Hello fellow Battle-Brothers,

I wonder a little bit about the use of Dodge.

In the combat section ( page 238 ) is written that you can with every degree of success in using dodge negate a degree of success from a full-auto or semi-auto burst. That makes sense so far.

But what about ordinary attacks? Why is there not used the game-mechanic of "degrees of success"?

It seems that a solid melee attack with, let's say, 4 degrees of success can be dodged with a degree of success of zero.

Another example is the accurate property of a weapon. For every two degrees of success you deal 1d10 extra damage (max. 2d10) but with a dodge of degree of success zero you can simply evade it?

Seems like house rule.

Best regards,

TechVoid.

Only in autofire you count the DoS in dodging

Note: with weapons with the blast special property you need an Agility bonus equal or higher than its rating to be able to dodge.

If you want the quality of your attack to have an effect on the enemy's ability to dodge it, use Feint.

Would hordes actually dodge or parry?

EDIT: nevermind, ignore.

I will say the dodge mechanics have never really been my favorite.

As a GM, I like having final say when an attack hits or not. The mechanics of this system decrease my overall say in that.

I can tell a player they are hit. They then choose to roll dodge, and can tell me to my face that they dodged it, with effectively nothing I can do about it (unless I start saying "this attack cannot be dodged" which is simply too cheap anyway.

See, in D&D, with AC and what not, that information can be hidden from players, and is prone to changing through the course of the game. It is a property that belongs solely to the enemy. In reverse, the GM knows the AC of a player, and can have enemies attack, and make the comparison, without actually telling the players the math that is going on.

At the end of the day, it all works out though.

Back to the question though:

Yes, DoS with dodge only really matters with semi/full auto. And yes, a single success on dodge can negate a much greater success on some other attack. Feel free to house rule these as you wish, but in general, this system has worked reasonably well.

Just remember, most characters only have one reaction per round, so they can only dodge one thing.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to dodge the warp weapon attack from the greater daemon? Too bad, you already dodged the cultist's laspistol this round *evil laugh*"

They can only dodge what they can see....so I use a mix of visible enemies and invisible ones such as: snipers, hidden assassins, lictors and alike, at the same time.
Works like a charm...I had DH character take bolter hits in fear of something greater hidden in the shadows...

KommissarK said:

What you describe as liking - "having the final say" - implies that you swing/fudge the results to what you want to happen rather than what the mechanics and dice-produced randomness determine. At my table it's considered cheating and is something that gets a GM ejected from the game.

HappyDaze said:

Well thats by gaming group, and I do make sure that the groups I play with don't have such a view as yours. My group doesn't really mind, usually it turns out better for them anyway.

Personally, I consider the ability to cheat, in order to keep the game interesting, very important. Also, with the existence and notion of the GM screen, just how on earth do you know hes cheating?

Maybe I'm just too used to Paranoia, where knowing the rules is above your security clearance, and arguing with the GM is grounds for summary execution.

HappyDaze said:

At my table, being a GM, that's usually called keeping players characters alive.

KommissarK said:

Most dice rolls are made openly in front of everyone at the table. GM's don't generally roll behind a screen, and neither do players.

I don't consider Paranoia experiences to be something I want to port into other games, and open rolls are simply not arguable to begin with - you can see it and the result should be clear as day.

Face Eater said:

Maybe, but that's not always a good thing, and doing it for the opposite reason is likely to really annoy some players. Even worse, if they suspect that you're doing this then every bad result could be held against you since it's not really a random thing at all.

HappyDaze said:

"Opposite reason"? The role of the GM is to keep the game interesting. Probably the most often thing I "cheated" was the amount of crit damage a character might take, often lowering it by one just to make sure they don't die because they got shot by some mook with a lasgun. Crippled horribly sure, but not character loss due to something uncinematic.

