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Rolling Without a Chance of Failure (I love it)
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8441050" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>My main problem with this is (a) it's not always easy to come up with "flair" or a "stylish" way of doing things (I would know, I've been working on that very thing for my DW game, more below), and (b) several of these sound like special punishments that only come up <em>because</em> the character has relevant talent/expertise. Now instead of having the reward of success for investing heavily in something...they get <em>new forms of failure?</em> That doesn't sound right at all to me. E.g. the guard being "suspicious" of the order sounds like a much worse problem than simply refusing to obey, or similarly breaking the chain with a loud noise sounds like a punishment for rolling badly at something one is good at--if the weenie wizard tried, they'd either get simple success or simple failure, not "and now you alert the whole place to your presence!!"</p><p></p><p>Now, it's possible it's just these specific off-the-cuff examples, that is, these weren't given the kind of thought that you would give in the moment. But I find that it's a big risk with this sort of thing, where a high degree of skill or ability with something no longer translates to being "good" at it, but rather to being <em>even more swingy</em> at it, which is...not to my taste. Out of curiosity, do you also enjoy things like the Wild Magic table for chaos sorcerers?</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="Aside about DW"]So, I have created house rules for playing "Legendary" characters, cribbed from a friend's game who did the same thing, but expanded. Basically, DW normally caps out at level 10. After level 10, you're supposed to either retire the character or swap to a new playbook and start again. That's...not interesting to me. So I reused and expanded these rules for playing high-level characters, where XP becomes essentially a bennie point system and advancement becomes more open-ended. As a result, several characters now roll with large bonuses on many rolls, which can take some of the fun out. I began tweaking things.</p><p></p><p>For a bit of background, DW offers three grades of result: a miss/fail (6- from dice+mods), partial success (7-9), or full success (10+). I have altered this by adding a new grade, which I call "superlative" success, where full success is now 10-12 and superlative is 13+. A superlative success doesn't just give you what you want, it actually adds unexpected advantages, unveils hidden information, or otherwise makes things Just Better. This is...not as easy as it sounds. Some things it works cleanly, e.g. if full success still forces you to only choose 3 things from a list of 5, then superlative success gives you the whole list. But others, especially Discern Realities, were more of a challenge, but I've found something I think works.</p><p></p><p>I also modified the Undertake a Perilous Journey roll, expanding it in a way that makes sense for our game and (if you'll forgive me patting myself on the back) actually manages to make sense as a new consideration that wasn't relevant before the characters became Legendary. Specifically, the standard Perilous Journeys require people to fill three roles: Scout (prevents you getting jumped by baddies), Trailblazer (navigator/orienteering guy, makes sure you don't get lost/take too long), and Quartermaster (logistics person, makes sure you have enough to eat and resources to get to where you're going). Due to the party makeup, the players were acing all three roles consistently. I added a new, fourth role: Trickster (still unsure about the name), whose job is to <em>conceal</em> the party's movements from anyone who might be tracking them. In the past, this wasn't a concern, because the party wasn't a big enough deal for people to track them most of the time. Now, however, they have Big Secrets and plenty of reasons for Bad Guys to tail them and monitor their movements. Choosing to ignore the Trickster role is less directly dangerous than the other two, but has potential long-term risks, appropriate for a high-level game.[/SPOILER]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8441050, member: 6790260"] My main problem with this is (a) it's not always easy to come up with "flair" or a "stylish" way of doing things (I would know, I've been working on that very thing for my DW game, more below), and (b) several of these sound like special punishments that only come up [I]because[/I] the character has relevant talent/expertise. Now instead of having the reward of success for investing heavily in something...they get [I]new forms of failure?[/I] That doesn't sound right at all to me. E.g. the guard being "suspicious" of the order sounds like a much worse problem than simply refusing to obey, or similarly breaking the chain with a loud noise sounds like a punishment for rolling badly at something one is good at--if the weenie wizard tried, they'd either get simple success or simple failure, not "and now you alert the whole place to your presence!!" Now, it's possible it's just these specific off-the-cuff examples, that is, these weren't given the kind of thought that you would give in the moment. But I find that it's a big risk with this sort of thing, where a high degree of skill or ability with something no longer translates to being "good" at it, but rather to being [I]even more swingy[/I] at it, which is...not to my taste. Out of curiosity, do you also enjoy things like the Wild Magic table for chaos sorcerers? [SPOILER="Aside about DW"]So, I have created house rules for playing "Legendary" characters, cribbed from a friend's game who did the same thing, but expanded. Basically, DW normally caps out at level 10. After level 10, you're supposed to either retire the character or swap to a new playbook and start again. That's...not interesting to me. So I reused and expanded these rules for playing high-level characters, where XP becomes essentially a bennie point system and advancement becomes more open-ended. As a result, several characters now roll with large bonuses on many rolls, which can take some of the fun out. I began tweaking things. For a bit of background, DW offers three grades of result: a miss/fail (6- from dice+mods), partial success (7-9), or full success (10+). I have altered this by adding a new grade, which I call "superlative" success, where full success is now 10-12 and superlative is 13+. A superlative success doesn't just give you what you want, it actually adds unexpected advantages, unveils hidden information, or otherwise makes things Just Better. This is...not as easy as it sounds. Some things it works cleanly, e.g. if full success still forces you to only choose 3 things from a list of 5, then superlative success gives you the whole list. But others, especially Discern Realities, were more of a challenge, but I've found something I think works. I also modified the Undertake a Perilous Journey roll, expanding it in a way that makes sense for our game and (if you'll forgive me patting myself on the back) actually manages to make sense as a new consideration that wasn't relevant before the characters became Legendary. Specifically, the standard Perilous Journeys require people to fill three roles: Scout (prevents you getting jumped by baddies), Trailblazer (navigator/orienteering guy, makes sure you don't get lost/take too long), and Quartermaster (logistics person, makes sure you have enough to eat and resources to get to where you're going). Due to the party makeup, the players were acing all three roles consistently. I added a new, fourth role: Trickster (still unsure about the name), whose job is to [I]conceal[/I] the party's movements from anyone who might be tracking them. In the past, this wasn't a concern, because the party wasn't a big enough deal for people to track them most of the time. Now, however, they have Big Secrets and plenty of reasons for Bad Guys to tail them and monitor their movements. Choosing to ignore the Trickster role is less directly dangerous than the other two, but has potential long-term risks, appropriate for a high-level game.[/SPOILER] [/QUOTE]
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