The Check Digit

[Orlin]

I ran my first In Nomine game the other night. Ironically enough, after working on all of these ways to tailor the cannon to my whim and tastes, I ended up following another whim and using everything straight out of the book -- even the French names. It was awesome.

One of the problems that my players had with the In Nomine system was the check digit, which I didn't seem to have any trouble understanding at all. My players and I are both very experienced (although one of them was stoned, which was why he probably couldn't get it or didn't like it) and we've all played in games that involve a "wild die" (West End Games, TORG, anyone?) I think what kept throwing off my players was the term "success margin."

I use success margins (and margins of failure) quite often. When I write my own custom rules, I sometimes implement these terms. I guess what troubled my players the most is that in the IN system, there are two kinds of "success margins." Trouble is, one of them holds no bearing over the game.

For instance, let's say I have a character who is an expert marksman. He has five ranks in Small Weapons: Pistols, and a Precision of 7, giving him a total score of 12...which is quite nearly inhuman. He goes to the range with his buddies, who decide to make a day out of it and have a "contest." Some firing ranges (and many law enforcement agencies) use point scoring systems, so this is far from impossible. The GM could just say "You win" to the marksman, but in the event that he didn't...

The marksman rolls, the first two dice come up: 3, 1,
the check digit comes up: 1.

The marksman has a "success margin" equal to his skill level - his roll. In most game systems, he would have succeeded by 8.

In Nomine is different, however, and in this system he succeeds, but his success is marginal. In spite of his incredible skill with the firearm, many of the officers could out-shoot him. This is the case with any skill, and I think my players found it troubling. I'm a little troubled by it. Does anyone have any suggestions that might reward players for possessing high skill levels (but below 13), or for making exceptionally low rolls against their skill checks?

Apart from a little confusion, the game was much loved.

[ladyarcana55]

I have the same issue with my players, this is the first time they are playing a non-D20 game. A couple of them never did table top RPG before so it's like weening them from the bottle. And another is a D20 junkie. But once they tried it and I explained it to them (three or four dozen times) they began to like it.

I got lucky in that they didn't bug about their skill and the dice. To them (and to me) it is more realistic. No matter how good you are at something, there is always a chance you may fall short doing it.

Now I have to figure out a way to ween them off the D&D mind set of "kill 'em all and take their stuff!"

[Dalillama]

The character in the example is a hair short of the threshold, but keep in mind that if the TN is over 12, any extra is added to the CD. So if your angel gets one more rank in Pistols, then any unpenalized shot will automatically have a CD of at least 2. Another benefit to high skill is that you still have a good chance of hitting even if there are penalties, for movement, bad visibility, distance, etc (IN leaves these mostly up to the GM). Sure, the other agents can match him at the range, but he's got the kind of skill where he could still hit shooting out of a moving car at someone in another moving car, without showing much more strain than at the range.

[JCD]

I hate to quibble, but if he wants to be an inhuman marksman, he should have put his points into Precision.

Edited to add: He can modify his roll. If he drops his skill by a point (or more with the GM's permission) he can add to his CD.

So in this case, he could have dropped his target number to 8, giving him good chance but adding 4 to his CD, making it a 5. Good shooting.

[thalcos]

Originally Posted by JCD

He can modify his roll. If he drops his skill by a point (or more with the GM's permission) he can add to his CD.

I've always let my players drop skill to add to the CD (usually up to Skill amount, but I don't even think I've been consistent there; but definitely more than the core book's 1-point allowance). I've found that it just encourages some more risk-taking and bigger, more epic results for players who have invested points in these areas.

[tHEhERETIC]

It took me a long time to wrap my brain around the Check Digit but now that I get it, I'm hooked. I hate minmaxxers, loathe them, and the CD sends them howling away. It introduces randomness to degree of success, reflecting what reality has shown me YMMV: even the most skilled have really bad, trip-over-your-own-feet days, and sometimes the blind idiot hits the target dead on, out of sheer luck. To most people this is unfair--to me it's cool and realistic.

I House Rule that the overage does not go into the CD and is in fact wasted during CvE challenges. It does apply to CvC challenges where I go off canon completely and have characters compare stats with each other.

In your marksman example, the guy just had a bad day. The beat officers would tease him and underestimate him, but next time on the range he just might blow all their scores away. If they make a habit of these little contests his buddies will note that even on a bad day he doesn't miss the target/score below a certain level. However he'd shine when he's pointing that gun at a character who's trying to escape him, and his skill and training would pay off when it counts.

[Archangel Beth]

Another thing that can be done is to adjust what success means for a highly skilled character.

E.g., Jainiah, the Angel of Rooftop Chases, has a target number of 12 for jumping between buildings. The GM can pretty well rule that if there's a building to be jumped, then she makes it automatically unless there's a four-lane highway in the middle or something. She can roll to see how graceful or fancy she gets, and to check for Interventions, but basically... She's just good. Maybe she'll skid on some gravel now and then, but she's not going to wind up clinging to the edge of her target building.

Meanwhile, Varial, the Demon of Couch Potatoes... Well, he's got a target number of 6 for that jumping stuff. Not only is he fairly lucky to even get to a fairly close adjacent building, but it takes a moderate-or-above success on the check digit to land on his feet; a success of 1 will have him clinging -- albeit safely enough -- to the building's edge, and scrabbling up each time.


(For the target shooter in question... With that very nice target number, he pretty much never misses. He may hit on the edge of his target, he may wing it a few times, but he always hits it. Lesser target numbers will sometimes miss, and ultimately... he'll be Sure Shot Sam.

Edit: Or, to unpack a little more -- if you really want to showcase the character's amazing skill, don't make the contest "one shot." Make the contest three to five shots, and roll for each. If it's a "one try," then even the best may have a non-bullseye, and even the worst could get lucky.)

[Captain Midnight]

The CD can be thought of as "OK, you hit, now roll for damage". It's like a 1e AD&D game where two characters with wildly different chances to hit still do 1d4 points of damage with a dagger. Unless you have "critical hit" rules, I can be a level-40 fighter and still do the same wimpy little 1 point of damage when I stab someone.

The "risk" rule is your friend (trading Target Number for CD), as is going through things many times. The more often you hit, the more your prowess will be recognized. It's also important to note that the skills system for IN doesn't yield great results for mundane humans -- it's a little too granular to reflect what we might consider reasonable gradations of skill, and human-level characteristics don't mesh well with 2d6 success.

To go back to your example, your guy is going to hit his target (barring any negative modifiers to the TN) every time, barring an opposing Intervention. A mundane human with level-2 Pistol skill and Precision of 4 (not bad at all for a human) hits on a 6 or less -- that's 41.7% of the time. If they go through 10 rounds of target shooting, your guy succeeds essentially 100% of the time (going 10 for 10), where the other guy only succeeds 4 out of 10 times. Put in a "-2" modifier, and then see what happens to the percentages.