Initial Encounters for Releplaying Campaigns

Brainstorming initial encounters for role-playing sessions. Specifically, the first session of a campaign, where everyone is still new to their characters, and their characters still new to each other. How to get characters to trust and cooperate with each other. Ideally, it also provides a common purpose. Intent is to get storylines usable at cons, where people are never going to play together again, so the campaign is just a one-shot.

My friends and I read LotR, David Eddings, & Shannara, so we whole 'Wizard Guide' meme a great deal. (Wizard Guides having the virtue of being tough to kill, in case the PC's decide to murder the 'quest-giver'.)

A sub-type of this would be a having a quest-giver offer a 'job' to the PCs. Depending on PC alignment, this might be to rob, beat, kill or otherwise waylay an NPC. It might also be to recover something. Characters unknown to one another are brought in to pull an 'Italian Job".

Another option would be the 'Fight!" setup, where one character is attacked, and the others come to their aid. Having an NPC be attacked also works. Works well in a tavern.

Dropping a map on the floor, or having the characters recover a map (from a dying or unconcious NPC) is another common start. Can work in a tavern, but does not supply party cohesion--characters may fight over the map. Having an NPC steal the map might work.

"In Jail" is excellent; the players have a common purpose (to escape), and no other explanation of their gathering is required. Pivots into dungeoneering.

"Guards", where the PC's have all been hired as watch-members, body-guards, or caravan guards. Moves PC's out of starting location, and into a common threatening context.

"The Hangover", where the PC's don't know each other, but wake up (amnesiac) and find themselves married, Wanted, or hunted.

On DnD and the two sides of escapism:

The article

"Of particular note is the average time a person dedicates to their favorite activity being approximately between 8 to 10 hours a week. Each activity has "affordances" like socialization, competition, intellectual stimulation, etc. "

Stenseng divides the enjoyment of these affordances into a Two-Dimensional Model of Escapism, which identifies nine factors that can affect an individual positively or negatively: 

1) clear goals2) concentrating and focusing3) loss of the feeling of self-consciousness4) distorted sense of time5) direct and immediate feedback6) balance between ability level and challenges7) a sense of control8) intrinsically rewarding9) general immersion in the activity

 So, I would put the postulate that these nine factors do a pretty good job in defining if you have a good roleplaying session or not. While #1 can be argued (some people just like Mayhem) it is always more satisfying if that mayhem takes place in a narrative arc. #2 requires a lack of distraction--no one is vanishing into their phones, or lost in books looking up rules. #3 requires a willingness to get into character, and get ridiculous. (This may be what divides table-top from 95% of MMORPG). #4...who hasn't lost hours? #5: Roleplay is beautiful in this regard; narrative makes it possible compress the time between consequence and effect. #6: Much effort is not by accident expended on matching player ability and monstor difficulty; #7 No game is fun when the DM takes over your character, or when a player takes an action that is out of character (for meta-game reasons). #8) It's a game, and so the play of it has to be intrinsically rewarding. The most successful games are going to be those which are rewarding to the largest number of people...because then people who respond to a larger variety of motivations will play your game, together. #9) ...is for spouses and girlfriends, who come and don't play, or who come and chat, and disrupt. They want to hang out, but that ruins the immersive experience of play.

Failures of D20

Matt Miller 

Part of what makes the D20 work is the variable DC. Yet, the use of DC increments on 5 (such as for the falling tables) suggests that d20 is excessively granular.

Rob Hicks 

The d20 system, as I saw it, was a way of doing a percentile in 5% increments. It makes it easy from a game design perspective to understand how much of a bonus you are giving across the board.

 Matt Miller 

That is one of the great virtues of d20: A +1 is a +1. But a +1 just isn't a big enough deal. Our minds can't grasp changes in probability that smaller (Our minds max out at about a 10:1 ratio). So get an effect we can intuit as significant, DnD requires math; it requires 'picking up the pennies' of +1 bonuses to get a significant effect. +1 on a d10 works, +1 on a d12 might also.

Rob Hicks

[D20] has too much variance. You need two to four categories of variance. Either "success vs failure," or "success vs failure with critical success and critical failure". The d20 added too much variation on that, which led to a system that was more crunch than flavor.

Matt Miller

You can lower the variance on a d20 by using multiple dice. DnD originally used 2d6, some games use 3d6, FATE uses 4dF. All generate bell-curves that make the outliers possible but uncommon. (As 7 is the most common in Settlers). But for counted variance, the range matters. 2d6 provides 2-12, 3d6 3-18, Fate -4 to +4.  

Matt Miller

Using -4 to +4 provides a range of 9, and that may simply be enough. OD&D abbreviated into -1,0,+1, and 3e made it into -5 to +5. But there is a difference between possible outcomes from the dice, and possible outcomes for attributes. For the former, so large a range may not be necessary. But for the latter, a larger range is required...

What makes a good RPG?

Tiffany Gray

September 14, 2015

What makes a good RPG?

Tommy Brownell 

Fun.I know that sounds like a flippant answer, but it's not. The tagline for my blog is "The Proof is in the Fun". I can point out things I SEVERELY dislike about my two favorite RPGs (Marvel SAGA and Savage Worlds), but I have more fun with them than any other games I've ever played or ran.That said, a certain amount of clarity in the writing and professionalism in the editing goes a very long way. Discussing things like Rules Lite vs Rules Heavy is a fool's game, because of varying preferences and tastes.

Tiffany Gray 

I am looking for something more complex too Tommy. The rules argument is pardon the pun played out.

Stephanie McAlea 

The setting. A good rpg is all about the fluff. You can swap out the rules but keep the setting but do it the other way around its just hollow text in my view.

Tiffany Gray 

Is that true? There are lovers of Savage Worlds and even some people like GURPS smile emoticon

Stephanie McAlea 

But without a setting attached, what are they?

Tommy Brownell 

Toolkits. For all the folks that devour every new Deadlands release, you have another guy that just wants the rulebook and companions so they can kitbash something together.

Derek Stoelting 

Inspiration. What does the product do to inspire me to buy and play the game? Amazing art? Wicked words on the page? Awesome layout that makes not awesome art or writing better? I want to feel alive and energized and I don't think there's a single answer to your question. =]

John Griffiths

RPGs with no setting are sandbox/toolkits. Very useful IMO.

Tiffany Gray 

oh btw I do agree setting matters in my book. I would not have SW for example if they hadn't done Lankmare or Traveller 5 if the Imperium wasnt around. Settings and modules etc are were the money is at. Splatbooks are good but D1-3 was the best ever introduction to Drow elves. HotOE and other large campaign settings made COC.

Owen Wylde 

Rule sets: Clarity of the writing, consistency of the rules, no recursion or logical loops (not loopholes), simple enough that a non gamer can get the general idea of how things go, yet with enough detail to allow GM and players to do what they expect in a setting. Playing: Everyone at the table has fun and is/was satisfied with how things go/went.

Matt Miller 

It's a balance between the RPG you want to play, and an RPG other people are willing to play. A good base mechanic is pretty critical. There are a million D20 games out there for a reason--the SRD makes it easy to make a game. I recall being unimpressed with both Deadlands and 7th sea in that regard--the abilities and skills were a little unbalanced.

Checks, bonuses and probabilities

Keith J Davies 

FWIW, in Echelon attacks are contested rolls as well. Same number of successes = both hit (and both take damage). Otherwise, if I have more successes than you then I hurt you (and hurt you _more_; each success after a tie adds more damage), and vice-versa. 

But there are also complications. If you roll 3 successes and 1 complication, and I roll 3 successes and 0 complications, you get to pick: tie (and both cause damage) and suffer a complication, or pay off the complication and take more damage (because I rolled more successes now than you did). 

The active character does get to decide if there will be an exchange of attacks. If you attack me, it's on. As the target I could choose to ignore this (passive defense only), but that seems like an uncommon case so I largely ignore it. If I'm better at fighting than you are, or luckier, it might be that you end up getting hurt too (or even instead!).
Most games, you attack me and I have no recourse or decision at all. You decided to attack, I decide to... nothing. I get hurt or not entirely at the whim of you and the dice gods. 

The mutual attack thing has some rather interesting characteristics. I ran models that suggest that it does a lot to balance out the action economy. Being outnumbered is still bad, but it's a much more even fight than in most games. In fact, I appear to have hit a sweet spot in the design. Even with four levels difference (i.e. exactly one tier higher), beng outnumbered is bad. The higher-level fighter has better rolls and slightly more hit points, but the sheer number of attacks makes things more even. The more skilled fighter is likely to get more successful (tied or better) attacks than any one of the lesser fighters, but they get spread among all the lesser fighters, while the lesser fighters' attacks are concentrated on one. 