Also, I personally run games with hidden roles, and every other GM I have ever met does the same thing You use open roles at your table, but I think obfuscation of data is actually important. Do the players at your table also know the exact type of enemies they are fighting/the stats they have? I describe enemies by appearance, and either allow past ingame experience, or successful lore rolls, in order to even identify something (as in to even call it a genestealler, an ambull, etc.). Stats for enemies in my games are always hidden, as I do not want my players to know their armour quality, TB, WS, BS, etc.. If you have open rolls, these could be determined. Information hiding is key. Otherwise the players will mechanically determine the best attacks to use ("oh he has a low toughness, he probably can be hit by a toxic weapon pretty well").

Imagine this: an enemy with touched by fates (or whatever allows them to righteous fury), shoots a PC with a laspistol. He hits, and the PC fails to doge. The NPC rolls damage, and rolls max damage, RF. He succeeds on that roll, and proceeds to keep rolling 10s until he gets about 60 damage total. Let us also assume the PC is at full wounds (say 25), and has 0 fate points left to burn (yes, he has had it rough this campaign). Since these rolls are in the open, the player knows, for a fact, his character is toast, and there is nothing that can be done. It would take the GM "cheating" to not let his beloved character die. Take this compared to hidden rolls. GM rolls damage, realize this is insane, and just deals the needed amount of wounds to down the character, but not kill, as a single laspistol just should not take down a PC in one hit.

Now granted, this is an important villain due to touched by the fates, and the lack of FP hurts the player, but still, there is a certain level of "oh, I should get some measure of warning before my character just plain dies."

Basically, dice can be absurdly unfair, thats why we have GMs, so that they have "final say" on what actually occurs. Otherwise, modules could be run as finite state machines we play, and it would be perfectly reasonable to have a GM function as a player (some people do this, and I totally disagree with it).

KommissarK said:

Does it make the game more interesting though? To a point perhaps. Otoh, I am not a big fan of fate, karma, etc. reroll mechanics anymore. Not having rerolls and knowing the GM isn't going to fudge to help you out is going to make the adrenaline pump.

Makes lasting campaigns more difficult though.

There's no accounting for taste.

KommissarK said:

Btw, I've not been seeing any rule precluding any npc from getting RF in DW. Anybody else? As far as I can see, anybody can do RF.

KommissarK said:

I'd be bored if a GM cheated under such circumstances. Epic bad luck is a form of epic death.

In my games there is usually two ways to day - bad luck or bad decisions. (Or both.) Without the former, one can skip on quite a few die rolls as pointless.

KommissarK said:

Doesn't sound like enterprising spirit. To me rpging is also about facing the odds and beating them. Riding the dice. And that includes being struck down by a lowly peasant with a pitchfork if he rolls good enough and you bad enough.

KommissarK said:

Except I don't consider it unfairness. I consider it a vital element of suspense. Without the chance of falling due bad luck, we might as well resort to interactive story-telling. Not a bad thing either but I prefer the facing-to-lose-all-for-the-chance-to-gain-all.

Because if my players roll spectacularly well, I reward them accordingly to.

Marksman Honour Badges anyone?

Alex

HappyDaze said:

Santiago said:

As an addition I would like to add that when running the demo version of DW in Final Sanction I made all rolls openly. When it became apparent that my kill-team was being shred by by Genestealers in the Gov's Manor, I openly declared that I would only do half damage (after reductions from now on) which went okay with a group of battered players. Even fudging can be communicated openly on occasion if the players see good reason in it.

Alex

Doesn't have the same feel...

Well this expanded quite a bit from dodge rules...

I roll 99% behind a screen, and fudge when the game needs to be fudged.

I whole heartedly agree that players should face danger and the possibility of death- it can really take quite a bit out of a game if you know nothing you do will get you killed as it almost makes you feel like what you're doing doens't matter at all.

