New interpretation of the Drama Die

[Roxby]

Hey, folks.

Just got back from doing my campaign this weekend, and, after having some lengthy discussion with one of my players, we've decided to try out a new house rule regarding the drama die; and I wanted to get your opinions:

A while ago one of our resident pantheon here on the boards mentioned that a one on the drama die did not necessarily indicate a _dramatic_ failure, unless all 1's were rolled. Even though that was not the way I understood it from reading the books...

*SO*

We decided that whereas the roll of a 6 on the drama die indicates that you _add_ the next highest die to your roll, a roll of 1 means you _remove_ your highest roll from the dice pool. (so, if you've rolled two 6's you've still rolled a 6, make sense?)

anyone want to try it out and say what you think?

It worked fairly well in practice in my game, but nothing's been carved in stone yet.

R

[qerlin]

Kinda like that, Roxby. I'll let you know what the players think when I try it tomorrow night.

[jahn]

Most role-playing games have crits and fumbles mathematically the same (either calculated the same -- pretty much -- or declared the same by fiat). Making the Drama Die 1 or 6 be special is much like what WEG Star Wars does (if I remember correctly).

The Icon System is one of the very few that has a fumble chance which is much less than the critical chance. What this means in my games is that people try to do hard things more often, knowing that if they're counting on a special roll, chances are it'll be a bonus instead of a negative (I also use the 1 takes away the highest die, but only if the character doesn't have the skill, since I let characters roll even if they don't have an appropriate skill).

I think the intention of the Icon rules is for characters to try to do more since there is less chance of abject failure. As I've indicated, either way works fine. It's a subtle difference and most groups probably won't notice because they'll adapt.

[qerlin]

Tried your house rule tonight. Worked pretty well; actually had one fumble with it (a Tactical roll that cost our fleet an Akira and a Steamrunner in rapid succession.)

Oveall the players here in NM say thumbs up!

[Gabriel]

I've never been too overly fond of critical fumbles, because they have always seemed to be so unrelated to the skill of the character and rather to a die roll result that could come up possibly far too often. Since Icon uses d6s and a drama die, this can result in some very common criticals.

Really, it boils down the probabilities. On a d6 you have a 1 in 6 chance of rolling either a 1 or a 6. That's about a 17% chance of either result.

Now on a 6 on the drama die it results in adding the next highest die in. Since characters with higher attributes roll more dice, it stands to reason that they will have a higher chance of getting another high die in the roll. This means that high attribute characters have higher chances of doing something astounding. Considering that even a moderate difficulty (7) is above just about every character's skills, critical successes aren't all that common.

On the other hand, on a 1 on the drama die your house mod results in finding the highest die rolled and subtracting it from the total. Once again, since characters with high attributes roll more dice, it stands to reason that they will have a higher chance of getting a high die in the roll. This means that high attribute characters have a higher chance of spectacularly failing a skill check. Since even a moderate difficulty (7) is above just about every character's skills, critical fumbles of this nature can be EXTREMELY common.

Dramatic Failure is caused by rolling 6 below the target number. Dramatic success is caused by rolling 6 above the target number

Let's assume a completely hypothetical example. A character with an attribute of 4 and a skill of 4 is trying to make a check against a difficulty of 7 (Moderate). 17% of the time, the character will roll a 1. Let's also assume that the high die is a 4 (actually it would probably be a 5 or 6). This means that the high attribute character has an almost guaranteed 17% chance of a dramatic failure. (And they also stand a pretty darn good chance of having a dramatic failure on a routine task too.)

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that its rather silly to have someone so skilled in their field and with such a good natural ability at the subject to have such a high chance of spectacular failure at a pretty average task. The higher the attribute the worse the problem will be. Oddly, low attribute characters will risk fumbles less with this system.

Plus, just take a look at characters in your games and subtract about 3 from all their skills. Is the result 6 less than the typical target numbers in your game? If so, then expect a whole lot of fumbles.

Personally, if I felt the need to modify the fumble rule, my rule would simply be that if the drama die came up as a 1, then you would take it instead of the high die. Critical Fumbles could come about from being 6 below the target or from rolling all 1s on your check. Still, I don't like that solution very much either. I like the current way of determining critical fumbles much better.

Then again, I always thought that failure was its own punishment.


------------------
Gabriel Alexander Vampyre

[Roxby]

querlin,

thanks, a lot! I'd like to hear from anyone else who gives it a try.

Gabriel,

you argue my point exactly. In my system, a dramatic failure only occurs when the player rolls all 1's. (a pretty darn rare occurence.)whereas, if a one is rolled only on the drama die, then it is still possible to roll a 4, 5, or even 6. it's just that thay have a minus 1d6 chance. (albeit, you lose the highest die from the pool.)

thus, they may still make their skill check, or miss it only by one or two.

R

[AslanC]

Been thinking of using the D6 method.

Role and add em all together. Most fo my players have asked me what the point of having so many dice are if only two count. Now they understand the odds and all that, but they feel like they are really rolling a whole bunch of dice for nothing.

They point out the d10 system by White Wolf where each die above the target number counted or the d6 WEG where all dice are added together as examples of better multi-dice systems.

Sometimes I agree, and sometimes I don't.

[Gabriel]

Originally posted by Roxby:
(albeit, you lose the highest die from the pool.)

thus, they may still make their skill check, or miss it only by one or two.

::looks confuzzled. Goes back and rereads original post::

Well, DUH! That's what I get for reading that while doing something else.

When you said _remove_ I interpreted it as subtracting the high die from the skill instead of adding it. My mind completely edited out the later statement about simply dropping it from the die pool.

That being recognized, I drop my previous post, as I was talking about something entirely different from what was intended.


------------------
Gabriel Alexander Vampyre

[Roxby]

Don't sweat it, Gabriel.

we're all guilty of reading posts too fast at one point or another. If you'd like to give the system a shot, let me know what happens.

we still appreciate your contribution anyway!

Best,
R

[And, kids, for the record this is my 100th post! hoorah!]

[This message has been edited by Roxby (edited 01-30-2001).]

[Calcoran]

Congrats Roxby !

AslanC: I must say that I quite agree with your players. Maybe my opinion is biased, mind you, I have always been an enthusiastic fan of WEG's D6 system: not very realsitic, true, but very fast, very heroic/epic, and very enjoyable: the pure pleasure of rolling 6D or 7D (with an experienced character), or even, with an A-wing and a good pilot having like 10D or 11D in hand (I am no munchkin thank you, a few Tie interceptors can easily get that many dices if they combine)!
Anywho ... what was I saying ... oh, right. I agree with your players, LUG's D6 is somehow frustrating: not many dices, and even lower scores. But my players seem to like it, and who am I to change anything, I am only their GM .

This said, I really like Roxby's house rule, and I think we are going to try it next session.

[Rixx Telar]

From the very beginning of LUG Trek, I introduced this rule for the drama die, as we came from playing WEG's Star Wars. I found it to be a good change, although you don't tell the players whether you are subtracting the highest or something bad will happen. This way it makes the players wait to see what happens.

[Herbie]

Well, I declare a 1 as a normal failure, unless all other dieces show a 1, too.
Hey, the characters are all profi, aren't they?

[Herbie]

Well, I declare a 1 as a normal failure, unless all other dieces show a 1, too.
Hey, the characters are all profi, aren't they?