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Old 07-25-2006, 09:43 AM   #21
whswhs
 
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

Quote:
Originally Posted by fredo1
If my memory serves me it wasnt possible to roll a critical success or failure in quick contest in 3rd edition. 4th edition rules dont say anything about this so I guess I have to assume that now its possible to roll a critical success or failure in quick contest. Is that right?
I've done some research on this and I think I have a canonical answer:

First, note that one application of Quick Contests is to resistance rolls. To succeed in affecting a target with a resisted attack, the attacker must BOTH succeed at his side of the resistance roll AND win the quick contest. These are stated as two separate criteria. But, following the old Roman legal maxim that "the exception establishes the rule in the cases not excepted," this must mean that it is NOT necessary to succeed at your side of the Quick Contest to win the Quick Contest in the normal version. And, in fact, the standard definition of a Quick Contest indicates that margin of success is all that matters.

Now, if it doesn't matter whether you succeed or fail, then it can't very well matter if you get a critical success or a critical failure. They're special cases of success and failure, and disregarding success or failure should imply disregarding the special cases, unless there is explicit text to say otherwise.

None of this applies to Regular Contests, of course.
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Old 07-25-2006, 09:44 AM   #22
Kromm
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

As the rules state, the winner of a Quick Contest is the contestant with the greatest margin of success or smallest margin of failure. The rules don't mention critical results because they're not relevant to the calculation of a margin.

Consider a Quick Contest where Character A has skill 14, rolls a 4, succeeds by 10, and scores a critical success, while Character B has skill 30, rolls a 10, succeeds by 20, but scores only a regular success. Character A loses to Character B, and in fact Character B gets a 10-point margin of victory. It might seem to "cheapen" Character A's critical success to say that Character B wins, but all Player A did was roll dice well. It would cheapen Character B's massive investment in her abilities even more to let Character A win with a critical succes. After all, Player B actually paid points -- she bought another 16 levels, which might be 64 points in a skill, 80 points in Will or Per, 160 points in ST or HT, 320 points in DX or IQ, or some combination thereof. To put it in perspective, Player A could "buy" a critical success for at most 5 points (see the box on p. B347)!

Some rules do specifically note what critical success and failure do in a Quick Contest if you win or if you lose. However, actual victory and defeat depend on the margins. This is for the sake of fairness. Points, not lucky die rolls, are the gold standard in GURPS. If we're going to start letting lucky dice trump points, then we might as well have people roll up attributes instead of pay points for them . . .
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Old 07-25-2006, 10:58 AM   #23
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

Thanks to everybody that participated in clearing this issue up.
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Old 07-25-2006, 11:08 AM   #24
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

I agree with Kromm on this. It's unfaire to let lucky dice roll win against points. But it's also unfair if the only way to win a quick contest would be to roll a Critical Success. After all no matter how experienced the opponent is, anybody can get a lucky shot. I've never encoutered the problem with campaign 'cause it's more realistic and the character are between 100 and 110. But my suggestion is, critical sucess would count only if mathematically it is the only way you could win. For example, a skill level of 10 against a 30. The chance of winning is trivial, almost impossible but it's there.

Note that I would allow only natural roll of 3 or 4. Easier critical success due to high skill level wouldn't count. Let's say for contest between skill level of 15 against 30.
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Old 07-26-2006, 04:27 PM   #25
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

Sorry but I have to disagree with Kromm. (Sorry, because I know you're considered to be the expert here.)

First of all, in a quick contest where one of the contestants has a very high skill, then the highest skill is reduced to 14. The other contestant would have his skill lowered with the same amount. Thus to see who draws his gun faster, for example, the shooter with skill 30 will see his skill reduced by 16. The other contestant with skill 10 would see his skill dropped with the same amount so the contest is between skill 14 and skill -6. Thus, no contest. The fastest shooter wins.

But lets say two guys try to grab a gun that's lying on the floor. Guy A has a DX of 18 and guy B a DX of 9. Thus this would become a contest between modified DX 14 versus modified DX 5. Still leaves B with a very small chance to win this contest, right? In most cases A would win. And basically, whenever A would roll 11 or lower, he'd actually win automatically, unless his opponent turns out to be a bit lucky. And his component is lucky when he rolls a critical succes!
Of course, if B would end up with a DX of 2 or less, it's again no contest.

Since contest rolls are always limited to a maximum of 14, this means that a roll of 3 or 4 could still be considered a critical success and a roll of 17 or 18 a critical failure. It's the additional good luck/bad luck factor that makes GURPS such an interesting game.

Still, both p[layers would roll at the same time and they could both end up being lucky. If in the example above guy B rolls a 3 and guy B rolls a 4 then they bboth are very succesful. In that case, only the difference would count, thus A would win.
If A would roll a 8 making his roll with 6 then normally B would be without a chance. But not if he rolls a 3 or 4 because then it's a critical. Basically, it's the biggest chance a low-skilled contestant might win from a highly-skilled contestant.

Then again, this also means that the skill difference between both contestants must be 11 or less, otherwise the weakest one would have no chance. (His skill would be 2 or less after the modification.)

Now, what would be the effect of a critical success? Not much, except you win the contest unless your opponent also wins the contest.
What would be the effect of a critical failure? Well, that means you automatically lose the contest unless your opponent also rolls a critical failure. But if both roll a critical then all you have to look at is the difference.

Ignoring the critical failures either would not be fair anyways. Say that A rolls an 18 and thus loses with 4. If B then rolls an 11 then A would still win since B missed his roll with 6. Again, in these cases the luck factor would be completely ignored again.

To keep it simple, the rules are very clear about when something is a critical. Basically, ALL rolls can end up as a critical roll. A 3 or 4 is always a critical and so is a 17 or 18 if you have a contest. Remember, many contest do depend on a small amount of luck too.
The rules don't mention the effects of criticals in contest simply because the rules say they will ALWAYS apply.
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Old 07-26-2006, 05:43 PM   #26
Andrew Hackard
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

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Originally Posted by Dionysos
Sorry but I have to disagree with Kromm. (Sorry, because I know you're considered to be the expert here.)
I guess, if by "expert" you mean "guy who designed the current edition of the game and is paid money by SJG to oversee its development."
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Old 07-26-2006, 06:46 PM   #27
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard
I guess, if by "expert" you mean "guy who designed the current edition of the game and is paid money by SJG to oversee its development."
Damn you Andrew! Always one step ahead of me!
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Old 07-27-2006, 06:15 AM   #28
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

Quote:
Originally Posted by fredo1
If my memory serves me it wasnt possible to roll a critical success or failure in quick contest in 3rd edition. 4th edition rules dont say anything about this so I guess I have to assume that now its possible to roll a critical success or failure in quick contest. Is that right?
Actually if you carefully went through Basic Set and compendiums it was possible to to roll a critical success or failure in quick contest in 3e and B348 in 4e support this. However I always keep 3e's rule of 16 in mind when doing quick contests.

Ignoring the rule of 16 skill 20 vs 15 becomes effectively 16 vs 11 (17 and 18 are automatic failures anyhow) but with the rule of 16 it becomes a 16 vs 15 battle an a crit by the attacking side mean the defending side gets no defence roll and that is basicly it. Never did come up with what a crit on the defending side did though.
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Old 07-27-2006, 07:26 AM   #29
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

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Originally Posted by whswhs
But, following the old Roman legal maxim that "the exception establishes the rule in the cases not excepted,"
Off-topic but is this the originof the phrase "the exception that proves the rule"? As in the existence of the exception proves that the rule exists elsewhere?
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Old 07-27-2006, 07:50 AM   #30
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Default Re: Criticals in quick contests?

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Originally Posted by zogo
Off-topic but is this the originof the phrase "the exception that proves the rule"? As in the existence of the exception proves that the rule exists elsewhere?
It appears to be, but I haven't got a certain linguistic trail to point to.

The Latin is exceptio probat regulam de rebus non exceptis, and I can certainly believe that "probat" would have been translated as "prove" at some point in the history of English. This appears to show that not only the common ignorant use of that saying, for "I've found an exception, so that shows that the generalization is true" (that way lies the death of all systematic reasoning), but the common learned correction, as "the exception tests the validity of the rule," is a later folk interpretation of a saying that originally meant something different.
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