However I find 'open fudging' can take players out of the experience. They want to shoot the bad guy that's getting away, if I fudge he can dodge, or the shot can otherwise miss, or he can not die from the damage. No fudging? I have to announce "You can't shoot him, he just get's away." Maybe I should spend more time working on my adventure to be more creative here, but there are only so many hours in the day and some of them must be spent paying bills.

In a demo game, when you're learning the rules, sure, it works, but in a long campaign? I fudged rules in the demo as well, openly, because the kill team ran out of ammo and were horribly wounded half way through. But they knew that we were all working the kinks out of the system and learning what was challenging, what was deadly, and what was a pushover, so it was about getting a taste for the system and the setting as opposed to really trying to get into their characters.

It also sucks when you have really good luck as a GM, and your players have piss poor luck. If every time someone hit a patch of bad luck and could die from it things would get un-fun in a hurry. And as an aside, if you have to make a new character every other week because the guy playing against (read, the GM) you has more luck than you do, why make an inspired character? Why spend time on an interestng background and backstory?

But fudging, like everything, IMHO needs to be done only when absolutely needed to keep things on track. You need the element of randomness, the occasional bad luck death, the stupidity deaths, and the spontaneous "wow, now I have to re-write part of my adventure because you out-thought me" to keep things interesting, but you can get out of control in both directions.

As above, I actually think player death should only come about as a result of both poor decisions on the part of the player, and rolls not in their favor.

Otherwise, they should be horribly maimed, but not "killed."

Did they make a poor decision? Boy, I sure hope they weren't attached to that hand.

Did they roll poorly? Gee, I sure hope they like picking their teeth up off the floor.

To agree with, and reinforce Charmander's point, consider this:

How is fudging a bad or good die roll any different from adjusting the number of enemies during the game?

If the genestealer fails a dodge and would die, but you fudge that die, you are altering the game scenario from what is stated.

If your players are having an easy time, and you add an extra encounter that wasn't planned, you are altering the game scenario.

If you had written down that the genestealers come out of the sewers, and you decide to have two come out of the vents, you are altering the game scenario.

I can't see how one element of the game (a die roll) can't be altered without making the players think you are cheating, and another (the number, or type, or tactics of the foe) can be.

I think that both elements can be 'fudged', and both can be fudged both creatively, or poorly.

If you alter some die roll, and your players really enjoy the end result, and it adds to your game, hooray!

If you decide to add some extra foes to an encounter, and the resulting encounter is fun and exciting, hooray!

If you decide to throw five more Warriors at your battered Kill Team because they are rolling "too good", and it makes the players frustrated and resentful, then boo on you!

Given that we have GMs who "mess around" with the die rolls and run a good game, and GMs who refuse to do so, and also run a good game, I think it should be clear that your GMing technique, and your player group, really probably matter more than whether you adhere to some particular dogmatic gaming ethos.

I play RPGs as games of strategy, which makes "fudging" very frustrating. As an experienced chess player, I have learned to calculate the points on the battlefield and plan my strategy accordingly, making sure I have the power to force a stalemate if things go poorly.

Two examples:

Once we were in a fight (D&D) against 100 goblins. Every turn four more arrived, and every turn we killed a dozen or so. We wanted to search the area, and when I reasoned out loud that eventually we would wear them down and only face a few every turn, my GM overheard, and suddenly 10 goblins were appearing each turn. Not fun.

I created a monk that could blow all of his powers at once, and be spent for the day; however, in the process, he would deal insane amounts of damage. I waited very patiently for an opportune time to do so. When we came across a giant poisonous solo beast late in the day, I decided to blow my wad, and test my limits, killing it in one round. My GM, disappointed at the quick loss, quickly explained that two more were coming through the trees. This left us worse off than if I had spent none of my powers, and cheapened my characters tactical presence in the fight.

Ultimately, I think it depends on the group. If the group wants to role-play, then fudging is fun. If the group wants to analyze and solve problems, then the elements on the board need to be relatively static and predictable.

Lastly, I must admit, I have seldom frowned upon a small fudge in the party's favor.

