Kallabecca said:

That makes it even WORSE, because it means that now both skil AND proficiency are at a lesser rate and overshadowed as a result. You are right in the fact that it is the higher rate being the number of dice total (That is what I demonstated in the last example, just missed changing one of the dice), but that also means that in this example of the current dice mechanic you end up with two proficiency dice and one skill die out of three total (move on to page 17 for an example like my own) so the character is literally being robbed of the full effectiveness of the skill so that the ability is counted in a small way, leaving BOTH at less than they should be. Do the same mathmatics done earlier in this post with the current mechanic and when adding the two together for a dice pool (admittedly of different type of die) and tell me what you think of those results.

The full force of each should apply to the roll, and that is not what is happenning.

dreddwulf1 said:

The Upgrade is an improvement over the Ability, but as we've studied (I've done the math in several of these threads) adding dice is better, but doesn't get the end result that FFG really wanted which was to keep the dice pool relatively small.

At least it's acknowledged that the setup doesn't ADD up. I don't see it adding that many dice to a roll considering that advantages, challenges and setbacks are ALSO added to rolls as separate dice.in fact, you don't even add as many dice to the roll as an odd situation or the system itself already does. Probably not going the see a change in FFG, we'll just house-rule it in.

I've been thinking about the same thing, but with this change: once the droid pilot in my group then get a rank 4 or 5 pilot, he rolls 8 or 9 dice (his agility is 4). Add handling from ship, probably modified by that point, perhaps 2 boost dice, then a speed difficulty of 3 dice, add challenge dice (as that change of adding vs upgrading should be mirrored I think - to keep it fair and balanced), so that's 3 difficulty dice, pluss one challenge die from the destiny point I throw out there to make it harder, his pilot talent thingy is probably high enough at this point so that he ignores most of the setback dice I can add… but that's still 14 or 15 dice rolled …. for a pilot check… reminiscent of the overflowing dice pools from high powered D6 days, not keen on that no. Additionally he can gain 4 or 5 triumph symbols on one single roll, slim odds sure, but still… he can singlehandedly turn the tide of battle 4 or 5 times - which he eventually could anyways, but then he would not gain that many advantages or double successes, which could limit the result slightly, from the obscene to the epic. If it was a aimed shot at medium range (more or less the same dice pool if his range heavy was at the same level), he could potentially turn the tide of battle 4 or 5 times, activate numerous crits, weapon qualities … it would actually be way too beardy to make this change and keep the cost for weapon quality activation, extra successes causing 1 for 1 extra damage, regaining strain, gaining boost dice… they'd have to up the cost for these things to mirror the increased amount of the various symbols potentially rolled in these enlarged dice pools… I mean, difficulty levels should be increased too. The average (or now medium it seems from the updates) is two difficulty dice. If you add skill and characteristic, I think it's fair to up the difficulty by 1 dice, so average/medium becomes three dice.

I have also wondered about the notion the you cannot become more "proficient" than your characteristic, yet more skilled certainly. So a characteristic of 2 is pretty low (from one perspective), quite soon you'll hit that cap of 2 prof dice, but then… destiny points, advantages, talents… nah. I think the upgrade mechanism is fine as is, more or less. Still thinking that the triumph should count as 2 or 3 successes (I will test with counting as 2 this weekend) in addition to other rules, but I don't think we need to add them together (I know I mentioned this same idea a page or two back), not unless we get some other rules in to balance it at least. I mean, if you do this, and min-max only slightly, you can start with a dice pool of 6 (4 characteristic and 2 skill) dice against an average check of 2… that's not even a challenge… my wookie melee artist (as he would call himself) would wipe any resistance away quite easily - even nemeses since its an average check anyway, and perhaps they upgrade or add setback…

