tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3092603842974378319.post7265770359290575214..comments2024-01-24T11:36:17.328-08:00Comments on Explore: Beneath & Beyond: Roll to see if you can climb the ladder?Joe Nuttallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02395295081337987607noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3092603842974378319.post-67329786848535905342015-11-07T06:40:53.353-08:002015-11-07T06:40:53.353-08:00Well, at least it wasn't obvious. :)
The lon...Well, at least it wasn't obvious. :)<br /><br />The long-tailed bell curve distribution of 2d10+ (how I refer to your system) itself does a fair bit to moderate the wide variability in results for some tests, like climbing or (especially in 3rd edition era D&D) jumping. Using a d20 + modifiers where the result indicates how far you jump REALLY doesn't model reality very well at all; forcing a normal-ish distribution in there does a lot to mitigate that and make results more predictable while still leaving room for the occasional surprise. But I can certainly see wanting to further reduce some of the randomness there.Leland J. Tankersleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17257381741308085613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3092603842974378319.post-44163836914242760682015-11-06T16:23:01.086-08:002015-11-06T16:23:01.086-08:00In play it's seemed amusing when someone rolls...In play it's seemed amusing when someone rolls several times but still gets a low score. It took me ages to find that particular method - I had an initial idea of the distribution I wanted and tried out lowest of 2d30 which didn't work well (they roll for ages!). That gave the sort of drop off I wanted, but I decided I wanted a bell curve with an open ended top, and tried all the variants I could think of before stumbling on a d6 version of my system (though I'm sure it's been used before). Re-rolls were too frequent, and no-one liked discarding a 6 for two new dice (originally the re-roll was optional) - switching to 2d10 fixed all these issues as it's discarding a 0.<br /><br />One thing this did teach me was that a cool idea isn't enough for a mechanic, it needs to work in play.<br /><br />I developed the subsystem in this post because I found that although the open dice system worked well in combat, the results for climbing in particular were too random. The bad climbers were often outperforming the good ones, so I went back to the drawing board to ask what I was wanting the dice to do for me.Joe Nuttallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02395295081337987607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3092603842974378319.post-48937614818110374092015-11-06T16:07:59.422-08:002015-11-06T16:07:59.422-08:00Yes, I read your shooting contest and like the ide...Yes, I read your shooting contest and like the idea of contests within a game. I've done it twice(?) recently and it's worked well. Looking forward to reading your post.Joe Nuttallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02395295081337987607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3092603842974378319.post-84041360602618740702015-11-06T12:55:52.682-08:002015-11-06T12:55:52.682-08:00Interesting approach. Personally I'd roll the...Interesting approach. Personally I'd roll the 3d6 all at once, rather than one at a time, because I want to know the answer RIGHT NOW. This is actually the one thing that fails to completely satisfy [me] with your open 2d10 roll, by the way -- sometimes it's just one roll of the dice, but sometimes knowing the answer can be deferred for several rolls. And you still may end up with like a 9 result. But that's a minor quibble compared with its many very attractive features. (How did you develop/discover it, by the way? Were you just semi-randomly trying out different systems and found one with nice features? Or did you identify the features you wanted and design a mechanic to satisfy them?)<br /><br />W.r.t. Take 10, I think that your open dice mechanic in large part removes the need for it. If there is no "automatic failure" roll then at a certain skill level any given task becomes automatic. It's just a question of setting the difficulties appropriately. Also, there's the principle that you shouldn't call for a roll if the results don't really matter -- if someone is climbing a ladder, and there's no chance of them actually falling, and they're not under severe time pressure such that a retry would significantly affect the end result, then don't bother rolling -- it just wastes everyone's time in an uninteresting manner.Leland J. Tankersleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17257381741308085613noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3092603842974378319.post-21493947569118210362015-11-06T07:12:15.279-08:002015-11-06T07:12:15.279-08:00I like the three roll count success method. I used...I like the three roll count success method. I used something similar for a shooting contest in my Honor+Intrigue game. I also really like the increase in time for multiple attempts. Tomorrow morning I'll have a post linking to yours that talks a bit about what you have suggested.. <br /><br />http://explorebeneathandbeyond.blogspot.com/2015/11/roll-to-see-if-you-can-climb-ladder.htmlGaston's_Hathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02776970532947597692noreply@blogger.com