Best Rules for Comparing Successful Rolls

[PhilHibbs]

20 hours ago, soltakss said:

I don't mind one person having a high skill with magic. It just means they churn through minor NPCs and can fight more people, but give major NPCs a run for their money. It reminds me of Lin Chun in The Water Margin, he is functionally the equivalent of that Humakti PC. 

Some people might think it is unfair to have one PC who is so good at fighting, but it just means the other PCs can concentrate on their own opponents, safe in the knowledge that he will finish off anyone else. It is teamwork rather than individual glory.

This. The combat becomes a tactical one, where the Humakti has to make choices between carving a way through to the enemy spellcaster at the back, or backtracking to save the scholar from the monstrosity that just dropped out of the tree canopy. It can be a challenge for the GM, making sure everyone gets stuff to do, but try not to worry about comparing body counts. Can be a problem if the Humakti player is an insufferable jerk about his superiority, I don't know if that is the case or not!

[styopa]

On 12/2/2018 at 3:33 PM, Psullie said:

I actually prefer this as a draw which requires additional effort to resolve as not all opposed actions result in a binary outcome. If I do need a win/lose outcome I go with single rolls.

 

In many cases that's narratively interesting and can/should be used as such; but there are roll-offs where really the result should be decided (and mechanically it would be odd that a system has no real way of simply deciding between two opponents in binary fashion).

[Mugen]

On 12/10/2018 at 2:23 PM, womble said:

That will depend very much on the contest, the format and the environment. Sometimes both failing might mean both have to try again, or just a 'no-contest'.

My reasoning here is I don't like the idea that a contest between 2 characters with low skills will result in a draw much more frequently than if those characters had high skill values. If both characters have 25%, you'll have ~50% draws. With 90%, it will be close to 5%.

I'm sure it's possible to find many ways to justify it, but I just don't like it. :)

[PhilHibbs]

49 minutes ago, Mugen said:

I'm sure it's possible to find many ways to justify it, but I just don't like it.

I'm ok with it, for one or more of those many ways.

[womble]

2 hours ago, Mugen said:

My reasoning here is I don't like the idea that a contest between 2 characters with low skills will result in a draw much more frequently than if those characters had high skill values. If both characters have 25%, you'll have ~50% draws. With 90%, it will be close to 5%.

I'm sure it's possible to find many ways to justify it, but I just don't like it.

I agree, surely, when the contest outcome is a pure binary either/or, but may contests have a third option: neither.

[Mugen]

1 hour ago, womble said:

I agree, surely, when the contest outcome is a pure binary either/or, but may contests have a third option: neither.

For such cases, I would require a minimum difference between rolls to have a winner.

Again, the idea is to avoid that draws are more frequent with low skills.

[womble]

8 minutes ago, Mugen said:

For such cases, I would require a minimum difference between rolls to have a winner.

Again, the idea is to avoid that draws are more frequent with low skills.

Hrm. If there is a third 'nul' result when neither succeed, why would one failing less hard than the other(s) matter? When 'neither catch it' is a valid result of a contested DEX check, the likelihood that 'it' ends up on the floor (to be subject to a subsequent ground scrabble) should be much higher when they're both/all graceless Klutzes; someone should have to succeed at their 'catch' check to stop 'it' bouncing.

Low skilled contests should often involve neither/none of the contestants achieving their goal. This can lead to memorable comedic moments and is one of the functions of having dice in the game.

[PhilHibbs]

There are some contests that are pretty much guaranteed a result - arm wrestles, straight dash race, etc.

Some contests are likely to produce hilarious both-side-failed results between novices - climbing, oratory, etc., whereas high-skilled opponents are very likely to get a result quickly.

Other contests are the other way around - novices are likely to get a conclusive result, whereas masters could go on for ages with no result. Chess is a good example of this.

Combat sits in both of the latter two camps - novices can embarrass themselves by being unable to hit, whereas masters dodge and parry every blow until someone gets a critical hit or fumbles.

So it seems to me that we really need several different mechanisms or variants to model the different kinds of contest.

Edited December 12, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Roko Joko]

On 12/4/2018 at 8:01 AM, Tywyll said:

Can you explain ["one roll on the resistance table because it's simple"]?

Say that crit and special results require a certain margin of victory and possibly also a certain absolute roll.  Disallow outcomes where both parties crit or special, on the grounds (if desired) that they're not important to include and are more an artifact of the mechanics than anything else. 

If you're wondering how this plays in a game, I don't know, I've never done it.  So it's my favourite in theory but not in practice.  But I'm not attached to the opposed roll part of the core BRP mechanics or its consequences for combat, like the overall percentage of hits (which I'm not attached to, but if you are you can decrease the default success chance from 50%), or the way experienced fighters stalemate (which I'm not attached to either), or the advantage of ganging up (which I like, but other RPGs provide a lot of other ways to handle it).  If anything I'd just as soon streamline out the double roll.

Does that explain it?

Edited December 20, 2018 by Roko Joko

[Mugen]

As a matter of fact, the difficulty to find a satisfying rule for skill opposition is one of the reasons why I prefer Roll-Over systems nowadays.

