New dice mechanic?
thedroid:
I know what you mean. I'm trying to think of something in between the single-roll pass/fail method with MoS or MoF determining how you narrate it. Not that there's anything bad about it. It's perfect for jumping over something or breaking something. And with good enough narration -- and maybe a hidden die roll -- you could even make it suspenseful. But some challenges call for more drama and more elapsed time at the table. And of course the typical mechanic for that is the hit-point battle. Which is great, except when there's a lot of misses or when it starts to feel like a tree chopping contest.
One way to avoid the misses is to have head-to-head die rolls and the winner hits. So there's always a hit each roll. This makes battles shorter.
Another idea I'm toying with is what I think of as a "tug-of-war" model. Picture a line marked from -10 to 10 with 0 in the middle. Call it a "battle-status chart." You start with a marker at the middle, then move it a numer of "spaces" to the positive or negative side determined by the MoS or MoF. This might lend itself well to dramatic narration as it's easier to see which way the battle is going and when someone makes a comeback. The unusual thing about it is that you're not keeping track of hit points, so there's no carry-over "damage" from one conflict to another. To use it for a fight, there may need to be another aspect to it: like, say, you get hurt each time the marker passes -5. I think it would be cool for a chase mechanic, because it lends itself visually to the idea of falling behind or getting ahead.
A third concept is the "tennis model." You need a certain number of victories -- say, three -- but you can't win unless you have at least two more victories than your opponent. If close matches start to drag out, a rule where a very good die roll counts for 2 victories might help avoid endless back and forth.
Escova12:
Ah yes, the tree chopping contests... *Shudder*
I like the "tug-of-war" model and the "head-to-head" model. Also, I'm not familiar with some of the lingo you used. What is "MoS" and MoF?"
With the head-to-head model, this does allow for a much quicker means of combat. Someone's going to get hurt every round, which increases the benefit of cutting and running early, and could also make players think twice before getting into a lethal brawl. The downside of this method is that a battle-grid style play would be almost impossible - each round would represent a series of actions (including, I would assume, movement), ending with one landing a blow.
With the tug-of-war model, you have a lot of play as to what happens during the combat. Special abilities, tactics, spells, ect. could all be used as special modifiers as to who gets the edge on a given "tug."
On that, I was just playing a board game I found at a pub based (quite satirically) on two Scottish families having a traditional tug-of-war contest. During a players turn, they could place down people on the rope which modify how much that side had. Hence, you could place big, high number people on your side of the rope, and weak, low numbered people on your opponents side. You could also place player cards over the player cards of others, as long as the color matched (green to green, red to red, blue to blue). Additionally, there were certain people cards that had the word "heave!" on them. When this card was placed, the two players would compare the total number of the people cards on their sides, and the person with the highest number gained a number of "points" up the rope equal to the amount his or her number was higher than his or her opponent. So, you could place a 1-point heave card on your opponent (especially over a powerful 4 point person card), or a high 4-point heave card on your side, ect.
Following this model, there is a lot for you to work with. Lets use a physical combat as an example. Instead of colors, there could be sections for "tactics" (for fighters and rogues), "magic" (for casters), and "circumstance" (for other factors). Characters' abilities could be used to place down "cards" (or whatever) over a section (magic for casters, tactics for fighters, ect). Players would get cards (or whatever) based on how powerful they are (maybe a power pool?), and each side would take turns placing what they have. Then (maybe every 3rd round, or maybe with a specific ability), there could be a "Hit!" card, where whoever has the advantage moves their marker whatever points to their side. The only thing I thought of here is that you wouldn't want to have a huge deck of cards every time you went into combat, but you could probably remedy this by making different abilities (Cone of cold as a negative ability to place on the opponents side) usable every X number of rounds (or something).
Haven't thought about how you would handle multiple combatants with this one, but I'm sure there is a way you could work it out.
With the "Tennis Model," I would caution against painfully long conflicts and encumbering needs for score keeping and the like. That said, I'm not a tennis fan, so there ya go.
storyteller:
now this is interesting. I like both the idea of skill increasing the Bust number and the idea that it could be used to swing the number either way, though I think it should be per roll not per day, skill is more important than luck to me.
I see this as like, maneuvering, attacking and correcting. The first roll is footwork, where you stand, were you put your weight, the basic roll that sets up the action, the second roll is the attack itself and the third is to correct in mid swing, well to put it in combat terms. Its also maybe the run, the jump and the willpower to claw your way over the edge. To better illustrate, the first roll is gathering speed, the run to the ledge, if you have enough speed it will carry you over the gap, but most people wont make that. The second is the jump itself, again if you have good legs you make the other side, with the third roll being a will power test. Can you pull yourself onto the next rooftop after making that jump and falling short. I would make difficulty based around how many rolls you get.
An interesting premise and something very fun, I like the Gambling aspect a lot.
Christoph:
The above, but not over dice mechanic is pretty cool. You should check out Pendragon: http://www.pendragon.mu/, I believe they use a system something like that.
Christoph:
whoops, I mean http://www.nocturnal-media.com/games/pendragon I grabbed the bands website by mistake.
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