As for the adding vs upgrading business. Adding only happens through boost - ie talents, manoeuvers or environmental GM malarkey - OR by upgrading a skill (and/or characteristic). The adding of an ability die is better than a boost die. The upgrading of an ability die to proficiency is not as good, as we have seen, as adding a boost die - but it is still an improvement, we can agree on that I hope. I see the issue and I think something needs to be done, but eventually you're up there, with a characteristic of 3 or 4 or 5… perhaps 6 even, and maxed out skills. By this point, let's say you have 4/4 agility and ranged light… you gain an upgrade through some talent or whatever… then you add an ability die - which is way better than a boost die. Of course, at lower levels upgrading might not be as good as a plain add from a boost, but at higher levels upgrading probably will be better - particularly when you only roll proficiency dice, which is an odd issue I just realised. Hohum, might have been covered elsewhere by others, so I guess I'm only reiterating old points. When it comes down to it though, proficency dice are better than the other dice. The upgrading business is perhaps slightly broken, or askew… I hope they have someone looking at this mechanic - although I think the solution with triumphs counting as 2 (or 3) successes might solve the issue - at least until the second edition when they make new dice

For the love of all that is holy, please: re-design the dice so that the game is more success/failure oriented , and with less advantages/disadvantages. I'm not the first to comment on this, looking at some of the other posts, but my group has been playing this game for a few weeks now, and the constant lack of general successes and failures bogs the game down to the point where the game is nothing but frustration and dissapointment. It feels like no one in our group can be generally successful at even the things they each specialize in --way too many instances of either a "technical" success or failure ruined because a single disadvantage or advantage is forced to slow the whole thing down, and, in some cases, completely complicate the result so that it steers the roll to whatever the advantage/disadvantage is anyway, leaving everyone to ask what the point of rolling successes are depending on the circumstance; success and failure at something becomes more and more grey, to the point where each player gets worn down by the end of it.

Also, and more than likely this will not change by the end, but it feels like the yellow and red dice--because they each possess a drastic triumph/despair effect--should only be rolled on rare occasions, since they make things even more chaotic when, once again, most situations should be a lot more tame and not subject to anything crazy occuring simply because a triumph/despair is rolled; in a way this is more forgivable, but it compounds the aforementioned chaos from the dice. Would it not make more sense to change around so that the triumph/despair is something that is on the boost die, since those come in to play on far less frequent occasions? Food for thought kind of thing, I suppose.

But I can safely say that if the dice are redesigned in the former manner then the game would actually be fun , kind of like how we would imagine a Star Wars rpg game to be. I know "fun" is subjective many ways, but the way it's going now, I am looking less and less forward to each session due to the difficulty and unreasonable way the dice break the game for our characters, which just makes me sad.

WereWes said:

I am inclined to agree, though for slightly different reasons. My main reason has to do with the fact that advantages and disadvantages are situational, therefore a call made between GM's and Players, NOT by dice. Calculating a few of these helps give everyone an idea what to expect, but I don't see the point of trying to keep the dice number low while ADDING more dice for setbacks, advantages, challenges and difficulty whih actually put MORE dice on the board the more interesting the situation gets. Working the success/failure angle allows for the GM and players to decide what is the advantage and disadvantage, as well as making the Talents worth something. The system currently adds too much grey and wastes alot of talents.

Having played and GM'd several sessions, I think the main problem folks are having is the paradigm shift this game is asking the players and GMs to make.

I highly doubt the FFG crew didn't do their own tests of the dice math, but where it seems everyone here is so focused on rate of successes vs. rate of failures, I'm thinking that true to the indie-RPG inspirations that Jay Little admitted to having, the focus of the math from the designer's POV was more the accumulation of Advantages rather than successes.

Successes are really pretty flat in terms of what they do, you either succeed, with extra successes not always doing a whole lot outside of combat. But Advantages can be spent in all sorts of ways both in and out of combat. Where most game systems simply leave it at "you failed the roll, your turn was largely wasted," starting with D&D and continuing in a lot of mainstream RPGs to this day.

