Tie in opposed roll

[creativehum]

20 minutes ago, simonh said:

All cracking stuff, but I think a tie like this is also an opportunity for the GM to complicate the situation, or escalate it in some way. In a chase situation there is suddenly some obstacle or interference both sides must overcome.

In the hide and seek situation, the first guard moves on, but a new one arrives; or the guard’s commander shows up to perform a check; or there is a sudden commotion outside distracting the guard but attracting others; a cat distracts the guard, but now it’s wandering towards the PC.

Exactly.

[styopa]

6 hours ago, simonh said:

All cracking stuff, but I think a tie like this is also an opportunity for the GM to complicate the situation, or escalate it in some way. In a chase situation there is suddenly some obstacle or interference both sides must overcome.

In the hide and seek situation, the first guard moves on, but a new one arrives; or the guard’s commander shows up to perform a check; or there is a sudden commotion outside distracting the guard but attracting others; a cat distracts the guard, but now it’s wandering towards the PC.

That's certainly a way you can take it, but should that happen what, nearly 60% of the time (for characters with 100% - I'm assuming Phil's math-fu is strong)? 

I call for die rolls to (generally) give me RESULTS, not indeterminate states?

[creativehum]

6 minutes ago, styopa said:

That's certainly a way you can take it, but should that happen what, nearly 60% of the time (for characters with 100% - I'm assuming Phil's math-fu is strong)? 

I call for die rolls to (generally) give me RESULTS, not indeterminate states?

I hear you. And I said much the same a week or two ago.

But  one of my approaches these days is to meet a game on its own terms and see if it has an approach or something to offer I might not have thought of on my own.

"If RQG has a lot of results that leave a conflict unresolved," I ask myself, "what might that do for me? How would I referee that? How should I approach that to make that work?"

[simonh]

4 hours ago, styopa said:

That's certainly a way you can take it, but should that happen what, nearly 60% of the time (for characters with 100% - I'm assuming Phil's math-fu is strong)? 

I call for die rolls to (generally) give me RESULTS, not indeterminate states?

In that situation you have two highly accomplished experts in what they are doing facing off. It’s like a chess match, with each side making meticulous preparations, covering every base, eliminating each factor that might weigh against them and carefully working their way towards their preferred end-game. So it sort of makes sense there’d be a little more extended back-and-forth.

Although actually a draw will be pretty common at 50% each as well. There’s a 25% chance both at least succeed and a 25% both fail. Specials will increase the chance of an immediate resolution slightly, but not a lot. So about half the time these situations will end up running to 2 or more rerolls. Sometimes I think that’s quite appropriate and fun, but I’ll keep the option of using ‘highest wins on a tie’ when necessary to keep things moving.

[Psullie]

I think as a GM part of the process would first deciding does the situation need to be resolved in a single instance, or is there the probability of an extended test. If you need an immediate result then perhaps the Opposed Resolution system is not suitable,  then just a single roll (adjusted by the difference ?) is made.

I feel the as written system is weighed towards the fact the in many circumstances opposed situations are not readily resolved in one go. When both participants of a contest succeed then both should be rewarded - it's not enough to weigh in on favour of the PC's (what happens when two PC vie for the same thing?) or attribute arbitrary passive/active labels (a guard is passive when searching but when PC's are searching it becomes an active state?). 

At first I was in favour of the Blackjack approach but then realised that the opportunity to introduce tension and uncertainty was less than 1%, wether its armwrestling, hide and sneak, political debate or any contest. If your PC's enter into such a situation without a distinct advantage then the likelihood will be a long drawn-out affair. The system therefore encourages players to establish an advantage over your opponent through augments before your start. If Big John needs to hide form the Guard then he better tap into his Darkness Rune first.

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, simonh said:

Although actually a draw will be pretty common at 50% each as well. There’s a 25% chance both at least succeed and a 25% both fail. Specials will increase the chance of an immediate resolution slightly, but not a lot. So about half the time these situations will end up running to 2 or more rerolls. Sometimes I think that’s quite appropriate and fun, but I’ll keep the option of using ‘highest wins on a tie’ when necessary to keep things moving.

I plan to use the highest roll wins on a tie as well unless there is some dramatic reason to treat as a tie/stalemate.  

[simonh]

52 minutes ago, Psullie said:

At first I was in favour of the Blackjack approach but then realised that the opportunity to introduce tension and uncertainty was less than 1%, wether its armwrestling, hide and sneak, political debate or any contest. 

You could say that if both get special success that’s a stalemate too, but now it’s getting a bit fiddly, fine for a house rule but maybe not really suitable for a base system.

[Mugen]

6 hours ago, Psullie said:

At first I was in favour of the Blackjack approach but then realised that the opportunity to introduce tension and uncertainty was less than 1%, wether its armwrestling, hide and sneak, political debate or any contest. If your PC's enter into such a situation without a distinct advantage then the likelihood will be a long drawn-out affair. The system therefore encourages players to establish an advantage over your opponent through augments before your start. If Big John needs to hide form the Guard then he better tap into his Darkness Rune first.

In such a case, I would not resolve the armwrestling with just one roll, but rather ask for successive rolls until 3 or 4 successes are accumulated.

A win settled by comparing rolls would count as 1 success. Different success levels would give 1 success +1 per difference (so, critical versus normal success would give 3 successes).

[Joerg]

I tended to demand a few intermediate targets on such activities, too. In arm-wrestling, a setback would also increase the difficulty for the loser. A tie would use up endurance for both equally, a loss would cause additional endurance loss. This could be done with fatigue points or with some CON limit for the entire exchange.

[styopa]

20 hours ago, Joerg said:

I tended to demand a few intermediate targets on such activities, too. In arm-wrestling, a setback would also increase the difficulty for the loser. A tie would use up endurance for both equally, a loss would cause additional endurance loss. This could be done with fatigue points or with some CON limit for the entire exchange.

Or just use d100s, those damned things never stop rolling.  Then you guys can have all the dramatic tension you want, as they roll around for 5 mins, then off the table, and people are reaching under the couch to try to find them.

[PhilHibbs]

37 minutes ago, styopa said:

Or just use d100s, those damned things never stop rolling.  Then you guys can have all the dramatic tension you want, as they roll around for 5 mins, then off the table, and people are reaching under the couch to try to find them.

That thing is NOT balanced! Look at the size of the 100 and 45 faces compared to the 27.