18 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

Wow I have only seen this book once along time ago and was wondering if it was worth tracking it down.

If you like Chaosium's BRP, you'll find it directly comparable, but not quite compatible. It is interesting, but it doesn't give a standardized map, and it nearly requires you have the TI boardgame.

3 hours ago, MuttonchopMac said:

Also, what do you actually want of "chancy" rolls? You're apparently interested in having them by requiring Opportunities above and beyond Successes, but you're also complaining that it's too hard to get a crit, so I don't get what you actually want. TN 3 to do a fun, narrative, non-attack thing is far more likely than TN 2 and 2 Opportunities because you only need to keep 3 dice, rather than 4, and yet you're claiming this is harder to achieve, which I just don't get...

I really don't want to be just another argument on these argument-laden forums, but I'm genuinely confused about your standpoints, which I just can't find rules to back up. Please understand that I'm trying to be clear with the large paragraphs up above, not antagonistic.

Its not about being more mechanical, or even making things more difficult. Its more about letting characters find a way to "solve" the situation. Like the Zombie example they can find that wounds do not work but that cutting the head from the body does. Its still an attack roll, its just a called shot.

The game already has mechanics for called shot - Air stance + Crit + Martial Skill Opportunity. That's 2 success and 3 opportunity to do a called shot such as "cut off its head" to end it quickly. This is a tough check considering dice only have a 33% chance of rolling an op anyway...

If I just say its TN 3 or TN 5 that simplifies the test... but then diminishes the importance of approach, kata, and opportunities that are supposed to be how such a thing happens. There is no "+1 TN for called shot" in the book.

22 hours ago, shosuko said:

Also - I think that perception is a major problem currently. Many people see the dice as a core issue with the game - specifically because Strife is randomly generated by dice as a penalty. FFG poses the situation that "Strife is a cost, and you choose to pay that cost to succeed at your task," but this narrative falls flat in that Strife doesn't do anything. People aren't seeing Strife as a cost, but as a penalty.

By changing the dice so that Strife is an option with a cost, rather than a penalty randomly tacked on to success / opportunity results. My concept here is almost entirely about perception. I don't think people like that Strife seems to be an entirely negative system, they don't see it as a cost, just a random penalty.

WoW introduced a system by which characters became "fatigued" after a certain amount of time playing in a day. The system was horrible, and players railed against it. Wow changed the terms from "normal" and "fatigued" to "rested" and "normal" and suddenly it became a good thing... Player perception is important. FFG wants Strife to be an option / cost for success, but the way it is branded currently fails as player perception sees it as a random penalty. If we shift presentation by taking the Success and Opportunity symbols off of these sides, and say that Strife does something - it gives either a Success or Opportunity result, I bet players will understand the cost element and enjoy the system much more.

I absolutely agree with everything said here. As it is, you feel your are being punished for succeeding, instead of being tempted with a cost to achieve something more.

21 hours ago, MuttonchopMac said:

One thing that might help (it worked for me - your mileage may vary) is to viewing the die rolling process backwards.

Almost all RPGs approach cool bonus effects on rolls as things you have to call before the roll that make it harder. "I'm calling three Raises for a extra damage and a feint!" "I'll trigger the Power Attack feat for -2 to hit and +4 damage!" ... The Star Wars narrative dice and this game (as far as I can tell) work backwards: you roll with some specified intent, then find out about cool bonus effects.

Ah yes, the root of all my problems with the system. This backwardness of the rolling process is precisely what I detest about these "narrative" dice.

Another situation I want to point out which motivates my concept for the dice re-work is probably one of the most anti-climactic situations I experience in the current game.

Only Success explode - but you don't need more than a certain amount of success. I've had rolls in my game that went to 3-5 explosions, it was awesome! Except they only needed a TN 2 or 3 for their task, and the rest were worthless. Having exploding option facets which can be either Success or Opportunity would remedy this so that explosions were always a good thing.

51 minutes ago, Mirumoto Saito said:

I absolutely agree with everything said here. As it is, you feel your are being punished for succeeding, instead of being tempted with a cost to achieve something more.

Ah yes, the root of all my problems with the system. This backwardness of the rolling process is precisely what I detest about these "narrative" dice.

And what I like most about it.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

Its not about being more mechanical, or even making things more difficult. Its more about letting characters find a way to "solve" the situation. Like the Zombie example they can find that wounds do not work but that cutting the head from the body does. Its still an attack roll, its just a called shot.

The game already has mechanics for called shot - Air stance + Crit + Martial Skill Opportunity. That's 2 success and 3 opportunity to do a called shot such as "cut off its head" to end it quickly. This is a tough check considering dice only have a 33% chance of rolling an op anyway...

If I just say its TN 3 or TN 5 that simplifies the test... but then diminishes the importance of approach, kata, and opportunities that are supposed to be how such a thing happens. There is no "+1 TN for called shot" in the book.

This "solving" sounds a lot like a game of "guess the GM's specific path to success." It's like a GM deciding that the party will not move forward until someone specifically says they try feeling for a hidden switch inside a desk drawer, and it's very much reminiscent of say, old video game boss fights, where you had to figure out the one weird trick to actually win - clearly if the boss is in huge armor, we must remove the armor piece by piece until it's vulnerable to attack, and clearly this requires a certain stance and Opportunity cost! This robs players of any agency except to keep guessing until the GM finally congratulates them on reading his mind.

That's not story, at least to my group; that's a mechanical roadblock to story happening. The story of a fight is in the narration, the dramatic stakes as set by the plot, and see how far the players will go to fulfill their duty.

1 hour ago, Mirumoto Saito said:

Ah yes, the root of all my problems with the system. This backwardness of the rolling process is precisely what I detest about these "narrative" dice.

The "backwardness" helps remove the super-cautious play of 4e, where players did chip damage to an Oni while trying to get a feel for the TN to hit the thing and calculate how many Raises they could afford to call without missing too much. Dunno about your experience with 4e but I felt that Raises sucked because they made you less likely to accomplish ANYTHING AT ALL unless you wanted to do a lot of math.

If this change is too much for you to bear, you're welcome (as always) to keep playing 4e instead of this. Many of us love it.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

Another situation I want to point out which motivates my concept for the dice re-work is probably one of the most anti-climactic situations I experience in the current game.

Only Success explode - but you don't need more than a certain amount of success. I've had rolls in my game that went to 3-5 explosions, it was awesome! Except they only needed a TN 2 or 3 for their task, and the rest were worthless. Having exploding option facets which can be either Success or Opportunity would remedy this so that explosions were always a good thing.

I would be all for an Explosive Success earning you an extra Success or Opportunity (player's choice) instead of rolling another die. The fact that you can explode a die and roll a blank seems like a glaring flaw to me...

39 minutes ago, MuttonchopMac said:

This "solving" sounds a lot like a game of "guess the GM's specific path to success." It's like a GM deciding that the party will not move forward until someone specifically says they try feeling for a hidden switch inside a desk drawer, and it's very much reminiscent of say, old video game boss fights, where you had to figure out the one weird trick to actually win - clearly if the boss is in huge armor, we must remove the armor piece by piece until it's vulnerable to attack, and clearly this requires a certain stance and Opportunity cost! This robs players of any agency except to keep guessing until the GM finally congratulates them on reading his mind.

That's not story; that's a mechanical roadblock. The story of a fight is in the narration, the dramatic stakes as set by the plot, and see how far the players will go to fulfill their duty.

There doesn't have to be 1 path only, but I think it is quite appropriate to disallow a direct attack to defeat something so the players can actively explore creative solutions rather than fill in the blanks with random opportunities after the fact. It's great to have this random flavor added to rolls, but do you really think its foolish to challenge a player to actually come up with a solution to a problem first, and roll second?

That's not narration; that's blindly rolling direct skill checks and filling in the blanks like some kind of MadLibs RPG. It removes a player's active role play from a scenario and replaces it with "oh I got lucky, lets say something cool happened." Its lazy narration and, while fun and useful in its own way, it doesn't replace genuine creativity and active narration.

9 minutes ago, MuttonchopMac said:

I would be all for an Explosive Success earning you an extra Success or Opportunity (player's choice) instead of rolling another die. The fact that you can explode a die and roll a blank seems like a glaring flaw to me...

This is not a flaw in the way I see it. As even in the 4th system Explosions did not equal a guaranty of success or greater success.

Example: you are rolling a TN 20

you roll 5k2 the roll (10,5,3,5,7) now you choose to keep the 10 and the 7, the extra role on the 10 comes up 2 for a total of 19. You still fail so the extra roll did nothing.

31 minutes ago, MuttonchopMac said:

This "solving" sounds a lot like a game of "guess the GM's specific path to success." It's like a GM deciding that the party will not move forward until someone specifically says they try feeling for a hidden switch inside a desk drawer, and it's very much reminiscent of say, old video game boss fights, where you had to figure out the one weird trick to actually win - clearly if the boss is in huge armor, we must remove the armor piece by piece until it's vulnerable to attack, and clearly this requires a certain stance and Opportunity cost! This robs players of any agency except to keep guessing until the GM finally congratulates them on reading his mind.

