Let's Talk About Core Game Mechanics

[Fenris-77]

Exciting storytelling isn't the most important part of gaming for everyone, even if you present it as if that were obviously true. To me for example, verisimilitude is more important. If something is less likely to occur, I want the mechanics to reflect that. I don't care how cool that thing happening would be. Games and stories are different things.

Let's not cut the gordian know with a flamethrower, shall we? First, framing this as a binary choice is silly, it's a spectrum. Second, even folks who value verisimilitude, as you do, also want to have fun and do cool stuff. You might not want to describe that as story related, but I suspect other people might (and neither is wrong, really). I suggest that this whole conversation gets easier if we don't start it by drawing hard lines where a game is either one thing or the other.

 

[Bill Zebub]

What you want (extreme outcomes being less unlikely) has nothing to with degrees of success, you can have those with linear distribution too.

Could you explain what you mean by that? Maybe with some examples? (Also, you either have a typo or you misunderstood: extreme outcomes should be more unlikely.)

And again, I dont understand wanting to have dramatic outcomes hidden behind less than 1 percent outcomes and every player rolling the same range of values for most of the time. It feels for me completely against exciting storytelling.

I suppose it's a matter of degrees, and how you define "exciting". Personally I think it's very evocative to have spectacular results that only occur very rarely. If the same results were to happen 1 in 20 times it would start to feel commonplace and therefore not terribly exciting. Like getting a crit in D&D: it's nice, but certainly not my definition of "exciting".

Within D&D, rolling Advantage and getting double 20s (or double 1s with Disadvantage) always feels momentous...the table always erupts loudly...but then there's no mechanic to back it up. (/sadtrombone)*

I've always felt that both of those results should have some kind of meaningful outcome.

*P.S. I once rolled "tri-vantage" with the "Elven Accuracy" ability and got three 20s. Really. One in eight-thousand chance!


...


Whomp whomp whomp....

 

[Bill Zebub]

Exciting storytelling isn't the most important part of gaming for everyone, even if you present it as if that were obviously true. To me for example, verisimilitude is more important. If something is less likely to occur, I want the mechanics to reflect that. I don't care how cool that thing happening would be. Games and stories are different things.

I agree with @Fenris-77. I know this can't possibly be what you mean, but the text above makes me imagine a cheerless game of unsmiling people sitting around a table rolling dice and carefully recording the results. No joy, no excitement, no laughter, no cheering; just dutiful execution of rules and mechanics.

Since I'm sure that is not what your games are like, please take this as feedback that your efforts to describe your viewpoint might not be accomplishing what you are hoping.

 

[Kannik]

My preferred core mechanics (which I used as a guidepost when I designed my own system) have these two prime features at their core:

• Bell curve distribution
• Margin of Success/Failure that can be tied into both narrative outcomes as well as mechanics (for ex: damage)

Slightly less important but I think provides a lot of benefit is...

- Dice pool system

... as that provides a way to easily apply modifiers to the die pool such that the number of dice in the pool equates to your chances of success.

Quick resolution is also important. So, for example, while I think dice pools can beneficial, there are ways to make them quick to adjudicate and there are ways to make them take forever. Avoid those latter types.

I think that's it! Quick, reliable, and the results on the action dice mean something (through MoS/MoF).

 

[Kannik]

I will look into it.

There's also Tales of Xadia, which is the only published "full" Cortex Prime RPG. Fortunately and nicely they put out a free rules primer that does a good job of introducing the whole of the system.

One thing to note if learning about the system through this primer is that the prime sets they use in ToX (Values and Attributes) are just two of the many that could be used for one's own game/campaign. Values can be great for a campaign that emphasizes those themes, but they're not baked into the system and so if a Attributes and Skills works better for a campaign, then use those. (I personally really like using Approaches (ported from FATE Accelerated) and Roles.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

My preferred core mechanics (which I used as a guidepost when I designed my own system) have these two prime features at their core:

• Bell curve distribution
• Margin of Success/Failure that can be tied into both narrative outcomes as well as mechanics (for ex: damage)

Slightly less important but I think provides a lot of benefit is...

- Dice pool system

... as that provides a way to easily apply modifiers to the die pool such that the number of dice in the pool equates to your chances of success.

Quick resolution is also important. So, for example, while I think dice pools can beneficial, there are ways to make them quick to adjudicate and there are ways to make them take forever. Avoid those latter types.

I think that's it! Quick, reliable, and the results on the action dice mean something (through MoS/MoF).

Agreed. But...my tolerance for replacing numbers with unique symbols is limited. I'm ok with TOR dice (replacing the 11 and 12 on a d12 with Gandalf and Sauron runes) but more than that is too much. IMO.

 

[Barner Cobblewood]

I'm curious, doesn't anyone like a mechanic of opposed rolls? I find them to be more engaging for the table than rolling against arbitrary levels of difficulty.

 

[Thomas Shey]

IMO, roll-under systems work best when dealing with relatively grounded characters. Characters can improve, but they'll always be fundamentally normal humans. No matter how good a boxer you are, you're not going to win a fistfight against a 20' tall giant.

If the game does want an experienced character to be able to win a fistfight against a 20' tall giant, and be able to do deeds of similar magnitude, roll-over systems usually feel better as they allow you to be arbitrarily good at things.

Usually that sort of thing is a question of potency, not skill, and you can bake it in outside the skill system. You also, of course, can simply compress the functional scale being handled so that even the superhuman lands within it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Another system I appreciated a lot back in the day was Brave New World -- mostly because it was the first major game I remember seeing where doing "cool stuff" was a choice made after the roll, using extra successes. Prior, it seemed like most systems penalized trying to be cool by imposing penalties. Instead, in BNW you rolled your dice pool against a static difficulty, and if you succeeded and has successes left over, you could use them to power stunts (general ones, or ones based on your powers).

Green Ronin's AGE system does this by checking for doubles on its 3D6 roll and seeing how many points the "stunt die" gives you.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm curious, doesn't anyone like a mechanic of opposed rolls? I find them to be more engaging for the table than rolling against arbitrary levels of difficulty.

Both of the two D100 roll-low blackjack systems I mentioned are often opposed.

There's also a middle case where target numbers are set by properties of opponents (and not always just combat ones like AC).