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Kaybe
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Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Tue 24 Jan 2023, 16:29

So this has been nagging me for a while. I wasn't sure if it this was just me nitpicking in my head so I let it go.

Recently, I picked up another BRP style game and noticed something. In opposed rolls, the highest successful roll won. Instead of the lowest successful roll in the Dragonbane beta rules. So I took a look at some other BRP style games that I had, and aside from the older ones that used a resistance table, the ones who did side by side comparison of roll results also had highest successful roll win.

Why is this important?

In the Dragonbane beta rules, skill really does not play a part on opposed rolls. You could have a skill at 15 and your opponent at 6, but if your opponent rolls a 2 and you roll a 3, your opponent wins. Sure, the opponent had a higher chance of failing outright, but when comparing low rolls side by side, skill actually didn't make a difference. The reason these other games make highest successful roll succeed is that it gave the edge to the more skilled character because the lower skilled character could not succeed trying to beat a high roll because their base skill wouldn't succeed at that roll.

Now, again, I might still be nitpicking here. Maybe this is how it always was in Dragonbane compared to other BRP games. I never had any exposure to previous editions. But I did wonder why Dragonbane does the opposite of other BRP games.

Just my two cents.
 
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Fenhorn
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Tue 24 Jan 2023, 17:22

This has already been discussed and it doesn't do much for opposed rolls unless the active part has a very low skill level and the passive part has a very high skill, a situation that rarely happens and opposed rolls are rare in this game to begin with. For those that like this kind if things, it is an easy thing to house rule in.
“Thanks for noticin' me.” - Eeyore
 
Raven
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Tue 24 Jan 2023, 19:15

I think I will make an easy houserule for this. More math but clearer.

Demon / nat. 20 = critical fail
Roll over Skill = fail
Roll under Skill = success
Roll under 50% of Skill = good success
Dragon / nat. 1 = critical succes

In case of the Same result the higher skill wins.
 
zcthu3
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Tue 24 Jan 2023, 20:00

Low roll doesn’t worry me, but if I was actually going to change it, I would go with margin of success, ie. who has the greatest difference between their skill level and their roll (but it requires more math).
 
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Melvin
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Tue 24 Jan 2023, 23:10

Or above 15-16 you can stop growing up until 18 and gaining a dragon on a 1, 2 and 3. So you don't get more chances to succeed but more chance to crit.
 
Nagisawa
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Thu 26 Jan 2023, 05:43

Low roll doesn’t worry me, but if I was actually going to change it, I would go with margin of success, ie. who has the greatest difference between their skill level and their roll (but it requires more math).
This would make the most sense, without changing the rules.
 
patrikp
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Mon 30 Jan 2023, 11:53

... it doesn't do much for opposed rolls...
Yes it does. The difference in success probabilities are quite big. Compare 7 vs 7 and 10 vs 15 for example.
...opposed rolls are rare in this game...
That is not a good reason to not make sure it's a solid game mechanic.
...it is an easy thing to house rule in...
The amount of people intending to house rule opposed rolls is a clear signal that something is not right.
 
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Fenhorn
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Mon 30 Jan 2023, 12:38

... it doesn't do much for opposed rolls...
Yes it does. The difference in success probabilities are quite big. Compare 7 vs 7 and 10 vs 15 for example.
With 7 vs. 7, the active part only have 35% chance of succeeding in the first place so the opposed roll will only affect those 35%. The active part wins ties so it doesn't matter if the passive part has have 6 or 7.
With 10 vs. 15, the active part has 50% chance of succeeding in the first place, triggering the opposed roll, then it is true that it doesn't matter if the passive part has a skill level of 10-15, so the passive part (assuming a skill level of 15), technically looses 6 skill levels here that he can't use, but on the other hand, he wins if the active part rolls 11-20 no matter what skill level he has.
...opposed rolls are rare in this game...
That is not a good reason to not make sure it's a solid game mechanic.
As the rules are written, yes it is rare and that is a good reason, because, why spending time and effort re-writing something and double check all the references and skill uses that are based on this for something that doesn't happen very often, at when it happens the differences isn't very big, unless of course the active part has a very low skill level and the passive has a very high skill level, but in that case, the active part will fail most of his time anyway.

