WHAT IS EASY, MEDIUM AND HARD

[Fenris-77]

It is really worth a watch. There's some nuance to P&E that I haven't actually seen much at the table.

 

[aia_2]

Apologies if I consider the first request at high level and I provide a high level comment: any result can be broken down in 3, 4, n clusters of results. In the original request there were 3 clusters: easy/medium/hard. We can do this with 4, 5 or even 10 clusters.
Once the number of clusters is set, if there is no further interest in driving the result, the "normal" approach sees an equal weight for every cluster (equal should mean that every cluster has the same probability in a die roll... This is assumed if the die is consistent with the nr of clusters, like 3 clusters works perfecctly with a d6, not with a d10).
If you want to make the game more "challenging" , you need to change the weights of the clusters... For instance you halve the probability of the easiest one and you double the probability of the last one. You can get the opposite result by doing the other way round... And you can get a "boring" game if you double the probability of the central clusters and halve the ties...
Once this is clear, you can play with some simulations with excel in order to see if the weights of the clusters you defined are correctly reflecting the effects you are looking for within the game results.
There is nothing else to say rather than it is an excercise very subjective and in the hands of the game designer.
(Did i go OT?)

 

[Bedrockgames]

The narrative control comes in at a different level. Firstly, the game is always going to be about what the players want it to be about -- they pick the scores and how to go about them, not the GM. The GM only handles the consequence space, both at the micro (action level) and macro (score/entanglement level). Further, the GM has no special authority to veto actions (like any other player they can object to and appeal to the table actions they feel violate honest play). This means that whatever the players are saying their character do, the only way the GM can oppose that is to call for a check, and if that succeeds, they're bound to honor that success fully. So this does give players some narrative control in that they have significantly more authority to direct where the game goes, but no authority to just override and autowin and say what happens -- they have to win that.

I think I get that. This definitely would be outside the approach I am taking in this game. Players can certainly declare what they want to try to do, but the GM has power to place reasonable constraints on them. And it is very traditional in the sense of any roll is going to mean a particular action you are taking (i.e. do I hit the guy with the stick, do I find what I am looking for in the library).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Apparently I explain Position and Effect about as well as I initially understood it.

I find with games it often takes playing them to really understand the concepts. Describing them to people can be very hard.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think I get that. This definitely would be outside the approach I am taking in this game. Players can certainly declare what they want to try to do, but the GM has power to place reasonable constraints on them. And it is very traditional in the sense of any roll is going to mean a particular action you are taking (i.e. do I hit the guy with the stick, do I find what I am looking for in the library).

I think I said as much above -- this doesn't at all like like the thing you were looking for. I was more providing clear context rather than suggesting this answered what you were looking for.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think I said as much above -- this doesn't at all like like the thing you were looking for. I was more providing clear context rather than suggesting this answered what you were looking for.

I still found it helpful to go over.

The one space in the game that has anything like that, without getting too deep into setting stuff, is a kind of flashback portion of the game. Where the players have done something in the past that needs rectifying but it is forgotten. So when it re-emerges, the GM prompts the player by saying you have a memory of having done X (and X here is more a very broad category than anything specific), what did you do exactly. And then the player fills in the background, and it is negotiated somewhat organically. There aren't mechanical parts to it, but it has a bit of formability to the Q&A structure of finding the backstory.