GM-controlled Bad Luck points

[Peter Knutsen]

I'll probably post this to both < news:rec.games.frp.advocacy > and
the RPG-Create mailing list.


First some background:

Modern Action RPG (MA RPG) is a project I've been working on since
early 2006 (having put Sagatafl development on hold), intended for
serious campaigns in the modern genre. So far, the rule book is 110
pages (70%-80% of it character creation), and I have a lot of ideas
and mechanics that have not yet been written into it.

Basically, MA RPG is "Spycraft 2.0 done right", the same way Sagatafl
is "GURPS done right" and Multiclass was "AD&D done right".

Character creation is flexible (not entirely a type 2 system, these
being exceedingly rare, but very close to type 2) and point-based.

All players must choose 1 physical Weakness and 3 psychological Flaws
for their characters, from a long list of pre-approved traits in the
rule book, although there is some "wiggle room", including exchanging
one of the psychological Flaw for a non-psychological Special Flaw.

A Special Flaw is usually a developmental disad or limitation, such
as Rookie which bars the character from starting with high skill
levels and from ever acquiring Veteran Skill traits, or Rigid
Learning which bars the character from adding Specializations to his
skills (among other effects). Examples of non-developmental Special
Flaws are Poverty or being Wanted by law enforcement.

The roll mechanic is multiple-dice, as in Sagatafl, except that d6's
are used instead of d12s, and that there is no changeable Roll
Difficulty. You Succeed if you get one or more sixes, and if you get
no sixes but at least one five you've got a Partial Success. If you
get all ones, you've Fumbled. Everything else is a failure.

A very low skill of 2 thus gives a roughly 3% chance of Fumbling, and
a skill of 3 gives a 0.5% chance. PCs will be highly skilled as a
matter of routine, thus making Fumbles exceedingly rare.

Situational difficulty modifiers affect the number of dice rolled,
thus adverse circumstances reduce the number of dice (and I do have a
rule for how one can "roll" zero dice or even a negative number of
dice - something characters would wish to avoid!), and clever
approaches and good equipment increase the number of dice.

I already have a bunch of Luck traits, all of which are beneficial
for the character who has them: Luck Points that can be used flexibly
but are not very powerful, and Coincidences (Minor and Medium, plus
finite-use Miracle) that allows the player to dictate beneficial
coincidental events ("The guard outside our jail cell turns out to be
a follower of my religion, so it should be possible to persuade him
to let us out, or at least cut us some slack so that we can prepare
our own escape". Depending on place and time, this could be a Minor
Coincidence, a Medium Coincidence, or a Miracle), and also the Jinx
Foe luck trait which gives the player some weekly "Jinx Foe" points
that can be used by the player to inflict bad luck upon the
character's enemies.

Obviously these Luck traits are controlled by the *player*, although
they are possessed by the *character* (in the sense that they are an
aspect of the character's capabilitistic individuality and are
written down on the character sheet).


But I have no way for players to say that their characters are
Unlucky, as a Weakness or Special Flaw. All I have is one Special
Flaw which bars the character from having Luck traits, and another
Special Flaw, Outrageous Fumbles, which lets the GM go absolutely and
almost absurdly berzerk, consequence-wise, when that character rolls
a Fumble.

However, with Fumbles being so exceedingly rare, Outrageous Fumbles
is not the Flaw that will satisfy the desires of a player wishing to
create and play an Unlucky character.


Also, I've thought a bit about firearm jamming. This isn't something
that can happen, at all, under the current rules. The simple (i.e.
idiot) solution would be to have firearm jamming occur whenever the
user rolls a Fumble on the attack roll.

Never mind that Fumbles will be exceedingly rare for characters with
even relatively low weapon skills (of 5 or 6). It's also idiotic to
assume that a character's skill at *shooting* a weapon affects the
chance of a jam.

It makes sense in Sagatafl for melee weapons, where upon a Fumble the
rules may force a Durability roll to see if the weapon suffers damage
or is broken (swords are fragile things when used incorrectly). But
not with firearms. Not at all. Especially not with long-range shots
reducing the number of dice rolled (so that weapon jamming would be
more likely for long-range shots than for point-blank shots!).

So I thought, two days ago, about a way to solve both problems at
once:

The GM gets 6 weekly Bad Luck points for each PC, plus a further 6
monthly Bad Luck Points for each PC. He can spend these (in fact, the
rules will tell him that he *must* spend them) on inflicting bad luck
upon the PCs, in various ruled-guided ways, with unspent Bad Luck
points being saved up for later.

This opens up a bunch of possibilities. I could add more Luck traits
to the system: Less Bad Luck, which reduced the numbers to 2 weekly
and 2 monthly Bad Luck Points, and the costlier No Bad Luck which
means that the character has *no* Bad Luck at all.

I could also add an Unlucky Special Flaw, which means that the
characters gets not 6 but 15 (or 12 or perhaps 18) Bad Luck points
per week and per month. I could even add a Very Unlucky Weakness
which gives a humongous amount of Bad Luck points. (But I'm not sure
if 30 or 40 weekly, and 30 or 40 monthly, Bad Luck points make for an
at all playable character. Fortunately I have another idea for how to
handle Very Unlucky, but I won't go into that here, except to say
that it involves combining numerous minor effects – such "group
weddings" are common in MA RPG (and I'd like to add more, including
PTSD as a Flaw/Major Flaw, and Old as a Weakness (as in "I'm getting
too old for this shit").

Weapon jamming could be handled with each weapon having a BL jam
cost, so that reliable weapons cost more BL points to jam, and
unreliable or badly maintained weapons cost fewer (easily as little
as 1 BL point, which makes them emergency or backup weapons that you
can't rely on).

Clearly there'd have to be a rule, about when the GM is allowed
to "call a jam". Perhaps he can only do this before the player rolls,
and when the player has rolled if the roll is not 2 Successes or more
(because then the GM is prevented from "stealing" a good roll from
the player).

This BL-based firearm jamming system opens up for three more binary
skills:

One is Meticulous Weapon Maintenance, which increases the BL jam cost
of all the character's firearms by 1. Another is Immediate Action,
which lets the character un-jam any firearm in a single combat Round
(where normally it would take multiple Rounds, perhaps 5), and the
more powerful Quick Immediate Action which lets the character un-jam
any firearm at a cost of only a few Action Points, so that he can
also do other things that Round.

These binary skills also gives me something more concrete to do with
the Primitive trait, which represents a character who is from a low-
tech ("close to nature") background and therefore gets bonuses to
wilderness skills, but who isn't familiar with modern technology,
including weaponry. I've long known that it doesn't make sense to
penalize such a character for wanting to learn how to fire modern
weapons at his enemies.

The obvious place to penalize a Primitive is in maintenance and
repair - and now I have rules for that, meaning that I can make it
(e.g.) 4 or 10 times costlier for a Primitive character to learn
these binary skills, compared to non-Primitive characters. Or I can
forbid it entirely. I can even go further and give an automatic
increase in the jam chance, represented by a lowered BL cost of
jamming for all such a character's weapons (unless he can get another
character to maintain the weapon for him).

Other ways to use Bad Luck (BL) points is to have melee weapons
break, with steel weapons costing more points to break than "iron"
weapons, and well-crafted ones costing more again, and "signature
weapons" being able to have an Unbreakable trait. And of course
wooden melee weapons should generally be harder to break than
metallic ones, excepting the absurdly skinny Japanese bo staff.

Characters could slip and would have to make some kind of Reflexes or
Balance saving throw to avoid falling (with the consequences being
anything from ridicule from NPCs and to severe injury). Characters
could accidentally drop held items if they fail a Dexterity saving
throw (lower BL costs for items that are heavy relative to the
character's Strength, and of course much increased BL cost for items
that one would presume the character sees as very valuable and
fragile). I think this sounds like a sensible consequence of action
conditions, with sweat and exhaustion and stress, and large pools of
blood and other bodily fluids, often on surfaces that were less than
favourable to begin with.

I could also allow the GM to spend BL points to force player
characters to make "Fumble Re-Checks", which involves any failed roll
being re-rolled, with the number of dice being halved (i.e. a roll of
10 dice becomes 5 dice) for the sole purpose of seeing if a Fumble
comes up.

One more way to spend BL points could be to turn a Fumble into
an "outrageous Fumble" (for characters with the Outrageous Fumbles
Special Flaw, this happens automatically every time, without the GM
having to pay any BL points or do anything else). This can be done
after a Fumble Re-Check.

I'd have to write a long list of legal ways for GMs to spend Bad Luck
Points. Even if some GMs will wish to go beyond such a list, the
longer it is, the easier it will then be for such GMs to use the
existing options as guidelines upon which to base their rules
expansions (or rules improvisations), instead of just serving up some
random crap for their players.


Hopefully my problem is evident: I'm giving the GM a tool with which
to bother and annoy the players. And not only am I giving it to him,
I'm telling him that it is his duty to use it (and to use it in
full!!).

As most of you already know, I'm opposed to control-freak GMs and
asshole GMs and sadistic GMs. I'd like Modern Action RPG to be the
kind of RPG system that broken GMs would want to stay far, far away
from. A rules system that they would refuse to use, even if they were
offered money to run campaigns under it.

Unspent Bad Luck Points are saved. Yes, of course. They *have* to be.
Otherwise we have room for favouritism (and even worse, even more
likely, we have room for *perceived* favouritism), because the GM can
make sure to always spend almost all the BL points on one player
character, but be less dutiful when it comes to another player
character, with the unspent ones then lost, so that the second player
character does not get all the Bad Luck that he ought to have had.

Also, a GM could (and not necessarily out of any kind of malice)
become so extremely frustrated with a huge back-log of unspent BL
points, so that he suddenly unloads most or all of it, by inflicting
several disasters on the back-logged PC within a very short time span.

Not only does the PC's girlfriend become a lesbian, his house burns
down (and the insurance company suspects him of having started the
fire), and he is diagnosed with cancer, the GM handing the PC's
player a long list of the penalties that the PC will suffer from
during the next several months while he undergoes chemotherapy.

This very particular problem can probably be solved by having unspent
BL points go into a character-specific "bank" from which they can
only be released slowly. This means that favouritism *will* be
possible, but not very easy after all.

Still, we're left with the more general problem of the GM being
informed, by the rule book, that it is his *duty* to *torment* the
players.

Some players can "buy off" this torture partially or entirely. In
fact, *all* the players in a given campaign *can* buy it off
entirely. But they shouldn't want to. Having the Luck trait No Bad
Luck should be something that makes that particular character
special - not something which all his adventuring friends *also* have
as a matter of routine.

I don't want it to be so that the party member who sticks out from
the rest is the one who does *not* have No Bad Luck.


Being mindful of the standard values being 6 BL per week plus a
further 6 BL per month...

...a standard firearm jam could cost 3 BL points (+/- several points
for good or bad quality, and for good or bad maintenance). A slip
(with saving throw) might have a base cost of 4 BL (I'm just making
up numbers here) and require a slippery surface (icy, wet, slimy,
littered). A dropped held item (again, saving throw required) might
have a base cost of 6 BL (less if it is heavy relative to the
character's Strength, more if the character can be assumed to be
anxious about holding carefully on to it (any weapon), and infinite
if it is perceived by the character as extremely important (Frodo
would never drop The One Ring). Melee weapon breakage could start at
4 BL (+/- for material and quality).

A normal Fumble Re-Check, of half as many dice as the original roll,
could cost 2 BL points, and a harder Fumble Re-Check, with half as
many dice minus one (e.g. 3 dice if the original roll was 8 dice)
could cost 4 BL points. Turning a Fumble into an Outrageous Fumble
could cost 5 points.

(My original idea was to allow the GM to "steal" a couple of dice
from a failed roll, so that for instance if the roll comes up 11135
the GM could steal the 3 and the 5, leaving only ones behind, so that
the roll becomes a Fumble. But I think the forced Fumble Re-Check
solution is better.)

Right now I don't have any more ideas (I hope I'll get around a dozen
further ideas for BL usage, in the coming days), but it's a very new
mechanic for me anyway, and the above numbers are just to try to give
people some idea about how common Bad Luck will actually be
(theoretically 10 weapon jams per month, but of course a GM who uses
BL points only for firearm jams will be ridiculed by his players -
deservedly so!).

I should probably also try to combine the Jinx Foe mechanic with the
Bad Luck mechanic. Since I haven't done anything much with Jinx Foe,
this is not a big hurdle.

Thoughts?

[Simon Smith]

To address just one point among the many raised

Weapon jam rates:

Real world weapon jam rates are, oh, let's say 1-3%, in the absence of
accurate information to hand. You could introduce this jam probability at a
constant rate for all characters by using different-coloured dice as part
the character's attack roll whenever they use firearms. Say a character with
5D of skill rolls three red dice and two green. If the three reds roll,
exactly 2,2,2, or whatever generates the correct jam probability, the gun
jams. If all five dice roll ones, it's a fumble in the usual way. A mechanic
like this allows the gun's jam rate to be independent of user skill, if
that's what you want. Being able to use an otherwise harmless number
combination like 2,2,2 as the jam criterion means it doesn't have to
interfere with the rest of your dice mechanic unless you want it to.

For characters with less than 3D skill, you still roll three coloured dice.
If all three come up with the jam number, you get a jam, but if a character
only has 1D of skill, only that one die out of the three (nominated
beforehand) contributes to their chance of a hit, and the other two are
ignored, unless they indicate that a jam has occurred.

This basic idea is taken from Feng Shui, btw. but in Feng Shiu you usually
just use two coloured dice, one positive, one negative.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Simon Smith
To address just one point among the many raised
Real world weapon jam rates are, oh, let's say 1-3%, in the absence of
accurate information to hand. You could introduce this jam probability at a

Is that per shot or per fight? Is it for single shots, or for short
bursts, or for emptying an entire clip in a full auto salvo?

A jam rate of 3% sounds unreasonably high to me.

Post by Simon Smith
constant rate for all characters by using different-coloured dice as part
the character's attack roll whenever they use firearms. Say a character with

I want to avoid any requirements for special dice. All you need it a lot
of d6s, although ideally each player should have his own dice, and if
possible they should have "pips" rather than numbers, because with pips
the rolls are faster to "read".

Post by Simon Smith
5D of skill rolls three red dice and two green. If the three reds roll,
exactly 2,2,2, or whatever generates the correct jam probability, the gun
jams. If all five dice roll ones, it's a fumble in the usual way. A mechanic
like this allows the gun's jam rate to be independent of user skill, if
that's what you want. Being able to use an otherwise harmless number
combination like 2,2,2 as the jam criterion means it doesn't have to
interfere with the rest of your dice mechanic unless you want it to.

I'm also not happy with making a special case of the roll mechanic just
for the purpose of gunfights, even if gunfights will probably be quite
common in the typical MA RPG campaign.

Post by Simon Smith
For characters with less than 3D skill, you still roll three coloured dice.
If all three come up with the jam number, you get a jam, but if a character
only has 1D of skill, only that one die out of the three (nominated
beforehand) contributes to their chance of a hit, and the other two are
ignored, unless they indicate that a jam has occurred.
This basic idea is taken from Feng Shui, btw. but in Feng Shiu you usually
just use two coloured dice, one positive, one negative.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Simon Smith
Real world weapon jam rates are, oh, let's say 1-3%, in the absence of
accurate information to hand. You could introduce this jam probability at a

Is that per shot or per fight? Is it for single shots, or for short
bursts, or for emptying an entire clip in a full auto salvo?
A jam rate of 3% sounds unreasonably high to me.

I'm not sure what Simon is referencing here, but it sounds like a 'per
event' percentage to me.

A lot depends upon how much detail you want visible in your game system. In
general, the chance of jamming is the combination of maintenance, ammo and
weapon design and with handling skill having an impact in some cases-
another example is cap and ball revolvers, clock them on the peak of the
recoil flip or risk the cap falling into the revolver's mechanism and
jamming.

But it can be even more complex. Take something like the Martini-Henry rifle
around the era of the Zulu war. Single shot breech-loading lever-actuated it
is under normal conditions very reliable. However fire a number of shots
through it, let the fouling and heat build up, put it in a hot and dusty
part of the world, and you get jams. The chance starts off very small and
then increases over time until it becomes common and finally all but
certain.

Thus for any weapon, the reliability is dependent upon the exact conditions
that exist upon it being fired- and fired each time. Modeling this would be
work far beyond it's worth IMO for a table top rpg.

So your left with deciding upon abstraction method, often based upon an
'overall' chance of jamming number. The simplest is just bury jams into the
game's rate of fire assuming the anything lower than max for the weapon not
only reflects usage issues, but jams and jam recovery. Thus you 'handle' it
without adding any rule weight.

You may want to see it reflected directly in the mechanics even so. I'd like
to know why, as that would best determine what was needed from the game
mechanic.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by Simon Smith
Real world weapon jam rates are, oh, let's say 1-3%, in the absence of
accurate information to hand. You could introduce this jam
probability at a

Is that per shot or per fight? Is it for single shots, or for short
bursts, or for emptying an entire clip in a full auto salvo?
A jam rate of 3% sounds unreasonably high to me.

I'm not sure what Simon is referencing here, but it sounds like a 'per
event' percentage to me.

Then 3% sounds very high. Even 1% sounds kind of high to me. If I were a
cop, or something, I wouldn't want to trust my life to a sidearm that
only works 99% of the time when I pull the trigger.

Post by gleichman
A lot depends upon how much detail you want visible in your game system.
In general, the chance of jamming is the combination of maintenance,
ammo and weapon design and with handling skill having an impact in some

Check on the first three.

Handling skill, the fourth, I could include as a further penalty for
characters with the Primitive trait. It's a coarse-grained assumption,
that all non-Primitive characters know how to handle firearms, but then
it's a coarse-grained system intended to cover a very wide range of
action adventure character concepts.

Post by gleichman
cases- another example is cap and ball revolvers, clock them on the peak
of the recoil flip or risk the cap falling into the revolver's mechanism
and jamming.
But it can be even more complex. Take something like the Martini-Henry
rifle around the era of the Zulu war. Single shot breech-loading
lever-actuated it is under normal conditions very reliable. However fire
a number of shots through it, let the fouling and heat build up, put it
in a hot and dusty part of the world, and you get jams. The chance
starts off very small and then increases over time until it becomes
common and finally all but certain.
Thus for any weapon, the reliability is dependent upon the exact
conditions that exist upon it being fired- and fired each time. Modeling
this would be work far beyond it's worth IMO for a table top rpg.

One idea I've long had, for Sagatafl, is to give different firearms
different (binary) traits, representing their resistance to enviromental
conditions - or their vulnerability.

For instance, I've read that the Danish Sirius Patrol, a small army
group that patrols northern Greenland, uses some very old model rifles,
because they are the only firearms that are known to be reliable in
conditions of extreme cold. Since there are polar bears up there, they
need defence, and they're willing to put up with inferior technology
(range, rate of fire, et cetera) in exchange for reliability.

So that particular model rifle could have some kind of "Resistant to
Cold" trait, so that its realiability doesn't degrade in extreme cold.

An AK-47 could have a more generic "Rugged" trait, meaning that it
remains (fairly) reliable even in dusty conditions or when badly
maintained. This would be balanced by it being rather less accurate than
something like an M16.

Other weapons again could have vulnerabilities. For instance, based on
your description, the Martini-Henry rifle would be "Vulnerable to Dust"
and "Vulnerable to Heat".

This wouldn't be something dictated by the system, in the sense that it
says that "AK-47 assault rifles are Rugged"

Rather the system would make the "Rugged" trait and the "Inferior
Accuracy" trait available to GMs and players to apply to their guns if
they wish, and then it is up to the individual, or to the group
collectively, to figure out that the correct way to "say" AK-47 is to
take an assaultrifle and put the "Rugged" trait and the "inferior
Accuracy" trait onto it.

However, Sagatafl doesn't have any kind of gun jamming rule yet.

And in a way, that's one purpose of MA RPG: To function as a testing
ground, not just for rules documentation, player recruitment for
playtests, actual playtesting, but also for rules mechanics, to see how
they work out in play. Such as the Bad Luck mechanic, which I, on the
one hand, like, but which I, on the other hand, can see some potential
problems in.

Post by gleichman
So your left with deciding upon abstraction method, often based upon an
'overall' chance of jamming number. The simplest is just bury jams into
the game's rate of fire assuming the anything lower than max for the
weapon not only reflects usage issues, but jams and jam recovery. Thus
you 'handle' it without adding any rule weight.

I'm working on the assumption that a firearm jam is a major event, in
terms of the time it costs to recover from it. My original post
suggested 5 Rounds to un-jam a jammed firearm (30 seconds) for an
untrained character, 1 Round for a trained character, and a fraction of
a Round for a highly trained character.