To me this is just bad a GM. All he would have to do is say "out of character ""you might want to look for other ways out of the room". The idea is to get the players engaged in the environment. Not to stump them. Role-playing is the act of storytelling not an MMO where they need to figure out how many PC lengths they have to stand apart to avoid a party kill.

31 minutes ago, MuttonchopMac said:

That's not story; that's a mechanical roadblock. The story of a fight is in the narration, the dramatic stakes as set by the plot, and see how far the players will go to fulfill their duty.

This is not an absolute. It all depends on the type of group that is playing, and the reason for the fight. You are in the shadowlands and you are attacked by goblins for example. This is just a random encounter so its over reason to exists is as a roadblock.

31 minutes ago, MuttonchopMac said:

The "backwardness" helps remove the super-cautious play of 4e, where players did chip damage to an Oni while trying to get a feel for the TN to hit the thing and calculate how many Raises they could afford to call without missing too much. Dunno about your experience with 4e but I felt that Raises sucked because they made you less likely to accomplish ANYTHING AT ALL unless you wanted to do a lot of math.

While I agree with some of this, I can't say its totally true. In my 4th game I added a +10 free raise system to fix this issues But left in the +5 player chosen raise. I found that this little change improved the raises 100 folded. While the old system rewarded players for taking a risk, the added system allowed for extraordinary rolls to also be rewarded. The point of it being +10 was, while the roll was great the player did not plan for it so had to adjust.

31 minutes ago, MuttonchopMac said:

If this change is too much for you to bear, you're welcome (as always) to keep playing 4e instead of this. Many of us love it.

This type of talk needs to stop. Its not helpful and just promotes argument that are not productive. This is a beta not the final product, and FFG needs to hear all side. Plus from the forums it is plain to see that there as many who don't love and have many issues with some of these rule. does that make them right, no, but it also doesn't make you right. Both are opinions, not fact.

20 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

While I agree with some of this, I can't say its totally true. In my 4th game I added a +10 free raise system to fix this issues But left in the +5 player chosen raise. I found that this little change improved the raises 100 folded. While the old system rewarded players for taking a risk, the added system allowed for extraordinary rolls to also be rewarded. The point of it being +10 was, while the roll was great the player did not plan for it so had to adjust.

Exactly - the goal should be to allow both! You should be able to call out an exceptional success desire before the roll, or fill in extra effects after the roll. That is an important consideration in the way I propose the dice be run.

44 minutes ago, shosuko said:

There doesn't have to be 1 path only, but I think it is quite appropriate to disallow a direct attack to defeat something so the players can actively explore creative solutions rather than fill in the blanks with random opportunities after the fact. It's great to have this random flavor added to rolls, but do you really think its foolish to challenge a player to actually come up with a solution to a problem first, and roll second?

That's not narration; that's blindly rolling direct skill checks and filling in the blanks like some kind of MadLibs RPG. It removes a player's active role play from a scenario and replaces it with "oh I got lucky, lets say something cool happened." Its lazy narration and, while fun and useful in its own way, it doesn't replace genuine creativity and active narration.

I will admit that it can lead to players saying, "I'll attack," and then treating the dice as a narrative slot machine... But - and my experience with this narrative flow model is the Star Wars narrative dice - I find that my group and I have an easier time narrating the results of a roll rather than some elaborate attempt, and that it's more satisfying. We avoid the narrative slot machine attitude and it works out well for us, but I do get that this could be problematic for your play-style. It works for us because we negotiate ideas to find a cool way that the zombie is slain (decapitation, slashing certain tendons to disable it, etc), and it all has to be GM approved, and the player who rolled is still contributing creative solutions.

4 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Exactly - the goal should be to allow both! You should be able to call out an exceptional success desire before the roll, or fill in extra effects after the roll. That is an important consideration in the way I propose the dice be run.

I agree here. FFG should consider something more in the vein of classic D&D, where some stuff is called before the roll (fancy feats) and some stuff is determined afterwards (criticals) to strike a better balance.

Maybe a called effect is cheaper in cost than one turned up after the roll somehow? It would take some restructuring, but I could get behind a modification like this. Thoughts?

26 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

This type of talk needs to stop. Its not helpful and just promotes argument that are not productive. This is a beta not the final product, and FFG needs to hear all side. Plus from the forums it is plain to see that there as many who don't love and have many issues with some of these rule. does that make them right, no, but it also doesn't make you right. Both are opinions, not fact.

