[freeroleplay] Re: The Ideal Mechanic
- From: Samuel Penn <sam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 20:33:20 +0000
On Saturday 22 November 2003 18:52, you wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-11-22 at 18:13, Samuel Penn wrote:
> > > * The common range must be easy to understand (i.e. 0-10, rather than
> > > 5-16, for example).
> >
> > Agree with your statement, but I'd say it's too open ended.
> > 1-50 is easy to understand, as is 1-100 or 1-infinity.
>
> I should probably add a further constraint that the ranges be
> constrained to a human-understandable range.
Again, 'human-understandable' covers a wide range. You could use
imaginary numbers, and that would still be human understandable.
I'm quibbling here over semantics I think. Maybe it's because I'm very
comfortable with numbers, but I can't think of a range of numbers
that match other criteria which don't match this one.
>
> > > * Only roll only one dice per action participant to determine the
> > > outcome.
> In other words, for opposed actions you should still roll twice, and for
> extended actions you should still roll multiple times, but that the
> individual 'unit' of each action should involve only one roll,
> preferably with only one dice.
One dice? Or one die? :-)
This does rule out hit location and critical hit tables, since these would
require more than one roll per 'action'. Is this intended?
> This is probably where FRINGE and YAGS diverge somewhat :)
>
> > * Random element should not dwarf range of possible ability.
>
> I'd interested to know why you choose this criteria.
My reasoning is pretty close to that given in the Critical Miss article
I posted a link to in the probability thread.
I like there to be a big difference between average people and very good
people. Olympic athletes should be able to comfortably achieve things
average people have no hope of doing. If the total ability range is 1-20,
and a d20 die is used, then there's only very narrow ranges where this
is possible, if at all.
If the ability range is 1-100, then skill becomes a lot more important
than random chance.
Sam.
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