I forget if the approximate balance point is 2:1 or 4:1 (I think it was 2-3:1, to be honest). I know that 8:1 is very very bad, don't let that happen.

Matt Miller 

I also like the d20 'explode' rule, where 20 hits and 1 misses, better; there is always a chance of success or failure, regardless of other conditions. Opposed rolls (d20 vs. d20 or 3d6 vs. 3d6) are analogous to 2d6, where the resulting roll is very much a bell curve. 3d6 vs. 3d6 creates a very strong, very regular bell curve, where the difference in medians is decisive a very large 

Dan Felder Skill checks are one of those things that I feel like were reasonably solved a while ago. While it may be possible to improve them, I feel like the effort it takes compared to the tiny amount of improvement it provides is not worth it. Unless you are altering your skill check system thematically for a specific game design goal of course, but even then it seems iffy.

Rob Hicks Summary: die mechanisms that favor median rolls, (2d6, etc,) don't do well if you are using opposed checks combined with bonuses, because it so heavily favors the higher bonus. Underdogs will almost always lose, even with only a slight numeric disadvantage.

Keith J Davies unless, of course, that's the behavior you want. I can easily imagine a tiered system[1] where you have a 'tier bonus' that shifts your entire roll, simply because higher-tier _is better_.

[1] level 1-4 = tier 1, level 5-8 = tier 2, etc.

In a D&D-esque system you might then have "rolls are 3d6. You get +1 per tier, and your 'class skill' (fighter is combat, wizard is casting, rogue is skill) gets +1 more" [no, I wouldn't use these numbers, but they're good for discussion]

Fighter _always_ has an advantage over everyone else at the same tier in combat, and can fight evenly with a non-fighter above his tier... which means a non-fighter above his tier is no worse than he is. The higher-tier fighter will still have advantage over him. This might be exactly how you want the system to behave. I wouldn't say these systems "don't do well", I might say "have characteristics that must be understood".

Rob Hicks Dan Felder Still worth looking at this stuff, because tinkering is fun. Also, the d20 system isn't "solved" by any stretch. It still has some serious drawbacks that aren't answered by other prominent systems.

Like · Reply · October 1, 2015 at 9:39am

Dan Felder Tinkering is always fun. But note "reasonably solved". As in we know the benefits of various skill check systems and have solid enough options, to the point that putting in added effort has a significant opportunity cost compared to working on other aspects of design. smile emoticon

Like · Reply · October 1, 2015 at 9:41am

Matt Miller "d20 is too random"...which could reasonably be solved by moving to a d12 or d10, and simply adjusting numbers. ...but that would actually make it more random, as the high and low automatic hit or miss would be much more common.

Rob Hicks 
Which is not a bad thing. I like d12s. It occurs to me, that you could get interesting results from a d12 if you did 1's as an automatic miss, 10's as automatic hits, 11's as a crit, and 12's as a double-crit. Make the rest of the game built around 1-10 as standard results. "Turning the speakers up to 11," as a parallel. It would make hits more common, and crits much more common than a d20 system, but that is more interesting, isn't it?

Dan Felder 
Seems like it'd just make things more complex. If you want variety in your system, something akin to FFG's Narrative Dice system in their star wars RPG is a good place to start.

Matt Miller 
No good. Makes 10-11-12 into hits, so you automatically hit 25% of the time, even against impossible enemies. Higher hit rates need balanced with either lower damage or higher HP. To be sufficiently variable to be interesting, damage can only go so low (1d4?), and lower HP makes for easier mental math.

Paul Goldstone 
I think players like Bonuses - so the greater the deviance - the more bonuses you can give. It's been shown several times a +1 on 2d6 is worth more than in D20, when you look at +2 through to +5 the difference is startling.Many games reward players with bonus gear in some tangible form, from the classic magic sword to the self aiming blaster. When looking at the system some thought should be given to what rewards the game will give especially deep into a campaign as well as end game one-shot adventures with powerful pre-gens.  If the roll effectively becomes a given, and therefore trivial at the top power end, then player/gm enjoyment will suffer. Furthermore is disparate parties where either due to power level, stats, gear if one player is tougher than the other players game balance can be skewed significantly which could lead to power creep, as the encounters have to become much harder to compensate for the tougher/luckier players. Thematically you could look at players choosing what they roll, ie, d20 or 3d6 in a game, maybe based on skills, talents etc.  The choice means against a particular tough opponent, highly dramatic situations the players could choose the d20 - needing the higher numbers. In non dramatic situations, they could choose the 3d6 looking for more likely success.