Scoates said:

Sometimes, before a boss fight, I declare that I will make all my rolls out in the open. Scares the living daylight out of players, especially with an upcoming boss fight.

Alex

Scoates said:

Ah,

I totally agree with you.

But as far as I see it this problem has no solution.

I mean take the following example:

The GM decides that the players are going against an evil genius overmind. The knows too well that he has to weaken the the players in the first places. So the first wave of attack will be some pawns which are expandable, just to shrink the players recources. Then in the second wave will be the tougher enemies and finally if the players are weak the evil overmind let them face the real threats.

So on the players side they see: "Oh, the first attack wave didn't do anything, so the GM is frustrated and gives us a second one. Tougher this time...oh...this one does no real damage too and now we face the third wave..."

So there is always the big gap between "The GMs minions are perfectly prepared." and "The GM is frustrated and sends in tougher enemies, appearing out of nowhere."

And as a player you are not able to tell the difference.

You see by playing chess you see the enemy forces and you will encounter no suprise. But by playing a roleplying game where you want to explore the unknown - you can face everything!

The only point (for me) is if the GM can make the encounter reasonable or not.

Second example:

The GM anounces some backup forces for the enemy.

Player 1 : "Oh, boy. Can't you live with your crushed minions? That's not fair..."

Player 2: "Oh well, seems that we had some bad intelligence...."

Now which one is right? It's up to the GM and the players will never know...

... all they can do is to trust their GM that he does a good job.

Best regards,

TechVoid.

It also works well enough if the GM increases the rewards to match the increased difficulty. But if you get nothing for itif the fights are designed to grind any team to the exact same state, then it removes the strategy of your character build.

I'm a strong believer in the most important rule in Roleplaying... if a rule gets in the way of everyone having fun, fun takes preference.

I've been GMing for many many years now and the sheer amount of rolls I've fudged behind a screen to keep the characters from dying orf simply failing when it just doesn't feel "right" is more than I can count. The important part about keeping it fun for the players is that they don't know you're fudging!

Hell, my current players have been in my gaming group now for nigh on 10 years and they STILL don't have a clue it happens. Ignorance is bliss? In this case, yes! They always comment that they had a good time and that's the way I'd like it to continue, and if that means I have to fix a particular outcome every now and then then I'm more than willing to do that. No one likes to lose a character every session due to bad rolls, especially my players and if they did have to go through that then I'm pretty **** sure we'd not have been gaming together for the past 10 great, fun years!

The only time they didn't like it was when they KNEW I'd "fudged", and even then I hadn't actually rolled any dice. I'd written into my plotline (during a Rogue Trader game) that if they took a particular course of action one of their NPC command staff buddies would be killed... no damage rolls, no crit tables, just BAM! Dead. Now, they pushed the scene as far as they could, almost getting cocky with the main villain due to their belief that I, the GM, would not let anything happen to their friend. Basically, they metagamed. And when I killed her, there was uproar! But little did they know that, for the last 10 years I've been tweaking rolls, fixing outcomes, and ignoring rules to make the games they've played in the fun and memorable ones they love and... erm... remember (duh!). Granted the main instigator of the upset was a particular player that believes, like many on these boards, that rules come first no matter what. But I'm not in that camp of gamer and it is I who primarily run all of our games no matter what they may be. But as mentioned already, they don't even know I fudge and that's the way it's going to stay while I'm in charge. The old saying "What you don't know can't hurt you" is quite true in this regard.

At the end of the day plot trumps rules. That's simply a fact of pretty much all roleplaying games through the years. If you don't like it, go back to TT or chess, cos it happens out there my friends whether you like it or not.

And amongst my quite substantial RP collection I can safely say that more than 50% of my main rules books have some little paragraph that says something along the lines of "The most important rule of roleplaying is Have Fun . If a rule gets in the way fo this then ignore the rules". I've lived by that since I began roleplaying over 20 years ago.