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Make whole rules system into "black jack" style

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Tue, 2009-11-03 16:19

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

Make whole rules system into "black jack" style

I would like to modify the whole EP system, or at least as much as possible, into the black jack style used in opposed tests (i.e. the higher the dice roll the better). I find this very quick and intuitive for the players and the GM alike during game play. However, this means a lot of issues when making traditional EP tests, e.g. success tests with MoS/MoF, criticals etc, especially when there are clear tables in the core book which modify dice rolls. Has anyone got a solution to this? Or any thoughts?

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[img]http://boxall.no-ip.org/img/ext_userbar.jpg[/img] "People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes." - John Dee

Wed, 2009-11-18 01:14

puke

Re: Make whole rules system into "black jack" style

im not sure modifiers are an issue, but let me think it out: MoS seems to be the biggest issue. in the "roll low" system, if your rating (skill + stat) is 50, you will get a 30 MoS 20% of the time. you'll get a 10 MoS 40% of the time. your odds of hitting your MoS is "rating minus MoS". your maximum MoS is equal to your rating. in the "blackjack" system, your maximum possible MoS is the same as your rating, just like in the roll low system. the trick is to devise a system in which your odds of rolling any given MoS with blackjack, are the same as in roll low. lets take the easiest idea, and say that we set your MoS equal to your roll. If you rating is 50, and you want to roll a MoS of 30+. in the old system, you would have 20% chance of doing so. in the MoS=roll system, you'd likewise have a 20% chance of doing so. this is because you would have a 30+ MoS on a roll of 30-50, which is 20% of the 00-99 range possible on your dice. your chance of getting any MoS is still equal to "rating minus MoS", just as before. So with this in mind, it looks like blackjack is the perfect end-all roll system, where you dont even have to use subtration to find your MoS. you just look at your dice. so lets look at modifiers now. if in the "roll low" system you have a -10 penalty to your roll and your modified skill plus stat is 50, your new effective rating is 40. Heeeeey, this seems awfully familiar. we can repeat the same experiment as above but substitute "effective rating" in place of "rating" and find that roll low is still identical to blackjack in terms of odds. if you want to apply the modifier to the final MoS instead of to the "effective rating" (for instance, if the GM had a secret bonus or penalty he didnt want to let the player in on) it would still play out the same. a direct percentile difference to the final MoS, after dice have been rolled. unless i somehow fundamentally misunderstood how the dice system is supposed to work. which is entirely possible, but i think its pretty safe to just use blackjack all the time, and treat MoS as being equal to whats showing on your dice.

Wed, 2009-11-18 18:42

puke

Re: Make whole rules system into "black jack" style

oops, i seem to have negelected to account for the opposed test mechanic. this is where the wrench gets slipped into the works. with the current system, which is "roll low, but higher than your opponent" your maximum possible MoS is reduced by your oponent's roll. this is to say, that you can only have a margin of success up to skill+stat-opposing roll. e.g.: your skill+stat rating is 50. your opponent rolls a 20. your possible range of success is to roll 21-50, which gives a possible MoS of 0-29. If we translated this into the above described "blackjack" system where MoS is instead equal to what is showing on the dice, your possible MoS would instead be 21-50. instead of succeeding by a more narrow margin in opposed tests, you would be succeding by wider margins (when actually successfull). clearly this is undesireable. This can be adjusted for by subtracting the opposing roll from your MoS. so, during an opposed test you will look at your dice to determine your MoS, doing no math. then you will modify that number by subtracting the opposing roll (only if its successfull) from your score. This sounds pretty shitty to me. So much so, that I think the idea of "just use blackjack for everything" can be pretty much round-filed. The other option of "just use the low-roll system everywhere" merrits similar exploration, but ends up in the same place. everyone understands calculating MoS and modifiers with a "roll low" system, but using it in opposed tests just isnt going to work either. if you say "lowest roll wins" then you have the exact same problem as above, you will succede less often in opposed tests, but those successes will have a higher MoS instead of a lower one. you can adjust for it just like in the "blackjack" system, by subtracting the opponent's successfull roll from your MoS. Which is an extra step that pretty much makes the excercise useless. Once its fully thought through, I think the only reasonable conclusion is the one presented in the book. Fundamentally, this is still a unified system. you always want to roll the greatest MoS possible, and you always want to roll higher than your opponent. in unopposed rolls, you can assume that you are facing an unsucessfull oponent. Thus, a unified mechanic. oh well. im glad i took the time to think it through, but sort of embarrased that it took me this long to "get" it. edit: i just noticed some smarter folks than me discussing this in another thread, and they paint the same picture much more concicely. i'll cross-post them in this edit --

Decivre wrote:
There are three reasons for why the mechanic in opposed checks works the way it does. 1. It means that whether a normal check or a contested check, MoS is calculated identically in either case. A better roll from your opponent ensures a smaller window in which your roll can succeed, and a smaller MoS in the process. Not only is this consistent, but it makes these things far easier to eyeball during play. 2. It also means that skill defines how much of a threat your roll can actually be to your opponent's. If your skill is 40 and your opponent's skill is 60, he has already succeeded if he rolls any number from 41-60 (excluding the possibility of a critical). In a sense, normal and contested checks ARE using the same mechanic. Normal checks work under the assumption that your "opponent" automatically failed its check, and your success is solely dependent on your own roll. Otherwise, the mechanic is rather sound.

