fahrgast
Posts: 37
Joined: Sat 03 Jul 2021, 16:20

Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Fri 22 Oct 2021, 12:09

I have tried to model an encounter from TLOTR, using the rule that I have proposed in my previous post. It makes sense to me, and also shows that the players need to choose the most appropriate skill for each step in the narration. Otherwise, the players can choose a skill with more ranks, but then they must narrate their actions consequently.

This is my example of a council:

Gandalf, Theoden, Éomer and Gimli (they are the ones who talk in this council) arrive at the door of Orthanc. They want to persuade Saruman to surrender and leave Orthanc. The Loremaster decides that this is an outrageous request (Resistance 9) and that Saruman is, at least at first, reluctant (-1d in Interaction rolls).

In this case, the introduction is not made only with words, but showing an army and a group of powerful personalities. Let's say Gandalf makes an AWE roll and get a success with 2 T icons. The Tolerance would be 3 (the company is allowed to fail two rolls before the council is ended).

Saruman appears in the balcony and, with his sweet voice, tries to charm Theoden. The king makes a WISDOM roll to resist the spell, but he fails (1st failure) and can't speak.

Gimli then intervenes and accuses Saruman of being a murderer. Gimli makes an INSIGHT roll and gets 1 success.

Saruman replies and talks again to Theoden. Now is Éomer who talks to Theoden, to make him see that Saruman is trying to deceive him. He rolls PERSUADE and gets 2 successes.

Saruman disdains Éomer's words and talks again to Theoden. But, thanks to his nephew, Theoden is now free from Saruman's spell and talks to the wizard. He rolls AWE and gets 1 success.

Saruman insults Theoden and then talks to Gandalf. Gandalf and Saruman try to persuade each other. During this exchange, the Loremaster decides that Saruman is no longer reluctant, but open. Gandalf makes a couple of PERSUADE rolls and accumulates 3 more successes. But then he tells Saruman that he must surrender his staff, makes a new PERSUADE roll and fails (2nd failure).

Saruman leaves the balcony. Knowing that they cannot fail again, Gandalf spends 1 point of Hope to achieve a Magical Success. He also rolls his dice and gets a total of 2 successes. With the ninth success, Gandalf breaks Saruman's staff and defeats him.
Last edited by fahrgast on Fri 22 Oct 2021, 17:53, edited 2 times in total.
 
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Harlath
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Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Fri 22 Oct 2021, 12:34

For the first problem, "the Councils with greater challenge may be actually easier", I have a simple solution: going back to the concept of Tolerance.

Let's say you need 3, 6 or 9 successes to achieve your goal in a council. You don't have a time limit, but you have a limited number of failures that depend on your Introduction roll (0, 1 or 2 failures allowed; this is the Tolerance). When you get more failures than allowed, the council is ended.

I have run some simulations with this rule and this is the result:
I think this is an excellent solution and was the one I was going to suggest. Changes very little (various Cultural virtues still work!) and does away with mathematical oddities.

Or rather than checking v failures, make it like a Skill Endeavour where you need X successes in Y rolls. For example, 4 successes in 3 rolls.

I still like to have a bit of room for 1e style sliding success/failure (rather than all or nothing, albeit book at least offers "success with woe"), but either option above does that. Plus blending in some stuff from roleplay/Skill decisions. insight alone might not persuade anyone, but it may inform players of the right words and style to use (unlocking 1d bonuses from using the right skills/extra successes from roleplay with the right words etc). :)
 
hsi379
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Joined: Fri 10 Sep 2021, 19:24

Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Fri 22 Oct 2021, 20:41

For the first problem, "the Councils with greater challenge may be actually easier", I have a simple solution: going back to the concept of Tolerance.

Let's say you need 3, 6 or 9 successes to achieve your goal in a council. You don't have a time limit, but you have a limited number of failures that depend on your Introduction roll (0, 1 or 2 failures allowed; this is the Tolerance). When you get more failures than allowed, the council is ended.

