Alternity 2e Wish List

[evildmguy]

Read my sig- lots of options by fans on Alternityrpg.net, from rules to settings.

Another thing I would like to see is a much beefier book on tangents.

Been gone, so I am behind on this thread.

I did and I used many of them there, including Red Dragon's fantasy rules. It's all awesome and I still read a bit in the forums there, don't get me wrong. But, for myself, I really do feel like I played out the options and wanted more than can be written by the fans. Maybe that's not fair to the wonderful stuff people have written but that's how I feel.

 

[evildmguy]

Well, higher=better is simply more intuitive. There's a reason why it was adopted, and it wasn't because of change for the sake of change. It's the same reason people decried THAC0.

No no no no no no no no no no. No.

The problem with this, higher is better, is that you no longer have an upper limit. This creates problems for d20 starting around level 18 and getting worse in Epic. Further, for drama purposes, the game keeps increasing the DCs of skills for higher level characters. Yet, it's the same task. The reason they do this, though, is to keep that chance for failure.

In other words, climbing starts as a DC 10 but slowly increases with level so that there is always a chance of failure. Hopefully its a slowly decreasing chance of failure but while this works for drama, the system now doesn't work for itself because the same task is different DCs.

In Alternity, by having lower is better, you can have upper limits. Further, you get to a point where they are so good that you can see that one more skill rank doesn't help. It's the rank benefits that matter more.

Sorry but this is one of those things that I thought Alternity did very well and would not want to see changed. I am find with the dice modifiers being different or whatever but not the overall idea of it.

As to the dice part, I don't disagree it's in large part due to the D20 system. It's an elegant system, which is something I think a lot of game designers either by choice or by ignorance to the problem, ignore. However, it is a distinctive part of the Alternity system, and that's why I'm ambivalent. I will point out though that Alternity was basically the basis for the D20 system anyway. Roll a d20, add a modifier, done. The only difference is the lower=better holdover from TSR, and dice instead of static steps. As to the last part, if you believe that a d6 = 3.5*, then it's even more the same thing.

Sorry, not following some of this. Which is an elegant system? Higher equals better? I disagree. In Alternity, you say that skill checks are low but you want rolls based on the results of those checks high. That takes care of it and explains it all. Still one sentence and just as elegant.

Again, I'm not sure you are realizing the point of the modifiers. If you are, I apologize for the following explanation.

If I tell a DND player that they have to roll a d20 and add 10, without knowing the DC of the roll, that could be good or bad or anything in between. Let's say they said they wanted to attack a creature. Without knowing its AC, the player doesn't know if this is good or bad. (Assuming a new player who doesn't know the AC or understand levels completely.)

Now, think about Alternity. A player says they want to attack with a weapon they know their character isn't good with. I tell them low is better but to pick up a d20 and a d12, roll them, and ADD them together. It doesn't take a math genius to realize, for the player AND character, that this isn't a good idea. So, instead, they say they want to attack with a weapon the character is good with but have to run and get it. Sure, they have a slight penalty for running but now it's roll a d20 and d4 and add them together. Again, it doesn't take a math genius to realize this is better for the odds.

Essentially, the dice were a hint how good or bad of a chance they had. I had many players, when we were playing, look at what they had to add together and rethink what they were going to do to have better odds. Sure, the character wouldn't have that time to think but for the game it worked out well. Once in a while, they might take the shot with the +5 die penalty to see if it works but most of the time they waited or did something to reduce that penalty.

I don't have too much time to go into detail right now (stupid work) but I think my biggest perceived issue is that rolls are already swingy due to the d20, and with the modifier being swingy too, I think it creates too many situations where something logically should work (d20-d20, for example) but in practice that still leaves a large window for failure given such a hefty bonus. Like I said, it's perceived though; if someone wants to run numbers, I'd love to hear it.

