Spectacular Failure is broken

[Supplement Four]

Ok S4. I have seen thread after thread from you complaining about T5. I have to ask, is there any part of it that you like, or is your purpose in continued complaining about separate parts is to get it completely rewritten to your vision?

And...Pendragonman...

I'm not just decrying aspects of T5. I'm illuminating problems AND suggesting solutions.

I've put a lot of work into a game that I don't play in order to make it better.

Sorry you don't see that.

I've got several threads in my sig where I attempt to fix problems that I've highlighted with T5.

And, before you go on with the "completely written in my vision" stuff, realize that I don't play the game and don't plan on playing T5. And, I've sometimes written alternate fix rules, as I did earlier tonight with the two ideas I've had to fix the SS problem.

I welcome other ideas from other Citizens out there.

I don't care if my idea is used to fix T5. Let the best idea from all of those submitted be the fix for T5.

I'd like to see it fixed.

 

[aramis]

In the personal combat section, a chart is provided for Range Bands, and a separate chart is provided for Range Bands and Squares of movement.

Not in CT-77 Bk 1, not CT-81 Bk-1. Yes for TTB (p. 47) and for starter (bk2 p 47), but not explained in text in either book. To get the explanation, you need Snapshot.

 

[Supplement Four]

Since we're talking about the task system in this thread, the Spectacular Failure method is a pretty good rule. It's not possible to roll SF on the easiest of tasks, Easy and Average, and SF gets easier to achieve the harder a task becomes. I could gripe a bit about the early chance of SF. I mean, half a percent chance of a Difficult throw is probably a bit low, I think. But, it's OK. I can live with it. And, I like how a character's chance for SF grows with the difficulty of the task--tasks are hard and the chance that it will result in a royal screw up grows along with the increase in difficulty. Not perfect, but it works pretty well.

This is probably not the best time to bring this up, but after I wrote this, I did some more critical thinking of T5's SF rule, and it really isn't that good of a rule.

The basic way the rule works is sound, and I'll refer what I say in the above quote as the rule's positive points.

But, think about it. Where is the game played? It's played at the early levels of the Difficulty list. Easy, Average, Difficult, and Formidable are the difficulty levels used the most in games.

How often are tasks rolled on difficulties higher than Formidable (4D)? We all know that it's not that often.

Keep that in mind as I point out what's wrong with the SF rule....





SF is not possible on Easy and Average tasks.

The chance of an SF occuring is less than half of one percent. To put that in perspective, that means that SF will occur less than once in 200 Difficult throws.

How many Difficult throws are made in one game? A few?

How many games are played? A lively Traveller game probably happens twice a month, for 5-6 hours per session.

That's 104 sessions per year.

What I'm saying here is that it is very, very likely that people could play a Traveller game for one or more real years and never see a SF happen on a Difficult throw.





OK, so SF gets more likely the higher the difficulty. Remember, though, the game is not played at the later difficulties. We rarely see Impossible and Beyond Impossible throws.

It's a 1.6% chance to have SF on a Formidable throw (4D).

It's a 3.5% chance to have SF on a 5D throw.

What does this mean?



For all practical purposes, SF will never show up in the game.

So, why have the rule if it is never used?

I submit that this rule needs to either be thrown out or tweaked as well, unless you are a Ref that likes haveing the SF result be a very, very, very rare occurence--one that may never happen in your entire Traveller campaign.

 

[Supplement Four]

Not in CT-77 Bk 1, not CT-81 Bk-1. Yes for TTB (p. 47) and for starter (bk2 p 47), but not explained in text in either book. To get the explanation, you need Snapshot.

I've always used TTB, but it's in the LBBs, too.

The range table, page 32 LBB1, shows you the actual distance of each Range category.

LBB2, page 21, shows the 1.5 meter grid.

LBB1, page 32, defines character movement speed and points to the animal Speed ratings in LBB3.



LBB1, page 32, tells us that a range band is 25 meters wide.


So, how far can a character move per combat round on the grid? LBB1, page 32, tells us 1 range band if walking or 2 range bands if running.

25/1.5 = 17 range bands if Walking
50/1.5 = 33 range bands if Running

This is the same as listed in the TB. The only difference is that the TB gives you a chart. But, all the information about tactical movement is in LBB1, albeit spread out a little.

 

[Vladika]

Think about it. By the time you're attempting the Impossible, it's all chaos anyway. In other words, what are we really trying to model at this point?

