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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nagol" data-source="post: 7328647" data-attributes="member: 23935">The question then becomes how can mechanical weight be varied to conform to the table interest? D&D has already adopted a few streamlining efforts in this direction with average hp and average damage output to help speed things along when the DM wants.   I've seen games that offer two or more resolution systems for similar tasks, one for a heavy detailed resolution and others for lightweight situations.  The biggest problem with them is usually making the result of the lightweight system appropriate and plausible in the more detailed system ie. given the same starting parameters, both systems should present similar expected results at similar cost.  Typically, the lightweight system produces results that overly generous (incenting people to use it exclusively) or overly punishing (incenting the use of the detailed system exclusively save for those cases where the table simply doesn't care at all or expects a serious loss anyway).For D&D, this can be seen in a variety of mass combat systems compared to fighting the battles individually, for example.  I recall one 3.5 game that tried to adopt a simple system to handle "trash mob" fights that used per-round average damage.  I pointed out the danger with such fights came not from the average or expected values, but from the outliers: it may be expected damage won't drop the party for 5 rounds, but the threat can take the party down in a single round if all the random factors line up.  With multiple fights per day, the chance the party would wipe using the simple system was zero.  The chance using the normal combat system was significantly higher.It is entirely possible to build multiple systems to model the same endeavour; it would be relatively easy to adapt 4e's skill challenges to replace simple combats, for example.  The difficulty is presenting similar risk and outcome without the result feeling particularly capricious.</blockquote>

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