Matt Miller

When we made Mayhem, one the design principles was directly opposed to providing more bonuses.I think there are 13 different compatible bonuses to hit in DnD 3.5 We called it the "Christmas Tree" effect, with character liberally strung with magical ornaments. Rob Hicks DM'd a long DnD 3.5 campaign where the characters managed to acquire...every single bonus possible.

But what happens is that you cease having a 'character', and start having a 'toon'. You no longer have an avatar of yourself, but rather a 'vehicle' whose stats you have optimized. Letting players choose 3d6 or d20 seems like an interesting mechanic, but I don't think it actually adds much. The more mathematically talented would quickly know which represented the better alternative...ie, anytime your target number is over 10, roll the d20.

Dice Mechanics

Linear Distribution (Single dice, or unrelated sequential dice)

D20/D30/D%/Polyhedral 

1. Polyhedra: Uses d4-d12, and sometimes d20, more rarely d14, d16, d18. 
2. True20 : D20 used for all rolls Ex: True 20
3. D20 & polyhedra: D20 used to check successes, other dice use for success magnitude (most D20)
4. Roll+X: Any of the above, but add a fixed number to the roll.
5. Criticals: As above, but 1 is always a failure, a 20 is always a success. Ex: DnD 4e
6. D100: Use two D10 to determine a percent score. Ex: GURPS

NON-LINEAR (Dice-sum, dice-pool, and 'fat tails')

DICE-SUM (Normal Distribution)

1. xDx: Roll between 2-5 dice, sum the result. D6 and D10 are by far the most common.
2. xDx+x: As above, but add a fixed number to the roll. Ex: Green Ronin AGE system.
3. xDx+Dx: As above, but add a non-standard die to the roll. Ex: Monsters & Magic uses Roll+dX, with the base roll being 3d6. 
4. xDx&Dx: Sum a pool of dice to determine success or failure, and then roll a second die to determine the degree of success or failure. Ex: Chivalry and Sorcery. 
5. FUDGE: Roll 4d6, sum after using the conversion that 1-2=-1, 3-4=0, 5-6 = 1. ( FUDGE dice are almost necessary)
6. Attributes: Roll 2d6 or 3d6: The median value counts as a zero. The next great value (or pair of greater values for 3d6) counts as a +1, so that that the range is -5 to +5.
7. Flux: Two different colour dice (D6) are rolled, one positive, one negative - the lowest value is taken or if the same =0. Yields results -5 to +5. Ex: Traveler 5
8. Opposed Rolls: Rather than a fixed DC, defense is also rolled, and subtracted from the attack roll to determine success. Ties may be treated as partial successes. Ex: Mayhem

DICEPOOL (Binomial or Negative Binomial Distribution)

1. Success: Roll a number of dice; a die that rolls a certain number or greater counts as a success. D6 and D10 are most common. Typically between half and one third of numbers count as a success. 
1. Count: As per 'Success', but the count of successes matter.
2. Exploding dice: A dice-sum system where the highest value of die triggers the addition of another die of the same type: ie, rolling a 6 on a d6 means another d6 is rolled. 
3. Failure: Every natural 1 has negative consequences.
4. Mixed Pool: A dicepool that contains a variety of different dice.
2. Keep: Roll a number of dice, keep the one with the highest value, treating that as the outcome of the roll.
1. Keep Two: As per Keep, but keep the two highest dice and sum them. 
2. Keep+Count: Take the highest value from a pool, add +1 for other 'success'
3. Keep+Match: Take the highest value from a pool, add +1 for every dice also equal to that value. Ex: Heavy Gear, Pod 9.
4. Wild Dice: Roll two polyhedral dice, one default, one defined by a skill or attribute, and take the higher. Ex: Savage Worlds. 
1. Advantage: Roll 2d20, take the better or the worse. Ex: DnD 5e

ERRATIC DISTRIBUTIONS

1. STEP/RANK: At each rank, the dice rolled changes so as to represent an improvement in the median roll. Ie 1d10->1d12->2d6->d8+d6. Ex: Earthdawn.
2. One Roll Engine (ORE): A dicepool system where values in the pool are grouped into sets; the value is called the 'height', the number in the set is called the 'width'.

