Let's Talk About Core Game Mechanics

[TwoSix]

Just pulling this one out to illustrate the point about the TN: if the TN is 14, then all 1's, 2's, or 3's will be misses, so the odds of getting a triple that counts is half of that. (Whereas by the D&D rule a crit is, by definition, also a hit.)

A third, actually, since all 4s is also a miss.

 

[Bill Zebub]

A third, actually, since all 4s is also a miss.

Oh, NOW my math is wrong....


/sadface

 

[Reynard]

The games I play in are biased in favour of the players at the table (as I think they should be), but sometimes I have played with players who, when facing a choice between accepting a unrolled small failure with humiliating outcome (e.g. they miscalculated their PC's capacity, and now should abandon their current strategy / tactic, withdraw, regroup, and improve the PC), they count on the possibility of a crit, combined with the reluctance to give them a greater failure (e.g. roll a new PC), to carry their PC through.

My intuition, based on my limited experience, is that if 1 of every 20 rolls make averages unimportant, a game becomes more about chance than skill. I prefer games of that reward skilled playing over chance.

Basically, the players treat the game outcomes as unimportant, and their PCs become carefree gamblers rather than careful decision makers. Nothing against gambling with friends, but there are better games for that. I play TTRPGs to pretend to be more skilled than I am, not luckier than I am.

That is not something I have seen. But at least in D&D-likes, there aren't a lot of choices to be made where crits matter. That is, you can't drit skills, and to-hit values are pretty well set from character generation. I have never seen someone turn down weapon specialization, for example, because they could just rely on rolling the occassional 20.

My point was that in a fight with 4 PCs that goes on for 5 rounds, odds are one of them is going to crit, and one is going to get critted. That ramps up the excitement at the table.

 

[zakael19]

Random question on this topic that came up as I was playing around with ideas today: when you are a player in a game do you prefer to affirmatively roll defense for your character or have the GM roll offense for your enemies?

I've grown quite fond of systems where player-rolls for most things that affect their character. In a lot of games, this is true even for many damaging / controlling effects (saves); but we typically default back to the GM to make attack rolls for their adversaries. Daggerheart does this, keeping a legacy d20 around in an otherwise 2d12 based system (per the designer for swingyness/nostalgia mainly).

That being said, I find the idea of the player rolling their Evasion to try and avoid getting hit more interesting then rolling to attack - I know there's other games that have "defense" rolls as well.

Setting aside that what the GM is expected to roll is a matter of taste, I was thinking about the design space that switching to 2d12 Evasion opens up:

• Player rolling, obviously.
• Working in DH's "double number = crit" to mean that a double 1 is a good thing actually (a pop of "oh no...wait!" mood swing).
• Probably tying DH's metacurrency there, on a Critical Evasion you get a Hope.
• But then on a critical Failure (which actually if you want to drift away from d20 "crit on 20" %s you can make any natural combination of Unlucky 13 to have a mirrored crit %!), maybe the GM gains a Fear...

 

[Bill Zebub]

Random question on this topic that came up as I was playing around with ideas today: when you are a player in a game do you prefer to affirmatively roll defense for your character or have the GM roll offense for your enemies?

I've grown quite fond of systems where player-rolls for most things that affect their character. In a lot of games, this is true even for many damaging / controlling effects (saves); but we typically default back to the GM to make attack rolls for their adversaries. Daggerheart does this, keeping a legacy d20 around in an otherwise 2d12 based system (per the designer for swingyness/nostalgia mainly).

That being said, I find the idea of the player rolling their Evasion to try and avoid getting hit more interesting then rolling to attack - I know there's other games that have "defense" rolls as well.

Setting aside that what the GM is expected to roll is a matter of taste, I was thinking about the design space that switching to 2d12 Evasion opens up:

• Player rolling, obviously.
• Working in DH's "double number = crit" to mean that a double 1 is a good thing actually (a pop of "oh no...wait!" mood swing).
• Probably tying DH's metacurrency there, on a Critical Evasion you get a Hope.
• But then on a critical Failure (which actually if you want to drift away from d20 "crit on 20" %s you can make any natural combination of Unlucky 13 to have a mirrored crit %!), maybe the GM gains a Fear...

Yeah I'm coming around to "roll to defend" mechanics. I'm even open to the idea that "the GM never rolls dice".

 

[Barner Cobblewood]

That is not something I have seen. But at least in D&D-likes, there aren't a lot of choices to be made where crits matter. That is, you can't drit skills, and to-hit values are pretty well set from character generation. I have never seen someone turn down weapon specialization, for example, because they could just rely on rolling the occassional 20.

My point was that in a fight with 4 PCs that goes on for 5 rounds, odds are one of them is going to crit, and one is going to get critted. That ramps up the excitement at the table.

Yeah exactly. I like that too. I'm curious though how many 5 round fights can the party be in before one PC out of the 4 dies?

 

[TwoSix]

Random question on this topic that came up as I was playing around with ideas today: when you are a player in a game do you prefer to affirmatively roll defense for your character or have the GM roll offense for your enemies?

My general preference is for the player to roll both offense and defense, although the GM can roll the magnitude of the effect. GM rolls for damage, and the player rolls to dodge/block/endure some or all of the effect.

 

[zakael19]

My general preference is for the player to roll both offense and defense, although the GM can roll the magnitude of the effect. GM rolls for damage, and the player rolls to dodge/block/endure some or all of the effect.

Yeah, that's where I'm at (even in PBTAs like Dungeon World/Stonetop), because I have the damage #s in front of me and then can work the roll immediately into my narration of what's changing in the world.

 

[Bill Zebub]

My general preference is for the player to roll both offense and defense, although the GM can roll the magnitude of the effect. GM rolls for damage, and the player rolls to dodge/block/endure some or all of the effect.

That's how Dragonbane works and I'm really liking it.

So are my kids. My 12 year old son just rolled up an ogre bard:

(AI generated...)

I had to fudge character creation rules to give a new characer a greatclub and bagpipes, but it's worth it. For the story. (Sorry, @Micah Sweet...)

 

[Barner Cobblewood]

Random question on this topic that came up as I was playing around with ideas today: when you are a player in a game do you prefer to affirmatively roll defense for your character or have the GM roll offense for your enemies?

I've grown quite fond of systems where player-rolls for most things that affect their character. In a lot of games, this is true even for many damaging / controlling effects (saves); but we typically default back to the GM to make attack rolls for their adversaries. Daggerheart does this, keeping a legacy d20 around in an otherwise 2d12 based system (per the designer for swingyness/nostalgia mainly).

That being said, I find the idea of the player rolling their Evasion to try and avoid getting hit more interesting then rolling to attack - I know there's other games that have "defense" rolls as well.

Setting aside that what the GM is expected to roll is a matter of taste, I was thinking about the design space that switching to 2d12 Evasion opens up:

• Player rolling, obviously.
• Working in DH's "double number = crit" to mean that a double 1 is a good thing actually (a pop of "oh no...wait!" mood swing).
• Probably tying DH's metacurrency there, on a Critical Evasion you get a Hope.
• But then on a critical Failure (which actually if you want to drift away from d20 "crit on 20" %s you can make any natural combination of Unlucky 13 to have a mirrored crit %!), maybe the GM gains a Fear...

I prefer the player to have some decisions about the rolls for defense, and I think players should roll most everything for their PC in the open. The GM also rolls for the NPCs in the open, or another player can do that. Having the player involved roll both their own and the opposed rolls also works to stress them out increases the excitement.