[freeroleplay] [Fringe] New Mechanic

[Samuel Penn]

On Monday 26 June 2006 12:46, Ricardo Gladwell wrote:

> > The first is that I like my dice to be WYSIWYG - I want the
> > number on the die to mean what it says. The 6 = 0 breaks this.
>
> This is tricky: the nice part of counting 6's as 0 is that it means even
> the lowest skill of 0 still has a chance of success. I imagine it
> wouldn't be too tricky to get some special "Fringe Die" made with a 0
> instead of a 6.

The you loose any advantage from using standard d6s. Most gamers have a
big box of dice of all types, but they won't have a Fringe d6. Of course,
it doesn't stop them using normal d6.

As I said, it's a personal thing and probably doesn't impact on the
usefulness of the mechanic.

> > > Character traits are divided into two main groups: attributes and
> > > skills. Attributes are the raw characteristics of your character: how
> > > strong or smart they are. Skills are acquired abilities earned through
> > > life experience.
> >
> > This is pretty standard. Would it be possible to raise attributes during
> > the game? Or is that 'out of scope' and dependent on the system using
> > the mechanic?
>
> It's probably a little out of scope but I personally prefer it when
> attributes stay mostly the same throughout play and are only raised in
> exceptional circumstances. I'm not really sure yet how to handle
> attribute advancement in Fringe.

That's fine. It very much depends on the genre whether attributes should
improve. The attribute does have a big effect on the ability of a character
however, so someone with a low attribute will be forever crippled when
trying tasks which involve it. This may be seen as a good or bad thing.

> > > The dice pool for the roll is equal to the characters ability score.
> > > The target for the roll is equal to the characters skill score. Roll
> > > modifiers are add to or subtract from the dice pool.
> >
> > Why? The difficulty is set by the number of required successes, so
> > any modifiers should modify this, not modify the number of dice rolled.
> > Having both complicates the decision of where to stick a modifier.
>
> There's probably no reason. I feel modifying the dice pool rather than
> the difficulty allows the GM to separate the external factors
> (difficulty modifiers) from the various character/internal factors (roll
> modifiers) in his mind. Also, a +2 bonus to a roll sounds better than a
> -2 bonus to difficulty.

The thing is, it's not obvious what affect either option has on the
outcome. If I have a target of 3 and 4 dice with a skill of 2, am I
better off lowering the target to 2, or raising the dice rolled to 5?
If the choice seems arbitrary then it could lead to argument between
the player and GM over which bonus to apply.

If you have a dice + adds mechanic (like Fringe and Yags have currently),
then it makes no difference whether you add to the die roll, or subtract
from the target difficulty, since either option leads to identical results.

It's not necessarily wrong to have both, but I think it does complicate
the issue.

> > A character with a skill of 5 will always succeed, so never needs to
> > roll. Is this what you want? How rare would you envisage a skill level
> > of 5 to be?
>
> Whoops, you're correct: this leads onto completely a new problem. If I
> compare rolls 'equal to or less than' it means characters with a skill
> score of 5 never fail, but if I compare 'less than' then characters with
> a skill score of 0 always fail! Ouch, not sure what to do about that?
> Thoughts?

Is it really an issue? If you go for the option of reducing skill to get
more dice, then it means a really good character will always succeed at
moderate tasks, but will have a chance of failure if the number of
required successes goes high.

If a roll of '6' is a success + reroll at lower skill, then there's still
a random element.

It means you can make a character which always succeeds in a particular
area unless the difficulty is really extreme - this is probably okay for
pulp action or high fantasy games as long as it's not too easy to do this.

Indiana Jones never fails to perform some feat with his whip, Azumi always
cuts down mooks in a single blow, Conan can lift and throw pretty much
anything he picks up.

> > 2) Allow a character to reduce their skill in exchange for extra dice.
> >    This enables highly skilled characters to be really good.
>
> I love this idea. Alternatively, player's could also drop their
> attributes to raise their skill. Not sure what to call it: trading?
> Shifting? Weighting?

I would keep it one way, giving the advantage to someone with a high
skill. The more options you have, the more time players spend doing
the maths to figure out what is the best thing to do.

> > I'd like to see what the numbers really mean to get an idea of how
> > well it would work in a real game, but otherwise it seems reasonably
> > simple and workable.
>
> Sorry, I should have made that clearer: 0-5 represents the human scale,
> with scores of 6+ being superhuman abilities. So, a gold medal olympic
> weightlifter would be 5, whereas Superman would probably be 10.

Okay. I sort of assumed that, but wanted to be sure.

> How do you feel the new mechanic compare to the existing one (roll 1d10
> + attribute + skill vs. difficulty)?

It gives a difference between attributes and skills which I feel
is important. In the current Fringe mechanic, a high attribute
can make up for a low skill and vice versa, which is something I'm
not too fond of. Yags allows them to be swapped without changing
anything (e.g. attribute 4 and skill 3 is identical to attribute 3
and skill 4) but you can't just rely on one being good.

This mechanic has both - attributes and skills have a different
effect on the outcome, plus you can't rely on just one being good.
So it definitely has its advantages.

Like I said, there are bits I don't like (the small range probably
being the biggest), but it probably fits what Fringe is aiming for.

-- 
Be seeing you,                         http://www.glendale.org.uk
Sam.                        
              IM: samuel.penn at jabber.org or samuel.penn at gmail.com