Argyle King
Legend
I like GURPS Margin of Success (or failure).
It's a very simply concept based upon simple arithmetic, but the system uses it to allow for a lot of different mechanics.
The basic idea:
•Roll dice, did you succeed?
•If yes, by how much?
This can then be compared to other things to enable more complexity as needed. For example, you can determine the accuracy of attack using rapid gunfire by comparing a weapon's "Rcl" (recoil) statistic to margin of success.
Example:
•I attack using a pistol that has a Rcl of 2.
•I have a pistol skill of 14.
•GURPS is a roll-under system...
•So, let's say that I fire three shots using my skill of 14, and I roll 3d6 with a result of 12.
•12 succeeds by being less than 14, so one shot hits. Then I see that I had margin of success that was less than 2 (Rcl,) so that means a second bullet hits.
•Had I rolled 10: 1 hit for success + 1 for being within 2 + 1 for being within 2 again = a total of 3 hits
I said hit above, but GURPS also uses active defenses -meaning that the target could try to dodge. The same mechanic works there too.
Example Defense:
•Let's assume a target with a dodge score of 12.
•The target is at risk of being hit with 3 bullets from the previous example.
•3d6 vs Dodge 12
•for Dodge, you dodge a number of bullets equal to 1+margin of success
•Roll of 12 means "success," but only enough to dodge 1 bullet. The other two still hit.
•Roll of 11 means success with a margin of success of 1, so two bullets dodged (1+1)
•Roll of 10 means success with a margin of success of 2, so all three bullets dodged (2+1)
The same idea also works with failure and can be used to measure results.
An easy example would be saving against a negative magical effect from a cursed treasure chest. Let's say being turned to stone.
•In D&D you would save by rolling a Constitution save, with most results being binary: poisoned or not poisoned... stone or not stone
•In GURPS, you would roll against HT, and do something similar to the bullets, guns, and dodging mentioned above. A weak curse might just be a basic HT roll. A stronger curse might give a penalty to your HT score (making it more difficult to roll under). Either of those might then give different steps of failure/success by stating things like "failure means the character is turned to stone in 5 rounds; for each point of margin of failure, it occurs on one less round." (Honestly, that's not how I would design it, but it's meant to be a simple example).
You can also do the same thing with opposed rolls. Instead of the curse above, let's say the party is facing the BBEG of the campaign.
•The BBEG casts a petrification spell.
•BBEG rolls 3d6 vs spell skill
•party members roll 3d6 vs ability score to save
•compare the margins to determine a range of results
•instead of binary save/failure, you can have a range of results from save (completely fine) to partial save (slowed instead of stone) to fail (stone) and a variety of things in between. Think of it kinda like D&D 4th Edition's disease/condition track, with steps along the track.
Edit: to touch up some grammar
It's a very simply concept based upon simple arithmetic, but the system uses it to allow for a lot of different mechanics.
The basic idea:
•Roll dice, did you succeed?
•If yes, by how much?
This can then be compared to other things to enable more complexity as needed. For example, you can determine the accuracy of attack using rapid gunfire by comparing a weapon's "Rcl" (recoil) statistic to margin of success.
Example:
•I attack using a pistol that has a Rcl of 2.
•I have a pistol skill of 14.
•GURPS is a roll-under system...
•So, let's say that I fire three shots using my skill of 14, and I roll 3d6 with a result of 12.
•12 succeeds by being less than 14, so one shot hits. Then I see that I had margin of success that was less than 2 (Rcl,) so that means a second bullet hits.
•Had I rolled 10: 1 hit for success + 1 for being within 2 + 1 for being within 2 again = a total of 3 hits
I said hit above, but GURPS also uses active defenses -meaning that the target could try to dodge. The same mechanic works there too.
Example Defense:
•Let's assume a target with a dodge score of 12.
•The target is at risk of being hit with 3 bullets from the previous example.
•3d6 vs Dodge 12
•for Dodge, you dodge a number of bullets equal to 1+margin of success
•Roll of 12 means "success," but only enough to dodge 1 bullet. The other two still hit.
•Roll of 11 means success with a margin of success of 1, so two bullets dodged (1+1)
•Roll of 10 means success with a margin of success of 2, so all three bullets dodged (2+1)
The same idea also works with failure and can be used to measure results.
An easy example would be saving against a negative magical effect from a cursed treasure chest. Let's say being turned to stone.
•In D&D you would save by rolling a Constitution save, with most results being binary: poisoned or not poisoned... stone or not stone
•In GURPS, you would roll against HT, and do something similar to the bullets, guns, and dodging mentioned above. A weak curse might just be a basic HT roll. A stronger curse might give a penalty to your HT score (making it more difficult to roll under). Either of those might then give different steps of failure/success by stating things like "failure means the character is turned to stone in 5 rounds; for each point of margin of failure, it occurs on one less round." (Honestly, that's not how I would design it, but it's meant to be a simple example).
You can also do the same thing with opposed rolls. Instead of the curse above, let's say the party is facing the BBEG of the campaign.
•The BBEG casts a petrification spell.
•BBEG rolls 3d6 vs spell skill
•party members roll 3d6 vs ability score to save
•compare the margins to determine a range of results
•instead of binary save/failure, you can have a range of results from save (completely fine) to partial save (slowed instead of stone) to fail (stone) and a variety of things in between. Think of it kinda like D&D 4th Edition's disease/condition track, with steps along the track.
Edit: to touch up some grammar
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