Post by gleichman
You may want to see it reflected directly in the mechanics even so. I'd
like to know why, as that would best determine what was needed from the
game mechanic.

I want the rules to be such that player characters will automatically
make real-world-matching choices for in-game, in-character reasons.

For instance, cops favour revolvers over pistols, even though pistols
have higher ammo capacity and are also (if we ignore speed loaders, or
perhaps even if we don't) faster to reload. I'm also tempted to
introduce a Double-Tap maneuver, for pistols only, to simulate the
higher rate of fire.

Now, in many systems, a player would be faced between the choice of
emulating reality (or at least fiction - cops favour revolvers in movies
and television shows too) and making a tactically inferior choice, or
going for the pistol because it's flat out better in all regards.

How to make revolvers better? Make them more reliable!

Then, instead of the player going "My character is using a revolver
because that's the handgun type of choice for cops...", he can go "My
character is using a revolver because it makes *sense* from his
*perspective*. He's often working alone, and he often gets in trouble,
and when he gets in trouble, he needs to have something by his side that
he can pull and know with 100% certainty to fuction."

Same with AK-47s. It's the perfect assault rifle to issue to badly
trained guerilla forces, or to Soviet troops with limited education.
It'll also keep working in rough country, such as the Middle East or
Afghanistan, or Siberia.

An engagement of AK-47-using Vietcongs versus M16-using US Army soldiers
will become just a bit richer if reliability is taken into account.

The wealth/equipment system is also extremely coarsegrained. Everything
must fall into price categories that are multiples of 10, so we have $1,
$10, $100, $1000 and so forth. I can't have one assault rifle costing
$300 and another costing $500 or $700. Instead they'd either have to
both be Price Category C, or else I'd have to make one C and the other
D, which means that the D rifle costs 10 times as much as the C rifle,
and so the D cost rifle must be obviously and drastically better than
the C cost rifle.

Thus I need to try to balance all weapons in category C with each other,
and all weapons in category D with each other, and the more factors I
have to tweak, the better a chance I have of doing this. Ammo capacity,
burst control yes/no, range, weight, ammo type, that's all good, but if
I can also tweak Reliability, it gets potentially better.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen
Then 3% sounds very high. Even 1% sounds kind of high to me. If I were a
cop, or something, I wouldn't want to trust my life to a sidearm that only
works 99% of the time when I pull the trigger.

I don't have any data to hand about police jam rates, but if 99% percent is
the best you can get- trust or not, that's what you'd be using because it's
better than your teeth.

Post by Peter Knutsen
I'm working on the assumption that a firearm jam is a major event, in
terms of the time it costs to recover from it. My original post
suggested 5 Rounds to un-jam a jammed firearm (30 seconds) for an
untrained character, 1 Round for a trained character, and a fraction of
a Round for a highly trained character.

That's almost more of a malfunction than a jam, and most of those would
require tools to correct (something to whack the slide with, or pliers to
pull a torn case, etc.).

Post by Peter Knutsen
I want the rules to be such that player characters will automatically make
real-world-matching choices for in-game, in-character reasons.
For instance, cops favour revolvers over pistols, even though pistols
have higher ammo capacity and are also (if we ignore speed loaders, or
perhaps even if we don't) faster to reload. I'm also tempted to
introduce a Double-Tap maneuver, for pistols only, to simulate the
higher rate of fire.

Real-world matching?

Few police departments today issue revolvers. Starting in the 80s,
automatics became the standard choice. Some departments leave it up to the
individual (within guidelines) and you do see a wheel gun now and then, but
they are rare at least in OK, TX areas I travel.

Double-Tap is common in game design, and even acceptably real world for most
users. However experts with a revolver can handily match semi-auto pistol
firing rates with the larger bores (at least until it comes time to reload)-
recoil management and target alignment taking up far more time than action
cycling. I always thought that it should be possible to buy a (perhaps more
expensive) Revolver Double-Tap, even for single actions.

So looking at that, I couldn't match my real-world experience to your game.
However, I understand that you're attempting to match your knowledge to it
instead of mine so your concept remains.

I'm rather fond of individual weapon quirks. Thus the AK-47 getting bonuses
for reliability and reduced accuracy appeals to me and I would endorse that
method. The only drawback is that good quirk information for less famous
weapons are hard to find. For example, how many references note that Bond's
PPK (at least in the versions I've seen) lacks a slide stop and thus
requires an extra step to reload?

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts, in part:

Few police departments today issue revolvers. Starting
in the 80s, automatics became the standard choice. Some
departments leave it up to the individual (within
guidelines) and you do see a wheel gun now and then,
but they are rare at least in OK, TX areas I travel.

My understanding is that this was a result of increased reliability of
semiautomatic pistols. In other words, Peter's suggestion may be
dated, but wouldn't necessarily be incorrect, for example for a game
set in earlier decades.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
My understanding is that this was a result of increased reliability of
semiautomatic pistols. In other words, Peter's suggestion may be
dated, but wouldn't necessarily be incorrect, for example for a game
set in earlier decades.

First off, few things have a single cause behind them. Fewer yet are driven
by more than perception.

In this case, I have the advantage of being engaged in the hobby during the
switchover. Thus I knew officers at the time, read the articles concerning
the switch, etc. It wasn't reliability driven (something that's obvious when
you consider that the Military, always a big reliability customer, had
switched to semi-auto more than a half-century before). In fact, one of
weapons selected today by a number of law enforcement agencies and
individuals was designed in 1911.

Often time a bone to reliability having 'improved in recent years' was
tossed to make the new weapons more acceptable to the line officer, but
those statements were on par with "The M-16 is a self cleaning rifle"
nonsense.

Rather the primary cause the growing number of gun battles making the news
where the slow reload of the revolver played a role in some bad outcomes.
There was also the 'arms race' where various criminals were using semi-autos
and the police felt outgunned as a result. These and other factors were the
same driving influences behind the development of SWAT teams and the like.

[psychohist]

Brian Gleichman posts regarding police forces transitioning from
revolvers to semiautomatic pistols:

First off, few things have a single cause behind them.

I'd certainly agree with that.

It wasn't reliability driven (something that's obvious
when you consider that the Military, always a big
reliability customer, had switched to semi-auto more
than a half-century before).

While the military talks about reliability, they are much more willing
to trade off reliability for performance or other features than
civilian customers generally are. For example, the GE F404 engine for
the F-18 was unusual in that the Navy was willing to take a slight
performance cut in exchange for a large improvement in reliability and
maintainability, but it was still an order of magnitude behind
civilian applications - one figure I remember is 20 hours of
maintenance per flight hour versus two or so for civilian aircraft.

When you think about it, this has to be true in the context of
symmetric warfare that existed when the military adopted the
semiautomatic pistol. The pistol was expected to be used against
comparably armed opponents; by default, one would expect one's success
rate in these battles to be 50%. Even an order of magnitude reduction
in jams from, say, 2% to 0.2% would be of far less benefit than a 33%
increase in ammunition capacity, even ignoring the potentially
improved firing rate from the semiautomatic action.

In symmetric military applications, you expect to have a significant
number of casualties, so working on the last percentage point of
benefit, such as in reliability, was less important. I would note
that this is changing in post cold war asymmetric warfare.

In fact, one of weapons selected today by a number of law
enforcement agencies and individuals was designed in 1911.

Often time a bone to reliability having 'improved in recent
years' was tossed to make the new weapons more acceptable
to the line officer, but those statements were on par with
"The M-16 is a self cleaning rifle" nonsense.

I don't think many people kept talking much about the M-16 being "self
cleaning" after it actually went into operation, much less after 70
years of experience. While the basic M-1911 design dated from 1911,
there had been changes in the intervening years, and there were
certainly manufacturing improvements. I'm inclined to believe that
there were improvements in reliability over the decades, though I'd
agree most of it had happened years before police departments started
making the switch. People were also more open to using imported
designs in the 1980s than they would have been a few decades earlier.

Rather the primary cause the growing number of gun
battles making the news where the slow reload of the
revolver played a role in some bad outcomes.
There was also the 'arms race' where various criminals
were using semi-autos and the police felt outgunned as
a result. These and other factors were the same
driving influences behind the development of SWAT
teams and the like.

This is a valid point that I hadn't been thinking of. Another way of
putting it would be that the police applications were becoming more
like military applications, causing the police to make tradeoffs
closer to the ones the military made.

Warren Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
While the military talks about reliability, they are much more willing
to trade off reliability for performance or other features than
civilian customers generally are.

Apples and oranges on the jet engine example there, on a number of
levels. Unless you're interested, I'll just let them pass as we're
going a little off topic.

Post by psychohist
Even an order of magnitude reduction
in jams from, say, 2% to 0.2% would be of far less benefit than a 33%
increase in ammunition capacity, even ignoring the potentially
improved firing rate from the semiautomatic action.

At the time of the Miltary's switch over to the 1911, it was only a 1
round ammo improvement (from 6 to 7), or 17%. In some nations, there
was no increase in ammo in their move to semi-auto. Reload times was
the driving factor and on that point, they were willing to pay for
slightly reduced reliability.

Things changed in later years of course, but interestingly enough the
Marines choose the ammo capacity of the 1911 over weapons that carried
far more.

Post by psychohist
While the basic M-1911 design dated from 1911,
there had been changes in the intervening years, and there were
certainly manufacturing improvements.

As an owner and firer of both, I can attest to the fact that there
were basically no reliability improvements. The gun recently brought
by the marine corps is the same design (being rebuilt 1911A1 pistols),
although modified to closer tolerances to provide better performance
at the cost of a reduction in reliability. The Marine corps, with
their tradition of outstanding weapons maintainance (and the fact the
weapons were intended for their more elite members) considered this a
fair trade off.

Manufacturing improvements tended to be on the cost of production side
and many would say that actual quality has been reduced as a result.
Bob Munden certainly was of that opinion in a conversation I had with
him a couple of years back when I had him do some gunwork for me. And
judging from the solid quality of an Army issued 1917 revolver I have
(it's lockwork and function matches that of my hand tuned modern
production Python, if it's finish is horrid and trigger pull very
manly to say the least) I'd have to agree although I'm sure there are
exceptions.

Post by psychohist
Another way of
putting it would be that the police applications were becoming more
like military applications, causing the police to make tradeoffs
closer to the ones the military made.

There is some truth in that. The whole firepower (more rounds going
down range) school of thought certainly mirrors that of the miltary in
the 70s and 60s. Interestingly enough, currently the US Army has moved
away from that back to quality of fire.

There are however significant differences.

Law Enforcement is based here in the US with immediate access to
maintainance and the time to perform it. The enviromental conditions
are also far more friendly. Those two factors allow them to use
weapons that would produce unacceptable failure rates under military
field conditions. They are also quicker to change than the military as
few police departments have the large logistics tail of the military
that could require replacement.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
As an owner and firer of both, I can attest to the fact that there
were basically no reliability improvements. The gun recently brought
by the marine corps is the same design (being rebuilt 1911A1 pistols),
although modified to closer tolerances to provide better performance
at the cost of a reduction in reliability. The Marine corps, with
their tradition of outstanding weapons maintainance (and the fact the
weapons were intended for their more elite members) considered this a
fair trade off.

I don't know enough about the subject matter to comment on some of the
above, but I'm surprised at the last - I was under the impression that
military pistols were issued to people who aren't expected to use them?
Drivers, cooks, staff officers etc, as a "better than harsh language"
measure if there's a screwup and you end up facing rifle-armed enemies.

On-topicness: in a few weeks I'm likely to have to roleplay some
platoons of the Royal Marines of Windermere, tech level circa 1900, in
an amphibious assault. I have the idea they'll be armed with rifles,
bayonets and one machine gun or other heavy weapon per boatload; would
they carry revolvers as secondary weapons?

Semi-automatics do exist in the game world, but as new-fangled things
prone to jamming, so I thus far have them as the Special Security
Department's trademark weapon. (Rationale: if the only firefights you're
likely to get into are by surprise at close range and one-off, rate of
fire and ammo capacity matter more than sustainability. Does that make
sense?)

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
I don't know enough about the subject matter to comment on some of the
above, but I'm surprised at the last - I was under the impression that
military pistols were issued to people who aren't expected to use them?
Drivers, cooks, staff officers etc, as a "better than harsh language"
measure if there's a screwup and you end up facing rifle-armed enemies.

That's generally the case although there are exceptions (the SOCOM
Mk23 for example is the only known example of a Pistol in the Army
being referenced as an offensive weapon as far as I know).

The elite groups however tend to always carry a pistol as a backup for
their primary weapon, a weapon always to hand, and for special cases
where a pistol is the better choice. They make more use of them in the
Military then the common solider and are more demanding as a result.
There's also the factor that they tend to operate a little outside the
rules, and can as a result get away with improving upon standard
isssue.

Thus in the US nearly all the Special Forces (Force Recon, Delta,
SEALs, etc) have replace the M9 Pistol.

Post by Russell Wallace
On-topicness: in a few weeks I'm likely to have to roleplay some
platoons of the Royal Marines of Windermere, tech level circa 1900, in
an amphibious assault. I have the idea they'll be armed with rifles,
bayonets and one machine gun or other heavy weapon per boatload; would
they carry revolvers as secondary weapons?

I would think so.

However in for at least the last half of the 1800s British Officers
would buy their own sidearms (Colt sold a bunch to them, which is why
I happen to know that) and I'm not certain how long that tradition
remained although I do know Winston Churchill used a Mauser C96 (very
much a non-standard weapon for the British) in their army around the
turn of the century.

He very much liked the weapon btw, although revolvers were much more
common at least until WWII (and for much of that) until replaced by
the Browning High Power.

Post by Russell Wallace
Semi-automatics do exist in the game world, but as new-fangled things
prone to jamming, so I thus far have them as the Special Security
Department's trademark weapon. (Rationale: if the only firefights you're
likely to get into are by surprise at close range and one-off, rate of
fire and ammo capacity matter more than sustainability. Does that make
sense?)

As I said before, perception often matters more than reality. There
would certainly be people who thought the way you describe during that
period, if they were the ones approving or buying the weapons- that's
all you need.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman
That's generally the case although there are exceptions (the SOCOM
Mk23 for example is the only known example of a Pistol in the Army
being referenced as an offensive weapon as far as I know).
The elite groups however tend to always carry a pistol as a backup for
their primary weapon, a weapon always to hand, and for special cases
where a pistol is the better choice. They make more use of them in the

[...]

Silencing seems like the obvious example to me. I believe I know that
silencing rifles, or even carbines, is rather difficult.

Post by gleichman
As I said before, perception often matters more than reality. There
would certainly be people who thought the way you describe during that
period, if they were the ones approving or buying the weapons- that's
all you need.

IMBd doesn't appear to have the quote from "Jackie Brown"... Means I'll
have to hunt it down on my own.

[psychohist]

Peter Knutsen posts, in part:

I've already got a rule in place in MA RPG, where
you can chose to "rush" a skill-dependent action,
lowering the Action Point cost in exchange for a
huge penalty to the skill roll. Thus you can squeeze
a shot off at 3 AP cost, compared to the normal cost
of 4 APs, at 1/2 skill value, or pay 2 APs for a
shot at 1/4 skill value. It's a pretty stupid choice
to make, but it's there; perhaps mostly for desperate
and inexperienced NPCs who will die anyway.

It might also be a good option for very highly skilled characters, who
might have a good chance at success even at half skill. I think
that's a good thing - it's good to have options.

Ammunition has become more reliable, in the last few
decades? How so?

I think when Brian said "Expanding ammo reliability" has gotten
better, he was referring to the reliability of expanding ammo, not the
expanding reliability of ammo. I have the impression that the
manufacturers have gotten better at making bullets that expand without
excessive fragmentation, but Brian probably knows the details much
better than I do.

But as for "cinemtic", I use that word in a different
sense from yours. My usage has to do with characters
who are highly competent in specific ways, as with
point-based character creation systems where the
players are given large creation budgets:

Ah, I see. I tend to think of that as "heroic" - unless you have some
particular connection with cinema in mind?

Silencing seems like the obvious example to me. I
believe I know that silencing rifles, or even
carbines, is rather difficult.

The muzzle report can be silenced, but the sound of the shock wave
from the bullet - a miniature sonic boom - cannot. If you really want
silence, though, there's something to be said for a knife.

Warren J. Dew

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Peter Knutsen
I've already got a rule in place in MA RPG, where
you can chose to "rush" a skill-dependent action,
lowering the Action Point cost in exchange for a
huge penalty to the skill roll. Thus you can squeeze
a shot off at 3 AP cost, compared to the normal cost
of 4 APs, at 1/2 skill value, or pay 2 APs for a
shot at 1/4 skill value. It's a pretty stupid choice
to make, but it's there; perhaps mostly for desperate
and inexperienced NPCs who will die anyway.
It might also be a good option for very highly skilled characters, who
might have a good chance at success even at half skill. I think
that's a good thing - it's good to have options.

That's the point. Although, given the workings of the roll mechanic, I
see it mostly as an act of desperation. It's the kind of act that might
work for a very skilled character. It'd certainly work for a Weapon
Master such as Robin Hood.

Post by Peter Knutsen
Ammunition has become more reliable, in the last few
decades? How so?
I think when Brian said "Expanding ammo reliability" has gotten
better, he was referring to the reliability of expanding ammo, not the
expanding reliability of ammo. I have the impression that the

Okay.

Post by Peter Knutsen
manufacturers have gotten better at making bullets that expand without
excessive fragmentation, but Brian probably knows the details much
better than I do.

Okay. However, expanding bullets aren't good against bullet-proof vests
and other forms of ballistic armour, as far as I'm informed.

MA RPG simply says that the Armour Value (AV) of modern armour is
doubled against expanding bullets, and halved against rifle bullets.

The rules currently say nothing about archaic armour.

Post by Peter Knutsen
But as for "cinemtic", I use that word in a different
sense from yours. My usage has to do with characters
who are highly competent in specific ways, as with
point-based character creation systems where the
Ah, I see. I tend to think of that as "heroic" - unless you have some

I'm afraid that's the old-fashioned meaning of the word. In the good old
days, "Heroic" was used to refer to characters who were
larger-than-life, both capabilitistically and motivationally. Today,
sadly, it means someone who is morally heroic, even if the heroism is
100% reluctant, and if capability is lacking, so that triumph is
achieved solely, or almost solely, through being morally good, rather
than having any intrinsic ability.

It's a bit like Conan or Lankhmar, versus the hobbits in Lord of the
Rings. Conan, Fafhrd(sp?) and the Grey Mouser are highly capable
individuals. In an RPG system with point-based character creation,
they'd be built on very generous budgets. The hobbits, however, have
very little capability. They'd be low-budget characters. Even in systems
with extensive Luck traits, such as Modern Action RPG, they'd still be
fairly low budget.

Yet the hobbit win, triumphing over a demi-god.

I like LOTR, but that part offends me.

Post by Peter Knutsen
particular connection with cinema in mind?

I'm not sure if I do. It probably isn't a good word to use anyway,
because many people assume Feng Shui and/or John Woo, when they hear it,
and that's emphatically not where I want to go.

Post by Peter Knutsen
Silencing seems like the obvious example to me. I
believe I know that silencing rifles, or even
carbines, is rather difficult.
The muzzle report can be silenced, but the sound of the shock wave
from the bullet - a miniature sonic boom - cannot. If you really want
silence, though, there's something to be said for a knife.

Why not go for a bow? Of course a knife is a bit quieter, but a bow can
kill at range.

[psychohist]

Russell Wallace posts, in part:

Semi-automatics do exist in the game world, but as
new-fangled things prone to jamming, so I thus far
have them as the Special Security Department's
trademark weapon. (Rationale: if the only firefights
you're likely to get into are by surprise at close
range and one-off, rate of fire and ammo capacity
matter more than sustainability. Does that make
sense?)

It's also to be noted that, in 1900, semiautomatic pistol technology
was still immature. The most popular design for military use at the
time was probably the Mauser C96, which was quite bulky for a pistol
due to having the magazine placed in front of the trigger guard. The
Browning M1900 was brand new and there might initially have been
suspicions about the accuracy attainable in the locked breech design
where the barrel moved relative to the frame.

Warren J. Dew

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman
Few police departments today issue revolvers. Starting
in the 80s, automatics became the standard choice. Some
departments leave it up to the individual (within
guidelines) and you do see a wheel gun now and then,
but they are rare at least in OK, TX areas I travel.
My understanding is that this was a result of increased reliability of
semiautomatic pistols. In other words, Peter's suggestion may be
dated, but wouldn't necessarily be incorrect, for example for a game
set in earlier decades.