Rob, I felt that quote summed up T5 nicely, though that obviously wasn't your intent. I bought T5 early, paid nearly $100 US Dollars for it and ALMOST regret having done so. I don't like it for the many reasons I've expressed in other threads. I don't, and won't, play it as is. I do like it sitting on the shelf looking good with the rest of my Traveller collection.

I do like many of the changes it has put forward for Ship design. A LOT of good things there and some long overdue common sense retcon.

I'll say this again, If not for the time and effort you put into ship design examples, I'd have resold T5 a week after I received it and never looked back. You've been a great Ambassador (not an apologist) for T5 and have worked harder than anyone I've seen on CotI to promote it, and always in a fair and impartial manner.

I hate to see the continued infighting here on CotI over T5. Whatever anyone's pet position on T5 is it certainly must be acknowledged that it has been controversial since BEFORE it came out.

T5 is to big for everyone to like everything about it, so, looking at it that way, I'll mine T5 for what I do like, add it into CT, and continue to love and enjoy Traveller.

CT, with all it's flaws, was/is simple, easy to learn, and fun to play. It does require imagination to flesh out but in it's simplicity it does not lend itself to Munchkins or Rules Warriors readily. These two classifications seem to be where we are headed as we continue to trash/defend T5.

The hostility on this board, to each other, and the game, has done nothing to promote Traveller to the public at large and has been fuel for the fires on other boards. Why would anyone take the time, or expense, to get involved in a game diehard fans argue so much about? I feel we, myself included, have turned off many potential players.

Let's do better. Let's be better.

So, I'll end this with a paraphrase of Robs quote above:

what are we really trying to "do" at this point?

 

[whulorigan]

I welcome other ideas from other Citizens out there.

I don't care if my idea is used to fix T5. Let the best idea from all of those submitted be the fix for T5.

I'd like to see it fixed.

In that case, no one has yet respoded to a suggested fix I made upthread:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=457037&postcount=99

Any thoughts?

 

[Supplement Four]

In that case, no one has yet respoded to a suggested fix I made upthread:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=457037&postcount=99

Any thoughts?

I think the T5 players should answer that. But, I think some will find it too fidgety. You've got to roll an extra die.

What you're basically doing is providing a SS check, not unlike the check in d20 games (if a Critical Threat is rolled, then a second roll is made for a hit, and if successful, Extra damage happens).

In layman's terms, your version of SS is this: If the task is successful at one level harder than required, then SS is achieved.

I'm not sure the chance of SS occurence would be low enough using this method.

 

[rancke]

I think the T5 players should answer that. But, I think some will find it too fidgety. You've got to roll an extra die.

Perhaps if that extra die didn't interfere with the basic roll? Roll one extra die of another color with every throw. On a roll of 1 on that die, the result is spectacular, success or failure as the result of the rest of the dice indicates. That will give you a spectacular result every sixth roll. If you think that's too frequent, roll two dice for spectacular results on a throw of 2 (or whatever result has the desired frequency). Or, unless you're fanatically devoted to six-siders, a die with a different number of sides.


Hans

 

[Murdoc]

In that case, no one has yet respoded to a suggested fix I made upthread:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showpost.php?p=457037&postcount=99

Any thoughts?

Compared to other ideas, yes, it is too fidgety. But I still think it could work though. Even though you have to roll another die, it's basically saying to the player: "You have succeeded at your roll. You don't have to roll again, but if you do, you might get SS." I think they'd do it.

In layman's terms, your version of SS is this: If the task is successful at one level harder than required, then SS is achieved.

This is what I mean by it being to fidgety compared to other systems: if I was playing MT (which basically does something similar), we already know whether we got SS as soon as we know whether we succeeded or not. Just comes with having roll-low and multi-die I guess.

 

[Original_Carl]

This would be a great discussion to have in-person over a weekend.

 

[whulorigan]

This is what I mean by it being to fidgety compared to other systems: if I was playing MT (which basically does something similar), we already know whether we got SS as soon as we know whether we succeeded or not. Just comes with having roll-low and multi-die I guess.

What you could do is make that extra die (as has been suggested in other posts) a different color and roll them all at once. You just remember that the different colored die is special, and only contributes to determining spectacular success.

 

[whulorigan]

In layman's terms, your version of SS is this: If the task is successful at one level harder than required, then SS is achieved.

I'm not sure the chance of SS occurence would be low enough using this method.

If the probability for SS is too high, then you could always say that you roll 2 extra dice, instead of one. (Implying that SS is achieved if you would have succeeded at the task at 2 levels higher in difficulty).