I have run some simulations with this rule and this is the result:

With TN 14:
     3 (T0)  3 (T1)   3 (T2)   6 (T0)   6 (T1)   6 (T2)   9 (T0)   9 (T1)   9 (T2)
2S   5.7691  33.926   50.6026   3.1106   9.8929  19.4487   0.6117   2.5547   6.2655
3S  47.0921  75.8932  89.9708  24.5909  52.577   73.624   12.8106  34.2288  55.9755
4S  78.1648  96.1748  99.3903  63.5202  90.4173  97.8801  51.6865  83.4265  95.324

With TN 16:
     3 (T0)   3 (T1)   3 (T2)   6 (T0)   6 (T1)   6 (T2)   9 (T0)   9 (T1)   9 (T2)
2S    7.3788  17.2593  27.809    0.7769   2.6979   5.8817   0.0761   0.3791   1.024
3S   29.766   55.38    73.2915  10.5481  27.4187  45.4146   3.7397  12.3988  25.0566
4S   62.1986  87.8602  96.4155  41.6066  73.3856  89.4211  27.8417  58.7829  79.8995
This is definitely better and solves the broken 3-6-9 problem!

We could also play around with reducing the rolls like another poster had in their houserules post. 3 successes in 3 rolls, 6 succeses in 4 rolls, 9 successes in 5 rolls as the default. Would have to do the math.

I think we need to run this through the "sweet spot" of success metric though.

There is a lot hinging on that Introduction role now. Probably someone will have 3S or 4S skill to use and will use hope since so much is riding on this. So you are talking about often having at least a 4S introduction pool which at TN14 has a 39% of one success, 37% of 1 tengwar, and 13% of 2 more more Tegnwars.

It probably still works best at the 3S average party.

At TN14 (which maybe is low as an average although people will be trying to use good skills), a 3S party with a TN14 4S intro role will

50% of the time -- have a 47, 25, and 13% chance (3/6/9) of success
37% of the time -- have a 76, 53, 34% chance
13% of the time -- have a 90, 74, 56% chance
Expected value of : 63%, 42%, and 26% before modifications.

This is an ok starting point for 3 success challenges. 6 and 9 are very tough. If players spend hope on every roll though this is pushed up to 4S average which pushes these up a huge amount. And maybe that is an ok assumption as 6 and 9 challenges should represent a fairly consequential goal that the players should want to spend resources achieving I would think.

Will need to spend a little more time thinking about these kinds of scenerios.

The d6 shift is so big, I'm not sure if we won't have to break ranks and go back to TN modifications for some of this to smooth out the difficulty curves in the end.

Love the ideas and where this is headed!
 
hsi379
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Posts: 33
Joined: Fri 10 Sep 2021, 19:24

Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Fri 22 Oct 2021, 20:50


Let's say you need 3, 6 or 9 successes to achieve your goal in a council. You don't have a time limit, but you have a limited number of failures that depend on your Introduction roll (0, 1 or 2 failures allowed; this is the Tolerance). When you get more failures than allowed, the council is ended.
I also wonder what this would look like if a simple success gave 1 additional tolerance? So failure = 0, simple success = 1, success + 1 Teng = 2, success + 2 Tengwar = 3?

This would shift the starting odds up better for the 2S, mix of 2S/3S party, and the 3S party, making 6 and 9 challenges more doable. It would also make the 4S trivializing things worse though...

It is pretty tough to balance across power levels because TNs aren't changing...
 
Niallism
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Joined: Tue 29 Jun 2021, 13:56

Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Sat 23 Oct 2021, 02:48

Could someone explain what the problem is with 3/6/9? I understand the fundamentals of probability but not the conclusion being drawn from those tables.
 
hsi379
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Posts: 33
Joined: Fri 10 Sep 2021, 19:24

Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Sat 23 Oct 2021, 03:21

Could someone explain what the problem is with 3/6/9? I understand the fundamentals of probability but not the conclusion being drawn from those tables.
With larger dice pools 4S+ you are much more likely to get multiple Tengwars (but even starting at 3 skill dice (3S) there is an effect). Each Tengwar gives you an extra success. The longer trials give you more chances to get these extra successes and at a rate that "outpaces" the additional successes required.

