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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Should time spent on system mechanics be based in interest or importance/risk?
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<blockquote data-quote="Nagol" data-source="post: 7329396" data-attributes="member: 23935"><p>The differing systems' maths are hard to match elegantly. It can be done, but it would involve inserting randomness into the simple system; I would be tempted to construct either a large table or a few cascading tables to roll on to adjust outcomes. That form of solution suffers from a few flaws: it starts to move the simple mechanic towards more complex mechanic, it is easily perceived as capricious, properly done it will invalidate stake-setting (i.e. a PC could die), and it will run afoul of many player's biases like "That would never happen in real play! The odds are astounding!".</p><p></p><p>Fundamentally, you don't want the maths to match. You want the output of each system to be plausible outcomes in the other without one system being noticeably better or worse with expected outcome. The purpose of the simpler system is to move the table through a conflict/challenge the table wants/needs to clear in the fiction to get back to the more interesting stuff. 4e has tools that could be used for this purpose like non-combat challenges and minions. Dungeon World is pretty much built to avoid the problem by always using a simple mechanic and providing hard moves like "use up resource" and strong fictional positioning/framing requirements to help the GM move through such challenges at speed.</p><p></p><p>For D&D, I will offer to either blue-book (a term coined by Aaron Allston in a Champions product for taking the situation out of session and handling it via writing or the equivalent) or negotiate plausible stakes attached to dice rolled in the open and narrate the result. "OK, what's the Heldon, the 10th level dwarf barbarian, going to do for these 3 days? Run to Safeton and look for the McGuffin! Safeton is three days by normal walk so you can make it in just over a day and the typical encounter is EL 3. I don't really want to run through the 4-6 encounters: how about I roll 3 sets of percentile, the first is the number of hp you lose, the second is the amount of treasure recovered, and the third is the amount of xp earned from the random encounters along the way?"</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nagol, post: 7329396, member: 23935"] The differing systems' maths are hard to match elegantly. It can be done, but it would involve inserting randomness into the simple system; I would be tempted to construct either a large table or a few cascading tables to roll on to adjust outcomes. That form of solution suffers from a few flaws: it starts to move the simple mechanic towards more complex mechanic, it is easily perceived as capricious, properly done it will invalidate stake-setting (i.e. a PC could die), and it will run afoul of many player's biases like "That would never happen in real play! The odds are astounding!". Fundamentally, you don't want the maths to match. You want the output of each system to be plausible outcomes in the other without one system being noticeably better or worse with expected outcome. The purpose of the simpler system is to move the table through a conflict/challenge the table wants/needs to clear in the fiction to get back to the more interesting stuff. 4e has tools that could be used for this purpose like non-combat challenges and minions. Dungeon World is pretty much built to avoid the problem by always using a simple mechanic and providing hard moves like "use up resource" and strong fictional positioning/framing requirements to help the GM move through such challenges at speed. For D&D, I will offer to either blue-book (a term coined by Aaron Allston in a Champions product for taking the situation out of session and handling it via writing or the equivalent) or negotiate plausible stakes attached to dice rolled in the open and narrate the result. "OK, what's the Heldon, the 10th level dwarf barbarian, going to do for these 3 days? Run to Safeton and look for the McGuffin! Safeton is three days by normal walk so you can make it in just over a day and the typical encounter is EL 3. I don't really want to run through the 4-6 encounters: how about I roll 3 sets of percentile, the first is the number of hp you lose, the second is the amount of treasure recovered, and the third is the amount of xp earned from the random encounters along the way?" [/QUOTE]
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Should time spent on system mechanics be based in interest or importance/risk?
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