On 4/4/2017 at 2:29 AM, edwardavern said:

Don't get me started on the fact that, mathematically speaking, a Boost die is generally better than an upgrade. That's just poor design.

This is just not completely accurate and it depends on the upgrade. If it's a green to a yellow, yes. If it's adding a green to the pool, no. I have a concern when people rant and put out incomplete misleading statements like this that new players might take as accurate.

39 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

But how is that now how it should be? If there was no chance of failure, you wouldn't have rolled. By rolling, you accept that you could fail. And even a large dice pool doesn't imply success. It implies a high chance of success. Big difference.

Yep, I'm pretty well versed in entropy and RPGs, but again, it's because I failed nearly every roll, easy or hard , and per the original comment to which I was responding, the perception is that there's no minimum bar set for when a roll isn't necessary and I wanted to share an example where this actually caused a problem.

Of course I expect to fail at some rolls, even for the things my character excels at. In fact, failure is as fun as success in this system. I'm not pronouncing a problem, but my comments are now out of context for the origin and don't make nearly as much sense without it. My apologies for the ongoing confusion.

I think part of the issue is that if you're failing that many rolls in the first place, and this isn't a case of confirmation bias, there's something else out of whack and causing this situation.

8 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

I think part of the issue is that if you're failing that many rolls in the first place, and this isn't a case of confirmation bias, there's something else out of whack and causing this situation.

Haunted dice!

Well, if my original stance really does not make sense with what you are rolling... I suggest you find an voodoo witch doctor to remove that curse you got on your hands, or start rolling your dice with your mouth.

On 4/4/2017 at 4:52 PM, Jedi Ronin said:

What seems more likely is that some players don't like a system where there's a mere chance of failure in "standard" checks in an area of expertise. In d20 systems you can get to the point where standard or even "hard" rolls are automatically successful and some players don't like giving up that "character expertise".

Absolutely!!! I find this to be VERY true. I have a guy who is SO placated by the d20 systems that he becomes frustrated with failed rolls in FFG. He's used to pumping things until he only fails on a "1", and even then, he has a talent or magical item that lets him reroll that. Naturally, he now has a Presence-based character with the Charm skill, a talent that lets him reroll a Charm check 1x/session, and a talent that removes a Despair from a social skills roll. ....A perfect d20 character.

He still complains that he can't hit anything with a 2 Agility, even though he rarely misses when he shoots. Again, he's used to maxing out a Dexterity score and have that yield bonuses in Armor Class, To-Hit, and Initiative. The best FFG has to offer is being a good shot and a good pilot with Agility. It is frustrating for him.

I've ran probably about 30 or so sessions of this game, it is the main system I GM, and I don't have a single house rule. Sure there have been times were a player wanted to do something in the game that I didn't know how the system handled, so I improvised and looked it up later. I don't like breaking the flow of the game by looking stuff up if I feel like it is going to take to long, and I feel like this system invites GMs to play fast and loose with the rules.

I will admit that I've only done a few space combat encounters and that my players generally are not big fans of space combat. Is that a flaw in the system? Could be, but honestly if my players aren't interested in it, then I'm not going to force it on them. There are still plenty of times players need to make astrogation/piloting checks without being in dog fights with tie fighters.

This system is by no means perfect, but then again no system is; I've played D20, I've played D12 and I've played D6 system games, and for my money this is still the best table top system I've ever played/ran.

8 hours ago, DurosSpacer said:

Absolutely!!! I find this to be VERY true. I have a guy who is SO placated by the d20 systems that he becomes frustrated with failed rolls in FFG. He's used to pumping things until he only fails on a "1", and even then, he has a talent or magical item that lets him reroll that. Naturally, he now has a Presence-based character with the Charm skill, a talent that lets him reroll a Charm check 1x/session, and a talent that removes a Despair from a social skills roll. ....A perfect d20 character.

He still complains that he can't hit anything with a 2 Agility, even though he rarely misses when he shoots. Again, he's used to maxing out a Dexterity score and have that yield bonuses in Armor Class, To-Hit, and Initiative. The best FFG has to offer is being a good shot and a good pilot with Agility. It is frustrating for him.

There you have it kids, don't ever start with garbage DnD, because it will frustrate you for the rest of your life, even when playing something totally different.
SCNR.

11 hours ago, themensch said:

Yep, I'm pretty well versed in entropy and RPGs, but again, it's because I failed nearly every roll, easy or hard , and per the original comment to which I was responding, the perception is that there's no minimum bar set for when a roll isn't necessary and I wanted to share an example where this actually caused a problem.

Of course I expect to fail at some rolls, even for the things my character excels at. In fact, failure is as fun as success in this system. I'm not pronouncing a problem, but my comments are now out of context for the origin and don't make nearly as much sense without it. My apologies for the ongoing confusion.

1. It did not cause a problem, the GM made it a problem.
2. There is a minimum bar set for rolls, the GM chose to ignore it in the example.
3. On top of that it was an statistical fluke, happening once upon more than 10,000 times.
4. Your own expectation is odd. Never forgot to turn on the oven or forgot something to shop for at the supermarket, missed a deadline despite the task was super simple? All those cases can be represented as failed checks too. The consequences of a failed check are already within the realm of the GM decisions and usually rather mild, only checks which involve challange dice there is an inherrent danger included and adding those dice is as well often a GM choice based on his assumption how the task at hand is handled by his characters.

