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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6693763" data-attributes="member: 4937">I don't know about that.  I just fully agree with you that it is a dumb mechanic and constraints results to much.   There are only a few mechanics where it makes since to have such a flat curve, mostly those having to do with measurable accomplishment rather than with pass/fail.  A mechanic which is good for, "How much you can lift?" or "How far can you jump?" isn't necessarily good for, "Can you solve the math problem?" or "Can you hit what you are aiming at with a rock?" or "Can you resist eating the cookies?"   And in particular, because it defined all the challenges in terms of a measurable accomplishment (makes sense for jumping), everything becomes like that burden you can't lift.It's worth noting that in 1e AD&D, "How much can you lift?" or "How far can you jump?" weren't even treated as questions that required a fortune mechanic.   I consider that superior mechanically to what Grimm tried to do.You are correct to mention FUDGE dice.   If the mechanic had been 1-2: -1, 3-4: +0, 5-6: +1, then it actually would have produced a more interesting curve.  It might not have been a great mechanic still, and you might have to introduce additional complexities to get bell curves that were good for various situations ("edge", "advantage", "disadvantage", etc.), but it would have been better than what they offered because the math would have been more interesting.  You would have at least felt you had a chance of getting lucky and doing something heroic.  You would have at least felt risk.  But again, all of this is as much to say, "I think you are absolutely right."  And as such, I don't feel there is much to talk about.  Full agreement is a terrible position to have if you want to have an interesting discussion.  At best, you can just vent your frustration to a sympathetic ear.I will say that I thought seriously about creating a D6 dice pool system for my own homebrew because they have the advantage of only requiring counting and not addition.   You can just use dice with pips on them and have the kid count the pips.   I decided against it because by the time my girls really had the attention span to play a game for an hour at a stretch, they could also do basic reading and addition and I could always help them with the math.  A game without reading of some sort is harder.  You could play SIPS without reading - and the character sheet is designed to provide for this - if you dropped skills from the game.  If you did that, you'd probably want to make the superpower a flat +1 or +2, and leave all the DC's at 2 (easy) or 4 (hard) and make conditions a -1.   Your system sounds like it would work and has some similarities with SIPS conceptually, but it's as complicated as 'Advanced SIPS' (used for the 'Hogwarts Game') and I feel a 4 year old is going to be completely lost in it.   With a 4 year old and a 7 year old, even SIPS might be too complicated and the stripped down theoretical SIPS with no skills, flat +2 superpower, and no DC's above 4 might be more to their speed.   But your kids might have more patience and affinity for math and conflict than mine did at those ages, so it might work.As for SIPS, let me look around and see if I can find some notes on the basic game.  Mostly what I run is really freeform though.  It pretty much has to be for kids.</blockquote>

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