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Thread: Drama die

  1. #1
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    Post Drama die

    Hey what if a drama die rolls a 1?

  2. #2
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    Nothing.

    Only if all the dice turn up 1 is a dramatic failure rolled, or if your test total is 6 or more below the target number.

    Steve

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  3. #3
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    That's no quite right. According to thr core Rules, the Narrator may decide that a 1 one the Drama Die can result in a Failure, regardless of the other dice. But when all dice show a 1, it is a Dramatic Failure.

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  4. #4
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    Wink

    On paper, yes. In practise, at least by me, that caveat never gets used unless it's somehow really appropriate to the episode. Read: it's really funny.

    Steve

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  5. #5
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    IMHO, I would tend to favor the house rule of discarding the better dice when your drama die rolls a 1. That way, a 1 on this dice only lowers your chance at succeeding, the same way a 6 will raise them, without actually creating a failure by itself.

    Anyway, that's only the opininon of a regularly unlucky player of WEG:SW, who grew tired of having 2.8% chance of critical failure no matter how good his character was

  6. #6
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    That's what I do too: a one on the drama die results in removal of the best die result showing. Statistically speaking, this makes having a high stat slightly more useful - you will have more (potentially high) numbers showing after the removal.

  7. #7
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    Exclamation

    Removing dice? (shakes head in disbelief)

    Every time I think I'm a hard-ass Narrator that's too tough on my players, divvying out hard-earned XP and difficult tasks, I only need to turn to these boards to realize that I'm a softy.

    Funny failures? ("Whoops! You just shot off Bob's character's head! Sorry Bob!")

    Come on, its Star Trek--they're the heroes. Heroes don't go around stumbling and bumbling like idiots. ("Mr. Worf, straighten your baldric--and put on some pants!")


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  8. #8
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    Wink

    Well, I respectfully disagree, Don. Obviously, I'm not talking about blowing off someone's head because of a drama 1!

    In my experience, perhaps the funniest situation to occur in one of my games happened because of a drama die one. During a fight in the holodeck aboard DS9 (don't ask, it was an honour thing), the Andorian character went for a header--the player rolled a drama 1--and wound up getting clobbered by his Klingon sparring partner on the next action.

    When the Andorian awoke in sickbay, there was an angry doctor Bashir (who had better things to do than perform emergency medical beam outs from the holodeck because of foolish shenanigans) and a none-too-pleased Odo waiting to talk with him about his "disorderly" holodeck activities.

    So you see, really funny things can happen when you use the drama die ones at the appropriate times. Besides, the Andorian's player thought it was a riot, and gained a renown point for taking on a well-known Klingon one-on-one.

    Even heroes need pie in the face from time to time. Otherwise they're too phoney, IMHO. No one is perfect, not even Starfleet types. Look how many times Worf got beat up during the series! I'm sure he rolled a few ones here and there.

    Steve

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    [This message has been edited by Steven A Cook (edited 08-27-2001).]

  9. #9
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    "Heroes don't go around stumbling and bumbling like idiots. " I agree Don. I remove the highest die, not impose a slapstick moment. Depending what the other dice are showing, sometimes they succed anyway. Most frequently this results in a simple failure. Even if they do end up with only ones showing, I follow the examples given in the core book... in that it is a simple setback, not a disaster. "The tricorder needs to be recalibrated (a routine task) before you can complete that scan" instead of "you catch your fingers in the tricorder's closure, taking 1d6 damage and dropping it into the volcano.

  10. #10
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    I agree too. Since critical failures already happen when your result is less than 6 than what was required, I don't see why there should be another to way to miss (or another way to critically success should be added as well).
    And with that system, being an expert really means something : a 4 in a skill means you will *never* have a critical failure for a moderate test, for instance .

    I'm curious, Don : you say removing a die is too tough - which rule do you use?

  11. #11
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    Talking

    You've hit on what I believe to be one of the shortcomings of the icon system. There's a one in six chance of being able to add more than you normally should to your roll, and a one in six chance of the Narrator deciding something bad happens.

    Say a player wants to make a routine sensor scan and throws a 6,6,1 with the 1 being the Drama Die. For a routine check like that, I see no reason to throw in any negative at all. On a 6,1,1 (DD 1) I might lower the degree of success by one.

    I'm still trying to figure this one out myself for how I want to handle it practically. As I see it, a Drama Die of 1 should really only kick in if the test is either failed or if it succeeds only borderline. One thing we do in our group (for all games) is that for random chance things which would affect the players (random encounters, is a particular object present, etc) we roll a d6 and give the players in question the opportunity to call high/low (1-3 and 4-6) or even/odd. If the player's guess matches the Narrator's roll, the decision falls in the player's favor. You could use Drama Dice in this fashion: a Drama Die of 1 means that the next 50-50 decision will automatically go against you. Just a thought.

  12. #12
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    I don't like to screw my PCs through dice...it's much more challenging and professional to do it through vicious GMing...

    Seriously, the way I work it is this. A 1 on the DD does nothing by itself, but each other 1 that's rolled reduces the final test result by 1. Simple enough and gets rid of some of the automatic successes on shooting people at point-blank range, etc.


  13. #13
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    <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by C5:
    And with that system, being an expert really means something : a 4 in a skill means you will *never* have a critical failure for a moderate test, for instance . </font>
    I don't follow you here -- a critical failure (all 1s) is always a possibility, regardless of your skill rating. How do you figure this? Is this your own house rule or something?

    <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">I'm curious, Don : you say removing a die is too tough - which rule do you use?</font>
    Call me strange, but I use the rules in the book. Critical failures only happen if all 1s come up--and in recent memory (last 2 years) that's only happened once.

    Do players fail rolls? Sure, all the time. The difference is I don't rely on the dice to tell me what happens--if they fail I describe the results accordingly.

    If 1s come up then the shit really hits the fan and not only do the players fail the roll but some dire consequence may result.

    I think Doug will attest that it's easy to keep the flow of the game and dramatic tension without having to add all sorts of caveats to the dice mechanics. Just ask Commander Dra' and his recent trip through the transporter on the Constitution.


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  14. #14
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    Cool

    <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Fragon Birg:
    I don't like to screw my PCs through dice...it's much more challenging and professional to do it through vicious GMing...</font>
    Preach it, brother!

    Didn't agree with the rest, though.


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  15. #15
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    <font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by C5:
    I'm surprised - do your players roll frequently? For a character with 2 in an attribute, an all 1s result happens statistically 1 time out of 36, wich is not that rare - or my friends and I are really unlucky .</font>
    If you think about it, that actually is pretty rare--you're presuming that all the rolls in a given session are that one player rolling 36 times or so against that one attribute. Every player probably makes 5-10 rolls a night on average and against a variety of attributes; not all of which are 2s.

    I think lifetime (and I've run a lot of LUGTrek), I think I've maybe seen only 3 criticial failures. This includes demo games at Gen Con, etc.

    Like I said, if the players fail a roll there can be (and frequently are) consequences. I think players running the characters make enough snafus and mistakes on their own without mandating more because the poor guy had a "1" come up on his drama die once every six rolls.


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    [This message has been edited by Don (edited 08-28-2001).]

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