"ORE (One Roll Engine) you roll a pool of 2-9 D10 and count matches. The number of matching dice is the width of the roll, and the number of the match is the height. A hard die is always 10, and a wiggle die have any number decided after the dice are rolled. For damage rolls, the width determines amount of damage, and the height determines hit locations. For most generic actions the width is the speed of the action and the height the quality. It is possible to get multiple matches in a single roll, which is how doing multiple actions in one round is handled. " - Jesper Anderson

TN & DC Alternates (Target Numbers, Difficulty Classes)

1. Roll Under: Roll under a fixed attribute, so that low roles are good, bonuses as negative numbers. EX: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons ('Whitebox', 2E) 
2. DC+X: Roll over a fixed attribute, so bonuses are positive numbers. Ex: DnD 3E, 3.5,4, 
3. Margin Triggers: A linear system where beating a DC by a certain number generates an additional effect, often a damage 'critical'. (Mayhem)
4. Risks/Raises: Before rolling, players may reduce their dice pool to obtain additional effects on a successful outcome.
5. TC based on the sum of several attributes

OUTCOMES
With a linear distribution, outcomes are fully random within a certain range; above that range, failure is inevitable. Below that range, success is inevitable. Dice-sum systems generate consistent bell-curves of which the median, minima and maxima are known. Estimating chances of success on a role is more difficult. Reference tables are necessary.  The effect of a +1 bonus is non-linear, but tends to 'auto-balance', as the value of a +1 is greater to the underdog. Dicepool systems where success is binary follow a binomial distribution. Systems that count successes follow a negative binomial distribution. Failure is always possible, although statistically unlikely. Including additional negative effects for 'natural 1;s' can be used to make failure more painful, or more common. Reference tables to estimate success are necessary. With large pools of dice, failures are rare, and large pools may (rarely) generate an awesomely large count of successes.

NOTABLE SYSTEMS

 Travis Casey

The horror RPG "Don't Look Back" uses this: Base roll is 3d6. If you have a bonus, you roll additional d6 equal to the bonus value to your roll, but only take the best three. If you have a penalty, roll additional d6 equal to the penalty value and take the worst three. Bonuses and penalties add together - e.g., a +2 bonus and -3 penalty become a -1 penalty.  Action value is the name for the degree of success. If i succeed by 5 i have a +5 action value. If i fail by 3 i have a -3 action value. In an opposed test, those with the highest positive action value win the contest.

Also note that the "d20/polyhedra" system you have there is used with many other games that don't use a d20 as the basic roll. A lot of old systems use a separate "damage die" in combat. A similar concept is also seen in 3rd edition Chivalry & Sorcery: you roll 2d10 to determine success/failure, and an additional d10 of a different color, which determines degree of success/failure. Green Ronin's "AGE" system uses 3d6, one of which is a different color. All three are added together, along with an attribute bonus, but one of the three is special and generates "stunt points" that can be used if you succeed.

Designing and RPG System

A lot of systems can be heavily modified to fit most goals, and making a new RPG system is a terrible first project for a new game designer, but I've found that I usually get great results by building a specific system toward a specific campaign or setting. It cuts out all the unnecessary content and ensures the mechanics serve the themes. Also, I end up with a complete and total understanding of the system which helps as the GM.

I wouldn't reccomend building new systems, especially gigantic sprawling ones, to most GMs - it's just not necessary and you don't get as much benefit from making players learn new rules as they do from learning about an exciting new world or cast of characters. However, I'm a game designer - and I've found a lot of the campaigns I want to create benefit from custom-designed content. 

Published systems often attempt to be catch-all, providing a broad and resilient experience for diverse settings, campaigns and so on. They can't afford to be as specifically tailored to exactly the setting and experience you want to run (if you have something less 'classic' in mind). The majority of them end up bloated with unnecessry classes or more general mechanics. In any case, RPGs are complicated enough that it's likely none will match your exact targeted experience perfectly. One skill check mechanic might be great for you, but their progression system might be emotionally dissonant.

-Dan Felder

Goldilocks Systems

 People look for other systems because the existing systems are missing something. They are looking for a Goldilocks system. One that meets the needs of their playstyle. For me the system that did that for years was Hero. It is one of the best and most flexable point based RPGs out there. There's literally nothing you can't do with the system. It takes a lot of work to run the system because you have to make everything from parts. Though that is easier with many books with equipment, monsters, NPCs etc. It's still a big system that has some long standing issues that will never be fixed. This is due to the rabid fanbase that resists ANY change to the underlying system. So my choice is to labor on with the system and try to fix it with a ton of houserules, or to reengineer the system and make it more like the game I wish it was. Cut out the annoying stuff, fix what needs fixing. The thing that keeps stopping me is that the world needs another RP system like it needs another version of D&D (ie it doesn't).

