Alternate Die Resolution

C5,

You are not alone. A lot of people didn't like the drama die espeically in conjunction with the difficulty scale. There were some skills and situations that essentially mean that no one if thier right might would have picked up. For example, if taking off and landing with a Flight Vest is a Challenging (TN10) skill test, character most characters need a 4-5 rating just to survive a shot flight. And the flight vest was made to replace the more difficult to use rocket boots (in which case flight boots should be banned and ownership of which should be considered a sign of someone comtemplating suicide).

Unfortuantely, CODA's TN's aren't much better. With the TN to use a flight vest a 15 (and a 2d6+skill+stat mod) characters need a 8 skill (6 plus speciality) to even consider putting on a flight vest. A character with a 12 skill (plus Rocket Boot speciality) in Operate Vehicle, the MAX skill rating, still has a 27% chance of blowing a skill roll. And that's just for basic operations. Try something fancy and forget it.

Muahahahahaha *Mental note to write rocket boots into next scenario* - That'll teach my players to beg for them :D

PS: A character with 12 in the skill, and a speciality would have a +14 to his skill, therefore on a minimum roll of 2 (on 2 D6) He couldn't fail! Pilots also have professional skills or traits which could give them heavy bonuses, and that's not even counting his agility bonus!

Last time I read anything about killing charging bull elephants, (I mean, personally, I can't afford to go on safari) it didn't require a rifle, it required specially made, high powered rifles specially designed for big game hunting. I think the weatherby magnum .300 express, or something.

Since when do starfleet officers carry those around, when a phaser will do, klingons that can (???) take direct hits with one notwithstanding.

If you are going to compare raw stats, which Captain's authority carries more weight? Set up some weird contest where a crewman must obey a captain's order. Whoever has the most powerful command given wins.

We can choose from..let's see, Archer, Picard, Kirk, and Janeway.

I mean geez, it's So Obvious that if one of them rolls a '6' then they win, thus the dice are flawed? Come On, get with the program, and use real examples, and sense.

The rules are and always have been guidelines. What this whole thread is proposing violates the spirit of Running the game, and not letting the rules run it.

Worf Punches Quark, who wins? Work hits Quark, Quark hits the floor.

Any referee that thinks differently that that is what needs to happen should turn in his/her dice bag, rule or no rule, because they are not running the game, their slavish adherence to the mechanic is.

We could of course, go back to FASA, and per cent dice, where 2 different characters, same exact career path come out wildly different, based on their d10 die rolls for skills learned while courses are taken.

I played those FASA rules for nearly a decade, and damned if it didn't feel like Star Trek, which is not about 1 in 6 die roll, so thus characters are unimportant.

What kind of Lawful Neutral mechanistic modron worshipping heathenism is that, where the dice rule the story outcome?

DM: OH I rolled a 6 for the bad guys! he gets an extra die, and you guys have no chance to beat him! You're all dead! The ship blows up!

Players: No we want to see the rolls!

DM: Fine! *pillowcase full of dice follows* Happy?!?

Players: No!

Puhleeeze. That style of storytelling went out with dice that needed to be crayoned and rubbed clean, or yet lurks in yon Traveller Forums, in some game groups.

Tell the story, and resolve what happens. Use the dice if you are unsure, and need randomness, if the GM absolutely cannot make the ruling on his/her own.

There's your ultimate New Resolution mechanic right there, if you really need a new one.

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Originally Posted by tonyg

Unfortuantely, CODA's TN's aren't much better. With the TN to use a flight vest a 15 (and a 2d6+skill+stat mod) characters need a 8 skill (6 plus speciality) to even consider putting on a flight vest. A character with a 12 skill (plus Rocket Boot speciality) in Operate Vehicle, the MAX skill rating, still has a 27% chance of blowing a skill roll. And that's just for basic operations. Try something fancy and forget it.

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I don't quite follow you here. A character with a +12 skill gets a +14 modifier with the speciality. Adding that to a decent attribute modifier, let's say a +2, and he starts with a +16 modifier, so he succeeds an average difficulty feat without even having to roll.

Although I have a few gripes about CODA (the combat rules, for instance - I very much liked the stun rules in ICON), I vastly prefer its die resolution rules, mainly as it gives a wider range to set difficulty levels, meaning as a GM you can make things harder without making them impossible without a 6 on the drama die by just raising the difficulty by 1.

LUGTrekGM,

That the roleplay must come before the game rules or not is a matter left to the GM... If a GM is bothered by the die rolls, he can switch to an Amber-like diceless system, where the only numbers involved are the stats of the characters.

I agree that if Worf punches Quark in the face, Quark should fly away. As would be a player challenging Worf to a fight.

But let's take another example : it's the Dominion War, and the players are facing a platoon of Jem'Hadar soldiers.
Now, Jem'Hadars, we've seen in the show, can be handled by competent fighters like Worf or Jadzia. They're also supposed to be killing machines, engineered to fight.
Now how are you going to solve this ? Will the player win no matter what since they're the heroes fighting a worthy cause, or will the Jem'Hadar win since they're supposed to be nasty baddies and not some grayshirts ?

