Binary Success vs Multiple Levels of Success

[Autumnal]

Man, 25 years later and we're still having the exact same conversations!

Kids these days can’t come up with good controversies like we did.

 

[Bill Zebub]

IMO the ToR system doesn't cause 'writer's room'. The effects of bonus successes are, for the most part, pretty well defined.

 

[Reynard]

IMO the ToR system doesn't cause 'writer's room'. The effects of bonus successes are, for the most part, pretty well defined.

For the record, I was speaking broadly and not really thinking of TOR. In my limited experience, it has been more of a FitD problem.

 

[dbm]

I didn’t read the linked article in detail, just skimmed it.

Nuanced success systems are a good thing, in my opinion, but they can go too far.

Genesys actually has three axis of resolution, as there is success / failure, bane / boon, and triumph / despair (might be misremember the names on that one) which can all happen at the same time from one roll. The best way to use a system like that, in my opinion, is to use it for scene resolution rather than task resolution. It packs so much information into the roll you can get a lot out of it, but the game doesn’t position it like that as I remember and we did indeed find it a heavy load to run. I still think WFRP 3e is the best implementation of the Narrative Dice System (as it is now called) as every skill or ability had a little table of effects you could spend boons etc on and that took away a lot of the need for continual creativity.

Single binary rolls for significant things are also pretty poor in my opinion. If resolving a non-combat challenge just falls to a single, binary roll then I find that very unsatisfying. At a minimum I want crit fail / fail / success / crit success on my dice mechanic.

Good procedures are actually a better solution than multi-axis dice mechanics in my experience. My favourite system (Savage Worlds) has great procedures for resolving non-combat challenges in a mechanically satisfying way.

Think about combat - many systems have a pass / fail on your to-hit roll, but there might be critical on that, and also typically a damage roll which further differentiates one hit from another. A defining quality of most combat systems is the need to hit an enemy multiple times (or hit multiple enemies when facing multiple opponents). So while the mechanic for hitting and damage can be simple you can still have a rewarding experience because the procedure for combat involves multiple rounds with decision points and multiple rolls to ultimately adjudicate success. The amount of damage you take in return is a fairly straightforward measure of how successful you were too - did you breeze through without a scratch or are you a bloody mess at the end of the fight?

Savage Worlds Dramatic Task subsystem involves multiple rounds of activity where the players respond to the challenge and game-state the GM puts in front of them. The players can decide what skill they are trying to apply and when they roll they are accruing successes (there is no theoretical limit on the number of successes a roll can generate but one or two is more common, if not zero). Based on the successes gained and the skills used the GM narrates how the scene has changed in response to the player inputs and we go again until the number of rounds is completed. The system is great in play IMO and a challenging Dramatic Task is about as challenging as and mechanically satisfying as a combat in Savage Worlds. Savage Worlds skill roll mechanic has crit fail / fail / success / enhance success (raises) but it is the procedure here that really makes the difference.

So, some graduations of skill result is good but don’t go too far. This should be paired with good procedures for the best results.

 

[aramis erak]

Hmm, less multiple levels of success and more multiple chances at success. Is this how Gensys by FFG (Star Wars) works?

Not really.
In combat, the number of uncancelled success symbols is added to weapon damage. Healing, price negotiations, and some Lore checks have flat rate distinctions for how much from a success; Lore, it's the number of questions answered; prices, it's generating the discount; Healing it's how much is recovered.
Advantage/Threat are pick from a list, but noted that off list are subject to GM houseruling.
So, for a number of uses, every success rolled matters.
Advantage and threat in, say, Astrogation, determine time reductions/increases.

 

[Breaking Star Games]

I definitely appreciate the system pulling its weight, so you don't need an amazing GM or player participation in a Writer's Room to make it work. So, though I don't love everything about it, I much prefer Root: The RPG's skill list over Blades in the Dark. It comes with 3 simple complications (called Risks) tied to each skill so as a GM, I have something to crystallize improvised consequences around to quickly adjudicate. And the GM Moves and Threat Lists are a very handy tool for the same reason when it comes to Misses.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

What if you don't play PBtA? The concept could be applied to a d20 or d10-based system instead.

