A heartbreaker to call my own
Ari Black:
Jason,
1) I never thought of the chips as being won. They were merely a mechanic for representing characters strength of attempt or opposition. Let me give you a sense of what I was imagining and maybe it'll be a bit more clear what I'm trying to go for. I use character name(p) to represent the player for that character, so if the character's name is John, John's player would be John(p).
Let's say we have three characters; Jane, Mark, and Steven. Jane(p) is initiating the action sequence and tells the group that Jane is going to make her way across the shaking bridge. Mark is going to follow and Steven is going to hold onto the bridge's ropes to try to steady the shaking a bit. The GM, acting as the shaking bridge, puts in 3 chips against Jane and 3 against Mark. Jane(p), Mark(p), and Steven(p) all put in 2. That makes the roll for Jane 9-20 and the roll for Mark the same. The roll goes well for Jane who gets across. Mark isn't so lucky and is hanging off the bridge.
The notion here is to have everyone have a chance, but not required, to act in each sequence. The player that starts the action sequence gets to set the scene a little but only has to focus on what their character is doing. The others can support or oppose, if they wish, or do their own thing. The reason I had the GM's chips being where all the spent player's chips go is because the GM will be opposing much more often to a varied set of actions.
Your idea is a good one but I wasn't thinking about the other players as an audience to the action sequence. Instead, I was trying to create a more fluid sense of flow where the players were free to try anything they could think of. The reason I was hesitant to put in any skills is that I want to have the simplest possible base mechanic. The less that's in the mechanic the more malleable it is for multiple settings. More work for the GM, yes.
2) This relates back to what I said in 1; the players aren't really setting stakes but describing the actions their characters are taking. My RP group doesn't take well to the freedom of stake-setting games. They like to control their character in response to the worlds I create. The notion with this system was to give them that but with much less mechanics and restrictions to deal with from the system.
Thanks again.
Ari Black:
Quote from: happysmellyfish on February 26, 2011, 09:59:58 PM
Hi Ari,
I've just got a small thought about the d20 you're using. It seems somewhat out of place - maybe a relic?
If you wanted to streamline a little, perhaps you could use a black box. Chips are placed in the box, and then one randomly drawn to determine the scene's outcome. So there could be three white and two black in the box, giving a 60 per cent chance of white winning.
This changes the odds from the d20 system (chances can swing quickly away from 50/50) but not necessarily in a bad way.
Anyway - welcome and such!
That's an interesting notion. Using this mechanic, how would players show more effort or the GM create more difficulty? Am I right in inferring that the starting configuration is 3 white & 2 black and then the player adds white to increase their odds and the GM adds black to decrease them? If this is what you intended, how does one player oppose another?
happysmellyfish:
Hi Ari,
Quote
That's an interesting notion. Using this mechanic, how would players show more effort or the GM create more difficulty? Am I right in inferring that the starting configuration is 3 white & 2 black and then the player adds white to increase their odds and the GM adds black to decrease them? If this is what you intended, how does one player oppose another?
Let me explain how I see this working.
At the beginning of a scene, there are never any chips in the black box. The scene proceeds along until a "conflict" crops up. THEN, chips are placed in the box.
For example, I'm playing a western and the barn is burning down. I want my character to succeed, so I narrate some fact that increases the chance of success: "Matt wraps a wet rag around his face. It should keep some of the smoke out." I place a counter in the box, to represent that fact. Say it's a white counter. Then the GM narrates some fact that decreases the chance of success: "Inside the barn, the flames spread to a barrel of lamp oil. It's really hot in there!" The GM places a counter in the box, to represent that fact. Say it's a black counter.
This continues until all players able/willing to place counters in the hat have done so. In this example, perhaps I've placed five white counters and the GM has placed two black counters. It's time to resolve the scene. I need to pull out a random counter. If it's white, my character has succeeded. If it's black, my character has failed. So, in this situation, I have a 71 per cent chance of success (from five out of seven counters being success). If either one of us were able/willing to contribute more chips, the odds would be different. I pull a counter, and either narrate my success or failure.
Does that make sense? I'm awful when it comes to writing rules.
Quote
Let's say we have three characters; Jane, Mark, and Steven. Jane(p) is initiating the action sequence and tells the group that Jane is going to make her way across the shaking bridge. Mark is going to follow and Steven is going to hold onto the bridge's ropes to try to steady the shaking a bit. The GM, acting as the shaking bridge, puts in 3 chips against Jane and 3 against Mark. Jane(p), Mark(p), and Steven(p) all put in 2. That makes the roll for Jane 9-20 and the roll for Mark the same. The roll goes well for Jane who gets across. Mark isn't so lucky and is hanging off the bridge.
The black box system could produce some interesting results here. There are six counters making success more likely, and six counters making success less likely. That is, six player counters have been placed in the box, and six GM counters have been placed in the box. Then each player would remove a counter. For the first player, the odds of success are 50/50. However, for each of the following players, the odds of success have changed. If the first player succeeds, then they take out that success token. This is good for them, but it means the next player is less likely to succeed. Likewise, if the first two players both succeed, it means the third player's chance of success has dropped from 50% (six success vs six failure) to 40% (four success vs six failure).
This might be useless for your project... but I'm enjoying figuring out the quirks. I have some ideas about how player vs player conflict would work, but it's not cooked at the moment.
Ari Black:
Happy,
This is a fascinating idea which could work. It would also make the mechanic of controlling who goes first have an affect on the probability of the initiating player's action going off as they pull from the hat first. Players who are working to oppose help each other because they all put black chips in. The same goes for players who are assisting but with white. Perhaps players who are doing their own actions can put in "neutral" chips that don't benefit either of the opposing or assisting players. Not sure, would have to look at the probabilities for the sake of balance.
Keep the ideas coming, obviously this system needs a good reworking.
Thanks!
happysmellyfish:
Maybe a more interesting way to think about this is as something more than binary success or failure.
When do you want the system to kick in? Does it trigger when there is a chance of a character failing? (For example, they are just trying to cross the bridge). Or does it only trigger when there is a conflict between characters? (For example, they are trying to cross the bridge WHILE the Nazis spray them with bullets.) It depends on the sort of game you envision, but to my mind the second is more interesting.
Not least of all, it means both sides of a conflict can "succeed." This requires goals to not be mutually exclusive, as in games like Shock. In the example above, the player character is trying to cross the bridge. The Nazi characters are trying to shoot the player character. There are four outcomes.
1 - the PC crosses the bridge, without being shot
2 - The PC crosses the bridge, but is shot in the process
3 - The PC does not cross the bridge, without being shot
4 - The PC does not cross the bridge, and is shot
Each of those seems fairly interesting to me.
Anyway, I think you need to decide how much simulation you're aiming for.
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