Skill opposition in Roll-Over is simple : both characters roll and add their skill, the highest one wins, period.

In Roll-Under, skill opposition either require subtraction between roll and skill to compute margin of success, or a comparison between roll and skill that is counter-intuitive to many people, because they tend to think "lower is better".

The drawback is that you lose the simplicity of Roll-Under when you're facing standard difficulty, when you just have to compare your roll to your skill.

[TheHistorian]

Compare special results. Then compare differentials. This preserves roll lowest is best.

If you can't subtract a pair of double digit numbers, or use a ubiquitous calculator to help you, then you aren't going to be able to handle the nuance of the plot in my games.

[PhilHibbs]

10 hours ago, TheHistorian said:

Compare special results. Then compare differentials. This preserves roll lowest is best.

If you can't subtract a pair of double digit numbers, or use a ubiquitous calculator to help you, then you aren't going to be able to handle the nuance of the plot in my games.

We quite often roll without figuring the exact chance, if there are modifiers in play, and only spend the time to sort out the exact chance if it's close. If the chance is in the 50s or 60s and you roll 27 then it's a success, and you can use "highest wins" with no additional effort. Comparing differentials more often requires exact chance to be known. I know people who love roleplaying but are emotionally allergic to arithmetic. But, to be honest, I wouldn't run RQ for him anyway because of that.

Edited December 24, 2018 by PhilHibbs

[Atgxtg]

On 12/12/2018 at 2:49 AM, Mugen said:

My reasoning here is I don't like the idea that a contest between 2 characters with low skills will result in a draw much more frequently than if those characters had high skill values. If both characters have 25%, you'll have ~50% draws. With 90%, it will be close to 5%.

I'm sure it's possible to find many ways to justify it, but I just don't like it.

Yes, that's because the skill scores are doing double duty. They represent both absolute level of ability and relative level of ability, and both at the same time. So you end up with a lot of "failures" that wouldn't be failures per say in an actual head to head contest. It's like running a footrace where nobody finishes, or a basketball game that goes into overtime tired zero, zero.

I think that in cases where somebody should win, rather than bumping skills down so the higher skill is at 100% maybe they should bump the skills up so that someone has a 100% chance of making the roll.  

[soltakss]

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

We quite often roll without figuring the exact chance, if there are modifiers in play, and only spend the time to sort out the exact chance if it's close. If the chance is in the 50s or 60s and you roll 27 then it's a success, and you can use "highest wins" with no additional effort. 

Yep, that's exactly how we do it. Roll first and work out what you get if it is not clear. an 01 on a 50% chance is clearly a critical, an 08 is a Special, a 45 is a success and a 78 is clearly a Failure. No nned to know the exact chances of a Special or Critical unless you roll something that is near to those results.

[kiryamo]

I am very confused. Exactly, how works the RQG system, as writen in the Core Book?

P. 142 "If both participants succeed, the winer is whoever achieved the best result".

But, p. 143 "Tie: (where both participants achieve the same type of success but roll the same number)". What these means?

And p. 230. Vasana rolls 74 in Air Rune (90%)  vs. 41 in Harmony Rune (50%), so "Air overcomes Harmony". Why? Isn't it contradictory with the rule in p.142?

Which is exactly the "vanilla system" when a tie is not an option?

 

[Mechashef]

18 minutes ago, kiryamo said:

I am very confused. Exactly, how works the RQG system, as writen in the Core Book?

P. 142 "If both participants succeed, the winer is whoever achieved the best result".

But, p. 143 "Tie: (where both participants achieve the same type of success but roll the same number)". What these means?

And p. 230. Vasana rolls 74 in Air Rune (90%)  vs. 41 in Harmony Rune (50%), so "Air overcomes Harmony". Why? Isn't it contradictory with the rule in p.142?

Which is exactly the "vanilla system" when a tie is not an option?

 

P230 is an error (this was confirmed in the Core Rules Questions thread).  RQG is a blend of several members of the RQ family and sometimes the hand wielding the scalpel wasn't quite accurate enough.   I also suspect that some rules were borrowed from other members but then removed and though they didn't make it into the final version, there are still traces of them. 

 

My version of the pdf has the Ability Results Table on P143.  P144 states this:

Quote

Tie: A tie (where both participants achieve the
same type of success) means the situation is
temporarily unresolved. If both participants rolled
a critical success, the result is a tie.

The wording is different than in yours.  I'm guessing you have a slightly older version than me as that part has been clarified a bit.

 

Quote

Which is exactly the "vanilla system" when a tie is not an option?

Reroll and pretend the precious roll didn't happen.  I'm presuming you mean that even a temporary tie is not a narrative option.

[kiryamo]

So, the core system means a lot of ties.

[PhilHibbs]

4 hours ago, kiryamo said:

So, the core system means a lot of ties.

Yes, that's pretty much why this thread exists, to discuss methods for breaking those ties.

[Mugen]

On 12/30/2018 at 11:31 AM, kiryamo said:

So, the core system means a lot of ties.

Yes, but there are many cases when a tie is just as good as a success.

If you're hiding from someone, for instance, you're happy if nothing happens.