I do agree that the system as it is written now, falls short when both are active, like in arm wrestling, but, other than arm wrestling (which is the famous example here), I struggle to come up with more examples.
...it is an easy thing to house rule in...
The amount of people intending to house rule opposed rolls is a clear signal that something is not right.
Well, there are a few people that keep talking about it, on various platforms yes, over and over. That doesn't necessary mean they are plenty.

We will see when Beta v3 comes out later this week or the next week, but they didn't change it in Beta v2 .
“Thanks for noticin' me.” - Eeyore
 
patrikp
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Mon 30 Jan 2023, 16:30

... it doesn't do much for opposed rolls...
Yes it does. The difference in success probabilities are quite big. Compare 7 vs 7 and 10 vs 15 for example.
With 7 vs. 7, the active part only have 35% chance of succeeding in the first place so the opposed roll will only affect those 35%. The active part wins ties so it doesn't matter if the passive part has have 6 or 7.
With 10 vs. 15, the active part has 50% chance of succeeding in the first place, triggering the opposed roll, then it is true that it doesn't matter if the passive part has a skill level of 10-15, so the passive part (assuming a skill level of 15), technically looses 6 skill levels here that he can't use, but on the other hand, he wins if the active part rolls 11-20 no matter what skill level he has.

I meant comparing with alternative mechanics for opposed rolls, for example the mechanic in the original DoD. Let's compare:
7 vs 7: 30% in Dragonbane vs 50% in DoD classic (and all other games that I know of that have opposed rolls as a mechanic).
10 vs 15: 39% in Dragonbane vs 25% in DoD classic

Those are big differences. Moreover it is easier to succeed with 10 vs 15 than 7 vs 7 in Dragonbane, which is counter intuitive. And of course, 10 vs 10 and 10 vs 18 having the same success chance is also counter intuitive.

I won't go on more about this now, but I felt that it was in place to show the numbers because I honestly think a lot of ppl havent grasped the implications of the rule as written. It is very simple in how to use it, but surprisingly difficult to understand how it really works. Of course, it's a designer choice to go for simple and fast mechanics, and if that's the final result then at least I have provided the feedback :)
 
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Gaddeborg
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Re: Please consider making high rolls win opposed rolls

Mon 30 Jan 2023, 21:17

For the english speakers, in the same discussion in the swedish part of the forum, SirD made this table that shows the statistics of opposed rolls (active is the x-axis, passive the y-axis):

Image

As the rules are written, yes it is rare and that is a good reason, because, why spending time and effort re-writing something and double check all the references and skill uses that are based on this for something that doesn't happen very often, at when it happens the differences isn't very big, unless of course the active part has a very low skill level and the passive has a very high skill level, but in that case, the active part will fail most of his time anyway.

I do agree that the system as it is written now, falls short when both are active, like in arm wrestling, but, other than arm wrestling (which is the famous example here), I struggle to come up with more examples.
I don’t find the mechanic of opposed rolls to be peripheral, but an important part of the system. And both players and GM can choose how often it’s used by using the advanced maneuvers in combat, where opposed rolls are currently integrated. Examples:

Grapple, topple and disarm: You cannot use your skill to defend against being grappled, it’s only the attacker's skill that matters. A peasant with Brawling 10 can grapple the arch villain with Brawling 18, leading to the arch villain having to spend a round getting free, with the potential of being grappled by more people. The same goes for toppling and disarming. No heroic abilities can currently help the arch villain, so he is pretty much doomed against a couple of unarmed brawly peasants.

Poison: Your CON-value does not matter, it’s only the poison strength that matters (since poison is active and you are passive if I remeber correctly).

Persuasion: It’s almost as easy to Persuade someone with WIL 18 as someone with WIL 5.

Defense against magic: Your WIL does not matter when a magician tries to use DOMINATE on you.

In my opinion, FL makes good use of the internet hive mind to sharpen the mechanics of their games, and this is one of the mechanics that the hive mind really ought to discuss and point out. Especially since said hive mind (us discussing it) did not point out the full extent of the problem after beta1.

I think this game will be very, very good, so it would be a shame if there will be a need to house rule around some mechanics just because we did not discuss them.

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