Dragonbane general thread

[Wolfpack48]

In blackjack the little guy still gets a chance at a lucky shot, the more skilled character could roll lower.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s a preference on an edge case for something that doesn’t come up that often. That’s how deep I had to go to find something I was kinda meh on with Dragonbane. Otherwise the game just sings.

But, as I said, I’d prefer the old resistance table but failing that blackjack works for me. RAW just makes my eye twitch.

I could kinda go either way. Roll high does mean low skill players have two obstacles to overcome. First to succeed, and then to succeed again by rolling higher. It works in reverse against the high skill player as well, so it's more like the way you want the world to work.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'm assuming that in the contested actions, you only compare the rolls if both succeed or fail, correct?

In other words, if Char A rolls a 15 and succeeds, and Char B rolls a 12 but fails, Char A wins. Is that right?

If so, then it's not true that "the character with the lowest skill has the advantage".

 

[Wolfpack48]

I'm assuming that in the contested actions, you only compare the rolls if both succeed or fail, correct?

In other words, if Char A rolls a 15 and succeeds, and Char B rolls a 12 but fails, Char A wins. Is that right?

If so, then it's not true that "the character with the lowest skill has the advantage".

We're only talking the scenario where both rolls succeed and one player is more skilled than the other. The other cases are straightforward -- whoever succeeds and the other fails, the one who succeeds wins.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm assuming that in the contested actions, you only compare the rolls if both succeed or fail, correct?

In other words, if Char A rolls a 15 and succeeds, and Char B rolls a 12 but fails, Char A wins. Is that right?

If so, then it's not true that "the character with the lowest skill has the advantage".

As wolf said, it only matters when they both succeed. But this is really getting lost in the weeds after getting lost in the weeds. On the Discord people have said after 30+ sessions they only had contested rolls come up 5-6 times.

If anyone’s interested, Discord is: Join the Dragonbane Community Discord Server!

 

[Bill Zebub]

As wolf said, it only matters when they both succeed.

So the answer is yes. And I think the outcome is as I described.

Let's say that Player A is 25% likely to succeed, and Player B is 50% likely to succeed.

If they both succeed, it's true that Player A is twice as likely to be the winner, even though they have the lower skill. But they are both going to succeed only 1/8th of the time, and of that 1/8th, A will win 3/4ths of the time. So that's 3/32 wins for A, 1/32 wins for B.

And another 1/8th of the time A wins outright because they succeed while B fails. (0.25 * 0.5). A is up, 7/32nds to 1/32nd.

But wait! Another 3/8ths (0.5 B succeeds * 0.75 A fails) of the time, B succeeds and A fails! So, regardless of the actual value on the die, that's another 12/32s for B. Now we're at 7/32 for A and 13/32 for B.

So, really, you are more likely to win with a higher skill, even though it's true that "if both succeed, it's probable that the person with lower skill also has the lower roll."

(Again, unless I'm misunderstanding how the rules work...)

 

[dbm]

Having started reading the rules, the reason lowest wins is because of how Boons work in the system. Having a boon will reduce your roll so lowest roll needs to be best.

 

[Aldarc]

So the answer is yes. And I think the outcome is as I described.

Let's say that Player A is 25% likely to succeed, and Player B is 50% likely to succeed.

If they both succeed, it's true that Player A is twice as likely to be the winner, even though they have the lower skill. But they are both going to succeed only 1/8th of the time, and of that 1/8th, A will win 3/4ths of the time. So that's 3/32 wins for A, 1/32 wins for B.

And another 1/8th of the time A wins outright because they succeed while B fails. (0.25 * 0.5). A is up, 7/32nds to 1/32nd.

But wait! Another 3/8ths (0.5 B succeeds * 0.75 A fails) of the time, B succeeds and A fails! So, regardless of the actual value on the die, that's another 12/32s for B. Now we're at 7/32 for A and 13/32 for B.

So, really, you are more likely to win with a higher skill, even though it's true that "if both succeed, it's probable that the person with lower skill also has the lower roll."

(Again, unless I'm misunderstanding how the rules work...)

Yeah, it's not that different in principle from someone having a +1 SKILL beating someone who has a +10 SKILL in a roll high system. It's possible that the person with the lower skill will win. It doesn't mean that the person will the higher skill level has less chances than the person with the lower skill.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yeah, it's not that different in principle from someone having a +1 SKILL beating someone who has a +10 SKILL in a roll high system. It's possible that the person with the lower skill will win. It doesn't mean that the person will the higher skill level has less chances than the person with the lower skill.

Yes, it's mathematically identical to that. And that scenario also has the (irrelevant) characteristic that "in cases where both beat a given DC, the one with the lower bonus will probably have rolled higher."

 

[Ringtail]

I absolutely adore this game. As a gamer in her 20s, it feels like what I imagine old school D&D was like, and perfectly scratches my old-school D&D itch. Several people have pointed out its kind of OSR-adjacent, mixing that design philosophy with modern rules and I totally agree.

I've been trying to get friends to try Old-School Essentials, but had no luck, but I was able to get a game of Dragonbane up very quickly with the same group and it was great fun.

The Path of Glory campaign has a handy sheet for tracking time in a dungeon too, which seems very useful if you wanna do dungeon play.

 

[Wolfpack48]

Having started reading the rules, the reason lowest wins is because of how Boons work in the system. Having a boon will reduce your roll so lowest roll needs to be best.

Good point, and it’s consistent.