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<blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 8019694" data-attributes="member: 6677017"><p>I think the tricky point for me (and I do want to have something like this in my own system), is that if your system also has a more involved way of detailing with combats, you might want the shorter version to provide more or less comparable results. That's definitely my goal.</p><p></p><p>If the likely results completely change in type, or drastically change in degree because of your choice in resolution system alone--with no other in-world variables, that can be very unsatisfying to some play styles.</p><p></p><p>At the most obvious, there is just whether or not your likelihood of succeeding changes. Ideally it doesn't by much. But it gets more complicated than that too.</p><p></p><p>For example let's take a battle against several mooks. Maybe the long-form combat system is most likely (let's say say 99%) to end up with your characters winning, and probably taking no injuries, but there is a reasonable (let's say 25%) chance that someone might actually take a painful hit to go along with that win. In the short form system, you have a similar chance of winning (let's say 97%), but have almost no chance of taking any painful hits (0.2%), instead having a much higher (like 55%) chance that your character will take minor injuries (scrapes and bruises). Is that acceptably close enough? It depends on the design goals of the system (and the effects of things like "painful hits" and "minor injuries".)</p><p></p><p>On the other hand, if the short-form system gave you only a 72% chance of winning, but win or lose you're also 55% likely to take a minor injury, then we have a system that saves time but is going to be very punishing to the characters. If on the other hand the short form grants a 99% chance to win, with no chance of a painful hit, and 25% chance of minor injuries, then it is a very rewarding option for the characters. Any time you can use the short form you want to use the short form since it's simply safer (assuming there are no other benefits to the long form to make it sometimes appealing).</p><p></p><p>The more distinction in results you get, the more thought has to be put into how this is going to be used in the system. Having multiple systems that can be chosen from during play to represent the same fictional scenario, but that that have very different results, requires a really good justification for the value of the existence of at least one of them. And two systems that produce comparable results with one requiring more time and effort <em>also</em> requires a really good justification for the value of the existence of one of them! And that really good justification is what separates good design from less good design.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sword of Spirit, post: 8019694, member: 6677017"] I think the tricky point for me (and I do want to have something like this in my own system), is that if your system also has a more involved way of detailing with combats, you might want the shorter version to provide more or less comparable results. That's definitely my goal. If the likely results completely change in type, or drastically change in degree because of your choice in resolution system alone--with no other in-world variables, that can be very unsatisfying to some play styles. At the most obvious, there is just whether or not your likelihood of succeeding changes. Ideally it doesn't by much. But it gets more complicated than that too. For example let's take a battle against several mooks. Maybe the long-form combat system is most likely (let's say say 99%) to end up with your characters winning, and probably taking no injuries, but there is a reasonable (let's say 25%) chance that someone might actually take a painful hit to go along with that win. In the short form system, you have a similar chance of winning (let's say 97%), but have almost no chance of taking any painful hits (0.2%), instead having a much higher (like 55%) chance that your character will take minor injuries (scrapes and bruises). Is that acceptably close enough? It depends on the design goals of the system (and the effects of things like "painful hits" and "minor injuries".) On the other hand, if the short-form system gave you only a 72% chance of winning, but win or lose you're also 55% likely to take a minor injury, then we have a system that saves time but is going to be very punishing to the characters. If on the other hand the short form grants a 99% chance to win, with no chance of a painful hit, and 25% chance of minor injuries, then it is a very rewarding option for the characters. Any time you can use the short form you want to use the short form since it's simply safer (assuming there are no other benefits to the long form to make it sometimes appealing). The more distinction in results you get, the more thought has to be put into how this is going to be used in the system. Having multiple systems that can be chosen from during play to represent the same fictional scenario, but that that have very different results, requires a really good justification for the value of the existence of at least one of them. And two systems that produce comparable results with one requiring more time and effort [I]also[/I] requires a really good justification for the value of the existence of one of them! And that really good justification is what separates good design from less good design. [/QUOTE]
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