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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6694201" data-attributes="member: 4937">Looking over the document I realize that there is a lot that is assumed to be known that isn't necessarily known.  I'll have to think about organization.   I don't want to bloat the document too much though.  I mean the system itself is like half a page, and the rest of the text is just about how to use it.LOL.  If it is a great simplification, it's an unintended one.  Speaking of things that are assumed, I didn't even realize that I had written it that way until you pointed it out.  I don't actually play that way, but instead use the usual 'equal to or greater'.   I haven't decided whether you are right about 'roll over' being simpler, but in the mean time the intention of the rules is that all the difficulties are one step easier than you are assuming.   I haven't decided which part of the document I'll fix yet.You are correct that a difficult task will likely fail for any kid that attempts it relying only on their ability score.  However, keep in mind that a difficult task is well within the scope of a kid hero if they can imagine a way to apply their skills and their superpower.  Suppose the task is something like, "I want to rescue the cat stuck up in the tree".  If they try to do that with just their Hands ability, even if they have a d12 in hands, they are very likely to fail the challenge and suffer a consequence, "You fall out of the tree and hit the ground with a whump.  It hurts a lot.  You think you scratched your arm.  You now have the 'Ouchies' consequence."   But suppose the same character has rank 2 Climb skill, and the super power, "I have a pet dinosaur (d8)."   The proposition, "I tell George to stand by the tree, and then I climb up George's neck to get to kitty." or something of the sort, would be d12+2+d8, with a minimum roll of 4 and an average of 13.  The odds of succeeding are pretty good.   With the help of George the Dinosaur, the kid can do things that even grown ups can't do (because except for 'mom', they usually don't have superpowers).  But even without George the dinosaur, the game is designed to support solving problems imaginatively.  "I go get the ladder from the garage." is a solution that might occur to them.  And climbing a ladder can be an easy taskBut also keep in mind that difficult challenges are really really rare unless you are playing a more heroic campaign where the characters are going to skill up quickly.  In all the time I was playing the basic SIPS game, I can't remember a base DC set above 6 mostly because being kids, they didn't propose to do anything so far beyond their imagination.  Indeed, the bigger problem tends to be convincing the kid how they can use their superpower to do things and solve problems they couldn't do in real life.  I suppose that wouldn't be a big problem with something simple like, "I can fly. (d12)", but it tends to be one of the larger issues. In the simple game, throwing a ball might be DC 2 - maybe DC 4 for a long throw.   Likewise, catching a ball might be DC 2, or maybe DC 4 for fielding a baseball.  In the advanced game, you are no longer just throwing a ball.  You are trying to throw a ball well, so instead of being a 'pass/fail' situation, we want a measure of how well.  So we aren't just talking about abstractly, "Can you throw a ball?" where you either throw it at your target or you miss.   We want to know if you can throw a ball "perfectly'.  Throwing the ball perfectly is like DC 10 task, but because we are no longer measuring it as 'pass/fail', if you don't exceed the difficulty it doesn't mean the ball is uncatchable.  It means the ball is harder to catch.  How much harder to catch?   The text tells us that if we only rolled a 4 versus the DC 10, that we missed the target by 6.  So the DC of catching the ball then increases by 6 from 2 (catching a "perfectly" thrown ball) to 8 (catching a wildly thrown ball).  How would it read if the 'Skills' and 'Super Powers' section came before 'Tasks & Challenges'?Six years of playtesting.Loss of objects is normally just fictional positioning with no mechanical effect.  The presence of an object might make the GM decide a task is easier or harder, but loss of an object isn't a consequence in and of itself.Now, loss of a beloved stuffed animal might provoke a difficult Heart challenge ('enduring real deprivation'), with the consequence "Heartbroken".  Alleviating that consequence might involve a plan to recover the stuffed animal, which should require at least a DC 8 check by the rules.  But of course, use your judgment.   And remember, "Mom can make it all better" if the kid is really disturbed imagining losing a beloved stuffed animal.  Seriously, the real world consequences are a bigger impact on play than the pieces of paper.   You complain about how crippling increasing the DC of tasks by 2 is, but I have to tell you from real world experiences that if anything that's a lot less harsh than what real kids endure.  Consequences to a kid often just completely immobilize them, and destroy any semblance of rationality.  My understanding of how consequences work is based on raising kids.  They understand struggling with consequences.  And consequences are normally universally crippling.  Working through your own suffering is a very mature skill, and if I had to say what SIPS is about, it's a system that is about working your way through life's bumps and bruises without giving up. Now, if the super power is, "My stuffed animal is alive. (d8)", then yes, they can lose access to the stuffed animal - Hobbes is offended and runs away, only to return at bed time to snuggle.  And that's a pretty standard consequences of using a super power and failing.You've hit on something that is important when using SIPS as a game engine, and that is that you try to tailor your skills to the setting you are using.   SIPS by default is intended to tell 'backyard stories', of kids discovering magic and exploring a little neighborhood and basically living normal kid lives - with magic.  And for that kid's stuff skills like those listed are exactly what you want.But this is the skill list for a different game of SIPS that uses more advanced rules: Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Art, Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, Domestic Arts, Dueling, Etiquette, Flying, Ghoul Studies, Herbology, History of Magic, Infirmary, Muggle Studies, Music, Physical Education, and Potions.  That skill list is tightly defined, because the setting than I'm going for is a lot less freeform than the basic game. The result of rolling the ability dice to overcome a task or challenge.  The core mechanic is, "Roll an ability dice.  If the result beats the difficulty, you succeed."  You can add to the ability dice modifiers based on what you call out in your proposition.  "I use my knowledge of Animals to help me clean the horse's stall.", lets you add your ranks in the Animals skill to the result.  Alternately, the kid might call out their knowledge of Housework, and that would be fine too in this case.  You can also call out your superpower if you can think of a way to use it, "I make Hobbes help me push the broom.", and roll your super power dice.  You do have to do that before you see the result - you are right I should make that clear.  In fact, really you don't even set the DC until the player has proposed the action.  If it is a really good plan, it's probably an easy task.  If the kid wants to use his laser eyeballs to clean the stables, well that probably isn't a good use of the power.  Probably that should be a heroic challenge at the least, and if he fails, well then he gets TWO consequences - say the stables are now on fire and he has the "Burned" and "Scared" consequences.  Unless you've got a really competent kid and experienced player, it might be time for the cavalry to arrive because, "Mom can make it all better.", and probably scold the character about misusing his superpower.  "Now go and do your chores the right way."Yes, because using the super power is a risk.  Otherwise, you'd use it all the time and it would be very hard to fail.  The first step is teaching them to use their powers.  Once they figure out how cool it is to have powers, the real game of learning to use their powers responsibly starts.If you want meatier, then you use the 'Super Heroic' optional rule and test skills with say a D10.  Skill go up almost every time you test them at first.  However, in this game very quickly the kids get far more competent than every adult.  So if you are playing the default "back yard" sort of game this might not be want you want.  But it's suitable if the game the players have asked to play is "Defeating Lord Voldemort" or "Defeating Fire Lord Ozzai" or where they are costumed superheroes Tiger Woman and Gravity Girl and they have to defeat the devious Pastamancer.</blockquote>

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