OK, tonight an iconoclastic and theorical question…
If difficulty level (which are NPC’s competence or the environment’s resistance to PC’s action) are absent from the dice mechanic of BitD (and all PbtA games really) and people are cool with this… then, for coherence, shouldn’t PC’s competence (ie Action ratings) be irrelevant too ? Or to be more precise, not irrelevant, but not providing more dice to roll : they should be taken into account by the GM ONLY to set the Position and Effect. Same for assistance, pushing yourself, Devil’s Bargain.
Then we always shoot two dice only… faster, simpler, and above all more logical.
What do you think?
For me the fact that the PCs are Player Controlled makes all the difference. It may be more consistent and not biased toward PCs, but it’d also be incredibly infuriating to keep rolling failures at something you’re supposed to be a master at. There are times you want to have a greater than 50% chance to fully succeed at regular effect and in a Risky position, rather than a 50% chance at critical effect and in a controlled position.
From a logical standpoint, it makes no sense that my socially awkward master assassin has as good a chance of success at taking a guard out silently as sweet talking a noble at the governor’s ball.
As far as faster and simpler, I disagree. It’s already simple: for an action, you roll how many dots you have in that action. The GM already has a lot to consider with Position and Effect (literally everything from the narrative that’s relevant), adding more would serve to complicate their calculations and would slow the game down.
This is a very Big Idea. I’m turning it over in my head. I’m also a very big fan of factors being balanced and PCs not being special snowflakes. That said, Blake’s point about never having more than a 50% chance of success makes sense. Also, how would pushing and bargains be factored? Can you explain the formula a little more?
Rebecca W + Blaze : well, it is not an idea that I have thoroughly thought over… yet. Of course, it would be very disconcerting for most RPG players to have always the same chance of success whatever the ratings of the PC… but would it be more disconcerting than having always the same chance of success whatever the competence of the foe or the difficulty of the task, as is already the case in PtbA and BitD ? In those games, difficulty is not represented by a dice’s percentage of success.
It is true, as Blaze writes, that taking ALL factors (PC ratings, difficulty, push, assistance & DBs…) into account to set the Position and Effect would maybe slow the game down a bit.
BUT it would not be more illogical than the current situation, which is already disconcerting (no variable chance of success according to variable difficulty levels) for most players coming from more trad games.
In fact it would maybe me MORE logical, thanks to the coherence.
And the exemple that Blaze gives (“There are times you want to have a greater than 50% chance to fully succeed at regular effect and in a Risky position, rather than a 50% chance at critical effect and in a controlled position.”) is not a good argument against my point, since when you change the position and effect you do not change the chance of success.
Anyway I agree that my question was just a theoretical exercise, it would probably not add anything to this game.
Also, difficulty are already accounted for in the mechanics:
– If by difficulty you mean “the risk”, it’s position.
– if you mean “how hard it is to accomplish something” it’s effect and/or clocks.
– if you mean “how competent is the opposition” there’s a section about powerful npc: you can make a PC react to a competent NPC action (instead of guiding the action) or just say what the NPC does and make them resist.
Also, I feel like the rules establish Position and Effect as ways to reflect enemy competency. When you say there’s a 50% chance to succeed, that word “succeed” can have vanishing meaning (including an example where “successfully” striking a demon inflicts no damage at all due to being scaled out of effect). Against a vastly superior opponent in a straight fight, a success may simply mean taking no harm. While I agree the level of abstraction takes a lot of getting used to, it’s not completely accurate to say that antagonist’s capabilities aren’t reflected.
MisterTia86 I know this. Difficulty is accounted for, but not in term of “probability of success when you throw the dice”. That’s why it would be quite the next logical step to also not having the PC’s action rating influencing the dice’s probability of success.
Rebecca W Yes indeed. And the mention of a “50% chance to succeed” was Blaze’s, not mine !
Wait… Who said difficulty levels were absent from PbtA? They’re just not part of the dice mechanic.
Let’s say we’re playing The Sprawl, and I’m the MC.
Against a loser BTL addict, you only need to deal 1-Harm to take them out. She might have a knife or pepper spray at most.
Sneaking past her on a 6-, I’ll probably offer you an opportunity that highlights your playbook instead of making a hard move. “Seems she’s pretty alert, so stealth is out.
But she’s also clearly hard up for some new BTLs, Fixer. So there’s that opportunity. What do you do?” OFFER AN OPPORTUNITY OR COST THAT HIGHLIGHTS THEIR PLAYBOOK)
Against an elite corp security officer, you’ll need to deal 3-Harm to take her out, she’s probably wearing 2-armor and carrying a serious gun, and a 6- on a Act check to sneak past her will result in a much harder move. (“You think you’re clear when you feel the cold plasteel of her HK-227’s muzzle against the back of your neck. Turns out SHE got the drop on YOU. ‘Don’t fucking move,’ she says as she backs away and takes out her radio. What do you do?” PUT SOMEONE IN A SPOT)
Jon Lemich Your narrative flair got me squishy. 🙂
Jon Lemich Well Jon, you write : “Wait… Who said difficulty levels were absent from PbtA? They’re just not part of the dice mechanic.”
It seems we agree, since my second sentence was “If difficulty levels (which are NPC’s competence or the environment’s resistance to PC’s action) are absent from the dice mechanic of BitD (and all PbtA games really)…”
I am indeed not arguing that difficulty levels are absent from the games. I am arguing that if difficulty levels are absent from the dice mechanic, then the next logical step is to NOT include the action ratings of the PCs in the dice mechanic. A bit rad but logical. The PC’s ratings and competence would also be used to set position and effect.
You could do that, of course, but then you’d want to remove Moves. Once there’s no Intelligence and Wisdom, Spout Lore and Discern Realities become almost redundant. Why not just run the core 2d6 6-/7to9/10+ roll as the alpha and omega of the system?
The answer is that you could, but you’d lose a lot. The stats and moves frame and subtly guide player choices toward action that defines the game. They make Monsterhearts different from Uncharted Worlds and Kult: Divinity Lost different from Blades in the Dark.
Also, stats are what make a Batrlebabe different from a Gunlugger or Brainer. Stats are basic moves. Every PBTA game has a basic move for every stat. (The Veil aside). Battlebabe, with three Cool, can get out of any trouble (Act Under Fire) and is great at sneaky stuff (the ambush moves particularly, but Act Under Fire is also the core Sneaky Shit mechanic in AW). Brainer, with two Weird (or more) can Open their minds to the the Psychic Maelstrom and get cool insights all the time. Custom moves only reinforce and flavor this core move for the playbook.
Look at The Veil and Dungeon World for PbtA games where stats aren’t tied to playbooks (though in DW, they might as well be because of fantasy tradition. Still, a high Cha Ranger would be super fun to play, but I digress). The Veil, especially, does something weird and thoughtful with them. What other PBTA games fuck with stats to extreme levels?
So.. :thinking: let’s say you set the expected position and effect accordingly as you describe – in the Discussion. Then, you roll Dice – always the same amount. Well.. all you did was take 1 layer of result determination from the Dice, and give them back to the Discussion. This is actually how D20 and Apocalypse World does things – roll X (some dice, maybe just one), add Y (the competence and ratings), and get Z (the effect). Of course, it probably doesn’t feel quite like that because the Discussion is framed a little differently – but it is the same basic concept.
However, this also takes a step back from one of the most enjoyable parts of what I’d call the “Blades dice pool minigame” – when you take that away, you remove the way the varying dice pool size rewards the player for having a large dice pool: A zero-dice pool is riddled with consequences and no surprising windfalls (you cannot crit with a pool of zero). A bigger pool will bring less consequences and more crits. This is what separates +1d from +1 effect/position – and probably why bonus dice are easiest to get from teamwork and devil’s bargains – things that the game wants you to use to avoid consequences.
To me, the dice pool thing is important – it’s quite integral to the experience. All this is motivating player desires as much as it shaping the tone of the game. Early characters are often getting into trouble every action – whereas veterans are rarely do. Plus it helps keep things fun even when characters do get more competent (you can still fail to roll a 6 even when you are rolling 4+ dice, for example)