Jump to content

QuestWorlds SRD


Ian Cooper

Recommended Posts

On 11/16/2020 at 6:29 PM, yamsur said:

Yes, there are no language restrictions

Hi,

I have a question for the Chaosium team: can we create universes in French by translating all or part of the QuestWorlds SRD rules ?

I have the same question of principle for BRP ?

 

"Salut,

j'ai une question pour l'équipe de Chaosium : peut-on créer des univers en Francais en traduisant tout ou partie des règles de QuestWorlds SRD ?

J'ai la même question de principe pour BRP ?"

 

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/23/2020 at 9:35 PM, Corvantir said:

I have spotted something that seems to be a leftover from the "Game Formerly Known as HeroQuest". As Story Points are no more spent before a Group Simple Contest is resolved, the sentence in green is not needed anymore.

 

10.3.3.3 Boosting Outcomes
Because they average together the outcomes of multiple participants, group simple contests tend to
flatten outcomes, making victories more likely to be marginal or minor than major or complete.
To overcome this flattening effect, if the outcome of a group simple contest is a tie or victory, you
may spend one or more story points to purchase a boost; a boost assures a clearer victory.


The cost varies by the number of PCs participating:
• 1 story point for 1-3 PCs.
• 2 story points for 4-6 PCs.
• 3 story points for 7-9 PCs.
• and so on…


You may spend twice as many story points as required to gain a double boost. The points may be
spent by any combination of players. They remain spent no matter how the contest resolves. You may
continue to spend story points to bump your individual result.


The boost increases the collective victory level by one step. A double boost increases it by two steps.

 

If its in that section, it's part of the material intended to release older rule variants under the SRD but not part of the new game

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/26/2020 at 2:04 PM, Aprewett said:

Hi, not sure if you are looking for feedback or not here. My first stumbling block was section 2.3.2.2, third paragraph, second and third sentence. That just left me hanging, I really felt like it needed to continue the example to show what the story obstacle might be, to then hightlight why the evasion is not the obstacle. I am probably missing something.

Go here to raise issues: https://github.com/ChaosiumInc/QuestWorlds/issues

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi! I'm giving the QuestWorlds SRD a closer reading. I have some concerns right now:

- Why use the term Rank and give it a numeric value when the rules suggest learning the modifiers instead? I don't know if the Rank Values (-5 to +5) have a use in some other part of the rules. I find it a bit confusing.

- One of the main struggles I have with the system is the disconnection of the success level of the die roll with the Outcome of the conflict. Having rolled a Success and end up being defeated is quite strange and a really bad presentation for new players. (I had some arguing with some players about this). Why not change the terms to something like Ability Performance and give it names like Outstanding, Good, Regular, Bad?  I think it's clearer if a highly skilled character rolls a Bad Performance against a low skilled one that rolled a Good one and still wins the contest. Fail and Fumble are pretty "definitive" terms in my mind.

Thanks!

Check my Lobo Blanco - Elric RPG (now in english!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Several new posts from Ian over on Facebook. Give him input there rather than here if you can.

From Ian:

---

Changes for masteries and ranks have flowed through and there is another update here. 

Shock news, some tables are back! The use of ranks made it possible to update some of the text on outcomes, particularly in long contests to use them.

Overall the successes model makes this part much easier

https://github.com/ChaosiumInc/QuestWorlds/tree/improved-masteries/docs

As ever, feedback encouraged.

----

Having said I thought the SRD was done, I have been getting some excellent feedback.

One of those pieces may tie together a simpler form of masteries and our desire to reduce handling time.

A summary would be that a result now produces the following

Failure: no successes
Success: one success
Critical: a success and a bump
A bump can come from a critical, mastery or story point. A bump adds a success
Compare the number of successes, if they are the same high roll wins.
The number of successes can be used as proxy for figuring out quality of victory and consequences benefits

See the PR at https://github.com/ChaosiumInc/QuestWorlds/blob/improved-masteries/docs/QuestWorlds.pdf

---

Next up, there are a range of other suggestions, some of which I like, others I am not so sure on. Just going to post here for discussion, each in their own thread.

---

First up, is an issue of "terminology bloat". It might even be "concept bloat".

So when we went through the rules and 'named' the concepts, our concern was that HQ/HQ had been very 'loose' with its terminology. 'Success' both meant your roll, and the outcome of the contest for example.

Now, that tightening of the language was a big improvement, but, there is some concern that we have thus exposed a **lot** of concepts. Now we dropped some, such having both 'harm' and 'benefits and consequences' and we now just treat them as one. And the recent rank change has let us show that **all** long contests are just repeated simple contests with different tracking mechanics.

But a question for folks here is: are there other cases like 'harm' where we double up on a concept and could shrink to one. Or are there other places we could shrink to a single explanation and then mark some use cases?

---

Second is the 'advantage dice' idea.