My personal sweet spot for Modern Action RPG campaigns is the mid 1980s,
because that was when I was a kid, and I have fond memories of a lot of
movies (some might remember that the system's original title, or working
title, was Action Movie RPG - I changed it mostly because it made people
think of John Woo, which is wrong (and who is wrong, on all possible
levels)).

But really, the system should be able to handle any action setting. In a
space opera setting, you'd need to add futuristic firearms (and energy
rapiers, although these should be easy), but the character subtype
infrastructure is already in place, with subtypes such as the
Special/Cyborg, Skilled/Spacer, Skilled/Hacker and Skilled/Advanced.

Anything from mid 19th century to very near future should be doable
as-is (just delete or ignore firearms that are too advanced). Anything
earlier would require the addition ot period-appropriate firearms. A
campaign set in a pre-gunpowder setting should be doable, because I have
given quite a bit of attention to unarmed combat and melee weapon combat
(because both of these are intrinsically cool), although probably more
than half of the combat rules will deal with firearms, so one would miss
out on some system elements.

Anyway, if automatic pistol reliability has gone up, I'd need to mention
that somewhere in the rules, but it was my assumption that handgun
technology, in the sense of pistols and revolvers, hadn't really changed
much in nearly a century. So it's very useful and valuable to get that
kind of assumption squashed...

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen
Anyway, if automatic pistol reliability has gone up

It really hasn't.

Expanding ammo reliablity on the other hand has, but is a different
subject.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
Anyway, if automatic pistol reliability has gone up

It really hasn't.
Expanding ammo reliablity on the other hand has, but is a different
subject.

Ammunition has become more reliable, in the last few decades? How so?

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
Anyway, if automatic pistol reliability has gone up

It really hasn't.
Expanding ammo reliablity on the other hand has, but is a different
subject.

Ammunition has become more reliable, in the last few decades? How so?

Expanding bullets (if various types) have improved over the last 30 years or
so. Originally they were simple, and often failed to expand or fragmented
too soon, or failed to reach anything important as they burned up their
energy expanding. This was even more of a problem with pistol ammo. Things
have improved greatly, but I still wouldn't consider them certain.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
Then 3% sounds very high. Even 1% sounds kind of high to me. If I were
a cop, or something, I wouldn't want to trust my life to a sidearm
that only works 99% of the time when I pull the trigger.

I don't have any data to hand about police jam rates, but if 99% percent
is the best you can get- trust or not, that's what you'd be using
because it's better than your teeth.

Sure, but a soldier is never alone. Even special operations soldiers are
only very rarely alone. Even if your rifle jams, there'll be at least
2-3 friends nearby with functioning rifles.

Cops, on the other hand, often are alone.

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
I'm working on the assumption that a firearm jam is a major event, in
terms of the time it costs to recover from it. My original post
suggested 5 Rounds to un-jam a jammed firearm (30 seconds) for an
untrained character, 1 Round for a trained character, and a fraction of
a Round for a highly trained character.

That's almost more of a malfunction than a jam, and most of those would
require tools to correct (something to whack the slide with, or pliers
to pull a torn case, etc.).

Then that's one place where game has to trumph reality. Jams or
malfunctions requiring lengthy repairs are not interesting to me, but
neither are jamps which have no effect except to reduce RoF. I want
something in-between, even if it is contrary to reality, because if I
get that, then I make "Immediate Action" a meaningful character ability.

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
I want the rules to be such that player characters will automatically
make real-world-matching choices for in-game, in-character reasons.
For instance, cops favour revolvers over pistols, even though pistols
have higher ammo capacity and are also (if we ignore speed loaders, or
perhaps even if we don't) faster to reload. I'm also tempted to
introduce a Double-Tap maneuver, for pistols only, to simulate the
higher rate of fire.

Real-world matching?
Few police departments today issue revolvers. Starting in the 80s,
automatics became the standard choice. Some departments leave it up to
the individual (within guidelines) and you do see a wheel gun now and
then, but they are rare at least in OK, TX areas I travel.

Interesting data point. But might that not have more to do with a desire
for a high volume of fire (seeing as most handgun shots fired doesn't
hit the target), rather than a concern with the cop's ability to pull
his gun, in an emergency, and be almost absolutely certain that a bullet
will come out of the barrel, so that he can stop a perp at point blank
range?

Post by gleichman
Double-Tap is common in game design, and even acceptably real world for
most users. However experts with a revolver can handily match semi-auto
pistol firing rates with the larger bores (at least until it comes time
to reload)- recoil management and target alignment taking up far more
time than action cycling. I always thought that it should be possible to
buy a (perhaps more expensive) Revolver Double-Tap, even for single
actions.

That'd be the alternative approach to the mechanic. Have a somewhat
cheap Double-Tap maneuver (binary skill, similar to a Martial Ars
maneuver in Hero System) that works only for pistols, and then offer an
upgrade maneuver so that you can also double-tap with revolvers.

- Whereas my original idea was to allow only the pistol double-tap
maneuver, with nothing for revolvers.

The big question is, what makes for the better game? Keeping pistols and
revolvers distinct from each other is desirable, of course, but apart
from reliability (and perhaps a certain Dirty Harry coolness), pistols
have the advantage, in terms of offering more shots before you need to
reload, and reloading being faster (probably even if a speedloader is used).

So if I say that double-tapping is for pistols only, revolvers might end
up generally undesirable, even if they do jam less often.

Post by gleichman
So looking at that, I couldn't match my real-world experience to your
game. However, I understand that you're attempting to match your
knowledge to it instead of mine so your concept remains.
I'm rather fond of individual weapon quirks. Thus the AK-47 getting
bonuses for reliability and reduced accuracy appeals to me and I would
endorse that method. The only drawback is that good quirk information
for less famous weapons are hard to find. For example, how many
references note that Bond's PPK (at least in the versions I've seen)
lacks a slide stop and thus requires an extra step to reload?

Yes, but that's why the rules won't make statements about what quirks
specific guns have (except perhaps give suggestions for iconic weapons
such as the AK-47, M16, gangster submachine gun (Thompson?) and the
Uzi). Instead they'll offer a list of quirks, and then let the end
users, the GMs and players, apply these quirks to particular guns, as
they see fit.

I won't provide a list of specific guns, with stats. Instead I'll just
offer light assault rifle, medium assault rifle, heavy assault rifle
(even if there is no such thing, a mad gunsmith could make one for a
very strong friend), and so forth.


Another example, which I read in Hans-Chrisian Vortisch' new "GURPS
Seals in Vietnam"-PDF, is that many SEAL groups would have the point man
carry a shotgun, because they found that it was really good for getting
that first shot in, at very close range. That set me thinking about
point blank-shooting, and whether various gun types should have
different bonuses. So that's one way in which my mind, and my approach
to game design, works. I read or hear something, and it gets me thinking
about including it in the design.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen
Cops, on the other hand, often are alone.

Again, it beats teeth. And past experience showed more officers lost
due to slow reloads than jammed weapons. Thus one goes with the odds.

Also the first shot out of a semi-auto is as certain as one from a
revolver. Semi-auto failures are mostly feed/ejection failures and
that happens after the weapon fires.

Post by Peter Knutsen
I want
something in-between, even if it is contrary to reality, because if I
get that, then I make "Immediate Action" a meaningful character ability.

Understandable.

Post by Peter Knutsen
Interesting data point. But might that not have more to do with a desire
for a high volume of fire (seeing as most handgun shots fired doesn't
hit the target), rather than a concern with the cop's ability to pull
his gun, in an emergency, and be almost absolutely certain that a bullet
will come out of the barrel, so that he can stop a perp at point blank
range?

I spoke to this in other posts but to expand upon it, the answer is
that it depends. During the rush to high capacity 9mm in the 80s that
was indeed the thought in many police departments. They looked at the
stats and found that the typical police gunfight had around 6 rounds
fired per officer on average (of which only 1 hit) and decided that by
increasing the number of loaded rounds they could be more certain of
their officers having enough ammo at hand to gain multiple hits.

Afterwards they found that the number of shots fired on average
climbed up towards whatever new capacity they had put in place and the
hit rate dropped almost to match. People in a gunfight (often for the
first time in their lives) just like to empty their gun in the
direction of whatever caused them to decide upon the use of deadly
force in the first place. Thus ammo capacity relationship to
effectiveness is highly distorted.

Hence my comment that things are often driven more by perception than
reality.

Current trends are the reverse. The 1986 Miami Shootout was the
turning point as the failure of the 9mm there resulted in a move
towards more powerful sidearms and rejection of the "spray and pray"
methods of the high cap 9mm pistol. Many of the most elite police and
military forces in the US have returned to a variant model of the
1911 .45 ACP pistol (including Marine Force Recon, FBI Hostage Rescue
Team, Delta, various SWAT teams nation wide) and many police
departments offer it as an option. With 7 or 8 round mags, ammo cap
isn't it's driving advantage.

Post by Peter Knutsen
Another example, which I read in Hans-Chrisian Vortisch' new "GURPS
Seals in Vietnam"-PDF, is that many SEAL groups would have the point man
carry a shotgun, because they found that it was really good for getting
that first shot in, at very close range. That set me thinking about
point blank-shooting, and whether various gun types should have
different bonuses. So that's one way in which my mind, and my approach
to game design, works. I read or hear something, and it gets me thinking
about including it in the design.

HERO System includes in its optional rules (Dark Champions book) a CQB
(close quarters battle) modifier which modifiers one's DEX for
determining action order at congested close ranged encounters. Faster
weapons take less of a negative modifier.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
Cops, on the other hand, often are alone.

Again, it beats teeth. And past experience showed more officers lost
due to slow reloads than jammed weapons. Thus one goes with the odds.
Also the first shot out of a semi-auto is as certain as one from a
revolver. Semi-auto failures are mostly feed/ejection failures and
that happens after the weapon fires.

I thought about that, earlier, but wasn't sure about it. It makes a lot
of sense, though, that the first shot usually goes out and THEN your gun
jams.

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
I want
something in-between, even if it is contrary to reality, because if I
get that, then I make "Immediate Action" a meaningful character ability.

Understandable.

There's a principle, from Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, about
chose-able abilities. They are said to be broken if they fail the "but
wouldn't everyone take it"-criteria, or if they fail the "nobody would
take it"-criteria.

It's a good place to start, but I'm not convinced it must always be
applied. Some abilities simply mark the character out as an experienced
fighter, or as having military training, and thus standing out from
those other party members whose only combat training comes from a pistol
shooting club, or a martial arts dojo.

Also, of course, learnable abilities can be acquired after game start,
either to correct a player mistake in not taking it, or to simulate the
fact that a character becomes familiar with combat, or combat-related
skills, over the course of the campaign.

GURPS famously has the (learnable) Combat Reflexes advantage. In several
discussions among veteran GURPS users, it has been said that it is
underpriced at 15 character points (even by the primary designer and
line editor, Sean Punch), and at least one GM has reported that he tried
raising the cost to 20 points in a campaign, then to 25 points in the
next, but his players still bought it for their characters immediately.

Still, not every GURPS player character has Combat Reflexes, and that's
good.

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
Interesting data point. But might that not have more to do with a desire
for a high volume of fire (seeing as most handgun shots fired doesn't
hit the target), rather than a concern with the cop's ability to pull
his gun, in an emergency, and be almost absolutely certain that a bullet
will come out of the barrel, so that he can stop a perp at point blank
range?

I spoke to this in other posts but to expand upon it, the answer is
that it depends. During the rush to high capacity 9mm in the 80s that
was indeed the thought in many police departments. They looked at the
stats and found that the typical police gunfight had around 6 rounds
fired per officer on average (of which only 1 hit) and decided that by
increasing the number of loaded rounds they could be more certain of
their officers having enough ammo at hand to gain multiple hits.

Makes sense.

Post by gleichman
Afterwards they found that the number of shots fired on average
climbed up towards whatever new capacity they had put in place and the
hit rate dropped almost to match. People in a gunfight (often for the
first time in their lives) just like to empty their gun in the
direction of whatever caused them to decide upon the use of deadly

I've already got a rule in place in MA RPG, where you can chose to
"rush" a skill-dependent action, lowering the Action Point cost in
exchange for a huge penalty to the skill roll. Thus you can squeeze a
shot off at 3 AP cost, compared to the normal cost of 4 APs, at 1/2
skill value, or pay 2 APs for a shot at 1/4 skill value. It's a pretty
stupid choice to make, but it's there; perhaps mostly for desperate and
inexperienced NPCs who will die anyway.

Post by gleichman
force in the first place. Thus ammo capacity relationship to
effectiveness is highly distorted.
Hence my comment that things are often driven more by perception than
reality.

There's a wonderful quote in Quentin Tarantinos blacksploitation homage,
"Jackie Brown", where the African-American weapons dealer says something
very similar. Whenever a particular brand of firearm is featured in a
major movie, demand goes up and he can sell it for more, even if it is a
fairly worthless gun.

I'll try very hard to squeeze that quote in somewhere in the text,
although of course the Samuel Colt quote has to be the one to introduce
the Firearms sub-chapter. It's just that good.

Post by gleichman
Current trends are the reverse. The 1986 Miami Shootout was the
turning point as the failure of the 9mm there resulted in a move
towards more powerful sidearms and rejection of the "spray and pray"
methods of the high cap 9mm pistol. Many of the most elite police and
military forces in the US have returned to a variant model of the
1911 .45 ACP pistol (including Marine Force Recon, FBI Hostage Rescue

Originally adopted in order to take down "amok runners" on some Pacific
island? Or at least that's what I remember having read in GURPS Martial
Arts.

It's too bad I don't have any kind of stopping power simulation in MA
RPG, or bullet stun, but it makes it too easy to take a PC out of the
fight with one shot, so I've gone with a hit point attrition model instead.

Post by gleichman
Team, Delta, various SWAT teams nation wide) and many police
departments offer it as an option. With 7 or 8 round mags, ammo cap
isn't it's driving advantage.

With no rules about PCs being able, or unable, to "keep their cool", 7
or 8 carefully aimed shots should be plenty to take down several foes.

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
Another example, which I read in Hans-Chrisian Vortisch' new "GURPS
Seals in Vietnam"-PDF, is that many SEAL groups would have the point man
carry a shotgun, because they found that it was really good for getting
that first shot in, at very close range. That set me thinking about
point blank-shooting, and whether various gun types should have
different bonuses. So that's one way in which my mind, and my approach
to game design, works. I read or hear something, and it gets me thinking
about including it in the design.

HERO System includes in its optional rules (Dark Champions book) a CQB
(close quarters battle) modifier which modifiers one's DEX for
determining action order at congested close ranged encounters. Faster
weapons take less of a negative modifier.

I actually have the latest Dark Champions, but I've never noticed that.
I'll have to get out that book and try to find it.

Sagatafl does something similar already, with "fast" weapons giving a
bonus to the character's Reflexes roll to determine initiative order,
and "slow" weapons giving a penalty. Heavy encumbrance also gives a penalty.

MA RPG uses a different model, where Action Point rolls means you often
get to take multiple actions per combat Round, so my solution is to have
different costs for different weapon types, for the binary skill to
reduce the AP cost per shot (from 4 APs to 3 APs for a single shot).

Thus Faster Shortarm Shot might cost 8 points, Faster Subm. Shot might
cost 12 points, and Faster Rifle Shot might cost 16 points.

I'd be inclined to charge 16 points for an ordinary shotgun and 12
points for a sawn-off shotgun[1], and then handle the situation with a
bonus to the roll for very-short-range shots (a rather bigger bonus than
what other weapon types get), because the text seemed to suggest to me
that it wasn't about shooting first, but about being pretty sure you'd
hit (with the pellets scattering and all that).

[1] Probably so that you pay 12 points for the sawn-off binary skill,
and then you can upgrade to all shotguns for a further 4 points.
Charging separately for each type would be absurd.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen
It's also idiotic to
assume that a character's skill at *shooting* a weapon affects the
chance of a jam.

Not completely.

Not holding a recoil operated weapon correctly for example can vastily
increase the chance of jamming depending upon the exact weapon and
details. And often skill in the weapon also reflects proper
maintainance and ammo selection both of which can greatly influence
matters. Each firearm has it's own quirks, and knowledge of them helps
one avoid them.

However your percentages are really out whack with respect to jam
chances, so it would be a exceedingly poor method in any event. Of
course I wouldn't touch your dice mechanic with a ten-foot pole in the
first place, but it's your game.

Post by Peter Knutsen
The GM gets 6 weekly Bad Luck points for each PC, plus a further 6
monthly Bad Luck Points for each PC.

The last thing I'd want as either a GM or a player is a game mechanic
that specifically requires the GM decide when and how to screw his
players. I'm sure there's a style of play where this is accepted and
expected, but it's a very alien one to me. Fumble mechanics and the
like are generally accepted because they take the matter out of the
GM's hands, so you're bucking gaming nature here. Which is something
you seem to enjoy doing.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
The last thing I'd want as either a GM or a player is a game mechanic
that specifically requires the GM decide when and how to screw his
players. I'm sure there's a style of play where this is accepted and
expected, but it's a very alien one to me. Fumble mechanics and the
like are generally accepted because they take the matter out of the
GM's hands, so you're bucking gaming nature here. Which is something
you seem to enjoy doing.

For once, I am in complete agreement with Gleichman!

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
It's also idiotic to
assume that a character's skill at *shooting* a weapon affects the
chance of a jam.

Not completely.
Not holding a recoil operated weapon correctly for example can vastily
increase the chance of jamming depending upon the exact weapon and

Thanks for that piece of information.

Post by gleichman
details. And often skill in the weapon also reflects proper
maintainance and ammo selection both of which can greatly influence
matters. Each firearm has it's own quirks, and knowledge of them helps
one avoid them.

Yes, but I have a need for keeping weapon combat usage skill separate
from weapon maintenance skill.

Also, there's the issue of range modifiers. For point-blank shots you
get +1 bonus die, which would make jams less likely for such shots, and
for long-range shots you roll fewer dice, making jams more likely.

Worse, a 3-shot burst gives you one bonus die, and firing full-auto
gives you 2 bonus dice, making jams *less* likely - which I'm sure would
be *backwards* from how actual firearm jamming probabilities work.

Post by gleichman
However your percentages are really out whack with respect to jam
chances, so it would be a exceedingly poor method in any event. Of

What percentages? The roll mechanic is a generic usage roll mechanic; it
was never created specifically for the purpose of simulating firearm jams.

As you may not now, in the last couple of decades (with Hero System -
and, interestingly, Quest FRP - being among the very few exceptions) it
has become customary in RPG rules systems to have a single roll mechanic
which is used for both to-hit (and to-parry/dodge/block) rolls in combat
and for non-combat skill rolls.

Post by gleichman
course I wouldn't touch your dice mechanic with a ten-foot pole in the
first place, but it's your game.

If you have any specific criticism of the roll mechanic, I'd like to
hear it. I examined it thoroughly some years ago (thinking that perhaps
I'd use it for some minor side project, which I then lost interest in),
and it works 100% as it should, in terms of probabilities:

Higher skill always means higher chance of success and lower chance of
failing and Fumbling, and lower skill always means lower chance of
success and higher chance of failing and Fumbling.

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
The GM gets 6 weekly Bad Luck points for each PC, plus a further 6
monthly Bad Luck Points for each PC.

The last thing I'd want as either a GM or a player is a game mechanic
that specifically requires the GM decide when and how to screw his

Keep in mind, in a three-player campaign, the GM doesn't get 18 weekly
Bad Luck points that he can distribute as he sees fit. He gets 6 BL
points for the first player character, 6 BL points for the second player
character, and 6 BL points for the third player character.

Of course my intent is for the GM to rarely target a PC's strong spots,
so if one character is using a revolver and has the Meticulous Weapon
Maintenance binary skill, so that the cost of a jam is raised from 3 to
5 BL points, I'd expect the GM to almost never spend BL points to jam
that character's revolver, but instead spend them on other things.

Likewise, if a PC has a weak spot, such as low Agility (for slipping) or
Dexterity (for avoiding item droppage), the GM is expected to go after that.

It boils down to the fact that shit happens in real life (especially in
combat, and during adventuring-like situations), and it's not
particularly easy to achieve all of that happening in an RPG, normally,
because many RPG actions, such as movement (even over a slippery
surface) or holding on to a weapon or other item (when you're fatigued
and your hands are all sweaty), do not require any skill rolls or
attribute checks.

The Bad Luck point system is one way to actually make shit happen, while
still keeping things in check, so that each player character gets his
quota of bad luck.

