling morale. You could even use usage Die for random encounter tables, When the Usage Die drops you drop to a different encounter table, maybe more dangerous, maybe the alarms went off or the volcano is starting to blow or something.

Brilliant. Stealing this!

Quote from: Fheredin on March 31, 2025, 01:47:49 PMMixed Step Die Pools: This is a case where I think the design trope is probably objectively the best tool in the industry, but there are about three games using the trope, two of which have terrible politics attached and all three are pretty poor at recognizing the potential of the design trope.

Which games? AFAIK, Free League uses mixed step dice, but don't seem to be overtly political.

And how are these games poor at recognizing their potential?

Quote from: Godsmonkey on April 01, 2025, 12:02:37 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 31, 2025, 01:47:49 PMMixed Step Die Pools: This is a case where I think the design trope is probably objectively the best tool in the industry, but there are about three games using the trope, two of which have terrible politics attached and all three are pretty poor at recognizing the potential of the design trope.

Which games? AFAIK, Free League uses mixed step dice, but don't seem to be overtly political.

And how are these games poor at recognizing their potential?

Free League's Year Zero Engine step die version IS the exception. I would say it's worst failing is that it holds the step die mechanics back and you don't really get to see what happens when you mix 3 or 4 mixed step dice pools with Pushes. I assume this is to keep the math mostly consistent with the vastly more popular D6 pool version of the system, but I don't know.

The other major system I know is Cortex, a generally solid narrative system, but doesn't explore the crunchy potentials of mixed step dice. The lead designer went down the Zak S hate brigade a bit too far. I am not a huge fan of that because I try to defend the rights of the accused. Further down the rabbit hole there's Sigmata, which only uses a single die step and is literally a game about fighting Nazis released into peak Trump Derangement Syndrome.

There are a number of single step die systems like Savage Worlds, and of course I can guarantee you that there are systems I don't know about (I don't pretend to know everything) but they probably aren't major market presences.

In my opinion, the mixed step die pool's biggest potential is for no-math, no-modifier crunchy gameplay because you can offload so many arithmetic operations to the dice. Optionally, you can deliver a whole lot of crunch for the amount of arithmetic you require the player to perform. I would accept that direction, as well. This is generally not how these systems are designed. YZE holds itself back a fair bit in this regard, and pretty much everything else I know of is a narrative game, often requiring arithmetic.

Quote from: Fheredin on April 01, 2025, 07:26:20 PM

Quote from: Godsmonkey on April 01, 2025, 12:02:37 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on March 31, 2025, 01:47:49 PMMixed Step Die Pools: This is a case where I think the design trope is probably objectively the best tool in the industry, but there are about three games using the trope, two of which have terrible politics attached and all three are pretty poor at recognizing the potential of the design trope.

Which games? AFAIK, Free League uses mixed step dice, but don't seem to be overtly political.

And how are these games poor at recognizing their potential?

Free League's Year Zero Engine step die version IS the exception. I would say it's worst failing is that it holds the step die mechanics back and you don't really get to see what happens when you mix 3 or 4 mixed step dice pools with Pushes. I assume this is to keep the math mostly consistent with the vastly more popular D6 pool version of the system, but I don't know.

In my opinion, the mixed step die pool's biggest potential is for no-math, no-modifier crunchy gameplay because you can offload so many arithmetic operations to the dice. Optionally, you can deliver a whole lot of crunch for the amount of arithmetic you require the player to perform. I would accept that direction, as well. This is generally not how these systems are designed. YZE holds itself back a fair bit in this regard, and pretty much everything else I know of is a narrative game, often requiring arithmetic.

An interesting mechanic in Twilight 2000 by Free League is the ammo dice for autofire. I've not yet had the chance to actual play test it, but it does seem a simple mechanic. Like you I would like to see more exploration of Step Dice. I have been considering adding step dice for gear for example.

I am interested in how you would expand the YZE step dice system.