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Originally Posted by C5

I don't quite follow you here. A character with a +12 skill gets a +14 modifier with the speciality. Adding that to a decent attribute modifier, let's say a +2, and he starts with a +16 modifier, so he succeeds an average difficulty feat without even having to roll.

Although I have a few gripes about CODA (the combat rules, for instance - I very much liked the stun rules in ICON), I vastly prefer its die resolution rules, mainly as it gives a wider range to set difficulty levels, meaning as a GM you can make things harder without making them impossible without a 6 on the drama die by just raising the difficulty by 1.

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The problem lies in that most people don't have a 10 attribute (for the addtional +2). So with a +14 to the roll acharacter in rocket boots in CODA is going to fail on a 5 or less on an average roll. That's for someone who has maxed out his Vehicle Operations skill roll. But a character with an average (7/+0) stat and less than +8 in modifers to the roll have virtually no chance of making the skill test.

I agree with you I generally prefer CODA's resoultion system too. I just think some of the TNs are a bit high due to the 5 point increments (we are rolling 2d6 not D20).

BTW, One advantage of CODA's Stun rules over ICON is that you can actually stun large creatures. In ICON, once the resistance hit around 16 a target was "stun proof". In CODA, even if a target doesn't get KOd, the action penalties are going to make it less effective.

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Originally Posted by LUGTrekGM

Last time I read anything about killing charging bull elephants, (I mean, personally, I can't afford to go on safari) it didn't require a rifle, it required specially made, high powered rifles specially designed for big game hunting. I think the weatherby magnum .300 express, or something.

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Actually, a high powered rilfe isn't actually required to kill a charging bull elephant-techincally it can be killed by a .25 pistol round. But that requires a hell of a lot of skill and luck, and the shooter would probably still end up dead before the elephant. The big reason for the massive firepower is to get a "one shot stop" that is to hit the animal so hard that it drops right away, instead of getting to you.

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Originally Posted by LUGTrekGM

Since when do starfleet officers carry those around, when a phaser will do, klingons that can (???) take direct hits with one notwithstanding.

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When the Prime Directive prevents a character from whipping out a phaser and and stunning or disintergrating the dammed thing. One thing that does come up a lot and is a good example of a Star Trek adventure is when circumstances like the Prime Directive prevents the characters from openly using their advanced technology.

Now in ICON, even with phasers the elephant has around 30 resistance (not counting it's ide), so you really have to "crank up" a phaser to drop one. Heck, you need to go to setting 8 just to get one's attention. Now a lot of thing in Trek (like just how high do you need to set the phasers to take down a elepehant or T-Rex) isn't something that most GMs and players can guestimate.


Now to make a firearm that does enough damage to drop an elephant in ICON (at least 90 points) would either mean using a tank gun, or that there is a big jump in rifle damage in ICON that doesn't seem to match the ratios we are seeing in the examples. For instance, the typical high powered hunting rifle has about the same difference in muzzle enegy in comarison to a "average" rifle as the latter does compared to a pistol.


As for the ICON die mechanic, the "extreme" examples given were used to illustrate the point. The complications caused by ICON core mechanic exist for all tests. If a character can lift more, run father, fire phasers more accurately, are all affected by the core mechanic. That mechanic shows that, mathemetically, the diference between attributes is worth much less than a point of skill. Most people don't know much about probabilities and statistics (that's why the Casinsos do so well), and explaing the 3 stat vs 2 stat example isn't going to look as significant as it actually is.

Now, yes a GM can step in and run all the conflicts by fiat, but then it really isn't much more of a roleyplaying experience than watching an episode.

Now, most GMs and players don't have an understanding of ballistics or wound trauma or the specific gravity of rock compred to that of flesh, so they don't want to be stuck "guestimating" the damage score of a Holand & Holand Double Royal Nitro Extress in .600. They will probably just go with the rifle stats in the book and tack on an extra die or two. Then they are going to look up the stats for a 5 ton elephant and wonder why it has a 30 resistance .

Likewise, while your average gaming group isn't going to have problems with a arm wreslting contest between Data and Troi, they might have one between Spock and Worf. They certainly will have a problem when Kirk can easily kick a Gorn's butt.:eek:

How about when you have two PCs compenting agianst each other in a contest? One PC might have a significant edge in a stat but it would be reduced to mostly a contest of luck. Sure the GM can step in and decide the outcome for all the arm wrestiling, parsisi squares, and 3D chess matches, but it takes away from the excite of the game.

Bluntly, the drama die actually reduces the amount of drama in the game. Esseintally it turns the game into a "1 in 6 chance of getting result that your opponent can't touch no matter what the difference in skill or attribute". Now that is broken. Essentially we have "roll a 6 and you win, otherwise who has the highest skill?"

An RPG rule system is designed to help represent the "reality" of it's setting. The ICON core die mechanic doesn't do that very well (or you can say that some of the stats are too low, but I'd rather adjust the die mechanic that all the stats).