Indeed you are correct. The exact dice or overall system does not matter so long as the result of 'fail' is removed, and 'success with complication' is put in its place. Like the 'roll with advantage' (which in truth makes D&D a dice pool) - using success with complications also improves gameplay across the board.

The idea is to utilize the benefit of mixed success, since it: enriches play, keeps players engaged, removed useless failed roll nothing happens results, and allows the GM to add in drama/challenge/danger more easily, and allows players to understand the risks and consequences of their actions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Indeed you are correct. The exact dice or overall system does not matter so long as the result of 'fail' is removed, and 'success with complication' is put in its place. Like the 'roll with advantage' (which in truth makes D&D a dice pool) - using success with complications also improves gameplay across the board.

The idea is to utilize the benefit of mixed success, since it: enriches play, keeps players engaged, removed useless failed roll nothing happens results, and allows the GM to add in drama/challenge/danger more easily, and allows players to understand the risks and consequences of their actions.

I'm fine with adding "success with a cost" and "fail but opportunity" alongside "fail" and not instead of it. Feels more realistic to me for some things to simply not work. If your priorities are different that of course is perfectly fine.

 

[aramis erak]

Indeed you are correct. The exact dice or overall system does not matter so long as the result of 'fail' is removed, and 'success with complication' is put in its place. Like the 'roll with advantage' (which in truth makes D&D a dice pool) - using success with complications also improves gameplay across the board.

Lack of an actual fail de-games a game too much for me.
I don't mind a range where complicated success is allowed, but there are times where I want a real failure to be an option, and that's most of the time.

 

[rmcoen]

More rolling is bad; more dice being rolled is less bad, but requires more "understanding time". I have players at my table that - after literally 3 decades of D&D - still are doing the math of "I rolled a 12, plus my strength, plus my skill... 15. No 17. Wait, it's a +1 sword..." And that's before bless or guidance or dragonmarked human or whatever is added. So if I had to - as a matter of course - even have players roll "a d20, plus a good/bad die" just to provide flavor for the binary pass/fail (thus giving a simple 2-d matrix of results), I'm just concerned about the extra seconds on every roll where "good/bad" has to be understood and communicated.

And then, of course, I have to be ready with a "good/bad" thing to add. to every roll.

Having said that, I personally love complicated results! I pretty much always use "+/- 5" as a threshold for any d20 roll. (In combat, we added special effects based on damage type for "10 better than target". Many zombies were set alight by firebolts!) Imperfect night's sleep, in the cold... roll CON save DC 11. If you make it, you managed to get sleep (most Long Rest recovery benefits); make it by 5, you also removed a level of exhaustion. Fail, you got only a Short Rest of benefits OR you gained a level exhaustion. Fail by 5 or more, no benefits from the horrible night's sleep and gain a level of exhaustion. [Sleep in better conditions slides that scale up one "success category".]

I also use Emphasis Rolls that I read about somewhere online. The thing being attempted simply works - like picking the lock with no time constraints - but the die with the largest differential from "10" tells you if there are benefits or complications, and how large they are. (You don't get both benefits and complications.) But say Araylia is picking the lock on the defeated goblin chief's chest. She can't "fail", so she makes an Emphasis Roll, getting a 7 and a 12. 7 is "farther" from 10 than 12, so she "succeeds with a complication"... but 7 isn't very far, so it's a minor complication. If both dice are high or low, you can read into that... or just take the most. On the RARE (1 in 400) occasions that "nat1" and "nat20" are rolled together... well,... 20 is father from 10 than 1 is, so it is still a success, but it's time for me to have fun! [double nat20s has also happened, but somehow in 2 years of using this mechanic, double nat1s has not?] (In actual play, Araylia rolled a 12 and a nat20 when picking that lock. I had her pop open the chest unexpectedly quickly because... the chest was crap, but the high-quality lock came free in her hand - bonus loot!)


So I would love if my players just rolled a "+,+,blank,blank,-,-" die [Fate?] or something similar with their rolls. I'd love narrating things, checking charts, multiple types of results differentiated for every skill, spell, and situation. And all my players would say "go play/write a computer a game, that's too much to actually use at the table".