In some ways, I can't argue with this. It is a big range to roll a d20. I completely agree. Further, rolling a one on a d20 in Alternity sucked when even the d4 rolled a 4 and potentially pushed an Amazing result at least to a Good and maybe an Ordinary result.

What I can say, though, is that odds for at least an ordinary result were good and that's a good thing. I can't stress that enough. Do NOT take away from Ordinary successes. They are still a success. For a while there, we wanted to see Good or better successes and I think that really pulled from the Ordinary, which is still a success.

Further, since I wanted a more heroic feel, that heroic flavor is in the ordinary successes in that they keep the battle going longer and aren't as deadly as the Good or Amazing results.

You might understand all of this about the Alternity system and if so, I apologize for the long winded answer. But I think these are important points and central to how Alternity worked and worked well.

 

[evildmguy]

I never said anything about changing the direction of the roll, not sure where that came from. The only thing I said was that I would change to the step method in Unearthed Arcana for a smoother progress so that a +1 step change stayed a +1 step change, that it didn't suddenly become a +4 step change when you went from rolling +1d12 to +1d20 or a +10 step change when it went from rolling a +1d20 to +2d20.

But . . . again, first, an Ordinary success is still a success. The point is that instead of allowing for a penalty of +8 still having a chance of success, the point was that once the penalty is at +5, it's a long shot. At that point, the player and character should realize they need to do something different. Expanding that range out to +8 doesn't really add much to the system, imo.

But that's me.

 

[LightPhoenix]

The problem with this, higher is better, is that you no longer have an upper limit. This creates problems for d20 starting around level 18 and getting worse in Epic. Further, for drama purposes, the game keeps increasing the DCs of skills for higher level characters. Yet, it's the same task. The reason they do this, though, is to keep that chance for failure.

No, sorry, but you're wrong. That argument is true for 4E, because of the bonus to rolls scales with level. That argument is not true for Alternity, because the modifiers (d4/d6/whatnot) don't change much (if at all) with level, only with situation. There are of course exceptions - most "knowledge" skills provide bonus modifiers, for example. However, of the rest of the skills, the majority do not affect the modifier dice, regardless of skill rank. Therefore, the matter of an upper/lower limit is irrelevant.

Given that, it's simply more intuitive for higher to be better. That's why most sports (and most games) do it that way. If you don't accept that as true, then there's really nothing more to discuss on the matter.

If I tell a DND player that they have to roll a d20 and add 10, without knowing the DC of the roll, that could be good or bad or anything in between. Let's say they said they wanted to attack a creature. Without knowing its AC, the player doesn't know if this is good or bad. (Assuming a new player who doesn't know the AC or understand levels completely.)

Now, think about Alternity. A player says they want to attack with a weapon they know their character isn't good with. I tell them low is better but to pick up a d20 and a d12, roll them, and ADD them together. It doesn't take a math genius to realize, for the player AND character, that this isn't a good idea. <snip>

First off, again, a comparison between d20 and Alternity, regarding higher=better, is apples and oranges, as I explained above. Now, if I gave the impression that higher=better was from d20, I apologize. That was not my intent. I only brought that comparison up with regards to variable modifiers versus static modifiers. I perhaps should have made that more clear.

Furthermore, I think in your example you're intentionally making one example obtuse and the other clear. If, in Alternity, with it's (relatively) non-scaling targets, I told you that higher was better, and told you had to roll two dice and add them together, it's still logically sensible that it's a bonus. Note that you still don't know the target number - but then again, you don't know it in the other system as well.

In some ways, I can't argue with this. It is a big range to roll a d20. I completely agree. Further, rolling a one on a d20 in Alternity sucked when even the d4 rolled a 4 and potentially pushed an Amazing result at least to a Good and maybe an Ordinary result.

What I can say, though, is that odds for at least an ordinary result were good and that's a good thing. I can't stress that enough. Do NOT take away from Ordinary successes. They are still a success. For a while there, we wanted to see Good or better successes and I think that really pulled from the Ordinary, which is still a success.

Oh, absolutely I agree. More than the math side of it, I think the Critical Failure/Failure/Ordinary/Good/Amazing system is what makes the skill resolution system unique. I just don't understand why saying (for example) 12/9/6 is okay and 8/11/14 is not, especially given that there's no level-based increase in Alternity. I think it's mathmatical semantics and sacred cows versus any inherent good reason.

You might understand all of this about the Alternity system and if so, I apologize for the long winded answer. But I think these are important points and central to how Alternity worked and worked well.

No apology needed, conversation is always good! In fact, over the course of the day (stupid boring work), I've come around a bit to the side of variable modifiers for precisely the reason you state - to me it feels a bit more heroic and a bit more random. I still don't think it gels overly well, especially at the high end, but all this did get me thinking about old games, and really a three-step modifier was about on the higher end of things. Personally, I'd go with d4/d8/d12 as a baseline to smooth out the curve (averages go from +0/+2.5/+4.5/+6.5), but a single die system also leaves it open for preposterous odds to work.

I think what it comes down to is that when I think of what makes Alternity click, what made it memorable when I played it back in the day, there's a few notable things that jump out in my mind. Those include tiered successes, damage tracks (especially versus HP), the skills system, and the flavor/settings. What isn't on there is lower=better, or variable bonuses, or a lot of other math stuff. What some people here obviously consider to be sacred cows, I see as impediments to a smoother game. That's why they're opinions.

 

[dm4hire]

The benefit of lower is better is that no matter what the difficulty you already know that you need to roll low. I don't see how the step system is confusing because of that. Whether I tell someone to add or subtract the step die they always want to roll low, hoping for that amazing result. As mentioned if you scale up then you're constantly trying to improve the difficulty in order to maintain the challenge in the skill system. The GM is effectively forced to set the bar where the current method has the bar always set.

I don't see it as a sacred cow as rolling low is pretty much the whole cow for Alternity. If you take it away you have to redo the entire system to account for the new trend of rolling high. The goal of this thread is to discuss how to revamp and improve Alternity based on its initial presentation by TSR. Kill the cow and you lose that intention.

 

[nightwyrm]

Oh, absolutely I agree. More than the math side of it, I think the Critical Failure/Failure/Ordinary/Good/Amazing system is what makes the skill resolution system unique. I just don't understand why saying (for example) 12/9/6 is okay and 8/11/14 is not, especially given that there's no level-based increase in Alternity. I think it's mathmatical semantics and sacred cows versus any inherent good reason.

The use of the O/G/A system is precisely why Alternity uses a roll under system. Sure, mathematically, the chance of rolling 4 or less is the same as rolling 17 or higher, but there is an additional calculation step involved in using a roll higher system. Say you have a skill score of 16, to find the target "roll equal or under" number for G and A results, you simply divide the score by 2 and 4 respectively to get 8 and 4. To obtain a "roll equal or higher" target number, you must then subtract those numbers from 21 to get the O/G/A targets of 5/13/17. Not a big deal with a single skill, but Alternity has almost a hundred different skills, each with its own score.

Also, there are increases in skill scores as a char levels up. You can purchase additional skill ranks.

Of coures, there's also the thing where in a "roll equal or higher" system, your target OGA numbers gets lower as your skill improves.


d20 system works well with "roll higher" because the number on your character sheet is the modifier which you add to your roll and your DM determines the target number. In Alternity, the number on your char sheet are the target numbers while your DM determines your modifier.

 

[evildmguy]

It's been touched on but it's important so I am going to repeat it.

The entire O/G/A system is based on rolling low. It's a skill based system, using the ability score + rank in the skill to come up with the ordinary success target number. Further, the average ability score is seven for average people, but ten for the heroes, the PCs.

So, my examples in response to LightPhoenix did not get more specific because I made the assumption everyone understands the differences between a class based and skill based system. In a skill based system, as was said, the result needed is usually known before hand. In White Wolf games, again one success from the die pool is a success with more being a better success. The game mechanics reflect this. That's what Alternity is doing, but it's more that the lower your result (of d20 and the modifier) is better.

Again, you probably knew this but it's important.

In DND, my saying that rolling d20 + 10 doesn't mean anything without knowing more holds true at any level. In 4E, it's probably easy to make the target number in the heroic tier, tough in (lower) paragon tier and impossible at the epic tier. Without any other information, though, or understanding of those points, the example holds. The player knows they have to roll high, they can figured out 30 is the best they can do but still don't know how easy or hard it will be for their character to succeed.

In Alternity, the player knows what they need. As was said, it's figured out and on their character sheet. However, regardless of that, I think "common sense" comes into play with regards to math. If I say roll low and explain one is the best number to roll, which is part of the system and my assumption the player knew that much, when I hand the player a d20 and a d12 and tell them to roll both and add them together, whatever his target number is, they know it's going to be tough. My assumption is that the player is looking at their range, seeing what they are rolling, and this is helping them realize what they want to do is tough.

At the point where they realize it's going to be tough, they can start asking questions about how to gain a bonus or reduce any penalties, for any system. Again, though, if they get a +4 or +8 in d20, what does that mean? They still don't know how much easier they have made the task. In Alternity, though, if they have changed it from a +d12 to a +d4, or less, they know they have made the task easier, regardless of anything else.

That's all I was trying to say with the numbers. And this is hardly unique to Alternity. Again, White Wolf's system would have the same thing, where the more dice you put into your pool to roll, the higher the chance of getting a success.

I have no idea how you would do this in DND and I have tried! In terms of having a range of successes instead of just pass or fail. LP, Can you give me an example of how you could do this while rolling high?

What I like about skill based systems though, is that they can show a difference between experienced and green characters. In DND, assuming the player now understands levels, they know that if they are about five levels higher, they are going to win, even if they make a mistake. Then, they have to be more and more careful as the levels are closer. In a skill system, that novice might still get a lucky shot. With guns, really any weapon but especially guns which were created for this case, that makes sense. They are meant to be easy to use and an equalizer. (In contrast to a sword or bowman who needs skill to use those weapons.) For Alternity, this is rank benefits and it gives the experienced character more options but still makes the green opponent scary at all times.

(I read somewhere that many think 1E had that, mainly because armor class didn't get as low as it could later. Not sure if I buy that but it was very interesting.)

While it is true that only the modifiers change in Alternity, the big difference is that the character has more control over most of those modifiers, more so than in DND. I don't have time to get into why I think that's the case.

Further, I'm not sure how LP can say an upper limit isn't relevant. If I am rolling a d20, i.e. the highest I can get is 20, and I have an 11 ability score and 9 ranks, then the player is often wondering why they need to roll! That never happens in DND with numbers getting higher by level.

Where skill based systems don't do well, though, is give a player a sense of accomplishment or improvement in their character. Getting a lot of things at a level really does that much better. And it's amazing how much I have found that works and comes into play!

Good discussion! Thanks!

 

[DMH]

How about this. Use the existing engine in the clone and then provide optional rules for those who want to make changes? Makes everyone happy.

 

[slwoyach]

How about this. Use the existing engine in the clone and then provide optional rules for those who want to make changes? Makes everyone happy.

That didn't seem to work out so well when AEG released books containing both d20 and 7th Sea rules, and those were just splat books. Doing what you would suggest would simply result in doubling the size of the book and a significant cost increase. I wouldn't buy it, I'd just acquire the rules from an alternate source. I would buy a book that was just a second edition of Alternity without all the d20 add ons.

 

[DMH]

So you would steal it. Nice of you.

And I doubt adding two or three rules such as the d16, the 2d10 in place of d20, multiples of d8 for d20 modifier dice, optional rank benefits and such would double the size of the book. It isn't like there would be an entire d20 section to it (the idea is a clone of the system, not the settings).