There is room for favouritism. If the GM likes George and dislikes Tim,
he can spend his BL points inefficiently on George's character (e.g.
always going for a weapon jam, even though George's character uses a
very well-cared for revolver), while he does what he is supposed to do
when it comes to Tim, which is to go after weak spots.

Post by gleichman
players. I'm sure there's a style of play where this is accepted and
expected, but it's a very alien one to me. Fumble mechanics and the
like are generally accepted because they take the matter out of the
GM's hands, so you're bucking gaming nature here. Which is something

I don't see much of a problem. The BL points of all incidents are
player-knowable, so if a player is concerned, he can keep track of the
GM's BL point expenditure. If he notices something amiss, such as the GM
not spending his full quota on one particular PC, the track-keeping
player can talk to the GM about it, and if the problem then persists the
player can confront the GM with an accusation of cheating.

Post by gleichman
you seem to enjoy doing.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by gleichman
However your percentages are really out whack with respect to jam
chances, so it would be a exceedingly poor method in any event. Of

What percentages? The roll mechanic is a generic usage roll mechanic; it
was never created specifically for the purpose of simulating firearm jams.

Yes, I was agreeing with you on this point. Using fumbles for it wouldn't
properly reflect a good simulation of the causes and likelyhood of real
world jamming.

Post by Peter Knutsen
As you may not now, in the last couple of decades (with Hero System - and,
interestingly, Quest FRP - being among the very few exceptions) it has
become customary in RPG rules systems to have a single roll mechanic which
is used for both to-hit (and to-parry/dodge/block) rolls in combat and for
non-combat skill rolls.

I disagree with respect to Hero, it uses the same mechanic- but frames it
differently.

Post by Peter Knutsen
If you have any specific criticism of the roll mechanic, I'd like to hear
it.

I intensely dislike variable dice resolution systems be they simple X number
of dice per X skill levels (4.0 Shadowrun) or different dice per skill level
(Savage Worlds).

Whatever their virtues in managing probabilities (and I don't consider them
significant), their impact on the player (and even GM) is nearly uniformly
negative. They hide the real chance of success and the impact of individual
modifiers behind highly unintuitive and in some cases exceedingly complex
math. If the system works correctly (which they often don't, and I've
learned to check this myself as designers are often very wrong about the
outcome of their own work), the best in-play feel you normally get is a
fuzzy 'more is better'- and that IME is an highly fustrating way to play. A
reaction that has been uniform in anyone who fits in with my own desired
gaming style.

It's reached the point where I consider the designer to be flatly either
hiding the fact that his game sucks behind complex mechanics, or he's
chasing an illusionary target that's meaningful only to him.

Post by Peter Knutsen
I don't see much of a problem. The BL points of all incidents are
player-knowable, so if a player is concerned, he can keep track of the
GM's BL point expenditure. If he notices something amiss, such as the GM
not spending his full quota on one particular PC, the track-keeping player
can talk to the GM about it, and if the problem then persists the player
can confront the GM with an accusation of cheating.

I'm sorry, but all this (including the previous unquoted parts) doesn't
really alter my reaction. The mechanic's design impacts me as "GM gets to
screw the players" at whim, limited only by minor resource management. It's
not something I'd accept.

That may be in part due to my own gaming style. There the ability of anyone
to alter a single event could alter the final outocome of the entire battle.
There instead of 'bad luck' being favor, it can be decisive. The GM could in
fact decide the make the players lose, and that is something I build my
games not to do.

[Simon Smith]

<snip gun jam rate stuff - it seems that anything approximating to
'realistic' is likely to be unacceptably complex for use in an RPG.>

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
If you have any specific criticism of the roll mechanic, I'd like to hear
it.

I intensely dislike variable dice resolution systems be they simple X number
of dice per X skill levels (4.0 Shadowrun) or different dice per skill level
(Savage Worlds).
Whatever their virtues in managing probabilities (and I don't consider them
significant), their impact on the player (and even GM) is nearly uniformly
negative. They hide the real chance of success and the impact of individual
modifiers behind highly unintuitive and in some cases exceedingly complex
math. If the system works correctly (which they often don't, and I've
learned to check this myself as designers are often very wrong about the
outcome of their own work), the best in-play feel you normally get is a
fuzzy 'more is better'- and that IME is an highly fustrating way to play. A
reaction that has been uniform in anyone who fits in with my own desired
gaming style.

Now here I'm with Peter. I too like variable-numbers-of-dice mechanics. I
like competent characters to be consistently competent. 'Consistently
competent' is a bit of a nebulous phrase, but among other things it's going
to include fumble chances for routine tasks on the order of 1/1000 or less,
which gibe reasonably well with real-world failure/fumble chances for
routine tasks. To generate a 1/1000 chance using dice, you need at least
3D10 or 4D6. So you can do it with a D1000. But if you do it with a D1000,
you have a skill roll range spanning the 1000 points from 0001-1000, which
is overkill in my view. 4D6 by comparison, generates a 1/1000 fluke at
either end of the probability curve, but only spans the 21 points from 4-24,
which means a one point difference between two skill rolls is large enough
to be a significant difference. Using multiple dice may have downsides in
computational complexity, but I find their variance characteristics, and the
small points span covering a wide probability range to be very attractive.
And I've got computer programs that can calculate the odds for me, so I for
one can check that my probabilities are behaving the way I want them to even
if I use wierd dice. Although frankly multiple D6s is quite complex enough,
and even then it's really not all /that/ complicated.

As an aside, I do reckon most game designers try to use different die
mechanics just to differentiate their games from everyone else's. And the
majority of them do cock up the probabilities. But the different die
mechanics of different games do undeniably affect the tone of those games. I
/like/ the tone engendered by the Star Wars D6 system. I also like Feng
Shui's radically different die mechanic. EarthDawn wouldn't be EarthDawn to
me without its frankly rather screwy resolution system. Same for DC Heroes
and Golden Heroes. The RPG universe would be a far poorer place if
everything used the same dice mechanic, even if it was provably the Perfect
Dice Mechanic for All Possible RPGs. I say keep the oddball dice mechanics,
warts and all.

Post by gleichman
It's reached the point where I consider the designer to be flatly either
hiding the fact that his game sucks behind complex mechanics, or he's
chasing an illusionary target that's meaningful only to him.

Post by Peter Knutsen
I don't see much of a problem. The BL points of all incidents are
player-knowable, so if a player is concerned, he can keep track of the
GM's BL point expenditure. If he notices something amiss, such as the GM
not spending his full quota on one particular PC, the track-keeping player
can talk to the GM about it, and if the problem then persists the player
can confront the GM with an accusation of cheating.

I'm sorry, but all this (including the previous unquoted parts) doesn't
really alter my reaction. The mechanic's design impacts me as "GM gets to
screw the players" at whim, limited only by minor resource management. It's
not something I'd accept.
That may be in part due to my own gaming style. There the ability of anyone
to alter a single event could alter the final outocome of the entire battle.
There instead of 'bad luck' being favor, it can be decisive. The GM could in
fact decide the make the players lose, and that is something I build my
games not to do.

I am less unhappy about the bad luck points given that I now know their use
is more precisely quantified than I had originally thought. Doesn't mean I
like them, merely that I dislike them marginally less. One question I ask
myself is, would I use them for NPCs? Answer is no, because it's at best a
waste of time (if you use them for something harmless), at worst a rather
blatant fudge in the PCs favour, if they are used for something critical.
But if you don't use the bad luck mechanic for NPCs, you either have to use
some other mechanism to represent it (which would probably be less precise
and could still vary from 'harmless' to 'critical' in a potentially
unpredictable manner), or you are treating NPCs differently from PCs,
because NPCs never get random bad luck like the PCs do. That will really bug
some types of player, and while I personally don't mind PCs and NPCs being
treated /differently/, different treatment is only acceptable if it's as far
as possible equally /fair/ to both sides. The mechanic as written is still a
game-breaker for me. I also think it's ridiculously complicated for what it
is attempting to achieve. You dole out bad luck points, then have to keep
track of how many you've spent on each character, try to spend them fairly,
replenish them according to the phases of the moon, blah blah.

Why not just chuck the whole system and have a Bad Luck Dice that is rolled
by the GM, and then the next character to roll the same as the Bad Luck Dice
Total suffers a piece of bad luck? You can tweak the probabilities as
desired. For example, if you wanted 10% of die rolls to exhibit bad luck,
roll a D10; and the next die roll total whose last digit matches whatever
was rolled on the D10 gets it. If you have a character with the Unlucky
Trait, roll two Bad Luck Dice, and he gets it whenever he matches either die
roll. This suggestion or something like it saves a boatload of tedious
bookkeeping and is inherently fair, because the trigger for the bad luck is
two random numbers happening to match. That should hit all players and NPCs
roughly equally, and at a frequency rate of your choosing. Once every 50
rolls, say. There are even fair ways to trigger a bad luck event when
characters take actions that don't require skill rolls. And you could say,
set a timer, and after the bad luck has been used up, the next bad luck roll
is made after a secretly determined amount of time, all ready to hit the
next sucker.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Simon Smith

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
If you have any specific criticism of the roll mechanic, I'd like to hear
it.

I intensely dislike variable dice resolution systems be they simple X number
of dice per X skill levels (4.0 Shadowrun) or different dice per skill level
(Savage Worlds).
Whatever their virtues in managing probabilities (and I don't consider them
significant), their impact on the player (and even GM) is nearly uniformly
negative. They hide the real chance of success and the impact of individual
modifiers behind highly unintuitive and in some cases exceedingly complex
math. If the system works correctly (which they often don't, and I've
learned to check this myself as designers are often very wrong about the
outcome of their own work), the best in-play feel you normally get is a
fuzzy 'more is better'- and that IME is an highly fustrating way to play. A
reaction that has been uniform in anyone who fits in with my own desired
gaming style.

Now here I'm with Peter. I too like variable-numbers-of-dice mechanics. I
like competent characters to be consistently competent. 'Consistently

Yup, that's what I want. Consistently competent. And that's not
something you can get in any kind of 3d6-based mechanic, because at the
absolute maximum you can't go higher than a 99.5% chance of success.

(Unless you go to the extreme of giving a 100% chance of success, which
is no more realistic.)

Post by Simon Smith
competent' is a bit of a nebulous phrase, but among other things it's going
to include fumble chances for routine tasks on the order of 1/1000 or less,

That's important to me, but even more so, I want the Fumble probability
to *keep* going down as effective skill goes up. Very few roll mechanics
can do this. It is very easy, with most roll mechanics, to reach a level
of effective skill where higher skill does nothing to reduce the Fumble
probability. You've then hit the Fumble plateau.

For instance in GURPS, no matter how skilled you are, you'll always
Fumble on a roll of 18. That's a 0.5% chance of Fumbling, no matter how
highly skilled you are. Sherlock Holmes will Fumble 1 out of 200
Deduction skill rolls. Doc Savage will Fumble too, in spite of being
extremely skilled at a wide range of thinghs. And he'll Fumble
frequently. They will both Fumble *much* more frequently than what is
realisic for those characters.

Another advantage of a multiple-die roll mechanic is that opposed rolls
work much better.

Unless you want to go into explicit, in-the-book success ranges (which
must then be memorized by the GM and all the payers), where if you make
your roll by 1-3 points you get one grades of success, but if you make
your roll by 4-6 you get another grade of succes, and if you..., all you
have is a binary "I made my roll, now you roll to see if you made your
roll", which fails to let the very skilled character triumph not just
consistently but also *quickly* over the character who has little skill.

With a multiple-dice roll mechanic, if my character is highly skilled
and I roll a lot of successes, and I know my character's opponent to be
moderately skilled or worse, then I can already be confident of having
won, whereas in the typical "roll under"-mechanic, he may very well have
a 30% or 40% or even 60% chance of also making his roll, which means
that neither wins, even though my character is much more skilled than
the other one.

Post by Simon Smith
which gibe reasonably well with real-world failure/fumble chances for
routine tasks. To generate a 1/1000 chance using dice, you need at least
3D10 or 4D6. So you can do it with a D1000. But if you do it with a D1000,
you have a skill roll range spanning the 1000 points from 0001-1000, which
is overkill in my view. 4D6 by comparison, generates a 1/1000 fluke at
either end of the probability curve, but only spans the 21 points from 4-24,
which means a one point difference between two skill rolls is large enough
to be a significant difference. Using multiple dice may have downsides in
computational complexity, but I find their variance characteristics, and the
small points span covering a wide probability range to be very attractive.
And I've got computer programs that can calculate the odds for me, so I for
one can check that my probabilities are behaving the way I want them to even

I have checked my probabilities. I even checked the Sagatafl
probabilities two different ways. First I used a QBASIC program to make
hundreds of thousands of rolls for each combination of number-of-dice
and Roll Difficulty, and collected all the percentages in a TXT file.
Later on I used mathematical formulae, provided by people on the
RPG-Create list, and compared those probabilities with the
programme-generated ones (obviously the match was very, very close).

The MA RPG roll mechanic has only been examined with a programme, but as
it is a lot simpler to analyze, I have been able to manually verify the
results against my knowledge of roll probabilities.

To repeat: The probabilities of both roll mechanics *always* behave as
they should. There are *no* abnormalities.

Post by Simon Smith
if I use wierd dice. Although frankly multiple D6s is quite complex enough,
and even then it's really not all /that/ complicated.
As an aside, I do reckon most game designers try to use different die
mechanics just to differentiate their games from everyone else's. And the
majority of them do cock up the probabilities. But the different die

Yes, that's why I always point out that the probabilities of *my* roll
mechanics are not broken.

Post by Simon Smith
mechanics of different games do undeniably affect the tone of those games. I
/like/ the tone engendered by the Star Wars D6 system. I also like Feng

The Star Wars d6 roll mechanic is bad because the rolls are slow to
read. One design goal of both the Sagatafl and the MA RPG roll mechanic
was to make the roll very quick to execute and "read". Not only don't
you have to add up dice, ever, nor do you need to memorize any kinds of
range values ("made my roll by X-Y, made my roll by Z-W..."). There are
also no re-rolls. You make one roll, and that tells you the outcome.

Post by Simon Smith
Shui's radically different die mechanic. EarthDawn wouldn't be EarthDawn to
me without its frankly rather screwy resolution system. Same for DC Heroes
and Golden Heroes. The RPG universe would be a far poorer place if
everything used the same dice mechanic, even if it was provably the Perfect
Dice Mechanic for All Possible RPGs. I say keep the oddball dice mechanics,
warts and all.

I disagree. Being different just to be different is a big mistake.

All I want is a good roll mechanic. Something with decent probability
behaviour. Something that lets a good character actually *be* good.

Post by Simon Smith

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
I don't see much of a problem. The BL points of all incidents are
player-knowable, so if a player is concerned, he can keep track of the
GM's BL point expenditure. If he notices something amiss, such as the GM
not spending his full quota on one particular PC, the track-keeping player
can talk to the GM about it, and if the problem then persists the player
can confront the GM with an accusation of cheating.

I'm sorry, but all this (including the previous unquoted parts) doesn't
really alter my reaction. The mechanic's design impacts me as "GM gets to
screw the players" at whim, limited only by minor resource management. It's
not something I'd accept.
That may be in part due to my own gaming style. There the ability of anyone
to alter a single event could alter the final outocome of the entire battle.
There instead of 'bad luck' being favor, it can be decisive. The GM could in
fact decide the make the players lose, and that is something I build my
games not to do.

I am less unhappy about the bad luck points given that I now know their use
is more precisely quantified than I had originally thought. Doesn't mean I

What made you assume that in a 3-player campaign, the GM gets a single
pool of 18 Bad Luck points that he can distribute among the PCs as he
sees fit?

How does that assumption make sense, given the known existence of
point-purchaseable character-specific traits such as "Less Bad Luck" and
"No Bad Luck", and even "More Bad Luck"?

The only way to combine those two is to assume that the effect of a
trait such as "Less Bad Luck" simply is that the character contributes
less Bad Luck to the party.


Another possible misunderstanding is that 6 Bad Luck points per PC pr
week equals 6 incidents per week pr PC. It doesn't.

It is pretty clear from my original post that an incident typically
costs something like 3 Bad Luck points, which makes for something like 2
incidents per PC per week. Given that a lot of adventuring can take
place in a single week of game world time, that's a small amount of Bad
Luck spread very thinly.

Assuming a standard party of 3 PCs, it'll be slightly less than one
incident per day.

(I've decided to dump the extra 6 Bad Luck points per month. If unspent
Bad Luck points carry over, there's no need to have this complication.)

Post by Simon Smith
like them, merely that I dislike them marginally less. One question I ask
myself is, would I use them for NPCs? Answer is no, because it's at best a

They're intended to be given to major NPCs. Minor NPCs are rather like
"mooks" in Feng Shui, except without its broken or unrealistic mechanics.

PCs (and major NPCs) can also have the Jinx Foe ability, which lets them
inflict extra Bad Luck on their enemies. This will be using the same BL
point costs as the regular Bad Luck mechanic.

Major NPCs also won't get all their Bad Luck points in engagements with
the PCs. Major NPCs are assumed to lead full lives of their own, in
which they engage in adventuring-worthy conflicts, which helps them burn
away some of their Bad Luck. The guideline to GMs would probably be that
half of a major NPC's Bad Luck should be available for confrontrations
between the major NPC and the PCs, with the other half of his or her Bad
Luck having been spent in situations when the PCs aren't around.

Post by Simon Smith
waste of time (if you use them for something harmless), at worst a rather
blatant fudge in the PCs favour, if they are used for something critical.
But if you don't use the bad luck mechanic for NPCs, you either have to use
some other mechanism to represent it (which would probably be less precise
and could still vary from 'harmless' to 'critical' in a potentially
unpredictable manner), or you are treating NPCs differently from PCs,
because NPCs never get random bad luck like the PCs do. That will really bug

Bad Luck points aren't random.

Post by Simon Smith
some types of player, and while I personally don't mind PCs and NPCs being
treated /differently/, different treatment is only acceptable if it's as far
as possible equally /fair/ to both sides. The mechanic as written is still a
game-breaker for me. I also think it's ridiculously complicated for what it
is attempting to achieve. You dole out bad luck points, then have to keep
track of how many you've spent on each character, try to spend them fairly,
replenish them according to the phases of the moon, blah blah.
Why not just chuck the whole system and have a Bad Luck Dice that is rolled
by the GM, and then the next character to roll the same as the Bad Luck Dice
Total suffers a piece of bad luck? You can tweak the probabilities as

Competely random, and it also fails to take into account the fact that
Bad Luck is unevenly distributed in the world's population.

Post by Simon Smith
desired. For example, if you wanted 10% of die rolls to exhibit bad luck,
roll a D10; and the next die roll total whose last digit matches whatever

There are no roll totals in Modern Action RPG.

Post by Simon Smith
was rolled on the D10 gets it. If you have a character with the Unlucky
Trait, roll two Bad Luck Dice, and he gets it whenever he matches either die
roll. This suggestion or something like it saves a boatload of tedious
bookkeeping and is inherently fair, because the trigger for the bad luck is
two random numbers happening to match. That should hit all players and NPCs
roughly equally, and at a frequency rate of your choosing. Once every 50
rolls, say. There are even fair ways to trigger a bad luck event when
characters take actions that don't require skill rolls. And you could say,
set a timer, and after the bad luck has been used up, the next bad luck roll
is made after a secretly determined amount of time, all ready to hit the
next sucker.

It still isn't clear to me how you can have Bad Luck incidents for
activities that don't require dice rolls.

Also, you're failing to simulate the fact that different firearms have
different jamming probabilties.


More generally, the Bad Luck mechanic serves a number of purposes.

1. I already have the "Jinx Foe" Luck trait, which gives characters that
have it some Jinx points that their players can use to inflict Bad Luck
on their enemies. Also introducing Bad Luck points is just an extension
of this mechanic (and a reason for me to quantify what Jinx Foe points
can do).

2. I want players to be able to select (to fill in their Weakness &
Flaws quota) some kind of Bad Luck trait, to reflect that this character
has more Bad Luck than others, or (as seen in some other RPGs, including
GURPS and Hero System) that he has Bad Luck where others don't.

3. I want shit to happen throughout the campaign, in a very orderly and
distributed fashion, and in very small amounts (roughly 2 incidents per
PC per week), including in activities that don't require dice rolls.

4. I want firearms to be able to jam. The reasons for this have been
expained in my reply to Brian.


Now, #1 isn't much of a reason for also having Bad Luck points, perhaps.