But EotE instead lets even a failed skill roll have an effect both in combat and out of combat, with examples such as "you missed hitting the Imperial officer directly, but you managed to spook him enough that he drops his blaster" (attack roll missed, but three Advantages spent to disarm) or "well, that Nikto brawler caught you by surprise, but you do notice there's a fire escape that you can easily reach with a short leap off to your left" (failed Vigilance check, with a couple Advantages generated) or "you don't manage to lose those swoop gangers that are pursuing you, but you do notice that they're very reckless in their flying, and there's an awful lot of obstructions up ahead of you…" (failed Pilot: Planetary check, but a few Advantages spent to impose a setback die or two onto a swoop gang minion group).

So perhaps instead of changing the dice, instead tweak the skill mechanics just a bit, so that the things you generally accomplish with extra successes for non-combat skills (like healing extra Wounds with Medicine or inflict Strain with a Coerce check) can be accomplished via extra successes or extra advantages. Additional damage in combat should still be the realm of extra successes though, since combat's already lethal enough for most character builds, and the Advantages generated can be spent to trigger critical hits.

Donovan Morningfire said:

Interesting thought, actually. I was thinking that alot of the Advantages from talents are better used as extra successes. Degree of success can mean alot in and out of combat situations. The problem with advantages and setbacks is that if they are not applied, the talents that provide advantages and negate setbacks are also useless. Auto successes work all the time, though as a trade I would limit ALL ranked skills to three ranks. Even in the current system, more than that seems almost abusive.

Donovan Morningfire said:

I appreciate the perspective on the matter; it is a paradigm shift for most role-players. On a side note, the indie-rpg factor doesn't render their system without problems, and not to mention, this is an rpg from a major rpg company (as of the past 5 years at least) and with a huge and incredibly well-known title that is Star Wars.

The main problem is that the same grey areas that the dice inevitably create only work best in things such as combat or really stressful situations, where combat can be very chaotic and cause a lot of friction for anyone involved--the possibilities are a lot more acceptable. For mundane situations such as making a repair roll or looking for something, for example, or simply performing an action in a tame/calm situation still can't be resolved without what feels like really unnecessary caveats: such as, you repaired the ship with your successes but because of disadvantages you also broke your tools in the process making things way more difficult for a "success," or damaged/strained another part of the ship so that it really balances out to you didn't really succeed at anything, although I am aware those disadvantages technically open other options, such as, for some reason you end up making a mechanic nearby angry and he starts up a fight with you, so you repaired the ship but at a cost that seems really forced.

I know that there's variables on both sides, here, but the overall point is that most situations--in fairness--don't need the excessive complications of advantages/disadvantages and should be settled by a definite success or failure.

I'm inclined to agree with you WereWes. While the advantage/threat system is great for chaotic situations like combat or intense negotiations and the like, there are some situations where you really wouldn't need them. This is where the system could really use a "Take 10" mechanic , which I don't recall reading in my first read through. However, most of the memorable encounters will benefit greatly from the advantage/threat system, so I feel like changing the dice just to account for the few, boring situations where a black/white result is needed would be a little extreme.

That's perfectly fine, beeblebrox. The "take 10" idea is something that the book really should throw in for the "little" rolls. The dice change that someone brought up before seems to be the most appropriate at least for the upgraded yellow die, anyway.

Take 10 is easy enough to rule though:

If there are more ability + proficiency die in the pool than difficulty + challenge dice and there are no more challenge dice than proficiency dice in the pool and no more setback dice than boost dice in the pool, then a character can automatically succeed at the task without rolling (counts as 1 nett success, and zero nett advantages).

gribble said:

Root idea is good, but I'd simplify it a little.

Perhaps if the number of Proficiency dice is greater than the Difficulty Dice and there are no Challenge Dice and the character is not under duress (being attacked or otherwise threatened/distracted), then they are automatically treated as having a single Success. Any Setback Dice would negate Boost Dice on a one-to-one basis, and any remaining Boost dice would simply provide 1 Advantage per die.

I figure if there's a Challenge Die involved, there's a more dramatic element of failure, and thus being able to "take 10" shouldn't be an option.

I'd agree with Donovan. I feel like any situation that would warrant a Setback dice or a Challenge dice would be too dramatic or tense for a "Take 10". Simply having an "unmodified" difficulty along with more positive than negative dice would be enough.