Like I stated earlier, NONE of this will be a problem if the GM (and to some extent the players) KNOW where things are funky and are prepared for it. But when they arent prepped in advance--Say when the valiant starfleet officer picks up the hunting rifle to protect the pretty guest star from the wild beast only to discover that elephants are bullet proof, it can get real ugly.

What funny though is that one reason why CODA uses a 2d6 roll rather than the ICON method was because some of the designers of CODA hated the drama die system. I recall reading a post where Don Mappin claimed he was introduced to Steve Long as "The guy who hates the Drama Die."

Just a quick update. I'm going to be playtesting the following alteration to the ICON resolution system.

1) No Drama Die
2) Roll xD6 (where x is the Attribute score) plus your Skill
3) Keep the highest single die score. If 6's are rolled keep all the 6's.
4) A roll with two 1's is an automatic failure.
5) A roll of all 1's is a potential Dramatic failure (GM call)
6) One Conviction Point can be used to re-roll one die, two for two, etc. OR to add 1 per point onto the total score.

With this method the Target Numbers should not have to be changed at all.

This is a fairly minor change to the die resolution mechanic but should allo those characters with higher dice pools to stand a better chance of outperforming those with less 'talent'.

I'm afraid point 4 "A roll with two 1's is an automatic failure." will be problematic.

I've attached a table to explain what I mean.

The problem is, that the more dice you roll, the higher the chances of two (#1=2) or more (#1≥2) dice showing 1's.

This would mean, that, the higher your attribute, the higher your chances of automatic failure. :(

Per cent values in the table have been rounded to 1 decimal.
q = 1 - p

I've just remembered that way Shadowrun 4th Edition handles automatic failures. I think you could steal from their system. (Just as they did steal from White Wolf, I suppose. ;))
In SR4, if half or more of the rolled dice come up as 1s, a "glitch" results, this means that something negative happens. The occurrence of glitches is independent of success. So, even if the individual results of one or more dice + skill beats the TN, i.e. you score a success, a glitch can still happen.
For example, Indiana Jones (with relevant attribute = 4 and Athletics 3) tries to make it through the exit, seconds before the descending block of stone will imprison him in the Aztec burial chamber forever.
The player rolls 4 dice: 1, 1, 3 and 4. The TN is 7, so Indy manages to slide to the safe side. However, due to the two 1s, the GM tells the player, that Indy has lost his beloved hat during the attempt, and offers him an second test, to get it before the burial chamber closes for good.

A glitch without a success is called a critical glitch and always has (very) negative results, definitively worse than those of an ordinary failure.

Hmmmm . . . I like the sound of using 'glitches'. The engineer may succeed in rerouting the venting plasma but fries the isolinear chips in the process!?

Have tried running a couple of sessions using an alternate die roll mechanism which proved unbalancing. Another session (just using two PC's) used the Mutants & Materminds ruleset which worked but the flat distribution curve of the d20 roll badly affected the skills that the characters were considered 'competent' with.

After reading Brett Peters To Boldly Go adaptation of the LUG system to FUDGE I decided to use his notes and will be running future Star Trek games using FUDGE.

"Bluntly, the drama die actually reduces the amount of drama in the game."

I think that if the referee is relying on dice for drama in an RPG, there's a lack of application of effort to scenario writing.

"Esseintally it turns the game into a "1 in 6 chance of getting result that your opponent can't touch no matter what the difference in skill or attribute". Now that is broken. Essentially we have "roll a 6 and you win, otherwise who has the highest skill?""

I thought it was more about
"Helm, Fire!"
"Direct Hit!" (Or whatever else.)

If the bad guys get a direct hit, it's a complication for your crew.

Where is it broken, other than [The Dice Rule the Game]

Having the GM make a ruling it not GMing by Fiat, it is the GM's job.

Either that or 5 groups of players have signed up for games of over 2 dozen different genres and settings over the last 30 years solely because of my Fiat style, combined with my natural Cult leader Svengali-like powers of charisma. Please.

I see the situation and I call it, or is Pro football, TV by Fiat?

To each their own, LUGTrekGM. Some players and Narrators stick to the rules as they're written, others like a bit of dice-rolling from time to time, and others are more freeform.
That's all the difference between "Nope, the die say you missed the elephant in the corridor that's all", "Ok, you didn't aim very well and your bullet ricochets on the elephant tough skin" and "Well you're an experienced hunter, you shoot the elephant in the corridor without trouble".

Obviously, a discussion about game mechanics won't be of much interest for gamers who see the rules as mere guidelines, but there are still some of us who like those good old polyhedras to influence our character's destinies from time to time ;) - and for those, game mechanics are important.

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Originally Posted by C5

Obviously, a discussion about game mechanics won't be of much interest for gamers who see the rules as mere guidelines,

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What else could the possibly be? It's not like the game mechanics are off doing their own thing and the GM occasionally steps in to veto weird results–the interpretation of the rules by GM and players is a constant thing. ICON is nowhere near hyper-detailed enough to claim that the numerical results have any obvious situational application in, say, surgery or hitting on the green chick.