I could just have mechanics for how Jinx points can be used (what they
can do, and how many Jinx points each effect costs). One argument for
having Bad Luck points as well is that if there were only Jinx points,
then shit would only happen when there's a Jinxer around, and that is
something that perceptive and intelligent characters are capable of
noticing and subsequently thinking about. With the current rules, having
a Jinxer around just means that *more* shit happens than if the Jinxer
isn't around, thus making the "Jinx Foe" Luck trait much less blatant.

Reason #2 seems to suggest that it is okay to only give Bad Luck
specifically to those PCs (and major NPCs) who have the "Bad Luck"
Special Flaw, so that everybody else gets zero weekly points of Bad
Luck. The problem with this is that Bad Luck then becomes a special case
mechanic, with a high risk that the GM will forget to use it (up until
the point where he remembers it, quite possibly several weeks into the
campaign, or even a couple of months, which means he'll have a huge
bunch of of stored-up Bad Luck points that he'll need to un-load on the
PC (most likely there'll just be one) who has the "Bad Luck" Special Flaw.

Furthermore, if Bad Luck points are only given to those characters who
have the "Bad Luck" Special Flaw, desire #3 (to have shit be able to
happen to everybody) and desire #4 (to specifically have firearm jams be
able to happen to everybody, while simulating the fact that some
firearms are more likely to jam than others) are not met.

Reason #3 is easy to misunderstand, in the sense that one gets the wrong
impression about how much shit I want to see happening. Because it isn't
a lot. Just a little. A couple of incidents per week per PC is fine.
It'll make for a richer world. Also, some GMs have a vague sense that
"shit happening" is fun, but without mechanical guidance they are at
great risk of not distributing it properly, in the sense that every PC
gets roughly the same amount, seen over time, and in the sense that it
is integrated with the mechanics (so that a brilliant chef doesn't cook
up something that gives the entire party food poisoning, for instance)
rather than being something that is outside the mechanics, or overrides
the mechanics.

Reason #4, again, requires shit to be able to happen to every major
character. If firearm jams can happen only to those characters who
specifically have some kind of "Bad Luck" trait, then everybody else can
just run cheerfully around with badly maintained WW2 submachine guns, or
WW1 sniper rifles. Any cop will, as soon as he or she becomes clued-in
to the physics of the game world, ditch the revolver in favour of a
high-ammo-capacity pistol.

[gleichman]

Post by Simon Smith
Now here I'm with Peter. I too like variable-numbers-of-dice mechanics. I
like competent characters to be consistently competent. 'Consistently
competent' is a bit of a nebulous phrase, but among other things it's going
to include fumble chances for routine tasks on the order of 1/1000 or less,
which gibe reasonably well with real-world failure/fumble chances for
routine tasks.

This is a good example of what I meant by "chasing an illusionary target
that's meaningful only to him".

Many games designs (AoH being one example) do not invoke fumble rules for
routine tasks, but rather only for stressed or combat conditions. Even games
where that isn't directly stated are often ran in that style- people don't
roll skill rolls for walking up stairs, taking a bath, or driving to work
(although all those are causes of death in the real world) because GMs
realize that's not the point of the game design. If one was interested in
such things, I think they would be better served by making a roll per unit
of time rather than per each event.

Under those stress or combat conditions, a .1% is vastly understated IMO.
Will Bill Hickok, certainly one of the best Wild West gunmen and perhaps the
best- likely never fired a 1000 rounds in anger, but he did shoot and kill
his deputy due to what in a rpg would be a fumble.

Further, one is not forced to unintuitive dice mechanics to achieve sub-1%
fumble resolution. In AoH, a '00' roll indicates the character has
encountered a fumble condition against which he's an allowed a saving throw
to avoid. If that is failed, the fumble chart proper is then called into
play and the largest bite therein is off balance results with broken weapons
or unintended injuries being uncommon. The finally result is likely more
forgiving than reality as at the highest levels it drops well below your .1%
value (it is a Heroic adventure game after all). No does it break game flow
as hitting that 1% fumble test in any single battle is rare for any given
character- and players enjoy the 'fumble parry' more than they would a
straight up 'you're screwed' result of a single combat roll.

Lastly a great deal depends upon what one considers a fumble. Some systems
make them worse possible events (exploding weapons, chopping heads off
friends, whacking one's foot off), while others do a smoother curve of error
saving those types of result for a small percentage of the fumble outcomes.

So I find no merit in your stand here. Nothing in game design requires the
use of such mechanics.

Post by Simon Smith
The RPG universe would be a far poorer place if
everything used the same dice mechanic, even if it was provably the Perfect
Dice Mechanic for All Possible RPGs. I say keep the oddball dice mechanics,
warts and all.

The RPG universe is already a very poor place, with few if any games really
playable over an extended period. If one wishes to treat them like candy in
passing, i.e. short passing campaigns then they do some interesting
features. I have a fondness for Deadlands for example although it's
mechanics are frankly horrid when judged rationally.

[Simon Smith]

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
Now here I'm with Peter. I too like variable-numbers-of-dice mechanics. I
like competent characters to be consistently competent. 'Consistently
competent' is a bit of a nebulous phrase, but among other things it's going
to include fumble chances for routine tasks on the order of 1/1000 or less,
which gibe reasonably well with real-world failure/fumble chances for
routine tasks.

This is a good example of what I meant by "chasing an illusionary target
that's meaningful only to him".
Many games designs (AoH being one example) do not invoke fumble rules for
routine tasks, but rather only for stressed or combat conditions. Even games
where that isn't directly stated are often ran in that style- people don't
roll skill rolls for walking up stairs, taking a bath, or driving to work
(although all those are causes of death in the real world) <snip>

Here's an attempt to articulate why ultra-low (but non-zero) failure and
fumble probabilities are sought by some game designers (incl. me and Peter,
it appears):


To many strict simulationists, the view given by gleichman, while pragmatic,
is bothersome. When considering a game world, I like to assume that the game
rules apply universally. That is to say, even off-camera, the plebs are
driving to work, driving home, crossing roads and so on and - at least
theoretically - dice are being rolled by some nebulous GM in the sky to
determine what happens. So if the rules as written give a 1% chance of each
NPC being run over every time they cross the road, that spoils the game for
me. I stop trusting the rules because I know they generate ludicrous results
for routine tasks that they ought to handle properly. (Even though those
routine tasks are being done by NPCs off-camera, and do not impinge on the
game.) And if I don't even trust the rules for routine tasks, I'm strongly
disinclined to trust them for anything more demanding, such as the stuff PCs
usually get up to. Inability to sensibly handle routine operations breaks
SoD. So, given any system that /has/ an automatic failure or fumble
mechanic, the dice system, whatever it is, must be able to generate sub-1%
probabilities, or it won't be able to handle road-crossing and other such
trivia in a sane way, and I for one am not going to be happy running in that
system.

Such a target may only be meaningful to a small majority of us, but for
those of us who do worry about the integrity of the rules systems we use,
it is a disproportionately big deal.

Having a rule that fumbles only apply in stressful situations is one
possible fix, of course, and it's certainly one I use in some systems. But
there are other legitimate ways to achieve the same end. And certainly, if a
game system /can/ handle tiny failure chances elegantly, I see no reason to
prevent it from doing so. I also feel that trying to design a system that
can do so is a worthwhile goal.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:42:04 +0100, Simon Smith

Post by Simon Smith

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
Now here I'm with Peter. I too like variable-numbers-of-dice mechanics. I
like competent characters to be consistently competent. 'Consistently
competent' is a bit of a nebulous phrase, but among other things it's going
to include fumble chances for routine tasks on the order of 1/1000 or less,
which gibe reasonably well with real-world failure/fumble chances for
routine tasks.

This is a good example of what I meant by "chasing an illusionary target
that's meaningful only to him".
Many games designs (AoH being one example) do not invoke fumble rules for
routine tasks, but rather only for stressed or combat conditions. Even games
where that isn't directly stated are often ran in that style- people don't
roll skill rolls for walking up stairs, taking a bath, or driving to work
(although all those are causes of death in the real world) <snip>

Here's an attempt to articulate why ultra-low (but non-zero) failure and
fumble probabilities are sought by some game designers (incl. me and Peter,
To many strict simulationists, the view given by gleichman, while pragmatic,
is bothersome. When considering a game world, I like to assume that the game
rules apply universally. That is to say, even off-camera, the plebs are
driving to work, driving home, crossing roads and so on and - at least
theoretically - dice are being rolled by some nebulous GM in the sky to
determine what happens. So if the rules as written give a 1% chance of each
NPC being run over every time they cross the road, that spoils the game for
me. I stop trusting the rules because I know they generate ludicrous results
for routine tasks that they ought to handle properly. (Even though those
routine tasks are being done by NPCs off-camera, and do not impinge on the
game.) And if I don't even trust the rules for routine tasks, I'm strongly
disinclined to trust them for anything more demanding, such as the stuff PCs
usually get up to. Inability to sensibly handle routine operations breaks
SoD. So, given any system that /has/ an automatic failure or fumble
mechanic, the dice system, whatever it is, must be able to generate sub-1%
probabilities, or it won't be able to handle road-crossing and other such
trivia in a sane way, and I for one am not going to be happy running in that
system.
Such a target may only be meaningful to a small majority of us, but for
those of us who do worry about the integrity of the rules systems we use,
it is a disproportionately big deal.
Having a rule that fumbles only apply in stressful situations is one
possible fix, of course, and it's certainly one I use in some systems. But
there are other legitimate ways to achieve the same end. And certainly, if a
game system /can/ handle tiny failure chances elegantly, I see no reason to
prevent it from doing so. I also feel that trying to design a system that
can do so is a worthwhile goal.

There are also simulationists (me, for example) who consider it better
to ignore very small chances of fumbles, "rounding the chance down to
zero" rather than ginning up a mechanic to handle such small chances.
Even a 1/1000th chance of a fumble is often orders of magnitude too
large, and a 1/1000th chance is about as small as any reasonable
mechanic can deliver.

If the 'true' chance of a fumble occuring is a 10% chance of a fumble
in 10,000 trials, then a system that gives 0 fumbles (because it
rounds the chance to zero) is going to be more accurate than a system
that gives even 1 fumble, on average, in those 10,000 trials - to say
nothing of a system that gives an average of 10 fumbles per 10,000
trials (a 1/1000th chance of a fumble per trial).

And there are a couple of other factors: First, for very common tasks
the "independant Bernoulli trial" assumption may no longer hold.
Someone who drives to a given location 200 times a year may very well
NOT have a 10x higher chance of an accident along that drive than
someone who drives to that location only 20 times a year.

Second, the game setting may well be one where fumbles are even less
likely than in real life, at least for PC-caliber characters. Since
games systems that incorporate fumbles already have a strong tendency
to produce too-frequent fumble results, that makes a "round fumble
chances to zero" approach even more accurate for the game setting.

As I've mentioned before, *my* idea of a "good" fumble system is "roll
1d6. If the die breaks into two or more pieces then the character
suffers a fumble." (OK, slight exaggeration. If a character is doing
something particularly fumble-genic, then I'll allow what the
fumble-system-fans consider an "ordinary" chance of a fumble. E.g. if
a character is using an improvised or cheap-piece-of-shit weapon then
I'll allow a <1% chance of a "weapon breaks" fumble result.)

[gleichman]

Post by Simon Smith
Here's an attempt to articulate why ultra-low (but non-zero) failure and
fumble probabilities are sought by some game designers (incl. me and Peter,

What followed really just agreed with my view of the subject- it just
put a happy face on it. The mechanics exist for a designer goal that
means nothing to the normal player, and is unreachable and almost
always unused in any case (unless you actually require rolls for
taking a bath or driving to work and every other routine task of the
day).

And after all that work, how valid is the result? I seriously doubt
that the final numbers are anything but the most general estimate that
would be horribly inaccurate when applied to the individual cases of
each call to the resolution system. Most likely the number was
basically pulled out of the air by you (I see Eorl shares my viewpoint
on this element).

And to get this 'advantage', you create a dice system that blocks
player understanding and proper usage.

Good for you, I'm sure you happy with the result. Myself, even talking
about it is distasteful let alone playing it.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
Here's an attempt to articulate why ultra-low (but non-zero) failure and
fumble probabilities are sought by some game designers (incl. me and Peter,

What followed really just agreed with my view of the subject- it just
put a happy face on it. The mechanics exist for a designer goal that
means nothing to the normal player, and is unreachable and almost
always unused in any case (unless you actually require rolls for
taking a bath or driving to work and every other routine task of the
day).
And after all that work, how valid is the result? I seriously doubt
that the final numbers are anything but the most general estimate that
would be horribly inaccurate when applied to the individual cases of
each call to the resolution system. Most likely the number was
basically pulled out of the air by you (I see Eorl shares my viewpoint
on this element).

You rang?

Post by gleichman
And to get this 'advantage', you create a dice system that blocks
player understanding and proper usage.
Good for you, I'm sure you happy with the result. Myself, even talking
about it is distasteful let alone playing it.

A couple of quick comments.

1. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss players' sharing in the
designer's goal. After all, in Age of Heroes "the mechanics exist for
a designer goal that means nothing to the normal player" i.e. a system
strongly supports gamist goals and severely rebukes any lack of player
tactical skill. You yourself have mentioned the shock that players new
to Age of Heroes have experienced, due to how different that game is
from the usual run of rpgs - and yet you still manage to find players
for an Age of Heroes game. As agruments against thoroughgoing fumble &
critical systems go, "most players don't care for it" is a weak one.

2. If you find it "distasteful" to even talk about such systems, then
WHY ARE YOUR HERE???

As I understand it, this group is all about discussing and
understanding gaming viewpoints that one would never ever tolerate in
a game one played in or GMed oneself.

[gleichman]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
You rang?

Not really, I thought you killed filed me.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
1. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss players' sharing in the
designer's goal. After all, in Age of Heroes "the mechanics exist for
a designer goal that means nothing to the normal player" i.e. a system
strongly supports gamist goals and severely rebukes any lack of player
tactical skill.

I agree about AoH, and have often said it was a horrid game design- although
for a different reason. The die and combat mechanics are very simple and
transparent.

Poor and concealing dice mechanics are never a valid gaming style (I have
seen one assertion supporting the concept that it is, but it wasn't made in
this thread and is better suited by removing visible die mechanics
completely). Instead they are selected for "being different", reasons
unknown to the designer, or impossible claims of simulation such as Simon
makes. In Simon's case not only is the goal foolish, it isn't even achived.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
As I understand it, this group is all about discussing and
understanding gaming viewpoints that one would never ever tolerate in
a game one played in or GMed oneself.

I've reached the conclusion that group goal died some time ago, and never
really existed in the first place. Lip service was certainly paid to it, but
it ran in very limited directions- mostly towards Mary.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Thu, 26 Jul 2007 06:15:51 -0500, "gleichman"

Post by gleichman

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
You rang?

Not really, I thought you killed filed me.

I had. You're out of my killfile, at least temporarily, because I saw
you quoted upthread sounding like you had recovered from the Brain
Eater.

Post by gleichman

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
1. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss players' sharing in the
designer's goal. After all, in Age of Heroes "the mechanics exist for
a designer goal that means nothing to the normal player" i.e. a system
strongly supports gamist goals and severely rebukes any lack of player
tactical skill.

I agree about AoH, and have often said it was a horrid game design- although
for a different reason. The die and combat mechanics are very simple and
transparent.
Poor and concealing dice mechanics are never a valid gaming style (I have
seen one assertion supporting the concept that it is, but it wasn't made in
this thread and is better suited by removing visible die mechanics
completely). Instead they are selected for "being different", reasons
unknown to the designer, or impossible claims of simulation such as Simon
makes. In Simon's case not only is the goal foolish, it isn't even achived.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
As I understand it, this group is all about discussing and
understanding gaming viewpoints that one would never ever tolerate in
a game one played in or GMed oneself.

I've reached the conclusion that group goal died some time ago, and never
really existed in the first place. Lip service was certainly paid to it, but
it ran in very limited directions- mostly towards Mary.

OK, I was mistaken about you being recovered from the Brain Eater.
Back into the killfile you go.

[gleichman]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
OK, I was mistaken about you being recovered from the Brain Eater.
Back into the killfile you go.

And thus as expected, you prove my point.

I say certain dice mechanics are bad design and distasteful, and get
slammed and Killfiled. Mary calls a style of play with classic D&D
paladins effectively impossible and even unmoral- and no one (not even
I) come close to killfiling her.

Hypocrisy, one of its many names is r.g.f.a.

This is why the group died originally, it insisted upon that
hypocrisy. And it's why it will die this time.

Well, and then there's the fact that there just isn't much to talk
about anymore. Things were new to people back then, and one was
willing to put up with a lot to examine those new ideas. Not really
the case now.

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by gleichman

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
OK, I was mistaken about you being recovered from the Brain Eater.
Back into the killfile you go.

And thus as expected, you prove my point.
I say certain dice mechanics are bad design and distasteful, and get
slammed and Killfiled. Mary calls a style of play with classic D&D
paladins effectively impossible and even unmoral- and no one (not even
I) come close to killfiling her.

Perhaps that may be because *such is not what she did*.

Mary posted an issue about a specific problem in a particular game she
was in. End of story. She never attempted to depict said game as
"classic D&D", nor did she depict other styles of play as impossible or
immoral. These are all slants that *you* have placed upon a strawman
version of her posts.

Post by gleichman
Hypocrisy, one of its many names is r.g.f.a.

The hypocrite here is the person who *routinely* attacks other posters
for their style of play, and yet claims that such is being done to him
when called on it.

I'd love to see a single cite from you wherein Mary has attacked *you*
for your style of play the way you whiningly complain that she has. Or
even a cite which supports your interpretation of her arguments above.

Post by gleichman
This is why the group died originally, it insisted upon that
hypocrisy. And it's why it will die this time.

What do you mean "will die"?

It's dead.

Congratulations. You killed it again.

Post by gleichman
Well, and then there's the fact that there just isn't much to talk
about anymore. Things were new to people back then, and one was
willing to put up with a lot to examine those new ideas. Not really
the case now.

Speak for yourself. There were a couple of pretty good discussions
going on before you again unleashed the inner asshole.

Biff

[gleichman]

Post by Beowulf Bolt
Perhaps that may be because *such is not what she did*.

That's always of the claim of one side against the other. The
moderators of r.f.g.misc said the same about any number of events and
people- and drove away even themselves with that mindset after all was
said and done.

Learn a simple fact. Those people who you agree with always sound good
and reasonable, those you don't always sound stupid and mean. Develop
the ability to see beyond that knee-jerk to understand what was
actually said. Learn this, or doom yourself to a reinforcing cycle of
ignorance.

This simple concept was the source of endless problems for r.g.f.a
back at it's height. The core group was completely unable to
understand how the Threefold impacted people who disagreed with it,
and how they were framing them in a insulting way with it's constant
use. They assumed (and I include myself here, at least at certain
points) that those disagreeing were trolls, stupid, or worse. And they
paid for this with endless flamewars that drowned out useful
exchanges.

Post by Beowulf Bolt
It's dead.
Congratulations. You killed it again.

Such power you grant me, I can recreate and destroy the group with a
snap of my figures- its mere existence depends upon my whim. My words
are so powerful they can shatter the egos of people unseen and
untouched, wrecking their very will and casting them into pits of
despair.

Give me a friggin' break and grow up. Not that I wouldn't like such
power, but I have nothing of the kind.

[Irina Rempt]

Post by gleichman

Post by Beowulf Bolt
It's dead.
Congratulations. You killed it again.

Such power you grant me, I can recreate and destroy the group with a
snap of my figures- its mere existence depends upon my whim. My words
are so powerful they can shatter the egos of people unseen and
untouched, wrecking their very will and casting them into pits of
despair.
Give me a friggin' break and grow up. Not that I wouldn't like such
power, but I have nothing of the kind.

Well, some people (myself included) don't dare post here because we're
afraid --in fact we're sure-- that you will jump on us. You *do* have
such power.

Irina

[gleichman]

Post by Irina Rempt
Well, some people (myself included) don't dare post here because we're
afraid --in fact we're sure-- that you will jump on us. You *do* have
such power.

Since you said it, I'll have to grant the truth of it at least in
respect to those who aren't busy calling me names every other post
they make.

The result however leaves me in something of an impasse. From my PoV,
I often feel mugged in passing (like Mary's attack on D&D Paladins)
and if I object- I'm driving others away. If I see an error in logic
(Peter's goal in his dice system choice), again I don't dare post or
I'll drive people away.

So I'm left with the choice of being silenced myself or silencing
others.

It doesn't help that others can get away with the same 'crimes'. Mary
recent and long attacks on D&D/Paladins for example (which frankly
poisoned me on the entire rebirth of r.f.g.a and finally on her
personally) or Peter's nearly constant slams against various play
styles. They don't draw any fire, or draw an insignificant amount
compared to me. No one files a "driving people away compliant" upon
them. Why the difference?

