|-----Original Message-----
|From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
|Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2000 11:33 PM
|To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
|Subject: [Open_Gaming] industry standard
|
|
|Hi Bill,
| I think that since this is the Open Gaming forum you are perfectly
|right not to feel bad about posting your idea here :). I think that using
|this as a springboard is great. A lot of license theory,etc. get hashed out
|here but actually talking about games or products is much more fun.
Hey there. Thanks a lot for the vote of confidence. Sorry that it's taken me so long to get back here, travelling without e-mail for the holidays. Now personally, I have a good deal of trouble following some of the liscencing theory, but then I don't plan on publishing my own games at some point so the only thing I really worry about is what will happen when it comes time to put my own house rules up on-line and if they happen to be really good rules, how will I notice when they end up in someone else's rule book?
| What are your thoughts on the basic problems facing problem resolution
|in an RPG? What allows a player to turn an unknown into a known without
|quantifying the unknown too much? What can be used to turn a swing into a
|hit, a search into a find, and an attempt into a success, without making all
|further explorations down that road predictable?
First off, I find them necessary based on a number of player issues I've run across. One is the "I hit you/No you didn't" arguement. It happens. While I'd be perfectly happy making those decissions based on what I feel is best for the story, that's often not good enough for the player. As a LARP Storyteller I often found people find a certain ammount of solace in the rules. There were times where I would have the players do a Ro-Sham-Bo(Rock-Paper-Scissors) check simply for their own sake, knowing I would make the same ruling no matter how it turned out for them. But it made them feel better about their situation. The last thing I need as a GM is my players feeling like I cheated them.
| For instance, most player's feel the need to have some basis for
|knowing how well they can cope with a given situation (attributes, skills,
|etc.). They also need to be able to apply these in a manner that involves
|uncertainty in the outcome or the game becomes all certainties.
| If you use dice with a fixed range of posibilities and measured rolls
|against attributes/skills then you have limited the scope of uncertainty to a
|quantifiable amount and the game doesn't scale well. Meaning that if you
|offer advancements in a player's stats (increasing certainty) then you also
|reduce the maximum limit of what is unknown (i.e. the outcome has no
|secrets). The problem is that player's need to feel advancement somehow. If
|you balance the challenges so that the uncertainty remains the same, then
|players eventually feel they aren't advancing or the uncertainty itself
|becomes a certainty.
Let's see if I can address these different problems accurately. First, Yes uncertainty is a necessity. I think that that is really a given. Diceless RPGs can be a fun novelty to try out, but in the end no matter what the game is it is about the characters taking a risk. They are called adventures for a reason.
Second. You've really touched on an issue without really saying it. That is expandability and coadaptability. In my oppinion, any reasonably generic game system should be capable of describing any game world by its stats and then allowing the characters of one world to interact in a real way with the other game world. IE. If I'm running a Supers game where the characters are capable of destroying buildings with their strength score of 5 then it makes no sense to have the system's medeval settings strength score of 5 be the standard human maximum. You get the idea.
| Clearly the art of storytelling and GM behavior can influence the
|levels of certainty and uncertainty, but the choice of problem resolution
|method frames the overall world in a way that determines many of its
|attributes. A 1-10 scale exhibits much less flexibility and range for
|expression than a 1-20 scale. Similarly, where a player starts on the scale
|greatly affects where they can go from there, for, as mentioned, that
|actually reduces the unknown.
It's my beleive that there should not be a maximum limit to these numbers and that this should be ok. Or at least there should be a mechanic similar to this. In the old days, a cannon ball had Max destructive force, then it went up to TNT then Fire bombs, then the nuclear bomb. To assign a maximum on the universe is just silly. At the same time, there _should_ be a limit to certain things like how much a human being can lift before they are crushed into a little pile of goo.
| Do anyone have ideas for a system which avoids these dilemas? Perhaps
|a non-dice based one or something "more random"?
Right now I'm leaning towards a Dice Pool based system. This is based on the simple fact that both projects currently up run the other version. In a universe where the numbers just get bigger and bigger I find a single die roll to be hard to conceive. The d20 system is well balanced for fantasy.. but in a system where some characters can throw buildings around and some have trouble lifting their lunch a d20 is going to start becoming innacurate. Roll 1d20 and add your +65 bonus for strength? Basicly you always have a 1 in 20 chance of failing. How are you really stronger than the other guy with a +40 Strength bonus?
|-Alex Silva
I don't think I've really said anything yet. These are just the ramblings of a guy putting off work for the past 15 minutes. Anyone have any thoughts about what they have liked/not liked about the various different Dice Pool games they've played?
-Bill
P.S. BTW It occurs to me that a Die Pool system tends to promote a non-level advancement system. Can anyone substantiate this one way or the other?
