4dF

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by martinl

Similar ro Mr. Stoddard, I find regular Fudge rolls to chaotic.

When I Fudge (I have never used Fate) I call for "regular" and "wild" rolls.

"Regular" rolls are 4d6, every rolled 1 is a -1, every rolled 6 is a +1. "Wild" rolls are 1-2 and 5-6 respectively. (If using fudge dice, color one + and one -.)

Most rolls are "regular." Wild rolls only happen when things are chaotic and unpredictable, like many tense RPG situations. This preserves predictability in regular life while keeping dangerous and tense situations dangerous and tense.

This is similar to the GURPS rule that you don't roll for every pilot to land every plane, cuz the crits happen too often.

Edit - here are the odds:
-4, 0.077
-3, 1.23
-2, 7.71
-1, 23.4
0, 35.0
1, 23.4
2, 7.71
3, 1.23
4, 0.077

Personally, I handle that by using something akin to the d20 take 10 and take 20 rules: in regular no pressure situations, you can just skip the roll and operate at your ability level; and in situations where you're free to keep trying over and over until you get it right, with no penalty for getting it wrong, you can choose to spend extra time to get a better results: double the time for a one-step improvement, multiply by 5 for a two-step improvement, multiply by 15 for a three-step improvement (e.g., quarter-hours instead of minutes), and multiply by 80 (give or take; minutes to hours is only ×60; but that's close enough for me) for four steps up the ladder. And when time doesn't matter either, I just give them the four steps up.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

And, like Fudge, you don't need numbers to work within this range.

I.

Why do you think this is good? Numbers are simpler than words and less ambiguous as well.

I probably still wouldn't like it but knowing you need a +2 is clearer than beign told you need a semi-good roll (or whatever the nomenclature is).

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Why do you think this is good? Numbers are simpler than words and less ambiguous as well.

I probably still wouldn't like it but knowing you need a +2 is clearer than beign told you need a semi-good roll (or whatever the nomenclature is).

Hear! Hear!

And furthermore, numbers are already well-ordered and have arithmetic operations define over them. When my die-roll is +2 and I have to add it to "good" I have to check not only whether "excellent" is better than "outstanding", but also how many near-synonyms there are between "good" and "splendid".

[martinl]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Personally, I handle that by using something akin to the d20 take 10 and take 20 rules...

I used to do (something similar to) that too, but the folks I play with like to roll.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Personally, I handle that by using something akin to the d20 take 10 and take 20 rules...

As an aside, I was ecstatic when I read the Take 10 rule the first time, because I tended to have fairly atrocious dice luck, and that meant if I built a character who could reliable perform some task, he could reliably perform that task, rather than comedically failing more often than not.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Why do you think this is good? Numbers are simpler than words and less ambiguous as well.

I probably still wouldn't like it but knowing you need a +2 is clearer than beign told you need a semi-good roll (or whatever the nomenclature is).

I believe the idea behind using words is that it gives the GM a decent idea of what the difficulty level is (and the player, a decent idea of what their character's capabilities are). It sounds like FUDGE has a decent spread - Terrible, Poor, Mediocre, Fair, Good, Great, and Superb are fairly clear. Technically, I believe Mediocre and Fair are synonyms of each other, as are Great and Superb, but in general use one tends to use Mediocre as "average, in a bad way" while one tends to use Fair as "average, in a good way," and it's very common for Superb to be considered superior to Great (the former isn't used nearly as much, so when it is used it's generally because merely "great" isn't sufficient). But when you add in more levels, things get problematic, because you'll invariably have levels where it isn't clear which direction they should be in.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I believe the idea behind using words is that it gives the GM a decent idea of what the difficulty level is (and the player, a decent idea of what their character's capabilities are). It sounds like FUDGE has a decent spread - Terrible, Poor, Mediocre, Fair, Good, Great, and Superb are fairly clear. Technically, I believe Mediocre and Fair are synonyms of each other, as are Great and Superb, but in general use one tends to use Mediocre as "average, in a bad way" while one tends to use Fair as "average, in a good way," and it's very common for Superb to be considered superior to Great (the former isn't used nearly as much, so when it is used it's generally because merely "great" isn't sufficient). But when you add in more levels, things get problematic, because you'll invariably have levels where it isn't clear which direction they should be in.

That's exactly my feeling. There's an old saying in cognitive psychology, "the magical number seven, plus or minus two," for the number of entities or options the human brain can grasp intuitively. Having more than seven adjectives starts to be problematic (and for ability levels, at least, FUDGE also has Legendary and Nonexistent, which takes it to nine anyway).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That's exactly my feeling. There's an old saying in cognitive psychology, "the magical number seven, plus or minus two," for the number of entities or options the human brain can grasp intuitively. Having more than seven adjectives starts to be problematic (and for ability levels, at least, FUDGE also has Legendary and Nonexistent, which takes it to nine anyway).

I've heard this is part of why (local) phone numbers are 7 numbers long, but that may have just been a happy coincidence.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I believe the idea behind using words is that it gives the GM a decent idea of what the difficulty level is (and the player, a decent idea of what their character's capabilities are).

I think that’s right, but for me the effort is neither necessary nor successful. I think there is a degree of misguided coddling of people who are averse from “mathematics” involved in the use of word scales, and that when operations equivalent to addition and subtraction are applied to them they become actually harder to use than numerical scales.

Technically, I believe Mediocre and Fair are synonyms of each other, as are Great and Superb,

I don’t think so. “Mediocre” literally means “middling, not unusual in any way”, “fair” means “good-looking, beautiful” with another sense “just, equitable” and another “pale-complexioned” besides a bunch of specialist senses in navigation, meteorology, ball games and so on. A sense “good but not excellent” is recent. “Great” means “big”, and “superb” means “best, of best quality, first-rate” and also “stately, magnificent”.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

In particular:

+4 on 4dF is comparable to rolling a 4 or less in GURPS.
+3 or better on 4dF is comparable to rolling a 5 or less in GURPS.
+2 or better on 4dF is comparable to rolling a 7 or less in GURPS.
+1 or better on 4dF is comparable to rolling a 9 or less in GURPS.
0 or better on 4dF is comparable to rolling an 11 or less in GURPS.
–1 or better on 4dF is comparable to rolling a 13 or less in GURPS.
–2 or better on 4dF is comparable to rolling a 15 or less in GURPS.
–3 or better on 4dF is comparable to rolling a 16 or less in GURPS.
–4 or better on 4dF is comparable to rolling an 18 or less in GURPS.

They're remarkably similar.

Except for 4dF having nothing similar to a roll of 6 or less, 8 or less, 10 or less, 12 or less, or 14 or less.


4dF is remarkably similar to something with half the resolution of 3d6.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I think that’s right, but for me the effort is neither necessary nor successful. I think there is a degree of misguided coddling of people who are averse from “mathematics” involved in the use of word scales, and that when operations equivalent to addition and subtraction are applied to them they become actually harder to use than numerical scales.

My preference is to use both descriptors and numbers when possible, but if I had to choose one over the other, numbers would absolutely win by a landslide.

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I don’t think so. “Mediocre” literally means “middling, not unusual in any way”, “fair” means “good-looking, beautiful” with another sense “just, equitable” and another “pale-complexioned” besides a bunch of specialist senses in navigation, meteorology, ball games and so on. A sense “good but not excellent” is recent. “Great” means “big”, and “superb” means “best, of best quality, first-rate” and also “stately, magnificent”.

Ah, fair (heh) enough. Although I will note that the "good but not excellent" definition for Fair being recent in no way invalidates it.