So even in the original context, you are not really making a good point, especially as rolling a critical miss in DnD is easier than missing an simple or easy check with a fistfull of dice. And on top of this DnD has the optional rule to make this natural 1 a fumble. In this context it makes for DnD absolutely sense to have a hard rule to prevent those fumbles based on skill level, meanwhile SWRPG has an easy time with this as the GM just do not add challange dice to such tasks and critical failures are literally not going to happen.

5 hours ago, SEApocalypse said:

1. [...]

For not having been there and not having all the facts around the story, you sure seem pretty sure about your hypothesis. I can appreciate that you're trying to help but it's really not necessary. I was there, I was making the rolls and I don't share the same conclusion. Let's move on.

It's the game of chance coupled with the types of rolls that tends to be the source of angst I find. It tends to magnify and cause consternation when it involves non combat skill checks. Combat involves so many rolls of the dice during the typical session the averages kick in. When it comes to other skill checks in the game invariably we will almost always be making far fewer of them than combat checks so the failures tend to magnified in our perception.

6 hours ago, 2P51 said:

It's the game of chance coupled with the types of rolls that tends to be the source of angst I find. It tends to magnify and cause consternation when it involves non combat skill checks. Combat involves so many rolls of the dice during the typical session the averages kick in. When it comes to other skill checks in the game invariably we will almost always be making far fewer of them than combat checks so the failures tend to magnified in our perception.

How dare you offer a reasonable opinion on the internet!

On 05/04/2017 at 11:40 PM, 2P51 said:

This is just not completely accurate and it depends on the upgrade. If it's a green to a yellow, yes. If it's adding a green to the pool, no. I have a concern when people rant and put out incomplete misleading statements like this that new players might take as accurate.

Ah, you are right, of course. If you already have 3 Yellow dice in your pool, then then an upgrade is better than a Boost. But in fairness that situation is far less common.

12 minutes ago, edwardavern said:

Ah, you are right, of course. If you already have 3 Yellow dice in your pool, then then an upgrade is better than a Boost. But in fairness that situation is far less common.

Two upgrades do the same if have just one ability dice among your pool and are actually still better than adding two boost dice.

A green to a yellow adds the chance of a triumph, so while not statistically an increase, it does add other advantages (no pun intended).

On 07/04/2017 at 11:01 AM, Ahrimon said:

A green to a yellow adds the chance of a triumph, so while not statistically an increase, it does add other advantages (no pun intended).

This is true, but presents a somewhat circular argument, as triumphs are often used to upgrade checks (especially outside of combat).

On 4/7/2017 at 2:39 AM, edwardavern said:

Ah, you are right, of course. If you already have 3 Yellow dice in your pool, then then an upgrade is better than a Boost. But in fairness that situation is far less common.

You get to pick, including opting for a Boost if you prefer. In the case of a Boost for anyone and not just the next PC, that requires 2 Advantages, which would be an entire die's results, whereas a Triumph can do that while simultaneously counting as a Success.

A Triumph can do anything an Advantage(s) can do that suits you, the same is not true unless you have the requisite number of Advantages and in the case of 3 Advantages being needed that can only be accomplished with the results of 2 dice.

Having all Yellow dice also in a given pool is not a coincidence, in most cases it is a choice and it can be a strategic one knowing there are Destiny Points available for use very commonly.

Then the litany of results from various skills, or skills synergizing with Talents using a Triumph result, or the occasional item like a Bola, so no, mathematically speaking a Boost die is not in fact most often better than an upgrade.

I just read this topic and I can't believe anything the original message had. Everything written is a good thing to me. I don't want the crunchy sister. I want a story driven system that can move and adapted to feed the role-playing. If you are just interested in charts, graphs, whatever then this isn't the system for you.

The reason for the squishy rules and the inconsistencies, as you call them, is they are made that way specifically to feed narration first, mechanic second.

I don't understand why there is ambiguity in some of what you said like you can't figure what an encounter… But maybe this just is not the system for you.

So by way of example...I recently did a series of Crafting Checks to Build and Modify a Lightsaber including modifying 4 different Crystals (1 Saber has the Cyclic Array).

Int 3 Mechanics 3, Customized ToolKit for 1 Boost, Repair Robot Assist for 1 Boost and mentor Assist for 1 Boost (Did not know about the Maintenance Kit til this morning).

Out of something like 20 rolls I only failed once, and that was halfway through modifying an Illum Crystal; which to be fair has 8 levels of modification so by the time I failed I was at 4 Difficulty.

And the GM was letting me treat Each Crystal Mod as an ongoing skill check so I could roll over extra Advantage into Boost die (2:1) so I was often roll 4-5 Boost on top, and let me use Triumph to re-roll a technical failure.

So it is a matter of Luck, tempered with planning and design. When the planning goes out the window however is when the fit hits the shan...