Simply because compared to them I'm a alien play style/mindset?

[Irina Rempt]

Post by gleichman

Post by Irina Rempt
Well, some people (myself included) don't dare post here because we're
afraid --in fact we're sure-- that you will jump on us. You *do* have
such power.

Since you said it, I'll have to grant the truth of it at least in
respect to those who aren't busy calling me names every other post
they make.

It doesn't make a difference who says it (that's why I'm not asking you
for cites for Biff to accommodate your quirks). I'm only saying it
because I finally can't help speaking up; I've been sitting on my hands
all this time. I *do not* want to get into another argument with you, so
this will be my last words on the subject.

Post by gleichman
The result however leaves me in something of an impasse. From my PoV,
I often feel mugged in passing (like Mary's attack on D&D Paladins)

How did Mary's "attack on D&D Paladins" harm you personally? As far as I
can remember she explained that she's not playing completely by the rules
as written, and wanted advice appropriate to her situation, not advice on
how to play by the book.

Post by gleichman
and if I object- I'm driving others away.

You've driven almost everybody away.

Post by gleichman
If I see an error in logic
(Peter's goal in his dice system choice), again I don't dare post or
I'll drive people away.

It's not the disagreement, it's the tone. Nobody minds you disagreeing
with them; many people mind you telling them that they're stupid or evil
or immoral, or that their house rules are wrong.

Post by gleichman
So I'm left with the choice of being silenced myself or silencing
others.

Well, yes. And it seems that the choice has already been made: you're not
silent, lots of former regulars are. Do you enjoy having the newsgroup to
yourself?

Post by gleichman
It doesn't help that others can get away with the same 'crimes'. Mary
recent and long attacks on D&D/Paladins for example (which frankly
poisoned me on the entire rebirth of r.f.g.a and finally on her
personally) or Peter's nearly constant slams against various play
styles. They don't draw any fire, or draw an insignificant amount
compared to me. No one files a "driving people away compliant" upon
them. Why the difference?

Because those people are just disagreeing (on things), not attacking
people.

Post by gleichman
Simply because compared to them I'm a alien play style/mindset?

<shrug> If you want to call it that. As for me, I'll keep to lurking until
I feel safe again, which may be a *long* time.

Irina

[gleichman]

Post by Irina Rempt
How did Mary's "attack on D&D Paladins" harm you personally?

Nothing written here can *harm* me personally. The very idea is silly.
It can of course change or create personal opinions of various people
and affect how I interact with the group. And that is exactly what it
did.

Post by Irina Rempt
It's not the disagreement, it's the tone.

I could say the same.

Post by Irina Rempt
Well, yes. And it seems that the choice has already been made: you're not
silent, lots of former regulars are. Do you enjoy having the newsgroup to
yourself?

Silly question. I would of course enjoy any of a number of other
options better but it seems that's asking too much of people.

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by gleichman

Post by Irina Rempt
How did Mary's "attack on D&D Paladins" harm you personally?

Nothing written here can *harm* me personally.

Well, some of us are more fragile than that. There are plenty of
discussions online and in real life that I've had to bow out of because
of personal weaknesses of this sort, where I could have contributed
except for my reaction to the tone of what was said, or sometimes the
personal attacks that accompanied some perfectly reasonable comments.

[gleichman]

Post by David Alex Lamb

Post by gleichman

Post by Irina Rempt
How did Mary's "attack on D&D Paladins" harm you personally?

Nothing written here can *harm* me personally.

Well, some of us are more fragile than that. There are plenty of
discussions online and in real life that I've had to bow out of because of
personal weaknesses of this sort, where I could have contributed except
for my reaction to the tone of what was said, or sometimes the personal
attacks that accompanied some perfectly reasonable comments.

If I was prone to that (and at rare times due to other RL stress, I have
been), I wouldn't post at all. After all, my style of play is one that was
and still is to a great degree heavily looked down upon by most who post
online. People insult in passing because everyone knows it's inferior play
style. So I see it more than most.

That btw is one of the main reasons people tend to react worse to me than
anyone else. Being seriously 'in the flow' with most posters, they just
flatly don't expect to see an opposing view. Encountering one injuries them
more, and causes them to viewer the 'attacker' in a far worse light than
they deserve because he is very much 'the other'.

[Simon Smith]

As for me, I'll keep to lurking until I feel safe again, which may be a
*long* time.

I'm about to go on holiday, so have no time to make any in-depth comments.
However, I do feel I should observe that it was /gleichman's/ 'Sigh- I miss
this group' post that woke it up again.

Some early message IDs from that thread, which I feel bear re-reading:

<***@comcast.com> (gleichman)
<4535182f$0$330$***@news.xs4all.nl> (Irina)
<***@comcast.com> *gleichman)

I've also been looking back at a handful of gleichman's posts over the last
ten years, and I haven't really spotted any major differences in tone and/or
amount of bluntness, yet.

If I felt I could do more to defuse the current spat before it gets any
worse I'd love to try, but I have a week's camping in sunny (hah!) Somerset
to look forward to instead. Please play nice while I'm gone; I'd hate to
find the wreckage of a flame war waiting for me when I come back.

[gleichman]

Post by Simon Smith
I've also been looking back at a handful of gleichman's posts over the last
ten years, and I haven't really spotted any major differences in tone and/or
amount of bluntness, yet.

I wouldn't think you would although I would imagine there are peaks and
valleys. I don't change much unless there is good reason, and good reasons
are hard to come by.

Post by Simon Smith
If I felt I could do more to defuse the current spat before it gets any
worse

It's about a bad as it can get I think, and over to boot. Beating a dead
horse and all.

Post by Simon Smith
I'd love to try, but I have a week's camping in sunny (hah!) Somerset
to look forward to instead.

Enjoy yourself.

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by Irina Rempt

Post by gleichman
It doesn't help that others can get away with the same 'crimes'. Mary
recent and long attacks on D&D/Paladins for example (which frankly
poisoned me on the entire rebirth of r.f.g.a and finally on her
personally) or Peter's nearly constant slams against various play
styles. They don't draw any fire, or draw an insignificant amount
compared to me. No one files a "driving people away compliant" upon
them. Why the difference?

Because those people are just disagreeing (on things), not attacking
people.

Well, hmm. I guess that may be mostly true, but it took me a while to
grow a Peter Knutsen filter that let me get something from his
occasionally anti-GM posts without getting (too) upset at the tone. He
wasn't attacking me personally, though -- just some assumptions I'd been
making or habits I'd formed.

But I rarely post anything so haven't drawn much fire from anyone; it
might have been harder if he or others had been doing so much.

[gleichman]

He wasn't attacking me personally, though -- just some assumptions I'd
been making or habits I'd formed.

People have a difficult time telling that difference. And even more so
identifying it in online postings.

I speak in real life with the same wording, phrasing, and bluntness I use
online. But in real life people are entertained and not insulted due to all
the other elements of communication missing in the mere written word. I've
never encountered the negative reactions in person that I've commonly get
online.

But to be fair, I don't in real life encounter some of the types of people I
do online either.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 11:20:56 -0400, David Alex Lamb

Post by David Alex Lamb

Post by Irina Rempt

Post by gleichman
It doesn't help that others can get away with the same 'crimes'. Mary
recent and long attacks on D&D/Paladins for example (which frankly
poisoned me on the entire rebirth of r.f.g.a and finally on her
personally) or Peter's nearly constant slams against various play
styles. They don't draw any fire, or draw an insignificant amount
compared to me. No one files a "driving people away compliant" upon
them. Why the difference?

Because those people are just disagreeing (on things), not attacking
people.

Well, hmm. I guess that may be mostly true, but it took me a while to
grow a Peter Knutsen filter that let me get something from his
occasionally anti-GM posts without getting (too) upset at the tone. He
wasn't attacking me personally, though -- just some assumptions I'd been
making or habits I'd formed.

Peter Knutsen is the other denizen in my killfile for this group,
along with Gleichman. And they're both in for the same reason: They're
both victims of the Brain Eater who've become too obnoxious for me to
put up with.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by David Alex Lamb
Well, hmm. I guess that may be mostly true, but it took me a while to
grow a Peter Knutsen filter that let me get something from his
occasionally anti-GM posts without getting (too) upset at the tone. He

I'm not anti-GM. Not at all.

Post by David Alex Lamb
wasn't attacking me personally, though -- just some assumptions I'd been
making or habits I'd formed.
But I rarely post anything so haven't drawn much fire from anyone; it
might have been harder if he or others had been doing so much.

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by David Alex Lamb
Well, hmm. I guess that may be mostly true, but it took me a while to
grow a Peter Knutsen filter that let me get something from his
occasionally anti-GM posts without getting (too) upset at the tone. He

I'm not anti-GM. Not at all.

I should have written a longer phrase to be accurate in characterizing
your opinions, like "strongly-phrased opposition to GM discretion". On
the other hand, my point was the "grow a filter" which let me get more
out of your posts by reducing my negative reactions.

[psychohist]

Nice to see a post from you, Irina, and I'm glad you've still been
reading even when not posting.

You responded to Brian Gleichman:

How did Mary's "attack on D&D Paladins" harm you
personally? As far as I can remember she explained
that she's not playing completely by the rules as
written, and wanted advice appropriate to her
situation, not advice on how to play by the book.

I had the same reaction you did originally. However, after a
subsequent exchange with Brian, or possibly reading an exchange
between him and someone else, I went back and reread Mary's posts, and
I could see how someone might take offense to them, although I'm
certain no offense was intended.

I believe the situation is somewhat similar to what sometimes happens
when someone new to the newsgroup posts something that he assumes to
be inoffensive, but the post assumes that players like Mary - and like
myself as well, usually - can't possibly exist. She generally
objects. I do think Mary gets more support from others in the group;
more of us share her preferences in those cases, so she's speaking for
more of us. My reaction is usually, "I'm glad Mary said that, because
otherwise I would have had to say it."

It seems to me that Mary takes a bit of a tone of outrage in those
situations, a tone which I, agreeing with her position, find
justified. Brian tends to take a more adversarial tone instead;
however, I think the underlying situations are similar. I'm
interested in what caused such a strong reaction from Brian in that
case, and I've started trying to figure it out in my question to him
regarding how he viewed paladins. I'm still digesting his response
and hoping to ask some follow up questions when I'm ready.

I also note that in the thread in question, there were a lot of
different people taking positions on a variety of subjects that other
people felt compelled to respond to. With limited time, I think a
number of people ended up writing posts that were less complete, and
thus more subject to misinterpretation, than was previously the norm
for this group. I was certainly guilty of that, and in retrospect
there's at least one response I wrote to Mary that I think got
misinterpreted and that I should probably clarify at some point.

I also think there was a lot of escalation in the rhetoric from
various sources, and with a lot of contributors, it got pretty
heated. Now that the posting rate has calmed a bit, I'm hoping things
can cool down to a more thoughtful pace, and more of the regulars can
feel safe posting again.

Warren J. Dew

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
It doesn't help that others can get away with the same 'crimes'. Mary
recent and long attacks on D&D/Paladins for example

What the fuck?

I mean, I was on the verge of killfiling you for trolling more than
once; I barely held off because you sometimes have useful insights.

But wtf? The D&D paladin definition inhales beach balls through drinking
straws. It doesn't work for either real life or fictional paladins. Am I
committing a crime for saying that?

Look, if you want to dish it out then be prepared to take it in turn. If
you think you're being ganged up on, then pick quarrels with people
who'll take it and return the same. If you won't do either of these,
then wtf are you complaining about? If other people are unsubscribing
for fear of you, then wtf? haven't they heard of killfiles?

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
But wtf? The D&D paladin definition inhales beach balls through drinking
straws. It doesn't work for either real life or fictional paladins. Am I
committing a crime for saying that?

As much a crime as what I said in the thread, which is completely my
point.

I think you're off base here however, other than it's foolish break
from the Christian background there's not a lot wrong with the Paladin
definition in D&D. Now mechanically, there are a lot of problems.

Post by Russell Wallace
Look, if you want to dish it out then be prepared to take it in turn.

Hmmm, Russell don't be dense.

I'm more than willing to do exactly that,. It's people expecting me to
roll over and not dish it back that are whining and running away.

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by gleichman

Post by Beowulf Bolt
Perhaps that may be because *such is not what she did*.

That's always of the claim of one side against the other.

Which is why I challenged you to back up your interpretation with
cites. I note the conspicuous lack of the same in your post.

If you wish, I *can* provide cites of you launching into over-the-top
and unprovoked attacks upon others. I can simple point to a number of
unnecessarily provocational statements made in the "Lethality of Events"
thread, for one, such as "Bad use of the class. Worse use of the
alignment rules." or "It is highly likely in real life Mary thinks
Christian morality is at least flawed if not outright wrong." or "Mary
runs her campaign poorly." (Technically these aren't real cites but I
can easily provide URLs if challenged.)

As another example, there was nothing in Peter's first post to this
thread to warrant your accusation that he enjoys "bucking gaming
nature". His style simply does not match yours, nor mine, nor many
others here. Taking potshots at it served no useful purpose.

That seems to be an easy way to distinguish the truth of the matter;
can you back up your claims about Mary's behaviour as easily as I did my
claims about you?

Post by gleichman
This simple concept was the source of endless problems for r.g.f.a
back at it's height. The core group was completely unable to
understand how the Threefold impacted people who disagreed with it,
and how they were framing them in a insulting way with it's constant
use.

So you would rather have had everyone else in the group "walk on
eggshells" and avoid mention of the Threefold to avoid insulting you and
a few others? Strange how you have rejected just such limitations upon
your own behaviour here. Particularly since your behaviour is
explicitly rude, as versus the way you simply *read insult* into every
mention of the Threefold.

Post by gleichman

Post by Beowulf Bolt
It's dead.
Congratulations. You killed it again.

Such power you grant me, I can recreate and destroy the group with a
snap of my figures- its mere existence depends upon my whim.

It's a small group, and all it takes is one asshole pissing in the
pool to spoil things for enough people to kill discussion. Mary, for
example, has not posted since you attacked her, and a number of other
former regulars have likewise disappeared.

We have seen it three times now; how an ongoing thread died or turned
into a debate over your behaviour once you unleashed the insults. The
pattern should be obvious even to you.

Post by gleichman
Give me a friggin' break and grow up.

The person who should grow up here is the one who cannot handle
differences of opinion, and responds with personal insults. I leave it
to what lurkers remain to decide which of us better fits that
description.

Toodles,
Biff

[gleichman]

Post by Beowulf Bolt
Which is why I challenged you to back up your interpretation with
cites. I note the conspicuous lack of the same in your post.

It's easy enough to do, and if someone I have the least respect for me
request it- I will. Be it Mary, Warren, Irina, etc.

But you are not worth the effort of searching the few hundred posts
that make up the history.

Post by Beowulf Bolt
As another example, there was nothing in Peter's first post to this
thread to warrant your accusation that he enjoys "bucking gaming
nature".

Peter and I have a long history of exchanges on game design that I was
speaking to.

Post by Beowulf Bolt
So you would rather have had everyone else in the group "walk on
eggshells" and avoid mention of the Threefold to avoid insulting you and
a few others?

In that specific case, the best outcome is that they would have seen
the harm the Threefold was causing and either dropped or alter it.

They didn't, and paid for it. For myself, I frankly didn't care as
much about the Threefold insulting me, rather I cared far more that
they objected when the insulted returned the favor.

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by gleichman

Post by Beowulf Bolt
So you would rather have had everyone else in the group "walk on
eggshells" and avoid mention of the Threefold to avoid insulting you
and a few others?

In that specific case, the best outcome is that they would have seen
the harm the Threefold was causing and either dropped or alter it.

"The harm the Threefold was causing." Now there's a world of
arrogance tied up in six simple words.

How do you reconcile that belief with the claim that acting like an
utter asshole cannot have harmed the group?

Post by gleichman
They didn't, and paid for it. For myself, I frankly didn't care as
much about the Threefold insulting me, rather I cared far more that
they objected when the insulted returned the favor.

The difference is that the insults you were perceiving were pretty
much all in your head. The insults you were dishing out were explicit
and ugly.

Cheers,
Biff

[gleichman]

"Beowulf Bolt" <abd.al-***@shaw.ca> wrote in message news:***@shaw.ca...

<snip quote>

Do you have a point in continuing this?

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by gleichman
<snip quote>
Do you have a point in continuing this?

Hey - if you can continue to be an asshole (while blaming others for
making you act this way), I can continue to call you on it. I've got as
much right to post as you do and have no intent to stand by and let you
unfairly slander other group members, even if posts like these don't do
much for the group tone either.

In the end it is a hopeless cause - if even clear precedent and
personal affadavits from people you claim to respect (like Irina) cannot
make you change your ways, what hope have I?

Biff

[gleichman]

Post by Beowulf Bolt
In the end it is a hopeless cause - if even clear precedent and
personal affadavits from people you claim to respect (like Irina) cannot
make you change your ways, what hope have I?

While I respect Irina, I almost never agree with her.

[Beowulf Bolt]

Post by gleichman

Post by Beowulf Bolt
In the end it is a hopeless cause - if even clear precedent and
personal affadavits from people you claim to respect (like Irina)
cannot make you change your ways, what hope have I?

While I respect Irina, I almost never agree with her.

I would think that her testament that she no longer posts here
*because of you* to be unimpeachable, whether or not you agree with her
about your behaviour or other matters.

At any rate, I'm sick of arguing about this.

Cheers,
Biff

[gleichman]

Post by Beowulf Bolt
At any rate, I'm sick of arguing about this.

And we all jump for joy.

[George W Harris]

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 08:23:21 -0700, gleichman <***@hotmail.com>
wrote:

:On Jul 30, 10:13 am, Beowulf Bolt <abd.al-***@shaw.ca> wrote:
:
:> At any rate, I'm sick of arguing about this.
:
:And we all jump for joy.

Yes, you've managed to drive yet another valued
poster away. Joy.

[psychohist]

Erol K. Bayburt responds to Brian Gleichman:

2. If you find it "distasteful" to even talk about
such systems, then WHY ARE YOUR HERE???

Possibly because he's trying to be helpful? Brian knows a fair amount
about firearms, and Peter seems interested in the information.

Alternatively, perhaps he wants to understand the point of view
better, even if he finds it distasteful. I must confess to a certain
degree of puzzlement as to why Peter, who has generally seemed to
dislike systems relying on gamesmaster judgement in the past, would
suggest such a system now.

By the way, having reread the thread in chronological order today,
this appears to me to be the first comment addressed to the author (ad
hominem) rather than to the subject of discussion. I thought that
might be of interest to posters who started discussing personalities
later in the thread.

Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by psychohist
I must confess to a certain
degree of puzzlement as to why Peter, who has generally seemed to
dislike systems relying on gamesmaster judgement in the past, would
suggest such a system now.

I was completely taken back by this as well. It seemed very out of
character.

As did his dropping out of the thread, even when it turned ugly. Peter loves
defining his ideas, and seemed to enjoy dust-ups over them even more.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by psychohist
I must confess to a certain
degree of puzzlement as to why Peter, who has generally seemed to
dislike systems relying on gamesmaster judgement in the past, would
suggest such a system now.

I was completely taken back by this as well. It seemed very out of
character.

It still seems to me that you, and others in this thread, are
overlooking a crucial factor of the Bad Luck mechaic: That it is
extremely regulated, and that Bad Luck points are partitioned to each
character.

It isn't 18 Bad Luck points for a 3-man party, it is 6 Bad Luck points
for one character, 6 for the other, and 6 for the third. The GM is told
to spend them, but if he doesn't, they just accumulate so that perhaps
one character gets 3 points worth of Bad Luck in the first week and 9
points in the second. It still evens out. Also, Bad Luck points run out.
6 per week is not a lot. They'll run out. It's not a tool for relentless
harassment.

One of the biggest problems is probably the short campaign duration,
with my vision being that default campaigns last for 15-20 sessions.
Some such campaigns will last for a couple of months in-world time,
which should be plenty for even a GM new to the system to get the hang
of things. But other such campaigns might last for only something like a
week and a half of in-world time, and so there's a risk that the GM will
sit with unspent Bad Luck points when the campaign ends - and perhaps
many more unspent Bad Luck points for one character than for the others.


Also, as I believe I've mentioned before, the Bad Luck mechanic solves a
bunch of problems, and fulfil some of my game design criteria. Among
other things, it is yet another way for characters of the Special/Lucky
subtype to stand out and be distinguished from characters of other
subtypes, in that they can buy the Less Bad Luck trait, or the No Bad
Luck trait.

