Quote from: Aglondir on April 05, 2023, 07:48:00 PM

Quote from: Wasteland Sniper on April 05, 2023, 03:01:31 PM
I briefly ran Coriolis (campaign ended because I just didn't have the time to devote to prep for it) and while everybody in my group loved it, at least one player wasn't a huge fan of the dice pool system just because of how often it seemed like you were rolling a ton of dice and still managing to fail a roll.

You nailed it. I so wanted to buy Coriolis-- it checks off all of the right boxes for my sci-fi tastes. But the core mechanic kills it for me. IIRC, you roll a pool of d6s trying to get a 6. The probability looks like this:

1D   0.17
2D   0.31
3D   0.42
4D   0.52
5D   0.60
6D   0.67
7D   0.72
8D   0.77
9D   0.81
10D   0.84

When the most skilled person in the game has only a 84% chance of success, something's wrong.

(Edit: I assume 10d is the max, could be wrong)

IMO an 84% is pretty darn good considering they are doing something under stressful, dangerous or otherwise difficult circumstances.

That aside though, you are forgetting 1/2 the mechanic.  You can always push a roll.  I know in the Mutant series doing this risks gear damage, personal damage, etc.  I think in Coriolis the GM gets some sort of points to use later instead. 

If you push your roll your chances of success jump up to:

1D    29%
2D    50%
3D    64%
4D    74%
5D    81%
6D    87%
7D    90%
8D    93%
9D    95%
10D  96%

I have Forbidden Lands and ran a few sessions, and briefly skimmed the other books. FL has another way of improving dice pools: artifact dice. Magic weapons and max level in some talents can give you additional d8s, d10s, or d12s. Anything over a six on those is a success, sometimes extra successes. I'm too lazy to crunch the numbers here, but just one of these can drastically improve your odds of making a roll.
If you're worried that they might make the odds too good, keep in mind that most of the times artifact dice will be used on attack rolls, which might need more than one success to land, or are against a monster that's a hit point sponge.
Resource dice are degraded on a 1-2 if I recall.
Another issue some of my players had is hit points. Your character's attributes are their hit points, damage to them affects your dice pools, and an early lucky hit on a player can turn into a death spiral. That's somewhat intentional, the game is meant to be gritty, but some players might not find it fun. On drivethrurpg I found a pay-what-you-want third party supplement that has rules for more heroic combat, in the vein of Conan, I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but it seems solid, and I'm implementing it next time I get a game up and running.

Quote from: Tod13 on April 05, 2023, 09:57:57 PM

Quote from: DocJones on April 05, 2023, 02:54:35 PM

Quote from: migo on April 05, 2023, 02:29:12 PM
How are torches, arrows, food and water handled?

You have a resource die associated with each.  A d6, d8, d10 or d12. 
A d12 is the most you can carry.
When you use or consume an item, you roll the resource die.
On a roll of 1 it is depleted and goes down a die type.   
When your resource die is a d6 on a roll of 1 you are out of the item.

I like that mechanism. We use something similar in our homebrew. Rolls are opposed based on the ability/attribute strengths, which are means in terms of the first five die sizes (4, 6, 8, 10, 12). A bonus lets you go up a size. A penalty makes you go down a size.

No love for the 1d4 in the other system I guess.

The main objection to the mechanism is player characters don't know that they only had one meal, drink, torch, arrow (or bullet) left and it's gone
So much for saving that last bullet for yourself. ;-)

QuoteThe main objection to the mechanism is player characters don't know that they only had one meal, drink, torch, arrow (or bullet) left and it's gone
So much for saving that last bullet for yourself. ;-)

The explanation for why this happens is that your supplies can go bad. If you only have a d6 torches left, that could represent 3 torches, but one got soaked through and is now useless, and the other was shoddily made and falls apart when you try to light it. The game has environmental hazards and negative events, and a lot of them reduce your resource dice for various reasons. You awake to find maggots in your rations, lose a food die. You slip and cut open a water skin on a sharp rock, lose a water die. That sort of stuff.

Quote from: tenbones on April 05, 2023, 05:49:26 PM
I have yet to run anything with it - but I'm super interested in running Alien.

I'm used to zone-based movement from Marvel Superheroes, so I have no real problem with it. I'll get around to running it someday.

The Alien game is really cool, and a lots of interesting locations. Where I find issues is creating a full campaign. The one-shots and cinematic scenarios are great, and there's a full campaign for playing Marines, but I'm still waiting for some of the other books to release to provide more material. But, damn, are the books pretty and have cool material.

Quote from: World_Warrior on April 06, 2023, 11:54:48 PM

Quote from: tenbones on April 05, 2023, 05:49:26 PM
I have yet to run anything with it - but I'm super interested in running Alien.

I'm used to zone-based movement from Marvel Superheroes, so I have no real problem with it. I'll get around to running it someday.

The Alien game is really cool, and a lots of interesting locations. Where I find issues is creating a full campaign. The one-shots and cinematic scenarios are great, and there's a full campaign for playing Marines, but I'm still waiting for some of the other books to release to provide more material. But, damn, are the books pretty and have cool material.

Free League makes some of the prettiest RPG books in the industry, I think. The art is top-notch and the books themselves just feel very quality.