Some of you who play PbTA may be familiar with the principle of 'taking +1 forward' where a roll provides a dice modifier to the next roll. It has been pointed out that giving you an advantage dice works better. By an advantage dice we mean, roll an extra dice (in PbTA 3D6 instead of 2D6) and discard the lowest. A lot of 'hacks' and some more modern PbTA offerings use an advantage dice.

So one intriguing suggestion would be to treat augments as an advantage dice instead of a bonus. Roll 2D20, take the best result.
I can also see an argument for treating a stretch the opposite way, as a disadvantage dice (roll 2D20 take the worst result).

Whilst it is a neat option, I worry that this actually falls foul of two issues (1) Concept Bloat: bonuses and penalties == ranks == augment, modifier, consequences and benefits etc. Adding something else is bloat (2) It's not HW/HQ any more if we start using advantage dice over bonus and penalty.

---

Third, is a TN of 20.
Under the new 'count successes' approach, with no fumbles, an ability of 20 is always a 'success'. You are just rolling for a critical and there is no probability difference to 1M. 
Maybe this does not matter. Nothing in the rules gives you a "+1" any more, so it may not show up as an issue in play.
But someone is bound to raise it and say "the designers are dumb because they did not realize that this case existed!' and be dismissive of the whole game. Which could be bad PR. Now we could discuss in the text, and will do if we keep it here.

I don't want to re-introduce a fumble here, which adds math issues of it's own. We could make a 20 'always a fail' even when the ability is 20, but then 19 is better than a 20, because you can critical and you can't critical at 20 any more. None of those options seem to do less harm than good.
I'm also wary of a 'fix' that makes 20 better than 1M.
Any 'inspiration' out there? Otherwise I will just document as a sidebar in the core rules book

---

Edited by Steve
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/4/2020 at 3:36 PM, el_octogono said:

Hi! I'm giving the QuestWorlds SRD a closer reading. I have some concerns right now:

- Why use the term Rank and give it a numeric value when the rules suggest learning the modifiers instead? I don't know if the Rank Values (-5 to +5) have a use in some other part of the rules. I find it a bit confusing.

- One of the main struggles I have with the system is the disconnection of the success level of the die roll with the Outcome of the conflict. Having rolled a Success and end up being defeated is quite strange and a really bad presentation for new players. (I had some arguing with some players about this). Why not change the terms to something like Ability Performance and give it names like Outstanding, Good, Regular, Bad?  I think it's clearer if a highly skilled character rolls a Bad Performance against a low skilled one that rolled a Good one and still wins the contest. Fail and Fumble are pretty "definitive" terms in my mind.

Thanks!

So we may have a fix for this. There is a pending change that you can see here:

https://github.com/ChaosiumInc/QuestWorlds/tree/improved-masteries/docs

We now choose to count the number of successes and compare them. So success => one success; fail => no successes. A critical, mastery, or story point are a bump, which counts as an extra success. They are  all cumulative.

So if rolling against 7m. I get one success for my M. Then I roll against a TN of 7. One a 1-7 I get one additional success. On a 7 I get a critical, one additional success and a bump i.e. two successes. On an 8-10 I fail and I get 0 additional successes.

So my range is 1-3 successes, assuming no story points spent.

I them compare against the resistance's successes to get the difference

0 = high roll wins; rank 1 victory

1+ = wins; rank 2+ victory

But yes, we agree that was a problem we have been trying to solve for a while, and moving from bumping the result up, then comparing for the outcome, to *how many* successes did you get is better. It also works nicely with our preference to narrate PC successes on a defeat as "you were successful in using your abilities, but your opponent was more successful"

If you are interested in the ongoing design process, FB is a better place

 

 

Edited by Ian Cooper
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, Ian Cooper said:

So we may have a fix for this. There is a pending change that you can see here:

https://github.com/ChaosiumInc/QuestWorlds/tree/improved-masteries/docs

We now choose to count the number of successes and compare them. So success => one success; fail => no successes. A critical, mastery, or story point are a bump, which counts as an extra success. They are  all cumulative.

So if rolling against 7m. I get one success for my M. Then I roll against a TN of 7. One a 1-7 I get one additional success. On a 7 I get a critical, one additional success and a bump i.e. two successes. On an 8-10 I fail and I get 0 additional successes.

So my range is 1-3 successes, assuming no story points spent.

I them compare against the resistance's successes to get the difference

0 = high roll wins; rank 1 victory

1+ = wins; rank 2+ victory

But yes, we agree that was a problem we have been trying to solve for a while, and moving from bumping the result up, then comparing for the outcome, to *how many* successes did you get is better. It also works nicely with our preference to narrate PC successes on a defeat as "you were successful in using your abilities, but your opponent was more successful"

If you are interested in the ongoing design process, FB is a better place

 

 

What are fumbles then? -1 success?

 

Sorry, just found it by scrolling up one more post ...

