01-16-2011, 09:32 PM | #11 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
One of the big questions I ask if, if criticals/fumbles are possible, what's the smallest chance of one happening? In 1d20, it's 5%. In 2d6, it's 2.8%. With FUDGE dice, it's 1.2%. In 1d100, it's 1% (by definition!). In 3d6, it's 0.5%.
I feel that 5% is just way too high. Even 2.8% bothers me. The other three all seem like decent odds; frequent enough to happen every game or two, but not so commonplace that the game seems unrealistic, or that you have to make the effects fairly unimpressive. Bill Stoddard |
01-16-2011, 10:03 PM | #12 |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Indianapolis, IN
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
One of the things I have seen done with BRP derived games is to make fumbles a moving target. As the skill level rose the chance for a fumble decreased. Likewise the chances of specials and criticals went up.
Don't like 5% for a fumble? Cut it in half by needing to roll 1-3 on a D6 or what ever combination brings it down to what you are comfortable with. Too much die rolling just to find out if something is a complete FUBAR? Throw both dice at the same time, every time. I have seen wargamers do this to reduce turn length lag to the minimum.
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Joseph Paul |
01-16-2011, 10:10 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
In my homebrew system, Heltesagaerne, I use D20 open-ended (on a roll of 20, you roll again and add 10, take the highest of the two results; similar for rolling a 1), which seems to work fine. Critical results are represented by how far above or below the target number you roll.
Hans |
01-16-2011, 11:49 PM | #14 |
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Albuquerque, NM
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
I think that for actual resolution it doesn't matter whether you're using 3d6 or d100 or whatever. Like others have said, 74% is 74%. But the big difference (I've found) is in the mods.
In linear systems, a small mod is a small mod, +5% is the same whether your skill is 10% or 90%. I find this discourages people from scraping for positive mods and trying to eliminate negative mods, because it's unlikely to affect their skill that much. In bell curve systems, it depends. If your skill is enormous you can just flat out ignore negative mods. If your skill is not that great you scrape to get every last mod because that can make a very large difference in your chances of success. Plus, I've personally found that GMs in linear systems very rarely award positive mods and due to the usual skill cap of 100% (or at least it's usually pretty hard to get a skill over 100%) even small mods substantially lower your chances of succeeding for complete bad-asses, and the whiff factor tends to be high even for professionals. |
01-17-2011, 03:35 AM | #15 | |||
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: near Houston
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
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A generous and sadistic GM, Brandon Cope GURPS 3e stuff: http://copeab.tripod.com |
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01-17-2011, 03:39 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: near Houston
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
BRP has the Resistance Table for attribute vs attribute contests. I'd have to pull out CoC or Stormbringer for how (if at all) it handles skill vs skill contests,
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A generous and sadistic GM, Brandon Cope GURPS 3e stuff: http://copeab.tripod.com |
01-17-2011, 04:27 AM | #17 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Upper Peninsula of Michigan
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
The reason I prefer bell-curve dice is consistency.
A stronger tendency to cluster near the middle of the distribution means I know what I'm likely to roll, in a given situation, with given mods. I can roleplay my character as knowing how tough or easy a task is likely to be, and as unlikely to risk much on wild chances. That's obviously a personality thing; some people like flamboyant chances, lots of crits, and wild margins of success and failure. Me, I buy a skill, I want it to work. |
01-17-2011, 06:17 AM | #18 |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Indianapolis, IN
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
Unless nearly every skill roll relies on a measure of the Margin of Success your skill is working exactly the same when you roll less than the target number. With skill 12 a 12 is just as good as a 6 (and a 5 if I remember the GURPS crit rule) so what really matters is the percentage chance to roll that number.
That clustering doesn't mean that your dice won't roll 13+ ~26% of the time. To me that clustering effect has no effect for the vast number of "roll skill x" applications where simple succes or failure is being tested for. Now for MoS it does have a huge impact. With skill 12 I have a 50% shot at generating a 2+ MoS. At skill 8 I have less than a 10% chance of doing so. So some of the usefullness hinges on how skill competency is defined.
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Joseph Paul |
01-17-2011, 06:46 AM | #19 |
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: near Houston
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
I think many game designers have characters start with low (sometimes incompetently low) chances at skill success because they want to create a "challenge" or don't want to make things "too easy". Combine this with linear mechanics being the easiest to use (and visualize) in a system and it may explain some of the dislike of linear systems.
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A generous and sadistic GM, Brandon Cope GURPS 3e stuff: http://copeab.tripod.com Last edited by copeab; 01-17-2011 at 07:20 AM. |
01-17-2011, 08:29 AM | #20 |
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Indianapolis, IN
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Re: Linear vs curved dice mechanics
That has a familiar ring to it. CoC long ago...
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Joseph Paul |
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