From: dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Re: GURPS Luck
Date: 17 Dec 92 18:46:11 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: A.R.M. Ltd, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs, UK

In article <11DEC92.17953126.0065@VM1.MCGILL.CA> CX6L@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA
(CX6L) writes:

>In article <10836@armltd.uucp> dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Dec8.175310.2023@oz.plymouth.edu> sos@oz.plymouth.edu
>>(Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
>
>>>Er, Bruce, that's how it works.  You can call it after you make a
>>>roll.  Not much point to it otherwise.
>
>>Hmm... if this is how it is intended to work, it's something that ought to
>>be spelt out in the rules. Everybody I know, including myself, has read it
>>the other way - i.e. that you have to declare *before* the roll that you are
>>going to be lucky and take three rolls.
>
>Re: "after the fact" Luck . . . .
>Well, aside from Steffan, you know at least one other GURPS GM
>who reads the rule that way: I do. ...

By "Everybody I know", I meant people I have actually played with and/or
discussed the GURPS rules with extensively - i.e. not just a few Usenet
conversations about specific details, but talks that have covered 90%+ of
all the rules that are significant in a particular campaign. I'd have
thought that it was clear that if I've never discussed Luck with someone,
they don't count for this context!

But the main point of my posting was to ask: how was the Luck advantage
*intended* to work by the folks as SJG? Both the "before the fact" and the
"after the fact" interpretations make some sense to me, though I would feel
that the advantage is rather overpriced if it's before the fact and rather
underpriced if it's after the fact...

It was also to express some shock: I've been happily playing GURPS for
several years now and it had never even occurred to me or any of my
fellow-players that it was anything other than "before the fact". Suddenly,
Steffan says that it is intended to be used "after the fact". He ought to
know, but the GURPS manuals are generally so good at making the rules
completely clear that I was amazed we'd all misinterpreted them!

>     This way, players will use the Luck to just barely escape a
>bad thing, as opposed to using it to assure success at a difficult
>feat. (S)he will appear lucky: not skilful! His/her friends have
>every right to rib: "Boy you were lucky! You almost screwed up
>royally, there!"

I like the idea of "after the fact" luck for exactly this reason: I'm just
surprised that the rules are so easily misinterpreted if "after the fact"
luck is what is intended. I suspect I'm going to have some trouble
introducing it to our group, though: basically, the ability to avoid almost
all critical failures is a lot bigger than just avoiding them at important
moments. Since we've had people play characters with "before the fact" luck,
there's bound to be a perception that "after the fact" luck is *severely*
underpriced :-(.

>... As well, as a GM, I
>usually require multiple rolls for lenghty tasks: crossing a wide
>chasm will require a half-dozen Acrobatics rolls; climbing a tall
>tower will require four or five Climbing rolls, etc. So how would
>"before the fact" Luck be of use here? Which roll do you choose?

Obviously, it wouldn't be of much use, unless you had some special ruling
such as being aloowed to apply it to the whole sequence of rolls: you get
two extra rolls and throw away the worst two.

On the other hand, I've found it usually saves time to ask for one roll with
a suitably large penalty. Also, having multiple rolls, such that failing any
one of them means a failure at the whole task, produces coarser-grain skill
resolution. E.g.:

  Effective    Chance of success    Chance of success    Chance of success
   skill        with one roll        with two rolls       with three rolls
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     4-           0.0185               0.0003               0.0000
     5            0.0463               0.0021               0.0001
     6            0.0926               0.0086               0.0008
     7            0.1620               0.0263               0.0043
     8            0.2593               0.0672               0.0174
     9            0.3750               0.1406               0.0527
    10            0.5000               0.2500               0.1250
    11            0.6250               0.3906               0.2441
    12            0.7407               0.5487               0.4064
    13            0.8380               0.7022               0.5884
    14            0.9074               0.8234               0.7471
    15            0.9537               0.9096               0.8674
    16+           0.9815               0.9633               0.9455

  Maximum diff.:  0.1250 (9-10,10-11)  0.1581 (11-12)       0.1820 (12-13)
  5-95% range     5-15                 8-16                 9-16

I.e. as the number of rolls goes up, the largest amount gained for a single
step in a skill goes up and the "interesting" range of skill values (i.e.
not almost certain to fail or succeed) decreases in size.

Obviously, it's a matter of taste whether this is a bad point, but
personally, one of my few reservations about GURPS is the fact that the
middle of the effective skill range is already rather coarse-grained: I
prefer not to make it more so.

>If you fail none of the rolls, wasn't Luck wasted?

Yes. The same applies even if there's just one roll. This is why I feel
"before the fact" luck is somewhat overpriced.

>     An additional strike against "before the fact" Luck is that
>as a GM, and I know there are others who will agree with me, I
>will allow *any* character, Luck or no, to get a moderate (+1 to
>+2, maybe even +3) modifier to a roll for a dangerous task if a
>concise description of how it is to be done is given to me, and
>the character takes extra time and exceptional precautions to
>avoid failure. This would give *all* characters a way to "before
>the fact" increase the likelihood of success, and Luck would be
>severely undercut as a useful advantage.

So would I. (For many types of task, I would also allow such extra
precautions, etc., to change a 17 into an ordinary failure, even if
effective skill had not been increased to 16.) However, I should point out
that the Lucky character can in fact do *both*.

David Seal
dseal@armltd.co.uk

All opinions are mine only...
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc