I like the concept of a system that goes beyond Pass/Fail and adds options beyond the two.
>No, and...
>Yes, but...
Etc. You get the picture. I liked FFG Star Wars at first due to the added "softness" of the system, but I really don't like dice pools and symbols due to having to 'read' the dice.
Is there a system that adds nuance like that without sacrificing numbers? I know a GM can technically do this themselves, but I can imagine it would feel shitty for a player if their success has a drawback at random... Especially if it's severe enough that they might wish they hadn't succeeded. Like a hacker who manages to open a door, but they mess up and at the same time unlock security gates keeping monsters at bay.
Buzz was a gay for denying her. She was better than Mira.
imagine getting her to fellate you and then having her to use her gravity field directed at your member as you orgasm and have jizz literally pulled out of you.
to infinity and beyond indeed
>better than Mira
No, Tina was too easy
I like my women a little reluctant and struggley
I bet Mira squeals good
>I liked FFG Star Wars at first due to the added "softness" of the system, but I really don't like dice pools and symbols due to having to 'read' the dice.
I was about to type "genesys" and leave the thread before I saw you already mentioned it. If you liked the "No, and..." and "Yes, but..." but didn't like adding doing heiroglyph-based arithmetic every roll, why not shrimplify that system down to number dice that accompany every roll. Like 1-6 being "but", 7-14 being nothing, 15-20 being "and", or using 3 and/nothing/but die and going with whatever rolls highest.
Another good mechanic from FFG that's easy to rip off and tack on to any other setting is the fate point system.
Check out Dogs in the Vineyard.
>but I can imagine it would feel shitty for a player if their success has a drawback at random
>Especially if it's severe enough that they might wish they hadn't succeeded.
>Like a hacker who manages to open a door, but they mess up and at the same time unlock security gates keeping monsters at bay.
Generally, graduated success/fail systems and all systems really, should be built around the idea of dice rolls being for dangerous and uncertain outcomes or procedural generation. If its not a risky activity, mark time, say it happens and move on with the game.
Due to the narrative emergent aspects of they style of game you want it will necessarily always have the gm adding in detail and context.
This one is good though.
You can also add your own gradient to various tables. Can't find it right now but there's a D20 oracle with the lower 10 being
>No, XYZ additional word
and 11-20 being
>Yes, ABC additional word
Probably in the solo general, seems like a thing they'd have.
>If its not a risky activity, mark time, say it happens and move on with the game.
Even D&D has take ten ot take twenty, so it has to be exceedingly shitty system if it didn't have something like this.
Of course small chores and simple actions should not be tested for, but I mean when the risk is not obvious. A success is a success in a pass/fail system. Even a mild one still gets the job done. In my experience, players feel cheated... As if they've been handed a secret failure... If something negative happens.
In our last Dark Heresy game where I was not the GM, one of the players had a bit of a fit in a situation where I think a system that would codify side-effects would have solved the issue. Then again, our GM tends to be very RAW, which I think the player in question interprets as harshness. The GM is great at making battle maps but kind of rigid when it comes to what you can do in combat... What's on the map is what's there... Shooting at the ceiling to drop a candelabra on the enemy is a scenario where he might struggle.
I liked Triumphs, Despair, Threat and the rest from FFG because it's soft enough to allow for imagination but still codifies results. I feel TTRPGs are at their strongest when compared to vidya when they exist in a place computers simply cannot. A computer would have to choose from a preset list and can't adapt to circumstance. Humans can... In my view, TTRPGs should lean into that. When I GM, I never use maps or aids beyond music. I like theatre of the mind.
Regardless, I still enjoy playing with his different style even though some aspects feel like a video game.
To add to this, my primary issue with Genesys is that the dice pool and reading the results actually limits customisation in a way... There are only so many different dice available, and the system becomes quite mercurial when you are thinking about how the different dice impact each other. Numbers are universal. They can be multiplied, divided, subtracted and added to... You can see the big picture to get into the nitty gritty of things when making your own content.
The dice pool is probably what prevented wider adoption. Custom dice suck ass. Like peripherals for a console. People already have the standard sets.
...in...my...experience...anyone...who types... like... this... will... neve...r.... unders....tand.... anything... so... it... doesn't... matter... what I ... respon..........
d... they're too... dumb.
You already missed the point. You've been given solutions to your non problem. Try them or not.
Alright.
If you insert that many options on a d20 or d100, how do you squeeze in the options when the window of success to failure narrows?
The problem with having narrative outcomes be part of a standard distribution is that it doesn't model discrepancies between the success/failure and the side-effects. Think of a character who fails SPECTACULARLY, but there is a powerful 'silver-lining'. If the dice cannot codify such a result, that kind of an outcome would be the domain of a whacky character whose player is alright with adding such flavor to their mere narrow failures. Alternatively, the GM could describe the failure as being huge but with a great silver-lining, though players might again feel cheated by that if it was a narrow failure.
Say the hacker in the example messes up SO BAD that the control panel breaks, meaning none of the party members can reattempt the check due to his huge blunder, so the party will have to make a detour to get to their destination instead of having another party member try again... But hey, at least when the panel broke, it caused the system to release all boxes being transported by the cranes above, creating shelter from enemy fire. Who knows... Maybe some even fell on your assailants in the process?
>standard distribution doesn't model discrepancies between the success/failure and the side-effects
One of the posts you linked literally goes over discrepancies between success and failure and the side effects.
For a narrative system, it's up to the writer to decide the minutae when the general result pops up, and fit it cohesively into the rest of the story.
>Think of a character who fails SPECTACULARLY, but there is a powerful 'silver-lining'
Oh, you mean like "no, but [silver lining]" that was literally written in one of the posts you linked?
And if that doesn't have enough emphasis on the "spectacularly", then you can always add more qualifiers to the table. Modify it to taste and to fit whatever probability curve you desire, like the post said.
>players, GM
Narrative systems aren't games.
>One of the posts you linked literally goes over discrepancies between success and failure and the side effects.
Yes, I meant to include 'as well' there but cut off my sentence by accident, sorry about that... It cannot handle degrees as well because a great success would always or almost always result in a great side-effect as well.
Take my previous example. Say the hacker fails so hard the terminal actually blows up, causing the party to take damage, BUT it also releases a huge box on a group of opponents, turning them to a fine, red paste.
Narrowly missing the TN does not quite model that.
>Narrative systems aren't games.
I disagree. If the point of a TTRPG in favor of video games is that human input from the GM and player creativity allows for pretty much anything you could do in real life, I view that as enhancing the experience... Opinions are like buttholes...
Good narrative systems should still be statistically predictable, meaning a well-built character coupled with smart gameplay comes out on top most of the time in scenarios for which the character is prepared.
Chance is a part of life. The best commander does not auto-win every battle.
>Games aren't simulations, they aren't meant to be real life.
Maybe not, but people can play what they want, and leaning into simulation doesn't exclude an RPG from being a game either. The reasons given above still apply, especially in a bell-curve system, which I prefer.
Narrative systems aren't games because they rely on whims moreso than challenges of skill or luck; there aren't any rules, only suggestions, and there is no structure.
Whether or not you keep the plot, world, and characters consistent isn't a part of the challenge in spite of being the most important part of narrative structure; a failed mission in a cohesive story is equal to a failed mission that resulted in spontaneously generated pink elephants falling over the party members.
A narrative system is a system of guidelines that a person or group uses to write a narrative and encourages flights of whim based entirely off what sounds cool or makes sense at the time, while a game is a set of challenges with consistent measurements in order to test player strength, skill, or luck, judged by what's set in the game and whatever alterations are agreed upon before play.
A game's challenges are meant to be reproducible and fair within established limitations, while a narrative system has no such challenges and no focus on being consistent. In fact, trying to add more rules to a narrative system gets in the way of its goal.
And that aside, the distinction between the two activities are right in the names; "narrative SYSTEM" and "GAME".
None of the things you said in your first paragraph are true, so I didn't bother reading the rest of your post.
>Dogs in the Vineyard
The Mormon game?
Don't bother, the mechanics are forge tier meta shit.
>The Mormon game?
For me, it's a Star Wars game.
>blaster pistol: 1d6+1d4
>lightsaber: 1d6+1d4
but
>sporting blaster: 2d6+1d4
why is the sporting blaster better than a lightsaber? Hell why is a shitty pistol the same as a lightsaber?
1d6 denotes standard/average gear. 2d6 denotes high quality gear. It doesn't mean "one blaster inflicts a maximum of 6 hit points of damage, and another blaster inflicts a maximum of 12 hit points of damage".
If you had a high-quality lightsaber that was made by a lightsaber-crafting expert, it would be 2d6+1d4, instead of the "average" lightsaber that's 1d6+1d4.
tl;dr the high-quality blaster has a better chance of not sucking.
a lightsaber should naturally be high quality
if you need a standard quality lightsaber you should just use a training lightsaber
>a lightsaber should naturally be high quality
>if you need a standard quality lightsaber you should just use a training lightsaber
That would be Lightsaber: 1d4
Some characters are better at building lightsabers than other characters, just like any other craft.
Unrelated, but a two-bladed lightsaber like Maul's would use d8s instead of d6s, because "bigger than normal" gear gets a d8 instead of a d6.
>That would be Lightsaber: 1d4
Lightsabers deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that. I should know what I'm talking about. I myself commissioned a genuine Lightsaber in Coruscant for 2,400,000 Credits (that's about $20,000) and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even deflect blaster rifle shots with my Lightsaber.
Jedi spend years working on a single Lightsaber and add up to a million parts to produce the finest plasma blades known in the galaxy.
Lightsabers can attack thrice as fast as heavy repeating blaster rifles and hit thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a vibroblade can cut through, a Lightsaber can cut through better. I'm pretty sure a Lightsaber could easily bisect a Super Star Destroyer with a simple vertical slash.
Ever wonder why the Yuzan Vhong never bothered conquering the Galaxy? That's right, they were too scared to fight the disciplined Jedi and their Lightsabers of destruction. Even in the Clone Wars, Clone Troopers targeted the men with the Lightsabers first because their killing power was feared and respected.
So what am I saying? Lightsabers are simply the best weapon that the galaxy has ever seen. This is a fact and you can't deny it.
If I was proficient in AI sloppa I would tell the AI to put this guy in a jedi robe
I made an abridged version of the rules to hand out to the players. They were all more or less brand new to tabletop RPGs so maybe it was easier for them to adopt it because they didn't have a lot of preconceptions from D&D-style rules.
I love it when GMs do this sort of thing.
This is so much better than D.O.G.S. Been trying to find a way to use DitV for a game based on shonen / seinen fighting anime.
Thanks; you may have noticed that it's formatted so you can print it double-sided and then cut pages 3-4 in half and have a pair of character sheets with the archetype statblocks on the reverse side.
I do like the Vortex System's success levels. This is the Doctor Who 2e version.
WHRP and 40k systems have a ton of codified dice softness on a d100.
Lots of actions and abilities with RaW effects running on degrees of success/failure.
Also stuff like reversing the digits to get hit locations and doubles causing warp phenomena.
Your players throw 2D6.
One is for success.
One is for danger.
Rolling high is goid news.
Rolling low is bad news.
They decides which dice results goes where.
A while ago I wrote a small adjuvant dice system called "Canonblast" that had let players change or retcon reality using dice rolls.
There were several different "yes, but" or "no, but" consequences.
I can post a link to the google doc if you like.
I'd be happy to read it. ^_^
here you go:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KXmE0FQ0eJbCx2xDGJKoRS_06gBEzsqLsqykz0YjvLE/edit?usp=sharing
If there are parts that are confusing, feel free to let me know. I've playtested this with three different campaigns but I've never really edited the documentation to make sure it's actually comprehensible.
That's cool! It reminds me of Fate Points but with some neat additions. Would work well in a setting where magical energy is abundant in the world itself, explaining the instability of reality.
thanks, I truly appreciate it. When playtesting we found it's also fun in settings that start out pretty low-magic:
Our last campaign was an Honor+Intrigue one set in the 1690s, and began very non-supernatural, up until the players discovered cursed/magic flintlocks that allowed them to Canonblast.
The next few sessions sort of had the same vibe as the PotC movies do: as the players continued, their Canonblasts shaped the world into a progressively supernatural one, making a huge impact on the ICG Load values.
Buzz is married to his job and would never cheat on his wife!
prowlers and paragons
Just do options for
>no, and [very bad thing]
>no, and [bad thing]
>no, and [slightly bad thing]
>no
>no, but [silver lining]
>maybe, but [very bad thing]
>maybe, but [bad thing]
>maybe, but [slightly bad thing]
>maybe
>maybe, but [slightly good thing]
>maybe, but [good thing]
>maybe, but [very good thing]
>yes, but [raincloud]
>yes
>yes, and [slightly good thing]
>yes, and [good thing]
>yes, and [very good thing]
and just cut it down to taste and to fit whatever probability curve you want.
That's all you need for narrative systems.
Ripping Pbta of 2d6 with different results on 6-, 7-9, 10+ works really well.
How would this work in combat? What if a character lands a precise blow, but he slips and falls? The damage roll is separate, but what about degrees of success, for example? It would be better if the outcomes are more or less decoupled from the numbers, so a bad side-effect can happen even if you roll high. It should be rare but possible. Even experts screw up.
>How would this work in combat?
The narrative is progressed based on the guideline set by the result, like any other point of decision calling for a roll.
>The damage roll is separate
No damage roll is needed, because the consequences are baked into the general guidelines. Do you know anything about writing?
>a bad side-effect can happen even if you roll high
Okay, so that would just require a different distribution of probability, where one die says "yes, no, maybe" and the other says "and, neutral, but". Alter it to preference, as I said before.
You don't need much when you're doing a narrative system, anyway, because excessive amendments get in the way of creativity.
>No damage roll is needed
Then you have misunderstood what I wanted entirely. If you are one of the posters who has been telling me I am moronic (which I may well be, lol) because supposedly I didn't "get" the previous solutions, that's a little ironic. You may be trolling, though.
This whole time, it should have been obvious I have been looking for a system that would include the nuance of narrative outcomes without sacrificing numbers, character skills and the rest (hence talking about being able to get into the nitty gritty of numerical aspects). What you are suggesting ONLY does the narrative part. Even Genesys/SWFFG calculates damage, so I am unsure where you got the idea that 'narrative system' means what you seem to think it does. Like I said, the issue I have with the system is the need for custom dice, a dice pool and having to 'read' the dice. Therefore, numbers using conventional dice would be better. At no point did I suggest I want to get rid of stats. More like meld a narrative system with a conventional one.
The subject of the thread requests "best narrative dice system", and the best narrative dice system you're going to get is one that isn't held back by a bunch of mechanical amendments. Read
for the difference between games and narrative systems.
The major point I'm trying to make is that if you're looking for an actual narrative system, you don't need stats and all the extra steps involved. Narrative systems are run by whim anyway, so the numbers don't matter.
there's a french game called Wastburg which uses something like this:
1 - No and something bad happens
2 - No
3 - No but something good happens
4 - Yes but something bad happens
5 - Yes
6 - Yes and something good happens
Circumstances good and bad increase or decrease the number of dice, effectively rolling with advantage or disadvantage and the consequences or success hinge entirely on the scope of the question asked by the player and answered by the dice
Either you break up the action into bits (do I put my opponent on the back foot ? do I slash at his arm to make it easier to disarm him ? do I disarm him ?) for low risk, low reward, or you go for the whole thing (do I win the duel ?) and expose yourself to more severe consequences, including death and infamy
I like the system, it's unobtrusive and allows for quick decision making while retaining some subtleties beyond pass/fail
>I liked FFG Star Wars at first due to the added "softness" of the system, but I really don't like dice pools and symbols due to having to 'read' the dice.
>Is there a system that adds nuance like that without sacrificing numbers?
My buddies and I are developing a system that fits this exact request. It's a two-axis mixed success system that used normal d6 and d10 dice. Here's the overview: The better you are the more d6 you have, the more situational boons you have the more d10 you get. Checks are made against a Challenge Rating which gives the GM d6 and situational snags give d10s. Players and GM both roll their pools and check for results of 1-2-3 (Hits) and the highest number in their own pool. If the player rolls more Hits than the GM, they succeed! Then the highest number in each pool decides if the check either passes or fails with Advantage or Disasvantage, which either adds a good or bad narrative bend to the outcome or can be banked to throw d10 into someone's future dice pool.
Here's the 1.4 rules set, with 1.5 rules coming SoonTM:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1_6LIS5pNmsUW9GE4poleOmNLudZ3PKNh
Pathfinder 2e has varying degrees of success depending on your dice roll, and I would personally yoink that idea and apply it to other systems I like more.