From: bshsiung@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Bernard Hsiung)
Subject: Re: net.rpg.slug: Action Resolution
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 22:10:46 GMT

sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
>Hmmm - I like the seven-tiered system.  I honestly do feel there is a step
>between Good and Master, between Poor and Terrible. [...]
>But I really like seven over five.  Maybe we could let the GM choose?

It suddenly occurs to me that my prior difficulty with the seven levels was
that the words you used weren't intuitively clear to me.  If you call the
levels Worst, Terrible, Poor, Average, Good, Great, and Best, I can cope.
(There's a problem with calling the top and bottom levels "Best" and "Worse"
which looks to be our next discussion.  More later.)  Does this mean that we
ought to recommend that every GM name them as he and his players want?  Well,
of course they should if they want, but ... ah--forget it.  We need some
standards if want to get anything done.  I'll live with seven.  Use whatever
names you want as long as you make it clear which is which.

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

Oh, yes.  I hadn't forgotten.  I think the problem with this ties in to a
problem with the stats:  what does it all "mean"?  After all, "Best" for a
person might not be "Best" for Sauron, eh?  Or is it?  On the other hand, is
"Worst" for Sauron the same as "Worst" for a person?  And how bad is "Worst"
anyways?  If Frodo gets the "Worst" result on his attempt to toss the Ring into
Mount Doom, does that mean he fell in instead?  Or that he dropped the ring?
Or that he accidentally put it on?  Or that Sauron saw him?  Would it be worse
if he threw it 40 feet away from him?  Or if he swallowed it?  *grin*

I'll try to get the "Hurt"/"Very Hurt" guidelines written, but again, I warn
that they're not going to appear anytime soon.  Can you give me an idea of how
I'm not getting across what I was trying to say in my previous attempts?

[very nice skill mechanic mostly removed for brevity--if you haven't seen it,
 go take a look at Steffan's message!  It's worth it.  Comments follow...]

I support Steffan's mechanic and recommend its inclusion in Slug as the
quality/conflict resolution method.

>...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.

Okay.  In other words, you want "Good" to represent a concrete result level,
right?  I think the trick here is that you have to recognize that simply by
saying that the result was "Good", you mean that it was "Good" _relative_ to a
certain Average value that you have in mind.  The system that you have set up
will result in a character usually managing to use his or her skill at the
level which it was defined for that character.  If you have a "Good" fencing or
TV repair skill, you will usually achieve a "Good" result in fencing or TV
repair (respectively).  So the real question is:  what is Average?  You don't
mean Average for the average Human being, or else average use of almost any
skill would be really awful.  You probably mean average for an average user of
the skill.  Thus, I recommend that we change the name of the "middle" skill
result from Average to Competent, meaning that if you get a Competent result,
you have managed to use the skill in an averagely effective way.  (All that
arguing for a simple change of words, you ask?  Yeah, I'm afraid so.  But it's
the reasoning behind the change I want to explain, not so much the change
itself.  If someone sees this as only so much hot air, I apologize.  Does this
make sense to anybody else or am I lost somewhere beyond the event horizon?)

The biggest problem with treating qualities in this way is that, while it works
well for human beings (who have abilities that we all have a general feel for),
it tends to fall apart if we want to do things with creatures that have mostly
superhuman or subhuman abilities since we start pushing the result envelope.

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

If you can get better than "Best" (or "Super"), you might want to consider
being able to do worse than "Worst"/"Terrible" just for symmetry...
Alternatively, we might consider using a fixed scale, where better than Best
doesn't happen, and Best is the best (whatever the heck that is supposed to
mean).  Then, if two people both get "Best", they tie.

>I'm thinking of making a scale to go beyond the max on a temporary basis.
>That is, you can, on occasion, do so well at something that you've reached a
>level that no human can maintain as a regular skill.

This is also a reasonable alternative, I think.

(Paul Clegg raises the following point:)
>>It's also very limited, because the results are limited to the seven results
>>that the stats/skills are defined as.

I don't think it's all that limiting because the results are not terribly well
defined.  Sort of like the opposite end of the scale from the Rolemaster
critical hit tables, which explain in (literally) bloody detail what happened.

>I like the concept of relating things to words.

I like it too, but you have to be a little careful about what the words say,
what the mechanics say, and what you want to say...

Bernie Hsiung (bshsiung@eecs.umich.edu)
"In the end, everything degenerates to specifics."
Newsgroups: rec.games.design