On Sat, 2003-11-22 at 02:15, James Jensen wrote: > On Fri, 2003-11-21 at 05:54, Ricardo Gladwell wrote: > Now, to preempt any nit-pickers, I'd like to be the first to say that > there is likely no "perfect" technique. I'm not saying this to nitpick. > I'm saying this to keep us our feet firmly on the ground. Thanks for clarifying this for me :) Actually, I believe the Ideal Mechanic I wrote is totally impossible to create, and I set out writing my 'objectives' with this in mind. Its nice to dream :) > Then again, Emerson did say there was a right way to do anything. > Nothing wrong with hoping. I agree, if I can get something close to this ideal I'll be happy. FRINGE comes close, but I'd like to cut it closer if at all possible. > a straight 1-10 scale on _everything_ is monotonous and simplistic. I agree that it is monotonous and simplistic, but I never set out with the idea of creating a new and gimmicky dice mechanic with FRINGE. Quite the reverse, I wanted to create something totally unoriginal that used only those RPG design approaches that worked with other systems. The 1-10 scale may be un-exciting but it's simple, it's intuitive and it does the bare minimum of getting in the way of actually running a game. > > * Only roll only one dice per action participant to determine the outcome. > > When you say "dice", do you mean "die" or "set of dice"? I think the > second might be more correct, since rolling 2d6 is so common from other > dice games (like Craps or Monopoly, for instance) that it would hardly > seem unnatural to anyone. But then again, you're probably looking for a > linear curve. Actually, I do mean dice although, more accurately, I should have said 'one roll' here. Ideally, I would like all tasks resolved using a single dice only. In the case of FRINGE a 1d10. Obviously, the randomiser can be any substitute for something that gives a 1-10 range, so a 2d6-2 would be perfectly satisfactory. > > * Set difficulty and roll-over mechanic should be used. > > Maybe I'm just having a memory lapse, but could you please elaborate on > "roll-over"? Do you mean "open-ended"? I agree with set difficulty > levels, though. makes things much simpler. Sorry, "roll-over" is a semantic from the RPG design community. There are two types of task resolution mechanic, roll-over and roll-under. Roll-over is where you have a target difficulty and you must roll over that figure. Roll-under is where you have to roll under you trait to succeed in an action. > > So, my perfect mechanic for FRINGE would be: > > > > All roll modifiers (Ability + Skill) should be in the 0-10 range. You > > then determine a difficulty 0-10 and roll a 1d10 over the difficulty to > > determine the outcome, giving result points in the 0-10 range. > > > > This may well be an impossible mechanic! > > Definitely better than the 1-5 range. Actually, this would still use the 1-5 range... you would still add a Ability + Skill together to create the "meta-trait" that affects the roll. Of course, having the 1-10 range for the traits themselves would also be a nice feature although even more impossible, mathematically. > Two things, though. First, what if result points go above 10? Capping > would probably be okay, but I question putting such limits on there just > for the sake of keeping it to 0-10. When I say, 0-10, I mean for the human-normal range. Super or non-human range would be, hypothetically, 11-20. > Second, this makes skill only as valuable as attributes! This brings us onto more philosophical grounds. I think the idea that learnt or acquired skill contributes as much as innate ability to the outcome of an action seems like a fair approximation of reality. Of course, skills are far more likely to increase than ability traits, so overall skills will probably count more than abilities anyway. > For this, you might think of making the skill level count as double on > the task roll, or restricting attributes to 0-5, or expanding skills to > 0-20. Its a good idea, but I'm reluctant. It would irreversibly break the intuitive ranges I've established in FRINGE. > Oh, and sorry about all the nit-picking... Not at all, thank-you for your comments and thoughts. -- Ricardo Gladwell President, Free Roleplaying Community http://www.freeroleplay.org/ president@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx