Diceless Effect and Resistance

Diceless Effect and Resistance

Diceless Effect and Resistance

So, this is a modification I’ve been considering for a while now. Recent conversations have convinced me that it might be a good change for the game.

Rather than rolling for Effect and Resistance, you simply use the Effect rating to determine how much progress you make or how much stress it costs to resist a danger. Here’s how it works:

Effect

To determine the scope of your action, choose an appropriate effect rating (Force, Finesse, Influence, Insight, Maneuver, Will). By default, you inflict 1-segment per diamond, and +1 segment if you’re using a fine item.

If your action roll resulted in “increased effect” you do +1 segment of effect. If your action roll resulted in “reduced effect” you do -1 segment of effect.

Resistance

To resist the consequences from a danger that manifests, select an appropriate effect rating. You may choose to take stress equal to [6 minus the effect rating] to resist the consequences from the danger at hand, or instead suffer the threatened harm.

——————–

This approach is starting to appeal to me. It minimizes rolling, and simplifies the action + effect and resistance concepts in the mind-space of the game, I think.

The way this interacts with teamwork (setup) is another issue, but it’s easily solved.

What do you think?

79 thoughts on “Diceless Effect and Resistance”

  1. I think that is a lot simpler but I do like Action and Effect rolls the way they are right now. Some observations I have:

    -This mechanic will promote players to try to resist always with their higher effect. 

    -There is no “gamble”. We lose the idea that you can resist a dangerous outcome unscattered, or that a minor bad outcome can be a lot worse than it looks.

    -Of course, is more agile, simpler and faster on the table.

    Let me read it one more time…

  2. Not a fan of it at all, really. I really love the divide between Action and Effect as it stands, and turning one of them into a simple equation isn’t nearly as interesting to me. 

  3. My first though is that it would on the one hand make progress on a clock for effect rolls a lot slower and more predictable.

    If I take my mission thing the players would have had just to each do a effect and it would be done. It would as well lead to the clock being increased by three,.. which is a bit odd as most suggested clocks were in steps of two.

    The resistance roll makes a lot more stress then the usual roll?

    Even with an effect rating of 2 – which is the highest at character creation – the character will eat 4 stress at every resistance situation. Having the second one push him into trauma,..

  4. I ran the game last night, and based on feedback I’ve gotten from at least one player, I think this change would appeal to them, at least.  

    I was initially worried about how much this would slow the completion of progress clocks, but running some numbers makes me think it might not be too big of a deal: if my math was right, the expected value of a 2-diamond Effect roll is only 2.42 segments, anyway.

    At the very least, I think I might test this out next game. 

  5. Damn, both are good options… You know what I’d do? I’d have this method for everyday, routine rolls, like sneaking by the bluecoat station or intimidating the local informant. And the old method as extended conflicts, like escaping from the Daemon of Scurlock Manor or dueling with Mylera on the temple rooftops. 

  7. Yeah, the stress numbers will need to be tweaked a bit. 4  stress per resist  for starting characters is rather rough. Perhaps not a terrible thing… but rough.

  8. 6-effect? The worst result under the old way was 4 stress.

    The change is definitely going to make starting out a lot rougher. You won’t be able to “soak” the consequences of more than one bad roll without taking trauma—two if they are both in something you specialize in.

  9. Since I had the numbers handy from the previous calculation, I ran the expected Stress value for 2-diamonds. It’s 2.17, so that is a big difference. 

    (Again with the caveat that my math is right.)

  10. But it might imply that starting characters should accept more bad outcomes. 

    I will keep the old method with #theMalkavs  for now, and if I still have eight players on my saturday table, will introduce this new method with #theWarts .

  11. Thinking about it more, I think a meaner method for resistance (at the beginning) is possibly quite good. It makes it very useful to have Backup who can step in and take stress in your place. By spreading it around the team, you can still avoid trauma, but without backup, you’re very vulnerable.

    I like that.

    In the current version, I don’t see the “suffer danger for a teammate” option used much at all.

  12. See, one of the things I like about the Effect roll as it stands in the quickstart is that if you’re lucky enough, you can keep skinning the cat and dodging the consequences without taking stress (or just one stress, etc.). It’s unlikely, but just tempting enough to push yourself farther than you should. A lot of bad ideas can come from, “But guys, there’s a chance that I’ll be totally fine.” These rules here are more consistent, but do lose that feeling.

  15. I think that it is a huge reason. But again, both methods might work on the same table. Players play it safe for the routine rolls and have a higher risk scene for really defining situations.

  16. I think I still like rolling better then the diceless approach ^^

    Apart from amassing a lot of stress very quickly, 4 is the best result, they may end up with 5 or 6. Like some players may spread 1 diamond to each value or use a really sucky on.

    It does make imho effect clocks quite foreseeable.

    Before I can do an effect of 0/8 and wonder if they need 2 steps or more and if they encounter different clocks. With this one I feel like I can quickly calculate the outcome advance… feeling a bit less like “play to see what happens”,… Same for the small clocks. I can do a 0/2 currently to see if the player manages in one go,.. without the roll that wouldn’t be a question..

  17. I think it sounds awesome. I love elegance, and this was a big hurdle for my new players. Assisting effect separately from action seemed strange. As did accepting separate devil’s bargains.

    Effect could still be boosted by fine items, as you mention, and also Set Up actions from an ally?

    One significant change is that now resisting effects cannot be modified by fine items, Backup assistance, Devil’s Bargains, particularly potent effects/NPCs, or NPC armor. That’s a lot of padding players lose, meaning harmful effects will likely be more common (which isn’t a bad thing).

    Not having played with this mechanic, I am a little concerned about lacking the gamble Duamn Figueroa mentioned, and less so about the slower progress on clocks.

    As Jim DelRosso said, 2 diamonds, a fine item, and +1 effect from your roll (and maybe backup), can land you with 4 or 5 segments, which isn’t shabby or unrealistic. Progress clocks seemed almost too easy to me. One of my players completed 6 of 8 segments on a long-term project in a single downtime roll, which seemed somewhat too easy (although granted that used a different move than the Effect table). Would suggested size of clocks be modified somewhat? Maybe 4s are more common and 8s are rather extreme.

    Keeping the gamble: Perhaps as an equally simple alternative that is more of a gamble, players could roll a single d6 for resistance and subtract their relevant effect rating (rather than just subtract their effect rating from a static 6).

  18. Adam Minnie: Your Keeping the Gamble sounds pretty fun. Badass dangers could roll 2d (or 3d, etc.) and take the best. This could be a very useful way to help the GM think about the potency of a danger.

  19. Jennifer Fuss Yeah, I share your concerns. Which is why the game is the way it is now. I wonder if numbers can be tweaked to make this approach work, though.

  20. John Harper, if Effects still go up only 1/4 sessions, that won’t just be “at the beginning” for most groups, it’ll be “most of the game”.

    Also, Vice is currently an effect—do the same rules apply for regaining your stress? Even if it remains a roll, beginning players will likely clear only a couple of stress on their recovery rolls and the group only has 1 or 2 coin to help out.

    I worry that this will tip over into death spiral territory very quickly.

  21. My newest game, Mythic Mortals (coming out tomorrow!) Does something similar to this.

    Player can choose to dodge a threat, and must roll the dice under the value of the slot. 

    Or players can block, no rolls required. Blocking simply reduces the damage taken by the value of the slot.

    So the choice becomes:

    Do I try to roll 2d6 below 8, and take no damage?

    Or do I simply reduce the damage by 8, and suffer 6 damage?

    In practice, it’s a really fun choice, and gives players a lot more control about how to react to situations and threats.

  22. The Vice roll remains as is. (Calling it an effect roll is a bit weird anyway. It’s just a Vice roll.)

    And yeah, Jeff, there are potential issues with the numbers here, which I think can be addressed, if the idea is worth doing. Tweaking some numbers is not much of a hurdle.

  23. I think Keeping the Gamble balances the math more appropriately.

    Do you think 2d or 3d is better than just +1 to the d6 roll for armored, elite, or otherwise badass dangers? I think this method could have some fun with special abilities: “When resisting physical/supernatural/social effects, roll 2d instead of one and keep the lowest.”

  25. My first reaction was, “Oh, yuck.”

    I like rolling and I like risk.  In a game like this it seems like the outcomes should be more variable.  The current Effect dice mechanic is already elegant in that (as the quick-start states) there is no roll where nothing happens.

  26. Another question is, what if players have 0 in a given effect rating? Then they can only make progress with that effect by using fine gear, or getting +1 effect from the action roll (and maybe being set up).

    A solution to this could be having players start with 1 effect in each rating.

  27. Another option is to use diceless Effect and still roll for Resistance (as is).

    I think these options are worth trying out. I’m not committing to anything here… this needs playtesting and tweaking before we can tell if it’s any good.

  30. As another thought, since taking stress is more vicious, here, I think it might actually encourage me to be less vicious in the game itself. As in, as the quickstart stands, I feel safe in being more bloody-minded: hey, if I have an assassin attack someone while they’re sleeping, hey they get the Effect roll and might manage to take it without an issue.

    With this, I’m not so sure I would, since it’s basically me saying, “Take at least 4 Stress.” Which seems meaner, to me, than the chance to mitigate the Stress, and then you choose whether to take it or not. 

    Maybe it’s not a problem (I’d have to play with the new rules, whatever they might look like in the end, to be sure), maybe it is. Just thinking this over.

  35. John Harper I agree that calling Vice an effect roll is weird, but you did it in the QS. 😉 I noticed when I was reviewing the rules for getting rid of stress.

    And of course numbers can be tweaked, I was just pointing out places where that’s likely to be necessary.

    That said: the idea of rolling for action and resistance but not effect intrigues me. Resistance fills the slot of “this is what you do instead of having the GM roll Action”, so I think having dice involved there makes it nicely symmetrical and helps keep the player invested.

    It also prevents one Action roll from “triple dipping” on bad stuff: not only did you not do what you wanted, but you got a lousy effect, and you have to pay stress/suffer other consequences.

    I am probably not playing again until next Thursday, but I can give this variant a shot then and see how it goes.

  36. I think it could be a good idea. It would be cool to orient the rolling more strongly around the Action roll, since that’s already where the meat of rolling is.

    It could be good to roll for Resistance, though I could see it being a little confusing between rolling for that and not rolling otherwise. I would probably prefer the Effect roll working the same in both cases but I don’t think it would be a big deal.

  40. I feel that Effect is too complicated at the moment largely because there are all these different effects, but very little game-mechanical reason to use one or the other as I understand them at present. I feel like this change just doubles-down on the player incentive to only use Effects that he has diamonds in, so long as he can come up with any way of justifying how it is done in that mode; otherwise, you start with an effect of zero for a successful roll, which feels like taking risk for no reward.

  41. Maybe a nice ‘difficult choice’ could be for the Backup option? Which also increases the teamwork interplay…

    ALL players may Backup: Assist by adding one diamond to the Effect, so long as they take one stress (and narratively justify their aid). 

    This allows larger clocks to be overwhelmed faster through stressful teamwork.

  42. I like this a lot to simplify Action rolls (i.e., not rolling Action and then Effect), but I would probably still roll Resistances since that can be fun and dramatic.

  43. Been turning over this change while sitting here at work. I think I like the way it progresses clocks. My group was definitely a lot more interested in the action rolls than the effect rolls. This would help speed through the mechanics they are less interested in while still keeping the effects mechanics basically in there.

    I’m not entirely sure I like the way it works with resist. Until I try it out, though, I’m not sure if I will be able to fully articulate or nail down what it is about the resist mechanic that is bothering me. I think the big thing is that there is a certain sense of empowerment when you get to roll the dice to resist an incoming effect that isn’t there when it is a passive ability. 

  47. (EDIT: On further thought, the idea in this post is pretty much the same as the QS standard effect roll)

    What if… After a successful action, roll d6 for each of the relevant Effect’s diamonds The result of the highest die = segments overcome.

    +1d if you are using a fine item

    +1d if you achieved an increased effect on your action

    +1d if you are Following Through on an ally’s Set Up action.

    -1d if you achieved a diminished effect on your action

    -1d if opposition is armored or notably potent

    This is almost the conceptual reverse of the Keeping the Gamble idea:

    When you resist a threat/danger, Spend stress equal to 1d6-rating or suffer the danger/effect. Notably potent effects may require you to roll 2d6 or 3d6 and subtract from the highest result.

    This way, you’re always still using a “roll pool of d6s; keep the highest”, you’re just doing different things with the result:

    Action: Result indicates level of success/cost based on position

    Effect: Segments accomplished

    Resistance: Stress cost to avoid taking a threat.

  49. I would sacrifice plenty to cut the number of rolls almost a third. Less rolls means more time taking action in the fiction, speeding up play and building an exciting conversation. We’ll certainly try this next Monday.

  50. I can see the appeal to skip the effect roll, but like that it feels too much like the effect roll is still here but without the roll and I don’t find that elegant (maybe if I have never seen the rules with the effect roll, I would not have this sensation).

    If the effect roll have to go, I would prefer the effect to be totally integrate in the result of the Action Roll and don’t have to calculate the effect after the roll (even if the calculation is easy).

  53. John Harper Seems to me the obvious solution would be to take you rating (+any bonuses) as your roll, or, if your character takes a separate action to increase the effect or to resist, you can roll those dice and take the highest roll instead. Thus allowing for rolls (esp. in cases where there is no action roll) and gambling (for players willing to add to the narrative), while still conforming to the “don’t roll twice for the same thing” ethos.

  54. While the double roll can feel a bit fiddly, I don’t really like the idea of keeping that as a fixed value…

    John Harper, have you ever considered wrapping up the two rolls, Action and Effect, in a single pooled roll with dice allocated after, in the style of Otherkind Dice and Psi*Run?

  55. I actually do like the separate rolls for actions and effects, resistance a lot.

    The suspense generated by rolling the dice is a major fun factor for me. (One reason why I am not that happy with one-roll resolution mechanics.)

  56. Yes, Alberto, I’m considering something like that. Just musing, really. I’m pretty happy with the current rolls, but there might be a better solution.

  57. Several comments advocate the suggested diceless method of determining stress taken as “making the game starting a lot rougher”.

    I do not feel this is something to be desired at all.

    In my BitD play experiences succeeding as a crew is HARD. That translates to “hard enough, without becoming overly frustrating”.

    Accumulating enough stress to get traumatized after only two action attempts looks incredibly frustrating to me. This would make the PCs a bunch of very incompetent losers, failing even at their specialty tasks regularly and stressfully, getting traumatized by simply doing, what they are supposed to do for a living!

    And as the quickstart rules only offer a very slow and costly recovery from accumulated stress and none at all to recover from trauma, this is a bit (too) HARD already.

    No, I do not advocate for Leverage-style “over-competency porn” (although this is a lot of fun, too). But I do not like to play essentially incompetent PCs failing more often at their tasks than it would be plausible for them to even survive to their starting age in the game world.

    For my taste, the current quickstart stress rules are already at the upper limit of acceptable failure and consequences. Accumulating more stress from fewer action attempts resulting in having characters to retire even earlier by accumulated trauma is nothing I look forward to in this game.

    Yes, reducing dice rolling a bit might “speed up game play” a bit. But is the resolution step of an effect roll really such a big problem, that it justifies such a change to more deterministic downward spirals?

    One thing I really like and vastly prefer in BitD compared to PbtA-based systems is actually having separate rolls and an escalating risk for continuing to roll. – One-roll resolution might be a bit faster at the table, but seems to me more than a bit bland and unexciting.

  58. Frank Falkenberg  yes less dice rolling justifies the cost, as i see the game the pcs arent super heroes and failling is very plausible, more having account the opositions, strong organizations, with more cappable crew, ghosts, demons et all. i like much more the diceless effect. Rememeber that the effect isnt for the action is for the outcome, forgivme my bad english. i can read it better than write it or speak.

  60. With the caveat that I’ve not yet played the game, I think rolling for both Action and Effect is a strong part of the system. Any chance this method and the fixed damage method (however it shakes out) can exist side by side in the final rules?

  62. It may be worth noting that increased or diminished level of effect from an action roll equates to more like +2 or -2 segments of effect, which gives some decent random variability to the effect, rather than being purely deterministic.

    Therefore, if you get increased effect on a roll, and a fine item, you could overcome 3 segments even with 0 rating in the related effect. Add a rating of 2 instead of 0 (max starting value) and someone setting you up and you can overcome 6 or 7 segments. That’s equivalent or better than a single critical effect roll in the original system.

    What’s great about this is that choosing to overreach for increased effect is more tangibly valuable, and therefore perhaps worth the risk, but it still is a gamble since the action roll is by no means certain. With this system, there will be more reason to risk an action re-roll if it could mean +2 segments instead of -2 segments.

    The “No Whiffing” rule could also definitely still apply, meaning that no matter what, an action will always achieve 1 segment (as it currently does). That removes the problem of having 0 effect rating and no bonuses. You still might roll an increased effect to raise your minimum result (1 segment) to 2 segments (rating goes from 0 to 2).

  63. Kyle Cantrell, I almost agree. Determining Action and Effect separately is a key feature of the system. I’m less convinced they must both be determined randomly however.

    I can see an analogy here with how Apocalypse World and Dungeon World answers “How much harm/damage?”. AW determines it non-randomly, basically look at what’s already established in the fiction. DW determines it randomly, roll some more dice, the size depending on who’s dealing damage.

    Now both AW and DW determine moves (or actions) randomly. The difference is AW doesn’t add randomness to the effect of (combat) actions. I feel the randomness of DW’s damage rolls often weakened the “action” moves in DW; that the double randomness to calculate damage in DW was not a feature but  bug.

    John’s idea here makes me curious if the same might be true of Blades.

  64. Nice examples there Adam Minnie Thanks for the breakdown.

    I’m tending towards the static effect and rolled resistance now. It will be interesting to see how it feels in play.

  66. I could see this work very well for blades like this:

    1. Only Action Roll if the effect is obvious (i.e. break-in a door, you either enter the house or not, doesn’t matter how much you’ve broken the door)

    2. Only Effect Roll where the action is obvious (or unavoidable) and you just want to know “how good/bad is it?” (i.e. we want our hero to pass the barrier, how much is it gonna cost him?; or our team is already screwed/captured etc., just how bad?)

    3. Both Action and Effect Roll for the classic approach: determine if you succeed, then determine how much.

    Needs a lot of Playtesting and a good guideline when to use what. Still, quite a “game changer”.

  67. As a suggestion, maybe the diceless variant could be offered as a (very optional) option?

    Both sessions of Blades in the Dark I played wouldn’t have worked with the new rules. The characters would have been traumatized by the second time they didn’t took the danger.

    Most would have even had some stress to spare to approach the next traumatized level. The scores wouldn’t have worked with the clocks given as it would have taken longer or would be boring.