-Jenevieve DeFer

"You need mechanics that support that experience"

Jeremy Forbing 

Elegant or clever game design are only relevant in service of a particular experience. Generic RPGs tend to be just that, generic. If you want a game to feel like a Hong Kong martial arts film, you need mechanics that support that experience. If you a system that simulates the deadly and horrific battles of World War I, you have to design towards that. The Marvel Heroic rules would be bad for Lovecraftian horror, but are great for playing superhero comics. How can we judge a mechanic without knowing what experience it is meant to create?

Arkham Horror and Bathtubs of D6

Matt Miller 

In Arkham, extra dice is always better. Every die in Arkham adds +1/3. But Arkham does a very nice job of limiting the dice you can add through the use of 'hands'. You only get two, and you you an only use two hands worth of spells/weapons* in a single attack.  In Arkham, things which do add piles of dice (withering, etc) also require a roll to activate, and include an additional cost. 

I recall some game that played with d10s. It made doing the mental math easy...but I think it was based on the ShadowRun style 'bathtubs of D6', where only a 1 counts as a success...which makes it worse than ShadowRun. ShadowRun, a 6d6 makes a success very likely. With a d10 system, you need 10d10. Making it a 1 or a 2 on a D10 doesn't alter it that much: 1/5 chance, vs a 1/6 on a d6--not worth the extra dice required. 

**Recalls to me, before the 'Christmas Tree' twinking out, there was a rule that players could only have one magic item.

Paen to Fate

Matt Miller

Mechanically, I'm really liking Fate of late. 4dF provides a very strong median tendency, while permitting sufficient variance to make things unpredictable. 

Rob Hicks 

The best thing about the fate die system is environmental or situational bonuses. You can creatively do just about anything to get the bonus, but you have to justify it through actions, environment and character history. It blends the strategic elements of the game with the storytelling.

Paul Goldstone 

Fate has extensive meta gaming that makes the game for me, players describing scenes, incidences etc to get mods. The end result being that if you have the skill you are more or less going to succeed. D20 for me has a huge amount of random, that doesn't cater to the if you have the skill you are most likey to succeed mechanic due to the wide possible variances. The arkham dice method for an RPG, when combined with a skill, offers the "have skill will succeed" mechanic which does seem to be popular of late. Its worth noting that ffg custom dice rpg have that, just with symbols over numbers, as does Mutant Chronicles to some extent (MC has a great system and is well worth looking at).

Nathan Dowdell 

IMHO, what makes Fate sing is the way that Aspects and the Fate Point economy turn a test from a pure risk consideration to a matter of cost - being able to spend after the fact, and suffer costs for success, changes the game dynamic hugely. Failure isn't the end, merely a chance to ask the question "how much is success worth to you?"

Matt Miller

You make an excellent point. The ability to 'burn' clue tokens in Arkham, AFTER a roll, is one of my favorite parts. It makes rolling slightly less visceral, but it still works: Clue Tokens are a representation of a generic advantage in understanding.

Damage Sizing

Matt Miller

In Netrunner, 7 points gets you victory, with points coming in packages of 1,2 or 3. Thus, any 'hit' after your second might be your last. Likewise, it might be 7 different successes. But it means that you start sweating every attack, because it might be your last. It's the same dynamic as playing with lv1 characters. In DnD, at lvl 1, max weapon being greater than max HP means a bad roll can end your character. But I think Netrunner strikes a good balance between 1st level DnD and the 'stacks of HP' problem.

Arkham Horror Math

Playing a great deal of Arkham Horror, which has a 1/3 success rate for dice; just came across the math for predicting count of successes, given X dice, an a X success rate. Begs to be used for an RPG.

Margins, Called Shot Criticals, Expertise, and Power Attack.

Matt Miller 

Before DnD adopted d20, 2d6 was the default rolling mechanism. But the 2d6 also included a margin mechanic, when how much you won by was important. Working on Mayhem, which also has a margin mechanic (for criticals) big margins were a nightmare. 