In spite of all the (valid) complaints that can be made about the game, its flaws are still nothing compared to the problems the old Star Wars systems had.

3 hours ago, Galakk Fyyar said:

In spite of all the (valid) complaints that can be made about the game, its flaws are still nothing compared to the problems the old Star Wars systems had.

What do you mean, 20th-level stormtroopers make perfect sense!

21 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

What do you mean, 20th-level stormtroopers make perfect sense!

And who doesn't love lightsabering Star Destroyers by level 12?

...what do you mean that's "unrealistic"?

19 minutes ago, Galakk Fyyar said:

And who doesn't love lightsabering Star Destroyers by level 12?

...what do you mean that's "unrealistic"?

Not to get serious again, but unrealistic is the wrong word here. It's not in tune with the setting as presented in the movies and (most of) the additional material. Realism doesn't enter into it.

51 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Not to get serious again, but unrealistic is the wrong word here. It's not in tune with the setting as presented in the movies and (most of) the additional material. Realism doesn't enter into it.

I've started replacing "unrealistic" with "doesn't make sense" in my experiences with Star Wars - it works a lot better for Space Opera. Yes, most of it is unrealistic - that's what suspension of disbelief is for - but it still has to make sense to accept it. It has to flow with the narrative. It has to seem fitting.

I got started drafting a section about Boosts vs. Upgrades (assuming the "standard" of green to yellow vs. adding a green), and got sucked into doing way more math than I wanted. The fundamental key is this: when looking at upgrading a green to a yellow, you have to look at what a yellow can do vs. what a green can do, but when you look at adding a Boost (if you're comparing to a yellow), you have to look at what a Boost and a green can do compared to what a yellow alone can do.

When compared to a green alone, a yellow drops the "blank" rate from 12.5% to 8.3% and increases the "double symbol rate" (counting Triumphs as a double symbol) from 37.5% to 66.67%. That's a pretty big increase. Of course, the odds of getting at least one Success only go from 50% to 66.67% (again counting the Success from a Triumph). The increase in odds of getting two Successes are even slimmer: 16.67% up from 12.5%. You aren't, on average, likely to be more Successful. However, the odds of getting Success with Advantage go from 12.5% to 25%, which is nearly double - a good thing, considering combat checks especially want both, and the rest of the double symbols are either double Advantage or that elusive 1/12 Triumph (which counts as a Success); Advantage and Triumph are very powerful things, and a lot of Weapon Qualities and Talents, the hallmarks of "skilled" or "expert" characters, require them, often in conjunction with success. Yellows increase the chance of getting these symbols, and ensure that when they're coming to you, they either come in doubles (more potent) or paired with Success.

Let's look at what a Boost and a green can do together. Their chance of a total "blank" (both sides showing blank, the equivalent affect of your yellow coming up blank) is 4.17%, so you more reliably get something from a pair of dice. The probability of rolling at least two symbols is also 75%, a decent amount better than the 66.67% offered by the yellow alone. A big argument vs. adding a Boost is the lack of Triumph - and that's true , Triumphs are excellent -, the combo of Boost + green can yield three or even four symbols (vs. a yellow, which caps out at two). Rolling at least 3 symbols happens 41.67% of the time, and you can get four whole symbols 12.5% of the time. The probability of rolling some combination of Success with Advantage also happens 47.9% of the time, which is absurdly higher than the 12.5% base of one green and even again almost double the chances of getting Success with Advantage on a yellow die. If you want to look at raw Success, the chances of getting at least one Success go up from the green's alone of 50% to 66.67%, so it's the same chance of at least one Success as the yellow die.

Disclaimer: I doubled and triple checked most of the math, but I still could be entirely wrong. It's easy for me to type a "3" instead of a "6" or something at 3:30 AM, so bear with me.

Still, the math does suggest an Ability+Boost combo is better than a Proficiency die alone - you get the same total chance of at least a single Success (in other words, the same chance of rolling no Successes ), a slightly lower chance of rolling nothing at all , and an increased chance in rolling at least two symbols. In addition, you get a good chance of rolling 3 or even 4 symbols, and you wind up with a better overall chance to get a healthy balance of Success with Advantage (if I did my math right on that one). You do miss out on a Triumph, and those can have pretty excellent side effects - in GM'ing Onslaught at Arda I, I was going to suggest something pretty spectacular for a Triumph [spoiler is for those who don't want to know the basic sequence of events in the first Act, not anything specific to more intricate plot details]:

Triumphs can also negate the need for further rolls, or let you switch to rolling something else, by altering the situation, or taking out an enemy. They can affect your chances of success by removing the need to rely on chance in the first place. That goes beyond the math and into the narrative influence they have.

57 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

Triumphs can also negate the need for further rolls, or let you switch to rolling something else, by altering the situation, or taking out an enemy. They can affect your chances of success by removing the need to rely on chance in the first place. That goes beyond the math and into the narrative influence they have.

Absolutely true! It's a 1/12 per Proficiency die, though, so if all you're banking on is a solid, successful roll with a smattering of Advantages, it leaves you with a tough decision to make.