From: sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan)
Subject: Re: net.rpg.slug: Action resolution
Organization: Plymouth State College - Plymouth, NH.
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 02:15:38 GMT

bshsiung@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Bernard Hsiung) writes:
>
>You know, we could go with 3d6, which with appropriate numbers looks an awful
>lot like the curve that you want.  Except that both Hero and GURPS use 3d6 and
>people might accuse us of being "quantized Hero/GURPS-with-impossible-to-
>remember-numbers".  

Right.  Let's not even consider 3d6, especially with my background.

>You just have to ensure that people understand that you don't want to use +/- 1
>(linear) roll modifiers, but modifiers by named levels instead, right?

I had been getting away from this, but I think I want to get back to it.
New proposal follows!

>Yeah.  I might recommend something even grainer--is there an intuitive
>difference between Average and Good as opposed to Average and Superior?
>Average and Excellent?  Superior and Excellent?
>Five steps (say, Terrible, Poor, Average, Good, and Excellent) are about what
>I'd feel most comfortable with on an intuitive level...

Hmmm - I like the seven-tiered system.  I honestly do feel there is a
step between Good and Master, between Poor and Terrible.  Inferior might
be simply Inept, BTW, while Superior might be called Great, but that
starts with the same letter as Good, so I didn't choose it.  We don't
have to have different letters, though, do we?  So they could be:

Terrible
Inept
Poor
Average
Good
Great
Best

or whatever.  But I really like seven over five.  Maybe we could let the
GM choose?

>The overall mechanism is fine by me.  Where is there to go from here?

Well, you said you might rewrite the Hurt/Very Hurt system so a GM has
guidelines . . . 

But here's my new proposal for action results, which does away with
quantifying the descriptive terms!  Hooray!  You don't have to remember
that Average is 4 or 6 or whatever the hell it was - only that Good is
better than Average, and Great is better than Good, and Best is better
than Great (I can remember those!).

Here it is . . .

Get two d6, of different colors.  Each player and GM announces which
color represents better than average, and which color represents worse
than average, and they remain that way for the rest of the session or
until the dice are removed from the game in disgust.

At any action, roll these two dice.  If the difference between them is
0 or 1, you did as well as your descriptive label.  That is, if you're
Good at something, and the difference between the two dice is 0 or 1,
you were Good at that action at that time.  The GM announces what level
is need to complete an action successfully, if there is no contest of
qualities.  For example, to jump a 10-foot ditch without a running
start might require a Good result, while doing it with a running broad
jump doesn't even need a roll - too easy.  Jumping a 7-foot gap without
a running start might require only an Average result.  So if you're
Poor at Jumping (or of Poor strength), and there's no room to run up to
it, you'll have to somehow get an Average result to get across that gap
- read on.

If the difference is more than 1, then whatever number is the *smaller*
of the two numbers is how many steps you did above or below your
descriptive label.  Example: let's say you have a pink die and a blue
die, and you said pink was good and blue was bad.  If you roll a pink 3
and blue 5, then the difference is obviously more than 1.  Therefore,
you did 3 levels *better* than Good (because you said pink was good) -
which actually puts you above the Best - well done!

Here's the math on it:

44% chance you'll do your usual level of quality.
28% chance you'll do better;
28% chance you'll do worse.  

(Worse than terrible can be ignored, of course, while better than Best
can be used comparitively in a contest of qualities.)

Breaking that down further:
11.1% chance you'll do one level better than you're used to.
11.1% chance you'll do one level worse than you're used to.
8.3% chance you'll do two levels better than you're used to.
8.3% chance you'll do two levels worse than you're used to.
5.6% chance you'll do three levels better than you're used to.
5.6% chance you'll do three levels worse than you're used to.
2.8% chance you'll do four levels better than you're used to.
2.8% chance you'll do four levels worse than you're used to.

Those last two can be called simply critical success and critical
failure, BTW.

Any comments on this?  Is this better or worse than the d12 business?
One advantage again is that you can buy d6s at any drug store.

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu