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Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Kestral posted:

This sounds like a bad GM problem, tbh.

In my experience, yes that’s exactly what it’s supposed to mean. It is a description of something that has similarities to a good thing but is very bad. Similar to “smother”, the pejorative is the point of the word.

Some systems are written in such a way that they encourage bad play, including bad GMing.

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Lurks With Wolves
Jan 14, 2013

At least I don't dance with them, right?

Kestral posted:

This sounds like a bad GM problem, tbh.

To repeat the point everyone else is making, the thing is that "Mother May I" in this context is simultaneously referring to the bad GMing practices and the decades of bad design and bad GMing advice that taught them to run games like this in the first place. It's just hard to talk about one without the other, because they're innately connected.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Tulip posted:

There's a big difference between known-unknowns and unknown-unknowns. I've had "random table magic" appear at my sessions since I was in middle school, and the result is less "mysterious" and more "slapstick," plus canny players know how to do some dice math and it feels a lot less like "mystery" than "calculated risk," esp since it is again easy to calculate.

I don't think there's anything wrong with it being calculated risk, though. Magic that may just turn you into a turnip when you're trying to light a candle isn't interesting or dramatically appropriate. On the other hand, if you have a spell that works within expected parameters 90% of the time, and goes into the realms of "oh poo poo, what happens now?" if you overcharge it for a big important battle or whatever, or during a crisis situation where you have to cast it at half speed or some such, then the randomness and risk can add a sense of drama to things.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

Yeah that's what's meant by a push-your-luck mechanic.

It's how Blood Bowl works for example, and while that game is very divisive (a lot of people bounce off it immediately because they find their turns ending as soon as they try to do things) once you fully understand and embrace the mechanic, you find a strategic depth flows from it (order your actions on your turn by risk, doing the riskiest things last... except, order them by priority, doing the highest-priority things first... so find the intersection of these two factors and order your actions by their product, and do so quickly because your turn is on a timer!).

Blood Bowl is especially punitive about it but a game mechanic doesn't have to be. The "cost" of pushing your luck and failing can be the loss of some resources or a weaker result or similar, rather than "you end your turn having accomplished nothing and have lost tempo vs. your foe."

Give your RPG players an option to do a thing that always or nearly-always works, a thing that is better but has a higher risk, a third thing that is even better but with an even higher risk, etc. and they get to make interesting choices instead of rote ones.

As this pertains to a wild-magic system, the randomness could apply to side-effects rather than cancelation of the desired primary effect, for example.

The Bee
Nov 25, 2012

Making his way to the ring . . .
from Deep in the Jungle . . .

The Big Monkey!
Now you have me imagining a push your luck focused combat system, where your turn basically rolls on until you either end it or make a mistake and give your foe an opening. I have no idea how it'd actually feel in practice, especially in larger group games, but its a seed of something interesting.

LimitedReagent
Oct 5, 2008
I've been a strong proponent of RPGs having a way for players to "go loud", having that idea solidify from Demon: the Descent. In a game where you're basically playing a supernatural superspy, transforming into a super form, with lots of extra power but -- most importantly -- tossing sneakiness aside, is a great, interesting choice.

Since then, it's something I look for in RPGs: a way to take greater action at great cost or risk. Even if it's rarely used, having the option in your back pocket changes how you play.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Leperflesh posted:

It's how Blood Bowl works for example, and while that game is very divisive (a lot of people bounce off it immediately because they find their turns ending as soon as they try to do things) once you fully understand and embrace the mechanic, you find a strategic depth flows from it (order your actions on your turn by risk, doing the riskiest things last... except, order them by priority, doing the highest-priority things first... so find the intersection of these two factors and order your actions by their product, and do so quickly because your turn is on a timer!).

I really find the turn-over thing often resulting in extremely swingy games that are more down to people's dice luck than their tactical talents, because even if you start with the safest actions, you can just get that rare 1-in-6 failure that instantly ends your turn after making just a few trivial moves and gives your opponent a huge advantage that they didn't risk anything for.

I genuinely think Blood Bowl would be a better game without the instant turn-overs on every failure, or with a more limited number of actions per turn so the difference between a "full" and "instantly failed" turn was smaller.

The Bee posted:

Now you have me imagining a push your luck focused combat system, where your turn basically rolls on until you either end it or make a mistake and give your foe an opening. I have no idea how it'd actually feel in practice, especially in larger group games, but its a seed of something interesting.

I feel like a good execution would essentially be Blackjack. You try to inch your way closer to the "ideal" score, risking going over with every addition, and then your opponent has to do the same in return to try and go over your achieved score, with the same going-over risk. I think that could flow pretty quickly even in larger groups.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

PurpleXVI posted:

I really find the turn-over thing often resulting in extremely swingy games that are more down to people's dice luck than their tactical talents, because even if you start with the safest actions, you can just get that rare 1-in-6 failure that instantly ends your turn after making just a few trivial moves and gives your opponent a huge advantage that they didn't risk anything for.

I genuinely think Blood Bowl would be a better game without the instant turn-overs on every failure, or with a more limited number of actions per turn so the difference between a "full" and "instantly failed" turn was smaller.

I feel like a good execution would essentially be Blackjack. You try to inch your way closer to the "ideal" score, risking going over with every addition, and then your opponent has to do the same in return to try and go over your achieved score, with the same going-over risk. I think that could flow pretty quickly even in larger groups.

Yeah blood bowl is still a Games Workshop game, and they're notorious for swingy rules where luck can matter more than skill.

Blackjack is an excellent comparison though. Poker, much more complex, can also be: you have top pair, the board has a lot of connection though, you can raise and re-raise and even call your opponent all-in. They could easily have you beat. But do they?

The better your hole cards, the stronger you can act, but you can go hard with absolutely nothing as a bluff and if your table image is tight or your opponent hasn't got the stone cold nuts, they may fold and you can take down the pot.

Push-your-luck and bluffing go hand in hand, although they can each be implemented separately of course.

PurpleXVI
Oct 30, 2011

Spewing insults, pissing off all your neighbors, betraying your allies, backing out of treaties and accords, and generally screwing over the global environment?
ALL PART OF MY BRILLIANT STRATEGY!

Leperflesh posted:

The better your hole cards, the stronger you can act, but you can go hard with absolutely nothing as a bluff and if your table image is tight or your opponent hasn't got the stone cold nuts, they may fold and you can take down the pot.

Push-your-luck and bluffing go hand in hand, although they can each be implemented separately of course.

A simple, dice-based implementation would be something like the dice game "Meyer"(I don't think anyone outside of Denmark knows this one):

You roll two dice in an opaque cup, then lift it just enough that only you can see the result, declare a result and pass the cup on. The next person does the same, but the result they declare must be higher than the one you declared. The next person you pass to, can try to roll OR insist your roll is bullshit and lift the cup. If you bluffed, they win, if you told the truth, they lose.

Though I think part of the problem with bluffing is that it requires there are cards or dice only the GM or player know, and while this is easily done in person, I think a lot of us play games primarily or only online, where outside of TTS it's not really possible to have an "unknown" that can still be verified as being something once someone calls the bluff or falls for it.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

PurpleXVI posted:

A simple, dice-based implementation would be something like the dice game "Meyer"(I don't think anyone outside of Denmark knows this one):

You roll two dice in an opaque cup, then lift it just enough that only you can see the result, declare a result and pass the cup on. The next person does the same, but the result they declare must be higher than the one you declared. The next person you pass to, can try to roll OR insist your roll is bullshit and lift the cup. If you bluffed, they win, if you told the truth, they lose.

Though I think part of the problem with bluffing is that it requires there are cards or dice only the GM or player know, and while this is easily done in person, I think a lot of us play games primarily or only online, where outside of TTS it's not really possible to have an "unknown" that can still be verified as being something once someone calls the bluff or falls for it.

that game is called "liar's dice" or "bullshit" (or undoubtedly several other names) here in the US! I used to bring a brick of d6es to chemistry class and we'd play it for the 5m before the teacher showed up at the beginning of the period

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


Once I figured out the rules interactions liars dice was one of my favorite minigames in the first Red Dead Redemption. It seems simple but bluffing games are quite complex.

Capfalcon
Apr 6, 2012

No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Kestral posted:

This sounds like a bad GM problem, tbh.

To me, it's less about bad GMing and more a problem of making the GM do even more work in games that usually expect the GM to do most of the work. Why can't the game pull its weight a little more?

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



And if you throw out the randomization, that's just Skull.

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

I find push your luck systems work better when there's PVP or inter-player competition, rather than staring your DM in the face and daring them, over and over again over the course of a game, to have your turn do nothing. The social aspect, and feeling like you're defining the DM not as a fan of the action and just setting the scenario, but straight up the fun-stopper, are both serious considerations to me.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.
The game that I think does randomness well for magical failure is burning wheel. The magic system is pretty complicated, but it all serves a purpose. And one of those purposes is that when your spell goes awry, it will only mess up in certain specific ways.

So it's not a big random table where any spell can turn you into a turnip with the right roll. But it's not just putting everything on the GM to come up with something appropriate either. You will know, with a fair amount of specificity, what your spell turns into, and the GM will fill in some details if there's any ambiguity.

Kestral
Nov 24, 2000

Forum Veteran
Some people's play-styles are antithetical to some games. If you can't help making nonstop jokes during a horror game, you shouldn't play or run horror (unless your group is likewise a bunch of people who don't care about tone). If you're going to make using a more freeform magic/tech/whatever subsystem feel like pulling teeth - or, on the flip side, if you're a player who makes the rest of the table groan every time you try to justify how your magic works - you shouldn't run games in those systems. These games do require more conversation between players and GM, they are more work to run, and that's fine if your group has the maturity necessary to handle it and a GM willing to think on their feet more. A lot of groups don't, as evidenced by, well, *waves vaguely at 50 years of discussion of the hobby*, and they shouldn't play Mage, or Ars Magica, or Burning Wheel with Art Magic, etc.

Jimbozig posted:

The game that I think does randomness well for magical failure is burning wheel. The magic system is pretty complicated, but it all serves a purpose. And one of those purposes is that when your spell goes awry, it will only mess up in certain specific ways.

So it's not a big random table where any spell can turn you into a turnip with the right roll. But it's not just putting everything on the GM to come up with something appropriate either. You will know, with a fair amount of specificity, what your spell turns into, and the GM will fill in some details if there's any ambiguity.

The Wheel of Magic is legitimately brilliant, and surprisingly stealable for any game where that kind of spectacular magical misfire is in-genre. I keep a printout of it handy for when I need something to go magically very, very wrong / weird, and it never fails.

Panzeh
Nov 27, 2006

"..The high ground"
To be fair, I don't think in a PbtA type game, you really need to spell out what specifically your magic-user can do, because in that case 'magic' is just kind of the flavor of how they succeed or fail at whatever move they're trying to do, so in that case, it doesn't really matter if you have the ability to magically make your enemies' blood boil because you can heat the iron in their blood.

I still do think it's somewhat unsatisfying if in a more mechanically-oriented game, where the 'how' matters a lot more, to just kinda be able to say 'i have my freeform magic do the exact kind of thing i need in this situation' and the only real downside is the fail state is different.

Capfalcon posted:

To me, it's less about bad GMing and more a problem of making the GM do even more work in games that usually expect the GM to do most of the work. Why can't the game pull its weight a little more?

Yeah, RPM, if you don't have a great understanding of what the player is going to try to do with the magic, will definitely result in problems in GURPS, which does not generally happen with a system like Magic or Sorcery, both of which just have exactly what you can do on the sheet. There's still some things you want to do in the latter two systems, for example, restricting or banning the 'Create X' spells, but that can be done up front and once you're in game it's dealt with.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

Panzeh posted:

To be fair, I don't think in a PbtA type game, you really need to spell out what specifically your magic-user can do, because in that case 'magic' is just kind of the flavor of how they succeed or fail at whatever move they're trying to do, so in that case, it doesn't really matter if you have the ability to magically make your enemies' blood boil because you can heat the iron in their blood.

Even in DND you can follow the fiction. Have we established fictionally whether low-level wizards can instantly kill any person with the wave of their hand regardless of defense? Because that looks pretty different from a society where only the top archmages have such power.

I don't think there's any reason you can't unspool that and play it out either way, it just seems problematic because DND encourages rule based play instead of fiction based so if you're trained on DND you have no way to handle that question. Plus it might invalidate all the adventures you purchased.

Colonel Cool
Dec 24, 2006

PurpleXVI posted:

I really find the turn-over thing often resulting in extremely swingy games that are more down to people's dice luck than their tactical talents, because even if you start with the safest actions, you can just get that rare 1-in-6 failure that instantly ends your turn after making just a few trivial moves and gives your opponent a huge advantage that they didn't risk anything for.

A 1/6 is an incredibly risky action and if you're playing a turn where your first action is a 1/6 you're already not in a good spot in the game as a whole.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

Colonel Cool posted:

A 1/6 is an incredibly risky action and if you're playing a turn where your first action is a 1/6 you're already not in a good spot in the game as a whole.

Isn't the reason most people hate BB that literally everything more interesting than walking or standing up* has at least a 1/6 chance of failure?

*Some characters can also fail to walk or stand up.

Colonel Cool
Dec 24, 2006

PerniciousKnid posted:

Isn't the reason most people hate BB that literally everything more interesting than walking or standing up* has at least a 1/6 chance of failure?

*Some characters can also fail to walk or stand up.

A normal turn where the game is going fine starts with completely safe moves (moving players without a roll), followed by 1/1296s (2d blocks with block and a team reroll), followed by 1/81s (2d blocks without block, but with a team reroll), followed by 1/36s (1/6 rolls with a reroll of some sort). Even 1/36s are uncomfortably risky and 1/6s are basically insane desperation plays.

CitizenKeen
Nov 13, 2003

easygoing pedant
What's the cost of failure? Why is a 5/6 chance of success a desperation play?

Colonel Cool
Dec 24, 2006

CitizenKeen posted:

What's the cost of failure? Why is a 5/6 chance of success a desperation play?

Basically any failure immediately ends your turn.

Edit - which can easily lose you the entire 16 turn game if it happens at the wrong moment. If your first player fails their first action you're losing not only the rest of that player's actions, but all of the actions of the ten other players on your team. And if you needed those actions to do something like secure the ball then essentially losing your turn can result in you losing the ball and losing your momentum for half of the game, which can easily result in a lost game.

Colonel Cool fucked around with this message at 17:22 on Feb 25, 2023

Capfalcon
Apr 6, 2012

No Boots on the Ground,
Puny Mortals!

Colonel Cool posted:

Basically any failure immediately ends your turn.

To be clear, it's not 5/6 success. It's 5/6 of avoiding critical failure. You only have a 2/6 chance of pure success, going up to 50/50 if your character has a skill that lets them avoid going down on a both down result.

Colonel Cool
Dec 24, 2006

Capfalcon posted:

To be clear, it's not 5/6 success. It's 5/6 of avoiding critical failure. You only have a 2/6 chance of pure success, going up to 50/50 if your character has a skill that lets them avoid going down on a both down result.

True, but that's for throwing 1d blocks which should usually be fairly rare. The game is basically built around 2d blocks as the standard action, so to speak. If we're talking about a 1/6 I'm usually thinking a skill roll from a player that's good at that particular skill but doesn't have a reroll for it, which is almost always a binary pass or failure with a couple exceptions.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

PerniciousKnid posted:

I don't think there's any reason you can't unspool that and play it out either way, it just seems problematic because DND encourages rule based play instead of fiction based so if you're trained on DND you have no way to handle that question. Plus it might invalidate all the adventures you purchased.

The problem with fiction based resolution in D&D, or especially D&D games with sample adventures, is that the fiction throws out exceptions to the established rules like water. It's not really on the same scale, but I remember reading Puppetland which is a heavily narrative driven system, and still every one of the sample scenarios broke at least one of the major rules in the setting established by the main text. And if that happens in a narrative system it's even worse in a rules-heavy one. Now yes, "oh my god this thing is an exception what can we do" can be a plot hook in a book or film, but in an RPG it's quickly annoying to the players when there's always an exception that is not them. Add that to the fact that most RPGs encourage the idea that players who have a "good idea" should be allowed to be exceptions but do not quantify a "good idea" in terms of fiction integration (to be fair, that would be really hard to do) and you get a general mess.

Siivola
Dec 23, 2012

CitizenKeen posted:

What's the cost of failure? Why is a 5/6 chance of success a desperation play?
In addition to ending your turn, some plays carry the risk of the player tripping and falling. Dodging away from an opposing player or trying to squeeze one extra square of movement are probably the most common ones.

If you fall down you have to make an armour roll and sometimes die.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

hyphz posted:

The problem with fiction based resolution in D&D, or especially D&D games with sample adventures, is that the fiction throws out exceptions to the established rules like water.

Sure but you're not playing The fiction, you're playing Your fiction. It's up to the table the degree to which you want to canonize other adventures' foibles, and up to the GM to adjudicate disagreements. Now, DND obviously offers no help or advice in this regard, which is why it sucks, but that doesn't mean you can't work around it, or have a different rules-heavy system that still allows for creative interpretation.

My point is just that, while it's an uphill battle in DND, you could still use creative interpretations of the rules as a launchpad to make a unique take on the setting. Or probably more likely, you all agree that such an interpretation is absurd. Either way you can settle the disagreement in a way that defines a rule about the world.

hyphz
Aug 5, 2003

Number 1 Nerd Tear Farmer 2022.

Keep it up, champ.

Also you're a skeleton warrior now. Kree.
Unlockable Ben

PerniciousKnid posted:

Sure but you're not playing The fiction, you're playing Your fiction. It's up to the table the degree to which you want to canonize other adventures' foibles, and up to the GM to adjudicate disagreements. Now, DND obviously offers no help or advice in this regard, which is why it sucks, but that doesn't mean you can't work around it, or have a different rules-heavy system that still allows for creative interpretation.

That sounds OK, but in practice it means that nothing is ever fictionally established because there's always the possibility of an exception lurking.

KingKalamari
Aug 24, 2007

Fuzzy dice, bongos in the back
My ship of love is ready to attack
Honestly, an idea I've tossed around in my head in how to implement the concept of dangerous or unreliable magic in a rules-focused game like D&D in a way that doesn't completely suck would be to have backfire or miscast mechanics written into the text of spells. The idea is that the spell is going to do what it's supposed to regardless, but there's a chance it might also do an additional, likely unwanted thing if the caster fucks it up (Whether that be just a flat percentage chance or if they gently caress up some kind of casting roll). So, for instance, something like fireball is always going to do xd6 damage to creatures within the targeted area, but on a miscast it would also do something like ignite the caster.

I think the two big problems with unreliable magic rules are that they either make the result of a miscast that the caster wastes their turn (Which is boring), or they rely on completely random miscast results (Which get old very fast and make spellcasting a complete slapstick gongshow) or they give the GM blanket fiat to dick over the caster as they see fit (Which is way too easily abusable). The codified miscast mechanics I'm describing, at least, make the player aware of exactly what's going to happen on a miscast and thus allows them to make more of an informed choice and enforces that sort of press your luck feeling people have been talking about.

PerniciousKnid
Sep 13, 2006

hyphz posted:

That sounds OK, but in practice it means that nothing is ever fictionally established because there's always the possibility of an exception lurking.

This is also true in real life science though.

KingKalamari posted:

Honestly, an idea I've tossed around in my head in how to implement the concept of dangerous or unreliable magic in a rules-focused game like D&D in a way that doesn't completely suck would be to have backfire or miscast mechanics written into the text of spells.

My Dragon Quest character in high school had to roll on a big table any time he used magic and got murdered by an angry summoned celestial on his second day. Seemed to work okay to me.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry

PerniciousKnid posted:

This is also true in real life science though.

My Dragon Quest character in high school had to roll on a big table any time he used magic and got murdered by an angry summoned celestial on his second day. Seemed to work okay to me.

DQ (any edition) was designed to flat-out murder any spellcaster.

Jimbozig
Sep 30, 2003

I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

Panzeh posted:

To be fair, I don't think in a PbtA type game, you really need to spell out what specifically your magic-user can do, because in that case 'magic' is just kind of the flavor of how they succeed or fail at whatever move they're trying to do, so in that case, it doesn't really matter if you have the ability to magically make your enemies' blood boil because you can heat the iron in their blood.

I still do think it's somewhat unsatisfying if in a more mechanically-oriented game, where the 'how' matters a lot more, to just kinda be able to say 'i have my freeform magic do the exact kind of thing i need in this situation' and the only real downside is the fail state is different.
Also in any game where you want the characters the feel limited! When I was developing Tailfeathers, I started with a set of magical categories and let people improvise within them. It worked ok, but it didn't feel like first-year students at a magic school! They could basically solve whatever problem through the creative application of one spell or another.

I guess I could imagine a school where you start there and then get even more powerful, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted kids who are learning specific spells. So I had to bite the bullet and actually do the work of writing down tons of spells. So now you get the fun of trying to find fun and effective ways to use your limited arsenal. You just cannot get that feel with a "cast a spell" PbtA move.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

KingKalamari posted:

Honestly, an idea I've tossed around in my head in how to implement the concept of dangerous or unreliable magic in a rules-focused game like D&D in a way that doesn't completely suck would be to have backfire or miscast mechanics written into the text of spells. The idea is that the spell is going to do what it's supposed to regardless, but there's a chance it might also do an additional, likely unwanted thing if the caster fucks it up (Whether that be just a flat percentage chance or if they gently caress up some kind of casting roll). So, for instance, something like fireball is always going to do xd6 damage to creatures within the targeted area, but on a miscast it would also do something like ignite the caster.

I think the two big problems with unreliable magic rules are that they either make the result of a miscast that the caster wastes their turn (Which is boring), or they rely on completely random miscast results (Which get old very fast and make spellcasting a complete slapstick gongshow) or they give the GM blanket fiat to dick over the caster as they see fit (Which is way too easily abusable). The codified miscast mechanics I'm describing, at least, make the player aware of exactly what's going to happen on a miscast and thus allows them to make more of an informed choice and enforces that sort of press your luck feeling people have been talking about.
I too like WFRP3E

Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Feb 26, 2023

Panzeh
Nov 27, 2006

"..The high ground"

Jimbozig posted:

Also in any game where you want the characters the feel limited! When I was developing Tailfeathers, I started with a set of magical categories and let people improvise within them. It worked ok, but it didn't feel like first-year students at a magic school! They could basically solve whatever problem through the creative application of one spell or another.

I guess I could imagine a school where you start there and then get even more powerful, but that's not what I wanted. I wanted kids who are learning specific spells. So I had to bite the bullet and actually do the work of writing down tons of spells. So now you get the fun of trying to find fun and effective ways to use your limited arsenal. You just cannot get that feel with a "cast a spell" PbtA move.

I think there's something to be said for mechanical texture- in a sense, having you, the player think like the character in certain ways. I don't know, it helps really sell the fantasy of a kind of character in a way just narrating it a certain way does. It does mean i don't get much from playing characters absolutely nothing like myself, but I dunno, i just kinda get something from mechanics that even really good blades or pbta games don't give me.

Captain Walker
Apr 7, 2009

Mother knows best
Listen to your mother
It's a scary world out there

PurpleXVI posted:

I feel like a good execution would essentially be Blackjack. You try to inch your way closer to the "ideal" score, risking going over with every addition, and then your opponent has to do the same in return to try and go over your achieved score, with the same going-over risk.

PurpleXVI posted:

A simple, dice-based implementation would be something like the dice game "Meyer"

I've always felt that this type of mechanic should be at the core of an Ocean's Eleven or Leverage type game, or maybe a James Bond situation where you're private intelligence agents not beholden to one government.

The grifter walks smartly onto the casino floor, while the hacker sets up shop in the security room, while the burglar starts climbing through the vent shafts towards the vault. The crew won't be able to get into the owner's safe and retrieve the stolen diamonds/incriminating evidence without pushing their luck to progress faster, and it's only a question of who makes the first mistake. The burglar can exit the vents unseen or unheard, but not both. The grifter could provide interference, but would likely be made a prior mark. Will the hacker be able to salvage the situation without cutting the power and alerting everyone?

Admiralty Flag
Jun 7, 2007

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Captain Walker posted:

I've always felt that this type of mechanic should be at the core of an Ocean's Eleven or Leverage type game, or maybe a James Bond situation where you're private intelligence agents not beholden to one government.

The grifter walks smartly onto the casino floor, while the hacker sets up shop in the security room, while the burglar starts climbing through the vent shafts towards the vault. The crew won't be able to get into the owner's safe and retrieve the stolen diamonds/incriminating evidence without pushing their luck to progress faster, and it's only a question of who makes the first mistake. The burglar can exit the vents unseen or unheard, but not both. The grifter could provide interference, but would likely be made a prior mark. Will the hacker be able to salvage the situation without cutting the power and alerting everyone?

Something like this could be handled with a hack to Dogs in the Vineyard, which includes a push-your-luck option with making hands vs. escalation. At the start of the job, everyone rolls the appropriate die pool according to their role. Then, when people run out of dice as they proceed through the job, instead of going from words -> fists -> guns (was there a fourth stage? I can't remember...), as a group they go from undetected -> suspicious -> alerted when someone has to escalate the situation to stay in contention by rolling additional dice.

Every role would have to have a pair of stats for the base state of the job, then another stat for when things get escalated the first time, then a fourth stat for when things go loud. These stats would vary by role (E.g., the Hacker might roll Intelligence + Computers, then Active Countermeasures, then Overwrite Security). Occasionally the GM could mix things up by making people switch up stats when the situation gets escalated for an additional challenge (suspicious: the hacker gets spotted by a security guard and has to roll their Hardcore Parkour stat instead of Active Countermeasures; alerted: the grifter has to roll Untrammeled Violence instead of Graceful Extrication).