The purpose of the take 10 mechanic was to vastly simplify a number of out of combat and allow a very few talented/feat(ed?) players to avoid a bad roll on simple things in combat.

Personally, I feel the in-combat aspect of this could be handled with some ability to downgrade difficulties x times (a mechanism in the game) or reduce the difficulty of the task by x steps (also has precedent in the game).

Out of combat, it should be on the GM to say "this task is so simple no roll is needed".

We don't need another mechanic in the mix. Let's just start by fixing the ones we have.

-WJL

beeblebrox said:

Yeah, that makes sense, and makes the rule even simpler. Essentially:

At GM discretion, any check made when the active character is not in a stressful situation (such as having challenge or setback dice contribute to the dice pool), can automatically gain 1 success per proficiency die in excess of difficulty dice and one advantage per boost die in the dice pool.

I like it. Simple, elegant and covers the situation nicely.

LethalDose said:

I agree with this - we don't need more mechanics, especially an if/then/when that is reminiscent of a non-narrative playstyle. If a task is easy enough to allow a "take 10" in another system, the GM and players should skip the rolling and narrate through it in this system.

The problem is not with "autosuccess" … it's with the fact that more dice > upgraded dice.

Most of us expect 2 yellows and 1 green to beat 4 greens… but it doesn't in practice or in theory. This is because of the marginal increase in successess from a green -> yellow. A few threads ago, I suggested the following options: either change the actual faces of the yellow/red dice to include more success/failures (i.e. a face with triple success), OR (if changing the dice is not possible) revise the triumph and despair symbols to count as three successes/failures instead of just one.

Sidenote: …some of you guys seem to think that a Triumph always turns the tide of battle, and thus changing the number of successes is moot… but I'm pretty sure when you roll 1 triumph, 4 failures, and 5 threat, it's not really intended to turn the tide - more likely, it's meant to prevent your blaster from running out of ammo or you accidentally shooting your buddy in the back of the head.

To be clear: Triumph IS NOT an "I win" button. Therefore, upping the number of successes moves it more in-line with having greater and more consistent postive effects (and despair having similar negative effects).

Exalted5 said:

I agree and disagree at the same time. I agree that players and GMs should skip the rolling and narrate - I disagree that the system should leave that completely in the GMs hands to determine. This rule gives a simple way to assist the GM in adjudicating what happens when a player attempts an action, without having to roll when it isn't warranted.

gribble said:

I'm sorry, I see this as contradictory. "This rule gives a simple way to assist the GM in adjudicating…" means the GM is still adjudicating, and the decision is still his or hers.

I think we're on the same page though in the respect that GM's should be encouraged to allow players to perform simple tasks w/o rolling when determining degree of success is not important. Where I think we differ is that I still feel it should absolutely be the GM's choice where to draw the line what is "simple enough" or what is "simple enough considering the character's ability/talents/training". I feel very strongly that printed rules that get in the way of this in such narrative system would be bad rules.

That isn't to say that I think WotC's "take 10" rule was bad, quite the opposite, I liked it. Over there. But WotC's d20 system and FFGs narrative dice are so different, I just don't feel "take 10" has or needs a place here. FFG's system's RAW provide the GM much more power and flexibility, and this is a good place for it to be exercised.

-WJL

LethalDose said:

What I was trying to say is that the whole reason "take 10" style systems were introduced to RPGs was to remove unnecessary dice rolling, and provide a framework to assist the GM and players with narratively determining what happens when dice rolling is unnecessary. And I absolutely believe that providing some framework to assist with that is a good thing. Sure - you can leave it entirely up to the GM and players imagination, but providing guidelines to help them figure out what should and shouldn't be possible is a good thing. After all, they can always be ignored by groups that don't want/require them.