This beta needs only one type of criticism - constructive criticism - the rest isn't helpful to anyone. A statement of disgust is not constructive criticism; it is insulting and disrespectful to the people who made the game, and doesn't help them make a better game. Hence my remark to Mirumoto Saito.

2 minutes ago, MuttonchopMac said:

I will admit that it can lead to players saying, "I'll attack," and then treating the dice as a narrative slot machine... But - and my experience with this narrative flow model is the Star Wars narrative dice - I find that my group and I have an easier time narrating the results of a roll rather than some elaborate attempt, and that it's more satisfying. We avoid the narrative slot machine attitude and it works out well for us, but I do get that this could be problematic for your play-style. It works for us because we negotiate ideas to find a cool way that the zombie is slain (decapitation, slashing certain tendons to disable it, etc), and it all has to be GM approved, and the player who rolled is still contributing creative solutions.

I agree here. FFG should consider something more in the vein of classic D&D, where some stuff is called before the roll (fancy feats) and some stuff is determined afterwards (criticals) to strike a better balance.

Maybe a called effect is cheaper in cost than one turned up after the roll somehow? It would take some restructuring, but I could get behind a modification like this. Thoughts?

This beta needs only one type of criticism - constructive criticism - the rest isn't helpful to anyone. A statement of disgust is not constructive criticism; it is insulting and disrespectful to the people who made the game, and doesn't help them make a better game. Hence my remark to Mirumoto Saito.

The reason for my response was not just to attack you,but responding in kind to Saito just enflames the issues.

1 hour ago, MuttonchopMac said:

I would be all for an Explosive Success earning you an extra Success or Opportunity (player's choice) instead of rolling another die. The fact that you can explode a die and roll a blank seems like a glaring flaw to me...

Riffing on this...

I think it'd be cool--at least in concept--if explosive successes were wild. Explosive wilds? Like when you keep the explosion, you choose if it's an opportunity or success.

Don't know if the math works though.

As for the zombie example, and guessing the right way to solve the problem:

Can't you just spend opportunity to determine the best way to do something? (p. 18) Flavored to stance, of course. A spark of inspiration from Fire, an eerie aura emanating from the head for void, etc.

1 minute ago, tenchi2a said:

The reason for my response was not just to attack you,but responding in kind to Saito just enflames the issues.

Well I apologize to him for that. I've gotten a bit frustrated seeing a lot of responses that are pure criticism regarding the dice, tone, etc.

This discussion has drifted a lot from the original topic (modifying the sides of the dice) and may warrant a new thread to discuss the order of mechanics and narrative and the idea of dice exploding differently.

1 hour ago, tenchi2a said:

While I agree with some of this, I can't say its totally true. In my 4th game I added a +10 free raise system to fix this issues But left in the +5 player chosen raise. I found that this little change improved the raises 100 folded. While the old system rewarded players for taking a risk, the added system allowed for extraordinary rolls to also be rewarded. The point of it being +10 was, while the roll was great the player did not plan for it so had to adjust.

I know this is off topic from the main topic but I just wanted to type that you have a nice evolution of the Raise System going on here.

37 minutes ago, sidescroller said:

As for the zombie example, and guessing the right way to solve the problem:

Can't you just spend opportunity to determine the best way to do something? (p. 18) Flavored to stance, of course. A spark of inspiration from Fire, an eerie aura emanating from the head for void, etc.

Yes you can, and that's an important feature that players can tap into if they realize they aren't succeeding at something through a straight forward approach, but don't have any ideas for any alternative approach. Knowing what to do doesn't make doing it any easier though, and the skill check requiring both success + opportunity with the current system is much more challenging than the raises of the previous systems.

Having the exploded facets be wild could help the Challenge + Opportunity requirements, and that is part of what I'm going for. If any change to the dice are made I would like to address both this issue and the player perception issue at the same time - there is a glaring issue with player perception and Strife currently that FFG should not ignore.

Giving Strife the full effect both positive and negative from its facet rather than a success or opportunity with the purely negative Strife tacked on would position Strife to be intuitively seen as the "taking a cost for a success" rather than a simple punishment "I randomly got 2 Strife from succeeding at this check."

I like a lot the idea of a little change for the dice.

Now it seems like a character is punished for being successful and I think some times: The better you do something the happier you feel... . I can not imagine myself getting angry half of the times I get something that I am trying to get.

Ring dice have 3 success (well 2 success and 1 explosive succes) 2 of them with a strife, which means 66%. Skill dice: 7 success (5 & 2) and 3 strife, 43%. So approximately 50% you get a success you get a strife too.

I would prefer they Idea of Shosuko.

Greetings