Post by gleichman
As did his dropping out of the thread, even when it turned ugly. Peter
loves defining his ideas, and seemed to enjoy dust-ups over them even more.

Dropping out, or taking a pause?

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by gleichman
I was completely taken back by this as well. It seemed very out of
character.

It still seems to me that you, and others in this thread, are
overlooking a crucial factor of the Bad Luck mechaic: That it is
extremely regulated, and that Bad Luck points are partitioned to each
character.

Not so much overlooking as... unimpressed I supposed. It strikes me
the same as someone saying "I limit my adultery to only once a year".

One of Mary's better posts in this group was the one that stated that
if you don't want something in the game, don't allow it at all.
Attempting to control it by making it rare, difficult, etc is doomed
to failure as players/GM will just take the extra effort to make best
use of it even so.

So in this line, this strikes me as a new turn for you.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen

Post by gleichman
I was completely taken back by this as well. It seemed very out of
character.

It still seems to me that you, and others in this thread, are
overlooking a crucial factor of the Bad Luck mechaic: That it is
extremely regulated, and that Bad Luck points are partitioned to each
character.

Not so much overlooking as... unimpressed I supposed. It strikes me
the same as someone saying "I limit my adultery to only once a year".

But I do want bad luck-type incidents to happen. The roll mechanic can't
provide them often enough, and changing the roll mechanic is out of the
question (and will likely cause Fumbles to occur too often anyway), and
also I want bad luck-type incidents to be able to happen in situations
where there is no dice roll, such as movement. As I've said before,
there's a lot of stress and mess and sweat and other bodily fluids in
combat.

If playtesting suggests that Bad Luck points are a bad idea, then they
can be removed from the system. They serve several functions (including
character advantages and disadvantages, and a supernatural Bless ability
even) but they aren't an integral part.

Post by gleichman
One of Mary's better posts in this group was the one that stated that
if you don't want something in the game, don't allow it at all.

Sure, but I do want it. If I didn't want it, I wouldn't include it.

Also, other GMs may want to see "shit happening" to the PCs once in a
while, but without some mechanic to control it they might inflict "shit"
on the PCs too often. I'm not sure I'd be able to dole out bad luck
properly on an ad hoc basis. The mechanical support helps to regulate it.

Post by gleichman
Attempting to control it by making it rare, difficult, etc is doomed
to failure as players/GM will just take the extra effort to make best
use of it even so.

"Best use" is indeed possible, and even expected. It always cost the
same amount of Bad Luck points for the GM to demand a Balance saving
throw in order for the character to not slip and fall prone, but some
characters will have a very high Balance score, and then I fully expect
GMs to never, or at most very rarely, call Slip Checks for such
characters. Instead, I expect the GM to spend the Bad Luck points on
things that aren't the character's strength.

I'll just have to balance things out so that "No Bad Luck", at 16 points
(8% of the standard character creation budget) doesn't fail the "but
everyone would take it"-criteria.

Post by gleichman
So in this line, this strikes me as a new turn for you.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen
Sure, but I do want it. If I didn't want it, I wouldn't include it.

I can understand wanting a bad luck disadvantage- I just can understand you
wanting it to be GM controlled. Things change it seems.

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by Peter Knutsen
But I do want bad luck-type incidents to happen. The roll mechanic can't
provide them often enough, and changing the roll mechanic is out of the
question (and will likely cause Fumbles to occur too often anyway), and
also I want bad luck-type incidents to be able to happen in situations
where there is no dice roll, such as movement. As I've said before,
there's a lot of stress and mess and sweat and other bodily fluids in
combat.

I'm trying to think of a way to remove the GM discretion bit without
eliminating your other requirements. Certainly *limiting* bad luck can
be mechanical -- accounting the bad luck points in your description
sounded fine.

I suppose a GM could roll dice to decide that a character's Nth
'significant' action got a bad luck incident, as long as there were a
mechanical description of what 'significant' meant. So this might be
able to catch both dice-roll and non-roll situations -- but my mind
boggles at the moment at defining 'significant' without some form of
subjectivity.

Perhaps a player might declare a situation significant, in return for
some benefit if that wasn't the point at which bad luck was due? Likely
prone to gaming -- declare lots of "significant" events that really
aren't, few or none that reall are. (This seems to be a case where
*player* discretion is a problem).

[psychohist]

Peter Knutsen posts regarding gamesmaster judgement and his bad luck
mechanic:

It still seems to me that you, and others in this
thread, are overlooking a crucial factor of the Bad
Luck mechaic: That it is extremely regulated, and
that Bad Luck points are partitioned to each
character.

The gamesmaster still has discretion as to what events to apply them
to. To me, that's an overwhelming factor.

Here's an example: suppose the heroes are all fallen but one, who has
one final shot at downing the big bad guy; if he succeeds, the heroes
win, if he fails, the earth falls into the sun and is destroyed. He
has a moderately good chance of success. A single gun jam in this
situation can pretty much determine the outcome of the campaign.

Contrast this to the situation where the heroes were all still up and
had to down the random guard at the front gate. A gun jam in this
situation is inconsequential, because there are still five more heroes
to back up the first one to shoot.

These are extreme examples, but they serve to illustrate how
gamesmaster judgement can become a major determinant of results here.
While actual play may not come up with variations so extreme, I think
it is likely to result in variations big enough for the gamesmaster's
judgement role to become critical.

Now, while I personally don't like the mechanic, I do actually think
it could be good for a cinematic campaign. The very gamesmaster
judgement I object to could certainly be used to create dramatic
turning points and make a seemingly more exciting story, at the cost
of reduced world consistency and mechanical objectivity. That just
doesn't happen to be the kind of game I prefer.

Warren J. Dew

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by psychohist
Peter Knutsen posts regarding gamesmaster judgement and his bad luck
It still seems to me that you, and others in this
thread, are overlooking a crucial factor of the Bad
Luck mechaic: That it is extremely regulated, and
that Bad Luck points are partitioned to each
character.
The gamesmaster still has discretion as to what events to apply them
to. To me, that's an overwhelming factor.

That is correct. The GM will also have full knowledge of each PC's
strong spots and weak spots. For instance, Bianca has a high Balance
score, to spending Bad Luck points on forcing her to make Slip Checks,
representing slimy surfaces, is wasteful. The GM should instead spend
her Bad Luck points on calling for Weapon Drop Checks (Dexterity) since
she has average Dexterity, or make her firearm Jam, since it is of
ordinary quality and reliability, and she does not maintain and clean it
obsessively. Or he can spend Bad Luck points to make Bianca's Fumbles
"explode", when they occur. Her Shortarm skill is not very high, so
there will probably be one or two Fumbles throughout a normal duration
campaign (15-20 sessions).

Meanwhile, former Green Beret Harry Johnson spends almost an hour every
day cleaning his AK-47, so it costs a huge amount of Bad Luck points for
the GM to Jam it. Also, even if Harry Johnson's Dexterity is average, he
carries his rifle in a sling, so it costs him only a couple of Action
Points to recover from a failed Weapon Drop Check. And he's a crack
shot, so there's no sense in the GM saving up Bad Luck points waiting
for Harry to Fumble a rifle shot - it is extremely unlikely to occur
just once during the campaign, even if he shoots a lot more that Bianca.
The type of incident to target, with Harry, would be Slip Checks,
requiring Balance rolls to see wheher he slips (on surfaces assumed to
be slippery, or otherwise provide bad footing).

Not only can the GM do that. He is expected to do it. If the GM were to
spend a lot of Bad Luck points on calling Jams on Johnson, or requiring
Weapon Drop Checks, then that could be seen as favouritism by the other
players.

Even if the GM does this favouritism thing for both Bianca and Harry,
the third character's player, Gambler Fred, would resent it, because he
has paid a lot of points for the No Bad Luck trait, so that his
character has no Bad Luck points at all, and thus he feels he is
entitled to seeing a contract between his character and the other two,
and that contrast is quite diminished if the GM spends Harry's and
Bianca's Bad Luck points "inefficiently".

Post by psychohist
Here's an example: suppose the heroes are all fallen but one, who has
one final shot at downing the big bad guy; if he succeeds, the heroes
win, if he fails, the earth falls into the sun and is destroyed. He
has a moderately good chance of success. A single gun jam in this
situation can pretty much determine the outcome of the campaign.

True, but that requires that the GM has any Bad Luck points left to
spend for that character.

Also, "one final shot" situations are rare. And no one says you can't
carry a backup firearm, even if it only a light pistol, so that you
still have something to shoot if your main weapon jams.

Post by psychohist
Contrast this to the situation where the heroes were all still up and
had to down the random guard at the front gate. A gun jam in this
situation is inconsequential, because there are still five more heroes
to back up the first one to shoot.

Yes, that is a GM judgement call that will require practice, in order to
get it right, and it also requires the right kind of attitude, in terms
of distributing Bad Luck between minor encounters and major encounters.

Post by psychohist
These are extreme examples, but they serve to illustrate how
gamesmaster judgement can become a major determinant of results here.
While actual play may not come up with variations so extreme, I think
it is likely to result in variations big enough for the gamesmaster's
judgement role to become critical.

You're probably right. I'll have to try to include several paragraphs of
guidelines, about how the GM ought to distribute Bad Luck between minor
and major encounters.

Post by psychohist
Now, while I personally don't like the mechanic, I do actually think
it could be good for a cinematic campaign. The very gamesmaster
judgement I object to could certainly be used to create dramatic
turning points and make a seemingly more exciting story, at the cost
of reduced world consistency and mechanical objectivity. That just
doesn't happen to be the kind of game I prefer.

Sure. And there's a lot of similar mechanics/traits, just positive.
Minor Coincidences, Medium Concidences and Miracles. I'd assume that
they will give the campaign a more Hollywood (or Dramatist?) feel.

But as for "cinemtic", I use that word in a different sense from yours.
My usage has to do with characters who are highly competent in specific
ways, as with point-based character creation systems where the players
are given large creation budgets:

Gambler Fred's player would spend a lot of his points on Luck traits,
with the result that his character is obviously much luckier (and has
much less bad luck) than the other characters. Harry Johnson's player
spends a lot of his points on soldier/special forces type skills and
traits. Bianca's player spends many of her points on something else
entirely - probably on something not combat-related yet still very
useful for an adventuring group.

A very common failure, sadly, in stories, is to not have this
compartmentalization. If a character needs a trait, even Luck, then he
just gets it, in the middle of things even. Everyone is lucky, and no
one is special.

[Erol K. Bayburt]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
2. If you find it "distasteful" to even talk about
such systems, then WHY ARE YOUR HERE???
Possibly because he's trying to be helpful? Brian knows a fair amount
about firearms, and Peter seems interested in the information.
Alternatively, perhaps he wants to understand the point of view
better, even if he finds it distasteful. I must confess to a certain
degree of puzzlement as to why Peter, who has generally seemed to
dislike systems relying on gamesmaster judgement in the past, would
suggest such a system now.

If Brian had posted only that he found the mechanic to be distasteful,
or that he found the concept behind the mechanic to be distasteful, I
wouldn't have taken exception.

But Brian posted that he found *discussion of the mechanic* to be
distasteful. That looked to me like threadcrapping, like an attempt to
shut down the discussion by painting it as something decent-minded
people wouldn't participate in.

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
By the way, having reread the thread in chronological order today,
this appears to me to be the first comment addressed to the author (ad
hominem) rather than to the subject of discussion. I thought that
might be of interest to posters who started discussing personalities
later in the thread.
Warren J. Dew

[gleichman]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
But Brian posted that he found *discussion of the mechanic* to be
distasteful. That looked to me like threadcrapping, like an attempt to
shut down the discussion by painting it as something decent-minded
people wouldn't participate in.

You seem to have a major chip on your shoulder Erol, one that causes
you to insist on taking a knew-jerk worst case view.

Here's the quote:

"Good for you, I'm sure you happy with the result. Myself, even
talking
about it is distasteful let alone playing it."

Here I meant "talking about" to reference "the concept" in addition to
"playing it", i.e. actual game experience. I often use terms like
"talk", "exchange", "speaking" etc to reference conceptual ideas being
debated rather than the physical action. Likely poor useage, no idea
where I picked up the habit. But it should be familar to anyone who
has read my posts over the years (like Warren).

Instead of assuming the insult, it may have been better to ask if I
intended to say I hated the very exchange of ideas I was engaged in.
The answer would have likely defused your objection, if not your
emotions.

[psychohist]

Erol K. Bayburt <***@comcast.net> wrote:

But Brian posted that he found *discussion of
the mechanic* to be distasteful. That looked to
me like threadcrapping, like an attempt to
shut down the discussion by painting it as
something decent-minded people wouldn't
participate in.

He also said, "I find". I simply read what he said to mean, "I
personally dislike mechanics like the GM imposed bad luck mechanic,"
and perhaps "which is why I'm not discussing that part of the subject
much". Lots of people dislike things in their own games that other
people like; it's a fact one has to live with if one is to have useful
discussion in a diverse group of gamers.

Warren J. Dew

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Erol K. Bayburt
2. If you find it "distasteful" to even talk about
such systems, then WHY ARE YOUR HERE???
Possibly because he's trying to be helpful? Brian knows a fair amount
about firearms, and Peter seems interested in the information.

[...]

Yes, it is certainly my impression that Brian is willing to be helpful,
in spite of finding some of my game desing choices (the core, the
variable #-dice roll mecahnic, and the more peripheral Bad Luck point
concept) quite distateful.

[David Alex Lamb]

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
Here's an attempt to articulate why ultra-low (but non-zero) failure and
fumble probabilities are sought by some game designers (incl. me and Peter,

What followed really just agreed with my view of the subject- it just
put a happy face on it. The mechanics exist for a designer goal that
means nothing to the normal player, and is unreachable and almost
always unused in any case (unless you actually require rolls for
taking a bath or driving to work and every other routine task of the
day).

It was enlightening to see Brian mention "designer goal that means
nothing to the normal player" -- I've never wanted to endure fumbles as
a player, but sometimes as a GM I've had a vague longing to be able to
inflict a few.

I did think about the "driving to work" example. In a system with
random events, I thought about adding a "some routine task is unusually
difficult today" so that driving to work actually required a driving
skill roll - say, because of some insane Torontonian cutting you off on
the 401. But I never incorporated it; can't remember why, but it was
probably too much trouble for too little fun.

[gleichman]

It was enlightening to see Brian mention "designer goal that means nothing
to the normal player" -- I've never wanted to endure fumbles as a player,
but sometimes as a GM I've had a vague longing to be able to inflict a
few.

That was one of those insights I found back when I was doing free rpg
reviews. Many game designers design for themselves instead of their players
(I'm really only slightly different). But even more than that (and something
I don't do)- they design for themselves as GM an not as player.

A GM needs are rather different than a player's.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Simon Smith

Post by gleichman

Post by Simon Smith
Now here I'm with Peter. I too like variable-numbers-of-dice mechanics. I
like competent characters to be consistently competent. 'Consistently
competent' is a bit of a nebulous phrase, but among other things it's going
to include fumble chances for routine tasks on the order of 1/1000 or less,
which gibe reasonably well with real-world failure/fumble chances for
routine tasks.

This is a good example of what I meant by "chasing an illusionary target
that's meaningful only to him".
Many games designs (AoH being one example) do not invoke fumble rules for
routine tasks, but rather only for stressed or combat conditions. Even games
where that isn't directly stated are often ran in that style- people don't
roll skill rolls for walking up stairs, taking a bath, or driving to work
(although all those are causes of death in the real world) <snip>

Here's an attempt to articulate why ultra-low (but non-zero) failure and
fumble probabilities are sought by some game designers (incl. me and Peter,
To many strict simulationists, the view given by gleichman, while pragmatic,
is bothersome. When considering a game world, I like to assume that the game
rules apply universally. That is to say, even off-camera, the plebs are
driving to work, driving home, crossing roads and so on and - at least
theoretically - dice are being rolled by some nebulous GM in the sky to
determine what happens. So if the rules as written give a 1% chance of each

[...]

Well, that's one difference between my two designs, Sagatafl and Modern
Action RPG.

Sagatafl is the all-purpose RPG system, intended for anything from a
heroic laboratory "find the cure for cancer" campaign, and to boring
everyday life simulation, or traditional adventuring. Hence the roll
mechanic needs to work for everything - and it does. As you lower the
Roll Difficulty, the worst kinds of Fumbles become totally impossible.
At the default, adventuring or "critical situation" RD of 8, all Fumbles
are possible, but as soon as you lower the RD to 6 (routine activities),
the worst kind of Fumble, F-6 Disastrous Fumble, can't occur. Lower the
RD to 5, and you also exclude the second-worst grade of Fumble, F-5
Grand Fumble. At RD 3, you can only get Minor Fumbles (F-2) and failures
(f-1), nothing worse.

Modern Action RPG is different, being 100% adventuring focused. "It
thinks" that life simulation is boring, and it can't be used for a
heroic "spend time in the lab to find the cure for cancer" campaign,
because Science skills are fluff skills, and therefore very cheap, and
thus on a standard character creation budget you could build a scientist
who is more skilled than Reed Richards.

It is a system built for adventuring. For the subject matter of
traditonal RPGs. I'd say that my main reason for using a multiple-dice
roll mechanic, in some ways quite similar to Sagatafl's, is that I want
to be able to handle opposed rolls well. I'd still want the Fumble
probabilitie to be good, though, and they are.

If anything is wrong with the MA RPG roll mechanic, it is that Successes
occur too rarely. In Sagatafl, at the default RD of 8, each dice has a
5/12 probability of coming up a Success. In MA RPG, where the "RD" is
fixed, each dice has a 2/12 probability of coming up a Success, with a
further 2/12 probability of coming up a Partial Success (which is only
useful if you get no Full Successes). Situational bonuses and penalties
are handled by increasing or lowering effective skill, so that for
isntance 7d6 or 5d6 is rolled, instead of 6d6 for a character with a
skill of 6.

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
As you may not now, in the last couple of decades (with Hero System -
and, interestingly, Quest FRP - being among the very few exceptions)
it has become customary in RPG rules systems to have a single roll
mechanic which is used for both to-hit (and to-parry/dodge/block)
rolls in combat and for non-combat skill rolls.

I disagree with respect to Hero, it uses the same mechanic- but frames
it differently.

Well, one good thing the Hero System combat roll mechanic does is it has
both your OCV, and your enemy's DCV, affect the roll, which is better
than the BRP/Runequest approach where you make your attack roll, and
then no matter how well or how poorly you make that roll, as long as you
make it (and as long as you don't get a critical success), your target
just has to make his defence roll, in order to not get hit. As long as
you don't get a critial success on your attack roll, you can roll
really, really well, relative to your skill, and all your target has to
do is make his roll, evne if only barely. This enables him to go
"Nyyaah, I made my Parry roll!!" again and again and again, even though
he is much less skilled than you are.

It's just a pity Hero System doesn't do something similar for opposed
non-combat skill rolls. Especially in genres where it isn't 100% about
combat (which I guess would be almost all genres, except maybe Ninja
Hero and Champions. And even Champions' presence on that list is
questionable).

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
If you have any specific criticism of the roll mechanic, I'd like to
hear it.

I intensely dislike variable dice resolution systems be they simple X
number of dice per X skill levels (4.0 Shadowrun) or different dice per
skill level (Savage Worlds).
Whatever their virtues in managing probabilities (and I don't consider
them significant), their impact on the player (and even GM) is nearly
uniformly negative. They hide the real chance of success and the impact
of individual modifiers behind highly unintuitive and in some cases
exceedingly complex math. If the system works correctly (which they
often don't, and I've learned to check this myself as designers are
often very wrong about the outcome of their own work), the best in-play
feel you normally get is a fuzzy 'more is better'- and that IME is an
highly fustrating way to play. A reaction that has been uniform in
anyone who fits in with my own desired gaming style.
It's reached the point where I consider the designer to be flatly either
hiding the fact that his game sucks behind complex mechanics, or he's
chasing an illusionary target that's meaningful only to him.

One target I'm chasing is to get opposed rolls to work well. My
character's Forgery skill versus your character's Spot Forgery skill. If
I'm a very skilled forger, and you're a typical cop, my very high
Forgery skill should be able to bear your mediocre Spot Forgery skill
pretty consistently. Yet this is not the case in "roll under"-systems.

Post by gleichman

Post by Peter Knutsen
I don't see much of a problem. The BL points of all incidents are
player-knowable, so if a player is concerned, he can keep track of the
GM's BL point expenditure. If he notices something amiss, such as the
GM not spending his full quota on one particular PC, the track-keeping
player can talk to the GM about it, and if the problem then persists
the player can confront the GM with an accusation of cheating.