I recall there being a feat in DnD that let you take -x to rolls to get +x to damage. I don't recall it being particularly exciting. Part of what made called shots exciting was that the pay-off was big: Big risk, big reward. A -1 to hit for a +1 to damage is just...tactical.
But the idea of margins doing more damage recalls to me Called Shit Criticals, from Skills and Powers (DnD), where you could take a -4 penalty to attacks, and then enjoy ridiculous damage bonuses. Thematically, I think I prefer the 'push your luck' mechanism of Called Shot Criticals. 

Rob Hicks 

Power attack. reduce your base attack bonus by 1 to get 1 extra damage. (2 extra damage for two-handed weapons.) Power attack was amazing.

Matt Miller

Ok, so expertise must have been -x damage to get +1 to hit. 

Bonus Sizing

Travis Casey

September 29, 2015

A few recent OSR games, such as Swords & Wizardry White Box, Delving Deeper, and Bloody Basic, have adopted OD&D's attribute modifiers for rolls. Those are: 8 or less: -1;  9 to 12: 0; 13 or more.

On the positive side, I like the fact that this divides up abilities into "high-middle-low". You don't get the effect from later versions, where many players seem to feel that unless their primary attribute for their class is quite high, they're "hopeless". On the negative, though, the modifiers feel too small. These games use variants on the d20 System, so a +1 is only a 5% change in the chance of success. It's such a small bonus as to be rarely useful. 

 +1 OD&D intended those modifiers to be used with a 2d6 system, not a 1d20 one. A -1 or +1 is much more significant on 2d6 than with 1d20. So, I'm suggesting that if people want to use this style, but also want to use the 1d20 resolution mechanic instead of the original 2d6, they use -2/0/+2 as the modifiers instead. I'm suggesting doubling the numbers to give a statistical impact closer to what those modifiers had in the original system.

Original D&D was meant to use the Chainmail combat system... which used 2d6. In the context of a 2d6 system, a +1 is much more significant. If you normally need a 12 to succeed, it makes you 1/18, or 5.55...%, more likely to succeed. In the best-case scenario, if you needed an 8 before the modifier, it makes you 1/6, or 16.66...% more likely to succeed. Thus, a +1 in original D&D is more akin to a +2 when you're using 1d20.  

Gygax quickly changed the modifiers, doing so in Greyhawk, the first major revision to OD&D. My guess is that he did so upon realizing that since D&D was far outselling Chainmail, most players were using the 1d20-based "alternative combat system" rather than the originally intended system. The upshot is - if you're contemplating making a system with an OD&D-style flat modifier, but are using a d20-based system, I'd suggest making the modifier be -2/+2, instead of -1/+1. That will keep things closer to the original intended effect of the modifiers. 

...I'm not talking 'double all steps, so you go +2, +4, etc". I'm talking about three tiers, period: -2, 0, +2. Nobody would have a +8 from a stat, unless you're dealing with a girdle of giant strength or the like, in which case it's really a magic item bonus... 

...The really nice thing about not gradating it like that, is that it then doesn't cause a drive toward higher stats. On 3d6, the chance of a 13 or better is 26%. Thus, with six stats, the majority of characters (about 5 out of 6) will have at least one... 

Alexander Staniforth 

I think there'd be something to be said for a little more nuance. -2/-1/0/+1/+2. That way ridiculously high stats DO matter more, as do ridiculously low stats while at the same time it's still a relatively simple gradation.

Paul Goldstone 

Bigger bonuses skew balance, especially at higher "levels". Lower bonuses also allow other "magic item bonuses" to have relevance. A +1 magic sword is irrelevant if a 18 stat gives +8 to a roll. I think the issue here is on a (3-18) system fundamentally they have made top end and low end stats irrelevant, there seems to be no (game mechanic) difference between 13 and 18. Perhaps a "roleplay aspect", but game mechanic wise irrelevant.

Attack Role Complexity

Matt Miller

The more complex combat is, the more time it takes, the more it becomes the focus of the system.Would it be possible to have three distinct steps in an attack? Mayhem  coupled the two together (one step) so that the margin of hit resulted in more damage dice.

Rob Hicks 

In Mayhem, the roll to hit and the roll for damage were two separate things, but they were interconnected based on the "crit" range, the number by which it the die hit. It worked fairly well, but I was always eyeing it wondering if I couldn't streamline things somehow.

Matt Miller

D20 has two steps for damage: Roll to hit, and then and (independent) roll for damage. My object is to get the final damage number down as low as possible.