    From a player perspective. The feedback I got was that the game already felt rather meta. Removing the dice from the effect rolls would foster the impression. I think it will feel unrewarding to decide which effect diamonds to use and just to calculate the result. So it wouldn’t even speed up the game.

    From my GM perspective. It would make the game predictable and contradict the ‘play to find out’ approach.

    Aside from the predictable clocks and the vast amount of stress it would remove part of the “risk fun”. I see it as a feature that players get the possibility to do a dare with their characters, to push their luck hard.

    Overall it doesn’t feel well embedded in the rules.

    Currently you got modifier to the effect level as well as modifieres to the effect dice pool. Both would be dimished, leaving a gap in the mechanics.

  68. BeePeeGee RPG

    I think it already works like that. The effect roll isn’t always necessary, e.g. I want to murder a guard, the GM doesn’t see the guard like a big obstacle, so no clock, and so no need to have a effect roll (I kill him or not).

    In return, sometimes you could skip the action roll, e.g. if my lair has a library, for some research, I just need a effect roll (no danger in my own home). But it seems more uncommon (even if there is no danger, you could still roll action in a controlled situation).

  69. The danger of doing stuff in the library could be either abstract or related to future events.

    When my players forged a great painting the danger was that the forgery wouldn’t stand inspection,..

  70. I like the rolling for resisting effect, cause the player have their destiny in hand at that moment.

    But i think it will be great to have the action result and its scope in only one roll.

    Maybe with something like this :

    on a 6 two options :

    – sucess without suffer a effect = apply your diamons score as “damage” (segment on the obstacle clock) + 1 “damage” if you have a fine object + 1 “damage” per backup.

    – If you decide to suffer a effect = crit

    on a Crit :

    you got +2 “damage” (in this case you can easely beat a 4 segment clock) and +1 “damage” for each “6” after the two needed for the crit. (with 3 “6” you gain a +3 bonus “damage”)

    I will test Blade in The Dark next monday, i could try something like this.

  71. So, yeah, the numbers are not quite right in the example I posted. Let’s not freak out too much about “death spirals” and ruining the game with excess trauma or whatever. This is simply a concept that may merit more playtesting. If it’s promising, the numbers and outcomes will be fixed to produce the desired results. No one wants to see the characters burn out too quickly, or become incompetent, or any other imagined doomsday scenario.

  72. Apart from indeed a bit panic of the mechanics I’d like to point as well to the argument the rolling dice is quite enjoyable and might be missed by some and basically calculating a fixed value might be seen as, uhm, to calculating ^^;

    Though I’ll try to keep calm on my vivid doomsday imaginations ^^;;; 

  75. Ooooh! John Harper! The added bonus of this diceless effect concept as you point out is the ability to tweak the numbers!!

    So this means you could simulate the game difficulty when you start up a campaign…

    ‘Hey guys are we starting in normal mode, or extra hard?’  🙂 Awesome!

    I’ll test  the action roll / effect tally (default mode as above) / resist (1/2D roll) this weekend.

  76. I like what Adam Minnie was saying about changing the added and diminished effects from +1 to +2. That sounds good.  I also like Nathan Roberts idea of giving another Backup Option to let other players Assist by taking stress to give one diamond of effect.  That mixed with the thought that we can easily hack the difficulty level (like Nathan Roberts just said), sounds to me like something definitely at least worth play testing.  Maybe numbers have to be tweaked a little or something.  But it sounds good to me.

  77. I also had the thought, and this might be a good one but also might be a silly one, that effect rolls could also just simply be made less often.  Less clocks to accomplish things and more yes/no results from action rolls will at least cut down on part of the effect rolls.  I like the versatility of having the option to make any obstacle into a simple action roll, an action roll with a clock that is chewed on automatically without a roll, or a clock with a clock that is chewed on with an action roll.  “How important a roll do we all think this is?  Should this just be an action roll with no clock?  An action roll with automatic clock filling?  Or 2 rolls?”  

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