Let's Talk About Core Game Mechanics

[...m...]

...mister T was a core mechanic...

 

[Bill Zebub]

The problem I always saw with that is I know a fair number of people (I might even be one of them) that would just sit on Hope forever and never use it.

Agreed, and it could have used some tweaking, but they over-tweaked and ruined it (imo).

But that's also the basis for my opinion about before- vs. after-the-fact mechanics. I see the same thing with Inspiration in D&D, not because it's "precious" but because so many people keep saving it for an important roll, hoping they will succeed anyway, and then they save it for so long they forget about it. Whereas if you could use it after the roll (to re-roll) you would be more likely to spend it.

Which is exactly what happens when I house-rule Inspiration to be usable for a re-roll. (And then Shadowdark came along, and that's exactly how Luck tokens work.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

...mister T was a core mechanic...

Sounds like a background for a Star Wars character. "I used to work on cores, then I joined the resistance."

 

[Thomas Shey]

Agreed, and it could have used some tweaking, but they over-tweaked and ruined it (imo).

But that's also the basis for my opinion about before- vs. after-the-fact mechanics. I see the same thing with Inspiration in D&D, not because it's "precious" but because so many people keep saving it for an important roll, hoping they will succeed anyway, and then they save it for so long they forget about it. Whereas if you could use it after the roll (to re-roll) you would be more likely to spend it.

Which is exactly what happens when I house-rule Inspiration to be usable for a re-roll. (And then Shadowdark came along, and that's exactly how Luck tokens work.)

Yeah, its essentially the same problem a lot of people have with not-easily replaced consumeables.

 

[Retros_x]

If something is less likely to occur, I want the mechanics to reflect that

Yes, by setting a high DC DC setting is an interesting thing if you use 3d6 because it has a much higher impact and a DM needs to be really careful with the DC. Just a few values too high and you rapidly decrease the chance of success. Non-linear rates are much harder to grasp for most DMs.

even if you present it as if that were obviously true.

I repeatedly stated "I don't understand". I thought this marked is clear as an opinion, not as a fact. Let me emphasize - this is not an objective truth. I just would never fit my resolution mechanic to the same probablity curve that is used for standardized metrics like IQ tests or for measuring natural occurences like body height over a population. Its the anti-thesis to storytelling in my eyes. Its used to measure real, natural events. Heroes and adventurers should be living as outliers of statistics, not forced to be normalized.

I am passionate about this, because its a small subset of the big topic "Statistics ruining art" which I might open up a thread at some point.

edit: I just used anydice to roll 40 times 3d6. Look at this exciting dice log. I don't want to run a game where this would be the log of a session.

output 1: 12, 11, 7, 10, 10, 13, 12, 9, 14, 6, 9, 7, 8, 5, 10, 12, 9, 9, 10, 10, 11, 13, 15, 10, 8, 10, 4, 12, 15, 14, 17, 3, 12, 10, 11, 11, 7, 5, 11, 13

 

[Retros_x]

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.)

yes thanks for the correction. Degrees of success is just something like "full success", "success with a cost", "partial failure", "complete failure". You don't need a normal distribution for that. You could just say (as I do often) roll a D20 against a DC:

result < DC - 5: complete failure
result < DC: partial failure
result < DC +5 : success with a cost
result >= DC+5: Full success

or something like that. The boundaries and effects you choose don't matter for my point, the point being you can of course partition any distribution in different degrees, not just normal ones.

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.

But the same would happen with an 18 on 3d6 - everyone would erupt loudly. But you still need a mechanic to back it up. With 3d6 you push most rolls (around two out of three rolls) to be in the range of 8-13. It also means that the difference of a DC by a value of 1 on the success of the roll is either a lot or marginal, depending if you are in the middle of the curve or at one of the ends. I am not sure if all this is worth it.

I would just as a DM, and I think many DM already do that without an explicit mechanic, honor a rare roll like double 20 or double 1 and let something extra ordinary happen.

 

[cbwjm]

I've been looking back at fighting fantasy lately and kind of reminiscing on their simple skill system. In a fight, roll 2d6 + your skill and try to beat your opponent doing the same thing. Want test your skill, roll 2d6 less than your skill to see if you succeed.

Instead of saving throws they have luck, an ever dwindling silly of good fortune since it is reduced by one every time you test it.

 

[bsss]

I like a simple universal check like a roll high d20 based on abilities because it's easy to resolve on the player side (unless you have a gazillion modifiers in the system): pick up die, roll die, add a couple numbers, higher is better. Savage Worlds' simple mechanic, different die based on ability, works as well. Consequently, I like easy difficulty setting on the GM side, like Cypher System's 1-10 difficulty scale (though I would not replicate their extra math step) or 13th Age's approach of checks being versus one of three DCs based on tier.

With those tools, I can come up with a test/resolution response to whatever the player wants to try. If the players and I can quickly get to "what to do" and "what to beat", things really start to flow. As long as the rest of the system doesn't overcomplicate things and hamstring itself, that's a good core mechanic in my eye.

d% is fine but it's too much false precision, IMO.

 

[dbm]

First, let me put my cards on the table as a person who really like triangle and bell-curve distributions.

Its the anti-thesis to storytelling in my eyes. Its used to measure real, natural events. Heroes and adventurers should be living as outliers of statistics, not forced to be normalized.

In my opinion, it’s not about normalising people. It’s about having a more normalised set of outcomes. In a system like GURPS someone who is high skill can reliably perform at a given level of competence. A system like D20 has more swingy outcomes where even a person with high bonuses might fail at moderate tasks more often than is desirable. In my group we even have a name for this phenomena- “the tyranny of the d20”.

So, a high capability person in a system likes GURPS can often deliver more reliably than a person with high capability in a system like d20.

Another, more subtle benefit* of the bell curve is that modifiers mean different things to different people. If your skill is 10 then a +1 increases your chance of success from 50% to 62.5%. Character with skill 15 would go from 95%-ish to 98%-ish with the same bonus. Small differences have a big impact on lower skill people than high skill people, which I like.

The same effect in reverse is even better. A -1 penalty on a person with skill 10 reduces their chances from 50% to 37.5% while that skill 15 person only drops from 95-ish to 90-ish%. People with high skill can absorb more difficulties than low skill people while still retaining a level of capability.

I really like that. It’s a kind of ‘bounded accuracy+’ in my book.

* I am aware that this phenomena is why some people dislike non-linear distributions. Different folks / different strokes.

 

[bsss]

Another, more subtle benefit* of the bell curve is that modifiers mean different things to different people. If your skill is 10 then a +1 increases your chance of success from 50% to 62.5%. Character with skill 15 would go from 95%-ish to 98%-ish with the same bonus. Small differences have a big impact on lower skill people than high skill people, which I like.

The same effect in reverse is even better. A -1 penalty on a person with skill 10 reduces their chances from 50% to 37.5% while that skill 15 person only drops from 95-ish to 90-ish%. People with high skill can absorb more difficulties than low skill people while still retaining a level of capability.

Incidentally and just my opinion of course, but for me, trying to model the ends of the bell curve as described here, off the cuff, is where things fall over for me, despite liking the idea of bell curves, a lot. Having to quickly reverse engineer the "feel" of a 16 vs. 15 vs. 12 and then applying mods is probably a level of intuition I never internalized.

Bell curves and so on feel like a better simulation, but linear is extremely straight(heh)forward.