To illustrate - say a PC wanted to jump from the ground onto a box that was less than a metre off the ground. That's obviously simple and doesn't require a roll. Say a character now wants to jump onto the roof of a 10 story building - again, that's obviously impossible (without using the Force or technology) and again shouldn't require a roll. What about if a character wants to jump up and catch the roof of a single story building? That's probably a roll from an average character, but for a strong 7 foot wookie, it should probably just be narrated over. This short of guideline helps a GM to determine whether or not a roll is really needed or it can just be narrated, and doesn't prevent them using their judgement and saying "that's a more difficult than usual jump", or "there are other circumstances meaning you need to roll in this situation" (or conversely - this isn't important to the story so you eventually manage to do it, if if the rules say it would normally require a roll).

Not to sound like a broken record, but if the dice accurately reflected our expectations, I think this would be even less of an issue.

I played with a small group (3 players, 1 GM) last night… and the dice issue reared it's ugly head again. There were more than a few instances where we tallied up the dice pool, and kinda cocked our heads staring at it blanky.

There are just too many advantage/threat symbols… it's just really detracts from the pace of the game. Sometimes the players just want to shoot stuff and move on. They don't want to have to figure out how rationalize a bunch of threat when standing still shooting at a guy out in the open 10 meters away. Like, gahhh. It was so frustrating to see 1 in 3 rolls come up with nothing but advantage/threat symbols on the die.

"You fail with 5 advantage." *brainfreeze*

Players aren't all quick on their feet. I've been GM'ing for like 18 years, and I still can't even come up with enough original stuff to make it exciting. It gets old really quick.

We haven't heard anything from the developers at FFG as to whether or not the dice can be altered. I'd love to know so we can either start thinking about how to make them more efficient and effective, or just stop barking up this tree and come up with different mechanics to "fix" the issue.

Not only would I change the value of triumph/despair symbols, but if the dice can be changed, I wouldn't have ANY faces with only advantage/threat symbols -- they would always be coupled with a success/failure. That doesn't mean you can't success with threat or fail with advantage, but it makes it much less likely.

Exalted5 said:

Yep - this reflects our experience in play as well. As Donovan Morningfire has pointed out, this may be intentional, but personally it just seems to take things a little bit too far. Assuming the dice can't be modified now, I think something needs to be done with the mechanics. As I mentioned in my summary of our sessions thread, to speed up play and keep things interesting, I think we need to limit spending threat/advantage to only activating one thing - crits and weapon qualities aside - (but make the things more flexible so you can affect multiple targets), but have a longer list of things to choose from, to provide more options on failure.

Exalted5 said:

Well, as I alluded to earlier in the thread, it comes down to what your expectations are as to what the dice results should be. Ultimately, I think the issues are due to a paradigm shift on FFG's part that not everyone has either made or really even wants to make. 40+ years of "success is what really matters" is hard to overcome. I think the lack of comment by FFG is a pretty strong indicator that they feel the dice mechanics are working as intended.

Given that dice are included in the Beginner's Box, which is slated for a Q42012 release, it probably is too late to change the dice facings, given the time needed to get them made and shipped to the warehouses, a process that can take quite a few months depending on where the dice are made.

However, if one is truly upset by this paradigm shift, then perhaps a house rule suggestion would be to flip the Advantage and Success symbols, treating the Explosions as Advantages and the Alliance Firebirds as being Successes. This has the advantage of being fairly simple to implement without needing to change the dice facings.

Donovan Morningfire said:

To side with Dono on this one, I think the idea of failing but still getting a benefit (in terms of racking up Advantages) does make for a more interesting table dynamic.

Yes, it might take some getting used to, but I think with some practice, players and GMs would find it more fun. How many times have you been playing a d20 game, for instance, and had (or been) a player wanting to do something, describing it, then rolling the die only for it to just say, "Nope, you fail." Failure is part of any game, but that doesn't make it fun.

I think the trick for how to use Advantage is to think of what your character was trying to accomplish when you made the roll. That way, even if you don't get net successes, you have at least some idea as to how to spin the Advantage in your favor. I think just keeping that in mind will combat a lot of the "narrative fatigue" or "I keep running out of ideas" that people keep complaining about.

Rikoshi said:

+1