I'm sorry, but all this (including the previous unquoted parts) doesn't
really alter my reaction. The mechanic's design impacts me as "GM gets
to screw the players" at whim, limited only by minor resource
management. It's not something I'd accept.
That may be in part due to my own gaming style. There the ability of
anyone to alter a single event could alter the final outocome of the
entire battle. There instead of 'bad luck' being favor, it can be
decisive. The GM could in fact decide the make the players lose, and
that is something I build my games not to do.

That's true; there is the possibility for abuse, but Bad Luck *will* run
out. Each player character only gets 6 points per week which will, on
average, be enough for 2 incidents. The roll mechanic is such that
highly skilled characters - and the PCs will be highly skilled - will
consistently roll well. It is not as in a 3d6-type roll mechanic where
you get these very rare and precious criticals 0.5% of the time, so that
the GM can thwart you by stealing the only critical you got during the
entire session.

There'll even be a mechanic in place to prevent the "theft" of a good
roll. I believe I wrote, in my original post, that the GM would not be
allowed to call a weapon jam, after the roll had been made, if the roll
had come up 2 Successes or greater. He must either call the jam before
the roll is made, or else he must wait and see that the result is only 1
Success, or a Partial Success.

Other Bad Luck incidents will generally not take place after dice rolls,
but in other situations such as movement, or deal with weapon grip
(weapon droppage), and so they offer no way to steal a good roll,
although of course the GM can make a PC roll to see if he slips, if the
PC is making a particularly vital movement maneuver, e.g. to get to a
friend and rescue him.

Then again, apart from firearm jamming and melee weapon brekage, Bad
Luck incidents aren't guaranteed to happen. They merely force the player
character to make a saving throw (Agility, Dexterity or Reflexes,
usually) to see if the incident occurs (the Bad Luck points are paid
regardless of whether the roll is passed or failed).

It is an unusual mechanic (even though Spycraft d20 and Spycraft 2.0
appears to have something vaguely similar), but I'm confident that it
can be made to work.

[gleichman]

Post by Peter Knutsen
It's just a pity Hero System doesn't do something similar for opposed
non-combat skill rolls.

It does, but presents it poorly.

A skill roll in HERO is basically the same 11- modified by a Skill
OCV. They just don't say that. For example one could consider Stealth
14- instead as Stealth OCV 3.

Opposed Skill rolls in HERO are a simple rolled skill vs. rolled
skill, with player rolling the most under their base roll winning.
That basically falls out to be roll 11- + Skill OCV - Skill OCV in
concept, and I think even in math it would be at least close enough.

Rather than explain all that, HERO instead goes with it's much
simplier default explanation.

[Russell Wallace]

Thinking about this a bit more, it occurs to me that my biggest problem
with fumbles is when they portray my character as incompetent in
something he's supposed to be good at.

So "you drop your weapon" is acceptable for my computer hacker who just
grabbed an unfamiliar weapon to defend himself - but not for my former
Marine. "You can't find the 'Any' key" - vice versa.

My objections to bad luck points would therefore mostly go away if there
was added a clause that the results may only be portrayed as
incompetence if the subject matter is something the character is
supposed to be bad at; where the character is supposed to be skilled, it
must be portrayed as bad luck that nobody could have been expected to
foresee.

(The better GMs tend to do this already, when they use any sort of
fumble rules; Theatrix is one system I recall that makes it explicit.)

[Erol K. Bayburt]

On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:43:57 +0100, Russell Wallace

Post by Russell Wallace
Thinking about this a bit more, it occurs to me that my biggest problem
with fumbles is when they portray my character as incompetent in
something he's supposed to be good at.
So "you drop your weapon" is acceptable for my computer hacker who just
grabbed an unfamiliar weapon to defend himself - but not for my former
Marine. "You can't find the 'Any' key" - vice versa.
My objections to bad luck points would therefore mostly go away if there
was added a clause that the results may only be portrayed as
incompetence if the subject matter is something the character is
supposed to be bad at; where the character is supposed to be skilled, it
must be portrayed as bad luck that nobody could have been expected to
foresee.
(The better GMs tend to do this already, when they use any sort of
fumble rules; Theatrix is one system I recall that makes it explicit.)

My own version of this is in my "an improvised or cheap 'piece of
shit' weapon will break on a roll of '3'" (In a roll low on 3d6 system
derived from TFT.)

This avoids making the character look incompetent because it only
happens with improvised or otherwise easy-to-break weapons, and also
because it only happens on a solid *hit* that does damage as the
weapon breaks, as opposed to the weapon breaking on the worst possible
miss.

The other end of the problem are 'critical hit' systems like the
simple "a roll of 20 on the d20 is always a critical hit" - which
results in the extreme case of the character who can only hit on a 20
getting criticals on all his successful attacks. A 3e type system of
"roll to confirm" a critical hit at least avoids this problem.

But these examples apply to rolled fumbles and criticals. I'm not sure
what the equivalent would be for bad luck points other than a general
"The GM will use good judgment in where and how he applies them"
clause.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
Thinking about this a bit more, it occurs to me that my biggest problem
with fumbles is when they portray my character as incompetent in something
he's supposed to be good at.

Completely a player issue rather than a realism issue as I've noted before.
Players don't like to fail, real people don't either- but that didn't keep
likely the best gunslinger of the western era from shooting his friend by
mistake.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
Completely a player issue rather than a realism issue as I've noted
before. Players don't like to fail, real people don't either- but that
didn't keep likely the best gunslinger of the western era from shooting
his friend by mistake.

While I disagree with you about what's realistic (if you call a plumber
to fix a leaky tap and he puts your kitchen under six inches of water,
you don't call him unlucky, you call him incompetent), you are correct
that it's not really an issue of realism in the first place, but one of
playing style.

In the style I like to play and run, the PCs are the heroes in a story.
Even if you think real life knights dropped their swords one swing in
20, there's no question of Aragorn doing so. Even if you think real life
pilots crash one flight in 216, Han Solo sure as hell doesn't. That's
the standard I aim for.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
In the style I like to play and run, the PCs are the heroes in a story.
Even if you think real life knights dropped their swords one swing in
20, there's no question of Aragorn doing so.

Again, just personal preference. Aragorn got his foot stuck in the
saddle and was dragged over a cliff- I personally liked that part of
the movie.

Post by Russell Wallace
Even if you think real life
pilots crash one flight in 216, Han Solo sure as hell doesn't. That's
the standard I aim for.

No, he just parks the Falcon instead of space monsters.

Hero screw up all the time, real and fictional. Movies and the like
have the benefit of just taking the neatest results and dropping the
rest.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman

Post by Russell Wallace
Even if you think real life
pilots crash one flight in 216, Han Solo sure as hell doesn't. That's
the standard I aim for.

No, he just parks the Falcon instead of space monsters.

Yep, that's an example of critical failure handled well. Solo's still a
great pilot, he just didn't know the asteroid was the lair of a space
monster.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
Yep, that's an example of critical failure handled well. Solo's still a
great pilot, he just didn't know the asteroid was the lair of a space
monster.

Again, matter of taste. I thought that whole scene was horrible, but I
didn't think much of the movies after the first one in any case.
Besides, who ever said Han was a great pilot? Looking back on it, I
think it was a fan creation much like Fett's rep. There's little to no
facts backing it up. Han had a fast ship that wasn't even his
originally. Nothing more. Heck, if he had properly maintained it, he
wouldn't even had needed to deal with chases and space monsters.

Back to the subject, fictional heroes tend to be less than perfect
because those who watch them enjoy watching them climb out the holes
they dug for themselves. The fact that they do makes them both human
(the original screw up) and heroic (overcoming it afterwards). The
same applies to well designed game fumbles, avoiding them completely
is not a path to running great heroes- it's just a path to avoiding
fumbles.

[John Morrow]

In the style I like to play and run, the PCs are the heroes in a story. Even
if you think real life knights dropped their swords one swing in 20, there's
no question of Aragorn doing so. Even if you think real life pilots crash one
flight in 216, Han Solo sure as hell doesn't. That's the standard I aim for.

If you are going to discuss realism, Aragorn (fictional character) and Han
Solo (fictional character) are not the best place to start. How about
talking about real battle statistics and things like aircraft carrier
landings?

John Morrow

[gleichman]

Post by John Morrow
If you are going to discuss realism, Aragorn (fictional character) and Han
Solo (fictional character) are not the best place to start. How about
talking about real battle statistics and things like aircraft carrier
landings?

I think Russell as already granted that point, fictional characters
was his fallback.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by John Morrow
If you are going to discuss realism, Aragorn (fictional character) and
Han Solo (fictional character) are not the best place to start. How
about talking about real battle statistics and things like aircraft
carrier landings?

Those are exactly the sort of things I would discuss if I was debating
what's realistic. My point was that what I'm actually trying to simulate
is epic fantasy and science fiction, so fictional characters are a
better model.

[John Morrow]

Those are exactly the sort of things I would discuss if I was debating what's
realistic. My point was that what I'm actually trying to simulate is epic
fantasy and science fiction, so fictional characters are a better model.

The problem there is that whether Han Solo hits or misses, is shot or not,
does not depend on odds but on the needs of the story. Darth Vader mops
the floors of Bespin with Luke Skywalker because that's what the story
requires and then Luke manages to beat Vader aboard the Death Star 2, not
because Luke Skywalker got enough experience points to raise his light
saber skill a level or two but because that's what he story required.
Similarly, the hyperspace drive on the Millenium Falcon works or doesn't
work as the story requires. Trying to translate that into a simulation
of some sort of reality is often iffy at best.

Consider this. C-3PO tells Han Solo that, "the possibility of
successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1."
The reality is that the odds of Han Solo would successfully navigate the
asteroid field were 100% because I don't think the audience would have
been happy watching the Millenium Falcon splatter against the side of an
asteroid like so many of the TIE fighters following it. So to accurately
simulate Han Solo's odds of successfully doing something like flying
through an asteroid field, there is pretty much no chance of fatal
failure.

John Morrow

[gleichman]

Post by John Morrow
The problem there is that whether Han Solo hits or misses, is shot or not,
does not depend on odds but on the needs of the story.

<snip>

Post by John Morrow
So to accurately
simulate Han Solo's odds of successfully doing something like flying
through an asteroid field, there is pretty much no chance of fatal
failure.
John Morrow

A rather involved subject here, but I'll disagree with John's
presented premise (not that common of a event for me).

This is a bit like looking back on history and saying the needs of the
Battle of Midway determined if the Americans won or not- i.e. it's
viewing the story in hindsight not as an event in progress.

Movies are not history, but they both have a period when 'what
happens' is actually determined. With respect to 'The Empire Strikes
Back', we know form various sources that in one of the author's
original takes Han was suppose to die. I'm uncertain of the details-
but a fatal failure in the asteroid field is certainly a way to die,
some nice framing of the event could even make it an heroic and
suitable end. Might even have been a better movie.

So there was indeed a chance, just like there was a chance that the
Japan won the Battle of Midway- it just didn't turn out that way. But
saying it was needs of the story misses the point, because those needs
weren't determined until after the basic decisions had already been
made.


There is also another twist to the "needs of the story" viewpoint that
is seldom considered. Let's return to the Star Wars example, we know
in 'Star Wars' that Han kills Greedo. So let's revisit that event not
as a movie, but as history and turn it on it's side.

Let's say Greedo kills Han. What happens? One would assume that Luke
and Ben would have found a different way off world, the historic
events would have continued with any number of events turning out
differently. In this case, let's say that Ben and Luke find another
pilot and that the rest of the adventure continues on course with only
style differences.

When the movie is made of this alternate version, how likely will it
be that all of Han would end up on the cutting room floor assuming the
slight detour he represents even made it into the script?

This is the heart of RPGs, which aren't (due to the requirement of
player decision and failure chance) finished products- they are
instead all the stuff that happened before a script and final cut
movie was made from their adventures.


IMO, the desire to have an RPG be in play a final cut movie is a
rejection of the core concepts of what an RPG is. Those seeking that
should likely look elsewhere, but it work at the Forge or perhaps
Dancey's newest undertaking.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by John Morrow
The problem there is that whether Han Solo hits or misses, is shot or
not, does not depend on odds but on the needs of the story. Darth Vader
mops the floors of Bespin with Luke Skywalker because that's what the
story requires and then Luke manages to beat Vader aboard the Death Star
2, not because Luke Skywalker got enough experience points to raise his
light saber skill a level or two but because that's what he story
required. Similarly, the hyperspace drive on the Millenium Falcon works
or doesn't work as the story requires. Trying to translate that into a
simulation
of some sort of reality is often iffy at best.
Consider this. C-3PO tells Han Solo that, "the possibility of
successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1."
The reality is that the odds of Han Solo would successfully navigate the
asteroid field were 100% because I don't think the audience would have
been happy watching the Millenium Falcon splatter against the side of an
asteroid like so many of the TIE fighters following it. So to accurately
simulate Han Solo's odds of successfully doing something like flying
through an asteroid field, there is pretty much no chance of fatal failure.

Well, that's going much further afield than the original topic.

My original claim was not about success versus failure, but about how
critical failures should be described. Specifically, if I'm Han Solo's
player, I'm fine with an action failing if that's what the dice come up
with. I just don't want it described as "you fumble and drop your gun"
or "you botch the steering and fly into an asteroid". I want it
described in a way that portrays the character as unlucky rather than
incompetent.

Now you're bringing up script immunity, which is a different issue. The
way I prefer to handle that, as I remarked in a couple of previous
threads, is with the "beyond reasonable doubt" criterion, because it is
more important to me that the game be enjoyable than that it be
perfectly simulationist, and PCs going splat from bad dice rolls makes
for an unenjoyable game. If you find the advantages of PCs going splat
from bad dice rolls outweigh the disadvantages, by all means play that
way. If you wish to discuss the reasons for your preference, that's
certainly on topic for this newsgroup :) Though if so, I would recommend
doing it in a new thread with an appropriate subject line.

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
My original claim was not about success versus failure, but about how
critical failures should be described. Specifically, if I'm Han Solo's
player, I'm fine with an action failing if that's what the dice come up
with. I just don't want it described as "you fumble and drop your gun"
or "you botch the steering and fly into an asteroid". I want it
described in a way that portrays the character as unlucky rather than
incompetent.

For that most part, this is a issue completely unrelated to the
mechanics in use I might note. One may as well complain about bad GMs.

The small remaining part is about success, at least in your mind.
Heroic characters from fiction are often incompetent at various
points- your rejection of that reflects more upon yourself than the
fiction or the game.

[Russell Wallace]

Post by gleichman
For that most part, this is a issue completely unrelated to the
mechanics in use I might note. One may as well complain about bad GMs.

See my original post in this subthread.

(random trolling ignored)

[gleichman]

Post by Russell Wallace
See my original post in this subthread.

Already saw it, if it would have made a difference in my opinon on the
subject it would have made it then.

[Ken Arromdee]

I think the idea of C-3P0 telling Han his odds of navigating the asteroid
field are 3720 to 1 against is that he's just wrong and that given Han's
skill, the odds are *not* 3720 to 1 against it.

The droid is giving a number because he's a droid and droids talk that way,
not because the number's accurate. It's like a human just saying "you can't
possibly do it".

[Peter Knutsen]

Post by Russell Wallace
Thinking about this a bit more, it occurs to me that my biggest problem
with fumbles is when they portray my character as incompetent in
something he's supposed to be good at.

I agree, this is the biggest problem. If I've chosen, during character
creation, to spend many ressources on making a brainy character with
lots of intellectual skills, then it's okay with me if he turns out tobe
somewhat physically clumsy (as long as he can still function in the
campaign - it mustn't cripple him).

Post by Russell Wallace
So "you drop your weapon" is acceptable for my computer hacker who just
grabbed an unfamiliar weapon to defend himself - but not for my former
Marine. "You can't find the 'Any' key" - vice versa.

That's why there are "defences" against each type of Bad Luck.

If you want to increase the cost, in terms of BL Points, for the GM to
call a Drop Weapon on you, you buy up the Dexterity secondary Saving Throw.

With an average Dexterity (of 2), the GM will probably call a Drop
Weapon check on your character every 3rd or 4th session. If you raise
your Dexterity, the GM will realize the futility of calling such checks
(the rules will also instruct him that it is his *duty* to realize
this), and call such checks much less frequently - instead he'll target
those "spots" where your character isn't strong. On the other hand, if
you somehow have a lower-than-average Dexterity, then weapon retention
will be a problem, and the GM could easily end up calling one Dexterity
check every session.

Likewise you can raise Agility to avoid slipping, and you can discourage
the GM from forcing Firearm Jams by learning appropriate binary skills
and by selecting reliable firearms.

Also, you can pay 7% of the standard player character creation budget
(14 points) to have the Reduced Bad Luck trait, which means you have
only 2 BL Points per week as opposed to the normal 6.

Or you can pay another 7% and have no Bad Luck at all.

That also limits what I can offer, in terms of specific protections
against Bad Luck. If making your character immune to Weapon Drops costs
22 points, then it'll be tempting for you to pay 28 points to being
immune to *all* Bad Luck instead. If near-immunity to Slipping costs 24
points, and full immunity to all kinds of Bad Luck costs 28 points, then
we have what is, in technical jargon, referred to as a "no-brainer".

Post by Russell Wallace
My objections to bad luck points would therefore mostly go away if there
was added a clause that the results may only be portrayed as
incompetence if the subject matter is something the character is
supposed to be bad at; where the character is supposed to be skilled, it

That's really the player's duty: To purchase specific traits to indicate
that the character is good at particular things.

Of course, in many cases this is simply a question of raising skills.
The higher the skill, the less likely you are to get a Fumble, and if
you never get a Fumble then the GM can't spend BL Points to turn it into
a Disastrous Fumble.

In other cases, it is less intuitive. Weapon retention isn't governed by
weapon skill, but by the Dexterity saving throw. Slipping while moving
doesn't have any skill governing it at all, so in that case I don't
think the problem is as huge - a player concerned about Slipping will
probably naturally start wondering about the Agility and Balance saving
throws, and then the next logical step is to find out which of these it
is, either by reading the rule book or by asking the GM.

I could do a few things, though. One is to offer binary skills that
improve weapon retention and reduce the chance of Slipping.

The base BL Point cost for the GM to call a Drop Weapon check should
probably remain at 3, no matter what. The tweakable factor is the
Dexterity roll, which determines whether a Drop actually occurs.

There could be a binary skill that gives a +2 bonus to effective
Dexterity only for the purpose of Drop Weapon checks.

Or perhaps there could be a costlier skill that gives a bonus not only
to Drop Weapon checks but also to rolls to resist Disarms. This bonus
only applies to those weapons for which the character has a fairly high
level of skill (7 would be appropriate, I think. That's very good, yet
well within the range of a typacil PC).

There could be a Sure-Footed binary skill that gives a bonus to Agility
checks only when making saving throws to avoid Slipping.


Also, there's the Mastery trait. Characters of the Combat/Weapon Master
subtypes get Mastery for one specific archaic weapon type, e.g. sword or
axe or staff or bow (there are two subtypes, one that gets to pick an
archaic melee weapon, and one that gets to pcik an archaic ranged
weapon). Also, characters of the Skilled/Maestro subtype gets to chose
two Non-Combat skills for which they have Mastery. In both cases, the
result is a huge bonus to the skill value (in effect, extreme
specialization).

It would be simple and easy to make a rule that a character with Mastery
is immune to Bad Luck that messes with his Mastery, e.g. Drop Weapon for
a Katana Master, or a Disastrous Fumble for an Acting/Disguise Master.

Characters of the Skilled/Athlete type could also get a Movement
Mastery" ability, making them immune to Slipping, and to Disastrous
Fumbles on movement-related skills such as Acrobatics (used for jumping)
and Climbing.

Post by Russell Wallace
must be portrayed as bad luck that nobody could have been expected to
foresee.

This is where we disagree. I envision the RPG battle field as frequently
being a messy place, splattered with pools of bodily fluids, entrails
scattered here and there, and uneven footing. Also, your character is
stressed out, the adrenaline concentration in his blood stream is very
high, and he's sweating (making things slippery).

Post by Russell Wallace
(The better GMs tend to do this already, when they use any sort of
fumble rules; Theatrix is one system I recall that makes it explicit.)

The GM would have to explicitly draw a pool of slipperiness on the
battle mat, to indicate that these particular hexes are slippery. He'd
have to do that every time. Likewise, he'd have to inform each and every
PC, each and every time, about excessive perspiration.

That doesn't strike me as workable at all.