What about...a roll to hit, a damage roll, and an armor roll? Roll 1d20 (vs AC), then roll damage (vs. Armor). Rolling damage vs armor is very different from Armor subtracting from damage. Subtracting armor from damage generates 'false hits', where your attacks succeeds...but does not damage.

Players dislike those. But players like critical hits. So the trick is to make the damage roll translate into a count of criticals, with values of 1, 2, or 3. (Call them 'wounds') And that...I am not sure how to do. Not in a balanced, mathematically simple way. DMG minus armr causes 'false hits', while damage/armor is mathematically complex. Presume our damage dice will be regular polygons (d4-d12) with some use of multiple dice.

 A ranked table might work, where >0, >10 and >20 determine if its 1, 2, or 3 wounds. But the 'margin' number would vary by armor, not weapon..

Tom Vogt 

There are many dice mechanics that accomplish exactly this. Cortex Plus has a system where you roll 3d6, take the highest two for the success (hit) and the low one for damage. Or Godlike with its height+width, it evolved into the aptly named One-Roll-Engine. As soon as you look outside the boring mainstream games, you find a lot of very interesting and innovative game mechanics. I'm working on another system right now that will also have one roll to resolve both hit and damage. It's by no means a first

Travis Casey 

Quite a few older games have a roll to hit, a hit location roll, and a damage roll. Some throw in other rolls as well. BRP, in the complex case, has roll to hit, roll for the opponent's parry or dodge, roll for damage, and roll for hit location.On the opposite end, you have systems like Torg, where there is no separate roll for damage - the margin of success of the attack roll is instead added to a weapon damage value to give the damage done. Thus, each attack requires only one roll.

Paul Goldstone 

Rolemaster accomplished a lot with one roll (plus possible crit) which works nice, though a lot of tables.... I suppose there is a need to consider how important or how much of a focus is combat for the game, as well as whether the skill system will follow the same rolling premise. Finally how long it takes to work out and complete every roll. Played a few games where a "quick combat" takes over an hour for a couple of rounds for 4 players and 6 opponents can be a bit much. Finally how deadly/realistic is the combat system intending to be which is another important factor.

Rob Hicks

When I was working on Blueshift, that one used a single attack roll to speed things up, but that was also because I wanted to do automatic gunfire, which meant multiple combat rolls simultaneously, and I didn't want to have to roll multiple damage damage dice separately for each attack, and didn't want to create a huge variability in possible results by counting up lots of damage dice. If course, the other option involved multiplication, so go figure.

Travis Casey 

My own homebrew uses multiplication for damage: the amount you hit by is multiplied by a damage factor for the weapon used, with the adjustment that a zero (just barely hit) is multiplied by 1/2. The numbers involved are usually small - less than 10, so they're in the range of the multiplication tables most people have memorized.

Jesper Anderson
 Roll to hit, roll hit location, roll damage, depending on armor at hit location roll glancing (to further reduce damage). That's essentially how Phoenix Command Hand To Hand does it.

Subitizing

Matt Miller

Today I happened across a concept for mental math that says people can grasp rather small numbers (<4) almost instantly, and was wondering if there was a way to apply that to gaming. (Subitizing) 

Last week, we played a FATE-based game with regular D6's, and the additional mental time to convert the different symbols to FATE outcomes was notable. FATE uses four dice, with a bell-curve of outcomes, but does it using 3 values, with 2 symbols (blanks as null, so a player just needs to 'subitize'). Rather than explicit counts, FATE dice make it possible to subitize pluses and minuses; a substantial portion of the time, there will be only 1 symbol to subitize as well.

Tom Vogt

I've done some extensive work on dice systems, including presenations. In general, comparison > addition > substraction > multiplication. FATE balances somewhere between as theoretically you need to do addition and substraction, but with the usual low numbers, it is basically instinctive, you don't actually "do the math", exactly due to the effect you describe.

Random Attributes and Twink

Paul Goldstone

In relation to the munch/twink, that is down to the system, and more and more are seemingly point based with skills and talents. It seems long gone are the random rolls, and that difficult question on whether that 3 goes in wisdom or charisma foe my fighter. Over the years RPGs have matured with the community, and more players want input and to tailor (read munch/twink) their characters to effectively get the most out of it in a game. Having run a fair few tourney games, there have been many times i have been questioned on the character because it would have been better to have spent the points there and there and been a "better character". There can be a tendency to miss the 'role-play' aspect and focus on rolls.