As usual WaterBob is critical, and vocally so about this latest iteration of the 2d20 system. One wonders if we are going to hear the same critical point of view every time one of these comes out with the same core mechanic. I guess we are - despite it being logical to assume that WaterBob doesn't play any of these games. At least if I hated a core mechanic this much I certainly wouldn't...
However, in this case
eramis erak has some maths - good maths too, to underline WaterBobs core complaint.
As I said, the maths is
good - there is no arguing with the numbers. I checked em...
Except of course once you're around a table and dealing with... *drumroll* ...
player choice.
Now I am the first to admit that I don't know what the exact way of doing all of this choice based dice modification is in Star Trek - but the criticisms are of the 2d20 system and were all levelled at Conan too, so I'll just leave all of this here.
I have run over 30'ish Conan 2d20 games now (and additional ones during the playtest), and after I think the 3rd or 4th session when comfortable familiarity came with the rules, there was a significant drop in complications and failures despite my challenges being, well, challenging!
Why you ask?
One reason is because characters rapidly specialise in Talents relevant to their most favoured skills with the commonly encountered 're-roll one or more d20's' or slightly less commonly available 'reduce the difficulty of'. Both of these of course reduce the chance of a Complication considerably, not to mention that a Talent-focussed character can also gain extra momentum from some of these too, reducing the likelihood of choosing to roll extra dice for the sake of the desired Momentum outcome. Oh and let's not forget Fortune points that give an automatic extra dice that rolled a '1', which surprisingly enough tends to be used when things get important or critical!
Plus of course a single complication is pretty minor - it's multiple complications that get problematic, and we can all see from the maths these are far less likely to happen.
The result is, that in real play, with a GM who isn't overloading the adventure with high Difficulty (3+), Complications occur surprisingly infrequently. What do I mean by 'overloading'? Well, I'm a multi-system GM of 39 years experience, so I innevitably end up with a good feel for 'appropriate threat level' regardless of system once I've read it and run it enough, and I don't run 2d20 Conan 'differently' in this regard to any other campaigns I have ever run.
Oh, and there is more! When you actually play, you also find that Fortune Points retroactively allow Complications to be ameliorated or even nullified in terms of net negative impact (even multiple Complications) by clever Story Declarations. Players with half a brain don't do this for single Complications (unless their GM is being a real hardass and making these much more negative than the rules say they should be) - they save them for multi-cluster-frack Complications... you know, a bit like Kirk being beamed out of the ship
just about to be eaten by the giant world eating space ice cream cornet, because you know, the transporter just went back online in the nick of time (went offline due to multiple Complication rolled by Scotty, went back online due to Kirk Fortune Point spend - or whatever the Star Trek equivalent is...).
FACT: Judicious use of multiple Fortune Points at a critical 'now or die' situation CAN allow story declarations that save a character from certain death.
The facts on the ground are, just like in quantum mechanics, once you involved choices and attach reality-changing mechanics to those choices, spreadsheets of numbers, however accurate, become less determinant of outcomes, sometimes,
far less.
Most systems are I will admit, ultimately a story, with random numbers that change the story. This requires a 'classical' form of GM'ing. Meta mechanics make rpg's a story, with random numbers that change the story
unless a meta-rule-legal choice changes the numbers, or what the numbers mean. That is a more recent rpg development, and one I was initially wary of too.
I am not now though, but I do recognise where the friction lies. However, like any good case, the critics of 2d20 (which isn't perfect by any means) should stop copying climate change deniers by focussing on THE ONE THING
TM, which proves that everything else pointing in the opposite direction 'is a crock'.
It's perfectly fine to not like meta-mechanics, but quite another to wheel out mathematical 'proof' of its 'fundamental critical flaw' whilst ignoring the
significant assumptions made in populating your consequently critically flawed spreadsheet.
One must be holistic in approach, and more nuanced in appraisal I feel.
However, if all the above factors
can be input into said spreadsheet and come out with some numbers, I'll be sure to look at that (and its underlying assumptions)
very carefully indeed...
Happy gaming people - however deterministic (or not) you like your imaginary universes.