An idea to manage difficulties

[ayelin]

Hello everyone,

The system of easy, average, difficult actions may be not be fitted with every situations. So, here's an option :

For example, I'm a hunter tracking the mighty black bear terrorising my native village. I'm in the forest where it lives, but the track is bit old (more than one day), and there's some fog all around. The bear has been injured, and it's bleeding. Every disadvantageous circumstance add 20% to the difficulty, every advantageous circumstance reduce it by 20%. So : old track, -20% ; fog, -20% ; a thin track of blood, +20%. Total : a difficulty of 20%.

What do you think of this option ?

Ayelin

[FunGuyFromYuggoth]

Sounds good if it works for you. I think that the number of variables being immeasurable, you have to use your best judgment and it's good to be flexible. On the other hand, I think that more vocal players may take you up on your GM math and they may, "What about...?" "How about another 5% for this?" In that case, it may be safer to stick to Difficult or Easy, but whatever floats your percentiles. Or create a table. (The horror...)

[CruelDespot]

Ayelin's suggestion is very similar to the rule in MRQ (Mongoose RuneQuest). It's not a bad idea. It is fairly straightforward and easy to use.

My concern is that most skills start at a very low base chance. If a character has not invested in a skill with a base chance of 20% or less, one negative modifier reduces it to zero. On the other hand, a modifier of -20% is negligible to someone with a skill over 100%. However both would feel a modifier that halves their chance, but neither would be reduced to zero.

Here is the system I use. In some ways is is like Ayelins, but uses multiplication and division instead of addition and subtraction:

Every modifer is either adverse (negative) or favorable (positive). If you have both, then they cancel each other out. 3 adverse and 2 favorable = a net modifier of one adverse, etc.

You divide your chance of success by the number of adverse modifiers, or multiply by the number of favorable (round up). So 1 or 2 adverse conditions= 1/2 normal chance. 3 adverse = 1/3 normal chance. 4 adverse = 1/4 normal chance. 1-2 favorable conditions = double normal chance. 3 favorable conditions = x3 normal chance, etc.

In my system, conditions tend to have a bigger effect. If your skill is 60% and you have one favorable condition, my system would raise your chance to 120%, while Ayelin's would raise it to 80%. With one adverse condition, my system would reduce your skill to 30%, while Ayelin's would reduce it to 40%. OTOH, my system is more forgiving with multiple adverse conditions. If your skill is 60% but you have 4 adverse conditions, Ayelin's system renders a -20% (60-80) - unless he provides a minimum chance of 5% or something, while mine renders 15% (60/4).

Either system would work and you could make arguments for either being more realistic. It's just a matter of taste, I guess.

[NickMiddleton]

Hello everyone,

The system of easy, average, difficult actions may be not be fitted with every situations. So, here's an option :

For example, I'm a hunter tracking the mighty black bear terrorising my native village. I'm in the forest where it lives, but the track is bit old (more than one day), and there's some fog all around. The bear has been injured, and it's bleeding. Every disadvantageous circumstance add 20% to the difficulty, every advantageous circumstance reduce it by 20%. So : old track, -20% ; fog, -20% ; a thin track of blood, +20%. Total : a difficulty of 20%.

What do you think of this option ?

I prefer a blend of the two systems an dgenerally work on the model that broad circumstances that clearly make a task harder or easier set the difficulty (easy, routine or hard) and then specific circumstantial details supply specific adds or subtractions if mentioning those details seems relevant.

If picking the lock is incidental (PC's are fleeing through a complex an dwant to duck in to a locked room), I'll just say it's particular difficulty, or give a specific penalty/ bonus dependent on the quality of the lock - but if it seems centrally important (the PC's have broken in to the complex to steal something and this is the door to their specific objective) then I'll specify a difficulty and maybe assess a few additional penalties and bonuses...

My main concern is that the game doesn't bog down over minutia for something that isn't that important in the overall scehme of things, but likewise doesn't gloss over a situation that deserves greater prominence.

Cheers,

Nick

[ayelin]

My original goal was to avoid the awful "one skill / one table", and to use the same method to simulate all kind of difficulty. Obviously, it could reduce your chances to 0 or even less, although a "01" is always a success. It only means that your skill is not high enough for the action to be successful.

But I really like the idea of CruelDespot.