Contests, Opposed Rolls, and Tasks -- Feedback, Please?

[zot]

Contests allow for a “third realm” of mastery for characters, besides just combat and magic, that isn’t based on attributes. They produce more detailed gaming than the rules currently allow for but mix role playing in with the rolls. These rules make it a lot more interesting and fun to play grifters, gallant rogues, shrewd merchants, and other non-combat (or combat-light) archetypes you can find in fantasy (and other) literature. In particular, this provides a basis for social contests where attributes don’t directly come into play (an IQ 18 wizard with no social talents doesn’t necessarily make a good impression on a king).

I've rewritten my "non-attribute rolls" document to make it (hopefully) very easy to understand.

I'd super appreciate it if you guys took a look at it and gave me feedback.

Pretty please???

[Chris Rice]

Interesting. I think we always did this sort of thing naturally anyway, without needing specific rules for it.

In your first example (stage performance), it's a mixture of DEX and INT tasks, so Bard, Acrobat, Charisma would come into that, if anyone has these talents. Failing that, I'd make characters roll DEX for the tumbling and INT for the singing etc.

In your second example (haggling with Merchant), that's a pure INT task and there are rules for that already under the Business Sense Talent. If neither has the Talent (which would seem unlikely), roll INT with modifiers if you think the other Talents are relevant in the situation.

[KevinJ]

There are a lot of RP situations where a simple opposed stat roll will suffice, but it has been 40 odd years since TFT was written and RP has come a long way.

This leads to a fork in the road. Do you write rules for everything not currently covered by the existing rules?

OR

Do you leave that up to the GMs?

[Chris Rice]

I should say, I do like the concept of "opposed rolls" but they're not currently in TFT to any great extent. I'd be in favour of its use being widened to include combat and magic, but I seem to be pretty much on my own as far as that's concerned.

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I'd be in favour of its use being widened to include combat and magic, but I seem to be pretty much on my own as far as that's concerned.

Do you mean in the form of offensive roll vs defensive roll?

[zot]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

Interesting. I think we always did this sort of thing naturally anyway, without needing specific rules for it.

In your first example (stage performance), it's a mixture of DEX and INT tasks, so Bard, Acrobat, Charisma would come into that, if anyone has these talents. Failing that, I'd make characters roll DEX for the tumbling and INT for the singing etc.

In your second example (haggling with Merchant), that's a pure INT task and there are rules for that already under the Business Sense Talent. If neither has the Talent (which would seem unlikely), roll INT with modifiers if you think the other Talents are relevant in the situation.

My objection to using IQ for that is that wizards with a single talent can beat the pants off of heroes with several. I don't think IQ should be used directly for haggling -- IQ isn't shrewdness.

[zot]

I forgot to clarify what kind of feedback I wanted (of course I appreciate other feedback as well).

People found the first two versions difficult to understand.

How does it read now? Is it understandable? Is it way more complicated than a regular TFT attribute roll?

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by KevinJ

Do you mean in the form of offensive roll vs defensive roll?

That would be one solution but would involve more dice rolling. The way I dealt with it was to compare the two Attributes to arrive at a required success score.

Situation 1. Fighter A, DEX10 v Fighter B, DEX10. The opponents are evenly matched so it's reasonable to make the assumption that each is equally likely to win. And that's what the rules allow; each has a 50% chance to hit. That's seems logical and fair.

Situation 2. Fighter A, DEX10 v Fighter C, DEX14. Fighter A still has a 50% chance to hit, but the more skilled Fighter C has a 90% chance to hit. That seems a bit less reasonable but perhaps acceptable.

Situation 3. Fighter C, DEX14 v Fighter D, DEX14. Each has a 90% chance to hit each other. This is where things have become silly. Are we to believe that the more skilled a warrior becomes the more inept his defence becomes?

It's obvious looking at these examples that in a contest Attributes should be compared in some way and not absolute.

What I did was create a table where equal attributes were at 50% success (10 on 3d6). A one point difference was +1 for attacker, a two point difference was -1 for defender, etc. So in Situation 2 above where there is a 4 point difference, Fighter A would be at 8 DEX (-2) and Fighter C would be at 12 DEX (+2).

I suppose there might be problems in larger combats with multiple engagements and I can't claim to have playtested it thoroughly but it seems to make logical sense.

Apologies for hijacking the thread!

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by zot

My objection to using IQ for that is that wizards with a single talent can beat the pants off of heroes with several. I don't think IQ should be used directly for haggling -- IQ isn't shrewdness.

I take your point, but why would a Wizard haggle when he has magic! 😊😊

[zot]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

That would be one solution but would involve more dice rolling. The way I dealt with it was to compare the two Attributes to arrive at a required success score.

Situation 1. Fighter A, DEX10 v Fighter B, DEX10. The opponents are evenly matched so it's reasonable to make the assumption that each is equally likely to win. And that's what the rules allow; each has a 50% chance to hit. That's seems logical and fair.

Situation 2. Fighter A, DEX10 v Fighter C, DEX14. Fighter A still has a 50% chance to hit, but the more skilled Fighter C has a 90% chance to hit. That seems a bit less reasonable but perhaps acceptable.

Situation 3. Fighter C, DEX14 v Fighter D, DEX14. Each has a 90% chance to hit each other. This is where things have become silly. Are we to believe that the more skilled a warrior becomes the more inept his defence becomes?

It's obvious looking at these examples that in a contest Attributes should be compared in some way and not absolute.

What I did was create a table where equal attributes were at 50% success (10 on 3d6). A one point difference was +1 for attacker, a two point difference was -1 for defender, etc. So in Situation 2 above where there is a 4 point difference, Fighter A would be at 8 DEX (-2) and Fighter C would be at 12 DEX (+2).

I suppose there might be problems in larger combats with multiple engagements and I can't claim to have playtested it thoroughly but it seems to make logical sense.

Apologies for hijacking the thread!

No problem.

You could just use my system for that, using the difference as the flat modifier for the character with the higher attribute. That would come out to the correct percentages automatically without requiring a table.

Situation 1: no modifiers and they have a good chance of blocking each other

Situation 2: 2nd character has a +4 modifier so the 1st character rolls 4 dice (one extra die) and adjusts their roll by +1, giving the 1st character a much better chance of winning the exchange

Situation 3: no modifiers and they have a good chance of blocking each other because they're close in DX. This departs from TFT's normal "DX 14 can almost always hit" situation