Alternately, for Blades in the Dark, say that you can keep rolling against certain types of clocks, but going over by X amount leads to complications. (You can Tinker to pick the safe's lock as often as you like, but if you exceed the clock on it by two ticks or more, then you've taken too long/broken your tools/etc.) But I feel this sort of thing would be better handled in BitD by completing clocks. (You've got to get through the safe's lock before the alert clock is full.)

In fact, I think BitD already handles push-your-luck pretty well with things like the push mechanic, devil's bargain, 4/5 results, etc.

Zorak of Michigan
Jun 10, 2006


PurpleXVI posted:

I don't think there's anything wrong with it being calculated risk, though. Magic that may just turn you into a turnip when you're trying to light a candle isn't interesting or dramatically appropriate. On the other hand, if you have a spell that works within expected parameters 90% of the time, and goes into the realms of "oh poo poo, what happens now?" if you overcharge it for a big important battle or whatever, or during a crisis situation where you have to cast it at half speed or some such, then the randomness and risk can add a sense of drama to things.

Ever since I read this, I've been imagining an app-assisted magic system. Break spells down into grammar, plot the grammar on a wheel, and put modifiable bell curves all around it. When you're doing something that's well within your established skill level, the modifiers mean that if it doesn't work, you might get not exactly what you wanted, but it's going to be pretty close. The farther out of your comfort zone you get, the more the curve spreads out, and the app explains the nature of your grammatical mistake. Inexperienced caster who can reliably summon a 10cm sphere of fire and throw it decides it's time to try to summon fire to incinerate the entire dungeon hall? The app does the heavy lifting and generates six different random numbers and comes back to tell you that you got fire, but lost your cadence when you came to the part of the incantation controlling the center point of the fire, and also failed to perfectly ground yourself against the flow of thaumaturgy, so you take increased energy drain from the spell, and the midpoint is 3m closer to you than you intended, so also take light fire damage." Or maybe the random numbers have totally turned against you and you inadvertently use a word that sounds almost the same as fire but isn't, and now instead of being incinerated, the bad guys are covered in mud.

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Zorak of Michigan posted:

Ever since I read this, I've been imagining an app-assisted magic system. Break spells down into grammar, plot the grammar on a wheel, and put modifiable bell curves all around it. When you're doing something that's well within your established skill level, the modifiers mean that if it doesn't work, you might get not exactly what you wanted, but it's going to be pretty close. The farther out of your comfort zone you get, the more the curve spreads out, and the app explains the nature of your grammatical mistake. Inexperienced caster who can reliably summon a 10cm sphere of fire and throw it decides it's time to try to summon fire to incinerate the entire dungeon hall? The app does the heavy lifting and generates six different random numbers and comes back to tell you that you got fire, but lost your cadence when you came to the part of the incantation controlling the center point of the fire, and also failed to perfectly ground yourself against the flow of thaumaturgy, so you take increased energy drain from the spell, and the midpoint is 3m closer to you than you intended, so also take light fire damage." Or maybe the random numbers have totally turned against you and you inadvertently use a word that sounds almost the same as fire but isn't, and now instead of being incinerated, the bad guys are covered in mud.

I like the idea, but you're kind of just putting a lot of the work on this "grammar" like it's a black box. It's gonna live and die by the contents of that black box and all you've said so far is that it's gonna be complicated enough to require a computer.

That and, y'know, "grammar" is one of the things that computers are famously awful at.

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Tulip
Jun 3, 2008

yeah thats pretty good


Captain Walker posted:

I've always felt that this type of mechanic should be at the core of an Ocean's Eleven or Leverage type game, or maybe a James Bond situation where you're private intelligence agents not beholden to one government.

The grifter walks smartly onto the casino floor, while the hacker sets up shop in the security room, while the burglar starts climbing through the vent shafts towards the vault. The crew won't be able to get into the owner's safe and retrieve the stolen diamonds/incriminating evidence without pushing their luck to progress faster, and it's only a question of who makes the first mistake. The burglar can exit the vents unseen or unheard, but not both. The grifter could provide interference, but would likely be made a prior mark. Will the hacker be able to salvage the situation without cutting the power and alerting everyone?

This is in fact the baseline of FITD games

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