So it means that longer trials can actually mean it is easier to succeed than shorter trails. Not the intention of the set up. An outrageous (9 success in 9 rolls) request is actually easier for an average 4S party then a reasonabe request (3 succsses in 3 rolls).

Take a look at the OP tables for say TN15 table:

4S party has a 88% chance of succeeding at a reasonable request and a 96% of succeeding at an outrageous request. This is outright broken.

But even at 3S it doesn't work entirely as intended. At TN15, a 3S party has a 61% chance of a reasonable request and a 59% at an outrageous request. Going in the right direction so not strictly broken, but I think clearly not as intended.

Hope that helps.
 
Niallism
Posts: 116
Joined: Tue 29 Jun 2021, 13:56

Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Sat 23 Oct 2021, 04:14

Could someone explain what the problem is with 3/6/9? I understand the fundamentals of probability but not the conclusion being drawn from those tables.
With larger dice pools 4S+ you are much more likely to get multiple Tengwars (but even starting at 3 skill dice (3S) there is an effect). Each Tengwar gives you an extra success. The longer trials give you more chances to get these extra successes and at a rate that "outpaces" the additional successes required.

So it means that longer trials can actually mean it is easier to succeed than shorter trails. Not the intention of the set up. An outrageous (9 success in 9 rolls) request is actually easier for an average 4S party then a reasonabe request (3 succsses in 3 rolls).

Take a look at the OP tables for say TN15 table:

4S party has a 88% chance of succeeding at a reasonable request and a 96% of succeeding at an outrageous request. This is outright broken.

But even at 3S it doesn't work entirely as intended. At TN15, a 3S party has a 61% chance of a reasonable request and a 59% at an outrageous request. Going in the right direction so not strictly broken, but I think clearly not as intended.

Hope that helps.

Thank you. It does.

The approach that not all skills should be usable or repeatable would help to redress this balance, wouldn't it? Because then those 9 successes in 9 rolls would be drawn from a wider variety of skill levels and not simply be all at skill 4, whereas 3 successes in 3 rolls could use PCs best skills?

I think the alpha rules about not being able to use the same skills, the rules about repeating failed rolls, and this maths, all push me in that direction, but I'm not sure what a definitive answer might be.

Right now I'm torn between:

(1) A player can't use the same skill twice.

(2) The group can't use the same skill twice.

(3) Using narrative and GMing skills on the fly to tweak the difficulty as the Council goes on, e.g. The target(s) getting angry or bored by repetition, and this changing the difficulty or consequences of failure based on skill choices.

To be honest, I think (3) is the best. Despite it being the most woolly and poorly defined, it matches the way that GMing affects the difficulty in all subgames in any RPG, whether it's encounter design and tactical choices in a highly regulated combat game such as Pathfinder, trying to manipulate and horrify players in CoC, or the narrative positioning that is highlighted in PBTA games. It also doesn't feel like a houserule - it's more like something that FN would have come up with if he'd seen this maths and KS timeframes hadn't rushed his design work. Or maybe it's what he already does.

But I think (3) is also the hardest. Experienced GMs like me have had decades of running combat encounters, noting the common pitfalls that make a game too easy, too hard, or too boring. This Council minigame is entirely new to me, and that makes it difficult.
 
hsi379
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Posts: 33
Joined: Fri 10 Sep 2021, 19:24

Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Fri 29 Oct 2021, 23:27

The approach that not all skills should be usable or repeatable would help to redress this balance, wouldn't it? Because then those 9 successes in 9 rolls would be drawn from a wider variety of skill levels and not simply be all at skill 4, whereas 3 successes in 3 rolls could use PCs best skills?
I think something to encourage varying skill choices is good. It would probably lower average skill values a little which at lower skill levels might lesson the effect, but it does not really directly address the 3-6-9 problem.
 
Mordante
Posts: 183
Joined: Thu 21 May 2020, 23:14

Re: Council Skill Endeavor math odds success rate

Sat 30 Oct 2021, 15:41

How about if you repeat a skill it looses d6 each additional time past the first time you use it? For example, use a skill twice its score is-1d6, use a skil a 3rd timel -2d6 and so on this would reflect the listener becoming more bored/suspicious.

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