Edited by Jakob
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Steve said:

From a first look at it, I would say the most recent changes don't seem as big as I would have expected ... I like the +5/+10 progression, the generalized concept of ranks, and I really like that fumbles have been dropped (I've never been a fan of treating fumbles as actual fumbles by the PCs, more as mishaps, if necessary - a failure is usually bad already, and you don't really need a special level for "wow, you really f***ed that up", because either it is inappropriate and damaging to the character concept, or it is quite clear from the context that that is what happened).

I'm very happy that Ian Cooper is really digging into this, laying the bones of the system bare to make it all a little more coherent!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/7/2020 at 11:04 AM, yamsur said:

I agree FB is not practical for this style of discussion and is not accessible to everyone.

I dubble up on that and says FB is actually the opposite of a accessible and useful place for discussion and development. Use of Github is excellent for me, but I imagine that it can be as bad as FB for those who are not Devs.

So I wish the frakking in house board could be the center piece for this very interesting topic!

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, Hteph said:

 

So I wish the frakking in house board could be the center piece for this very interesting topic!

 

TBH, I would like that as well ... I frequent facebook pretty much only for the QW stuff, and it is hard to find older topics there and follow the branching discussions. And I don't even remotely get how github works ...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/10/2020 at 8:51 PM, Hteph said:

So I wish the frakking in house board could be the center piece for this very interesting topic!

I only have time to track so many boards. The problem with this board is that we only reach the existing fans here. And whilst I **love** the existing fans, the next version really needs to get us up to FATE and PbTA numbers and that means new folks, who often find boards like this less friendly than FB. Also many of the Chaosium spaces are oriented towards BRP, and that has probably played out for **new** eyeballs, so I tend to spend more time on FB and Twitter to spread the word.

I'll try to drop in, but it is easier to have on continuous conversation there.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/7/2020 at 1:10 AM, craigm said:

@Ian Cooper I'm interested in this, but Facebook is a complete non-starter for me. Would Github issues and PRs work better for those of us not inclined or unable to be on Facebook?

Indeed. I don’t and will never have a facebook account and feel quite disenfranchised by the decision to hold the main conversation there. A friend often send me updates on that conversation and I often have views I would wish to express upon that conversation, but it doesn’t feel appropriate to comment on a secondary source and bring it to another forum

I feel this decision is a self fulfilling prophecy. We don't talk as much here because there isn’t a conversation going on here.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Web Weaver said:

I feel this decision is a self fulfilling prophecy. We don't talk as much here because there isn’t a conversation going on here.

...says the person who has a grand total of 2 posts on this board 😜

I don't like Facebook both because of what it means and represents, and because its UI is just plain bad to have conversations anyway (posts only reach a portion of the audience, half of the comments are always hidden by default, etc). I don't like Twitter much either for having conversations, but at least it's good for advertising and small exchanges. This is all moot anyway because @Ian Cooper is right. Ideally, in order to reach as many people as possible, one would post and hold conversations in as many places as possible: FB, Twitter, Mastodon/Fedi, Discord (many servers!), Reddit, BRP, ENWorld, RPG.net, RPGGeek, mailing lists, IRC, newsgroups, the tree in the middle of the town square, and so on. But Ian is only one guy and can't monitor all the places, so he has focus on the biggest ones until his allotted time is gone. And that starts with FB and Twitter. He therefore has to rely on us to deliver information and do some advertising in all the places we might frequent and that he doesn't have time for... and maybe, in some lucky cases, he actually has an account there so we can tag him, he receives a notification, and he can drop down like Batman before disappearing again in a cloud of smoke. That's all fine with me.

Edited by lordabdul
  • Like 7

Ludovic aka Lordabdul -- read and listen to  The God Learners , the Gloranthan podcast, newsletter, & blog !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can we talk a bit about degrees? 5, 10, 15, M, M^2… The thing that itch is that 0-3 is a linear progression and then there is a exponential jump. Is that really a good model? For practical reasons I’m in favour of the resent rounding to nearest 5 (although I found the base 3 model more mathematically sound). 
But I think this is the reason for the “corner” in this function. Perhaps a 5, 10, M, M^2, M^4 is to powerful and 5, 10, 15, M, 5M is lacking in ooomph.

Perhaps a modified fibonacci of 5, 10, 15, 5M, M^2 ? It certainly would make my brain itch a little bit less, and it is a natural  progression and subsequent fifth degree easy to calculate and within the sane realm.
 

(I added the ^ because it made the number series a bit easier to read)

A66BE3CF-58EE-4EA3-83C6-3C8C0C0EE6B6.jpeg

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Hteph said:

Can we talk a bit about degrees? 5, 10, 15, M, M^2… 

Adding to this: perhaps some guidelines for where you'd want to have a 3, 6, 9, ... M, M2 vs 5, 10, 15, M, M^2…  might help as well. When I compared this against the published rules for HeroQuest I wondered why the bump as so large.

(And I wasn't sure where to put the discussion about it.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...