and:

DaveS wrote:
Regardless of skill, giving victory to the higher roll (= lower MoS) will tend to produce more low-margin successes than high-margin successes. There are basically two ways that you can do an opposed roll in a margin-based system and not have them horribly inflate the margins in successful tests. Either you can award success to the higher margin, but subtract the loser's margin from the winner's (which is what most games do, but has the drawback of requiring three calculations for every opposed test), or you can make your rolls with success/failure counted from one side and margin counted from the other (which is what EP does, but has the drawback of seeming inconsistent to some people). What you can't do is base MoS on how far you roll below your skill and award success to the low roll, because then you get a situation where either you fail or you succeed spectacularly with very little chance of moderate success and almost no chance of minimal success.

Tue, 2010-01-12 10:34

Bloodwork

Re: Make whole rules system into "black jack" style

puke wrote:
with the current system, which is "roll low, but higher than your opponent" your maximum possible MoS is reduced by your oponent's roll. this is to say, that you can only have a margin of success up to skill+stat-opposing roll. e.g.:

I thought MoS wasn't affected by your opponent's roll.

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That which doesn't kill you usually succeeds on the second attempt.

Tue, 2010-01-12 11:03

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

Re: Make whole rules system into "black jack" style

What puke means is that you still have to roll higher than you opponent, thus your MoS-range will be lowered.

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Tue, 2010-01-12 11:55

standard_gravity standard_gravity's picture

Draft Proposal!!

A friend and I came up with a quite workable system for black jack style rolling across the board. Admittedly, the system does not stay true to the delicate balance in EP as to the likelihood of Critical and Excellent dice rolls, but this can perhaps be addressed by further tweaks to the proposal. (I should add here that this is quite intentional on our part – we do not like the fact that according to official EP rules, you will roll a critical success or failure 10% of the time.) The system is as follows: All numbers on your character sheet remain as is. The difference is in how you determine excellent and critical successes. In all rolls, you want to roll as high as possible AND still under or equal to your target (skill) number. In opposed rolls, the highest successful roll wins. In simple, non-opposed rolls, your level of success (MoS if you like) is determined according to how high you roll, or in other words, how close to your target (skill) number you roll. To determine whether you have achieved an Excellent or a Critical Success, the following rules are used. (Normal rules for excellent and critical rolls are not used.) [u][b]Critical Success[/b][/u] is achieved if you roll the same as your target (skill) number ONLY. [u][b]Excellent Success[/b][/u] is achieved if you roll equal to or higher than [skill value] – [10% of skill value]. Ex: if you have a skill value of 70%, you will roll a Critical Success if the dice roll is “70”, and roll an Excellent Success if the dice roll is “69”, “68”, “67”, “66”, ”65”, “64” or “63”. Critical Failure and Severe Failure are determined in a similar fashion. [u][b]Critical Failures[/b][/u] are achieved if you roll “100” ONLY. [u][b]Severe Failure[/b][/u] is achieved if you roll equal to or higher than [100] – [10 - 10% of skill value]. Ex: if you have a skill value of 70%, you will suffer from a Severe Failure if you roll “99”, “98” and “97”. Comments: 1. It may seem difficult to calculate the 10% of your skill value. However, we have used a simple system: just look at the 10’s in you skill value and use that. I.e. if your skill is 64, it’s “6”; if your skill is 18, its “1”. This also removes any rounding up/down issues. 2. For everyday, unimportant rolls, it is simple to just roll a d100 against your skill and directly get a feel for how well the (N)PC performed. 3. In our opinion, it is more intuitive and quick to simply look at the dice and see how well you did. 4. There will be no MoS as such according this system. I.e. no time-consuming subtractions (e.g. your skill is 62 and you rolled 37, what is my MoS…).

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Tue, 2010-01-12 21:40

Bloodwork

Re: Make whole rules system into "black jack" style

puke wrote:
with the current system, which is "roll low, but higher than your opponent" your maximum possible MoS is reduced by your oponent's roll. this is to say, that you can only have a margin of success up to skill+stat-opposing roll. e.g.: your skill+stat rating is 50. your opponent rolls a 20. your possible range of success is to roll 21-50, which gives a possible MoS of 0-29. If we translated this into the above described "blackjack" system where MoS is instead equal to what is showing on the dice, your possible MoS would instead be 21-50. instead of succeeding by a more narrow margin in opposed tests, you would be succeding by wider margins (when actually successfull). clearly this is undesireable. This can be adjusted for by subtracting the opposing roll from your MoS. so, during an opposed test you will look at your dice to determine your MoS, doing no math. then you will modify that number by subtracting the opposing roll (only if its successfull) from your score. This sounds pretty shitty to me. So much so, that I think the idea of "just use blackjack for everything" can be pretty much round-filed.

I'm confused. Are you saying that reducing your MoS by the opponent's MoS is good or bad?

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That which doesn't kill you usually succeeds on the second attempt.