[Skarg]

Originally Posted by zot

Thanks. Using dice during role playing is certainly optional. Usually I wing it until it seems like a character is trying to accomplish something but they're not getting anywhere. At that point I usually ask the player what their goal is and take it to the dice.

I'm a huge fan of role playing but sometimes a player's character has way more social grace or knowledge in a certain area than the player does and they end up having a hard time actually playing their character.

Yep. I know just what you mean. It's also good for solo play, when you don't have anyone to roleplay the interaction with (well, you can, but it's an acquired taste & skill and can sometimes feel like you're just saying what happens rather than finding out what happens, and/or you'd rather use mechanics).

Originally Posted by zot

Unfortunately, people sometimes find my explanations too terse. Actually more than just "sometimes." I'll try to fix my text so it explains it better.

Ya, I "sometimes" have that issue too. When I understand something complex, I can understand (and write) things written about that subject, but I start to lose the ability to know how unclear it might be to someone who doesn't yet know about it.

Originally Posted by zot

Basically, you're trying to roll lower than the other guy, but your mods can help you (and the other guy's mods can help him). I'm trying to make it work almost exactly like attribute rolls except that your rolling against the other guy's roll (a variable number) instead of an attribute (a fixed number).

Yep, poof, now I get what you mean. I thought it was something like that after my first look at the rules, but I wasn't quite sure what. Now I think I know just what you mean.

I think when you write "Instead of rolling against one of your attributes, you each roll against the other side’s result." it should mention you mean it's rolling equal to or less than the opponent's roll.

The sentence "Your modifiers adjust the other side’s result (for you) as if it were your attribute value." only makes sense to me now that I know what you mean - I'd probably drop it from the second sentence, and save that info for later.

In the example:

For example, suppose you have a +2 modifier and the other side has a +1 modifier, you roll 12, and the other side rolls 10. 11 becomes your target number, you add your modifier and it goes to 12, meaning you succeeded but only barely. Your 12 becomes the other side’s target number, they add their modifier and it goes to 13, meaning they succeed by 3, so the other side wins.

I don't get the part "11 becomes your target number" - that looks to me like it should read "10 becomes your target number" - no?

I think for situations whose nature would often lead to stalemates or unclear outcomes, I'd tend to drop the part about "If you achieve the same degree of success as your opponent, compare the amounts you succeeded or failed by and the one with the better amount result wins the roll. If the amounts are the same, you both tie." So declare a tie rather than count the difference in the rolls. Or maybe just mention that this is the least clear level of success, so for things that may not have a clear winner, this is the least distinct level of success.