 

[daltoncalford]

Here's another fix I just thought about that might be worth exploring, for those so inclined:

1) Role for Task Success as normal;
2) If the roll is successful, then roll 1 (or more) extra dice {# of additional dice is a topic for thread discussion} *
3) If after adding these additional dice into the pool the task still would have been a success, then it is a spectacular success.
​

* - The discussion point is how many additional dice are needed to get desirable probabilities.
​

The philosophy here is that adding in the extra dice after the successful task roll simulates that the task even would have succeeded had the task been more difficult, thus justifying a special success condition on the basic task roll.

This would also implicitly take into account the character's skill and controlling-characteristic in the task profile.


Thoughts?

So you would fix a buckets of dice system by more than doubling the needed number of dice to roll for a success, With the second roll just used for special success?

It would never fly with our gaming group.

 

[whulorigan]

So you would fix a buckets of dice system by more than doubling the needed number of dice to roll for a success, With the second roll just used for special success?

It would never fly with our gaming group.

No, I am suggesting the same number of dice to roll for task-success as the T5-RAW, with a second roll of 1 or 2 dice specifically to determine Spectacular Success only if the initial task roll was successful. And I was not attempting to address the "buckets of dice" issue at all. I was only addressing the somewhat anomalous "Spectacular Success" issue that has been raised above.

Also, as has already been mentioned upthread, the majority of the time in a realistic campaign, characters are not likely to be regularly attempting basic task difficulty-levels beyond "Formidable" (4-dice) anyway. Most of the time the number of dice shouldn't be too burdensome of an issue.

I do not prefer "buckets of dice" either, but I can live with it if the system works decently otherwise.

 

[Draconian]

Yes, players can bump up the dice pool with TIH, but they can't add more than a die or two to their existing pool. I can't find your research right now, what is the difference in chance between 3 dice and 5?

I may be falling behind in the message-traffic, so the relevance may change, but concerning this in particular:

Some players may deliberately exploit every possible way to increase the number of dice of difficulty.

• Extra Hasty (in tasks which are not of invariable length) adds two levels of difficulty (p. 134)
• Throwing away your tools to make a task tougher (p. 136)
• Run back to increase your range to a target (avoiding, however, that Range is greater than Size otherwise the target can no longer be considered visible).
• Choose Autofire (+1D) or Snapfire (+2D)

Possibly there are combinations there to add many dice to a difficulty.

 

[Supplement Four]

I may be falling behind in the message-traffic, so the relevance may change, but concerning this in particular:

Some players may deliberately exploit every possible way to increase the number of dice of difficulty.

• Extra Hasty (in tasks which are not of invariable length) adds two levels of difficulty (p. 134)
• Throwing away your tools to make a task tougher (p. 136)
• Run back to increase your range to a target (avoiding, however, that Range is greater than Size otherwise the target can no longer be considered visible).
• Choose Autofire (+1D) or Snapfire (+2D)

Possibly there are combinations there to add many dice to a difficulty.

This is just some of the ways. There are others.

I'd like to add, though, that I bet most of us don't game with gamers who try to "game" the system like this. I know people like this exist, though--those that that feel the need to maximize every aspect of their character. Heck, I played with a guy a little while back in my Conan game that said he'd quit the game if his character was killed.

But, the point really isn't if players will exploit this falt in the T5 system.

I think the real point is that there is a falt to exploit.

The system needs a good fix.

 

[Draconian]

One of my players has a related issue, in that if he cannot know the exact percentages of success, he cannot feel he truly has a handle on the situation. That includes 2d6 task systems, even though the bell curve is relatively accessible. So he only really likes percentile roll low. But he tolerates Traveller (in any form) because he likes a good story and we're all friends and I'm a Traveller nerd.

This seems to be a trend over the decades in many new RPGs, with dice-pools, deliberately clouding what a character's chances are in a defined situation. This is forgivable if the mechanics behind the game were thought out to try to reflect broadly the way circumstances affect the situation. I like dice-pools less; I liked the Chaosium/Basic RolePlaying [Critical Success 1-5%, proportionate to skill-level] or Star Frontiers ["Knockout" rolls 2% on d100 in most cases] where skill rolls were blatantly expressed in percent and modified with percentages. Players might minimax and optimize their course of action to give the best possible percent roll on d100, and select the weapon out of the character's weapon golf-bag to multiply with their skill-chance and give the best average damage-per-shot-attempt, but hopefully characters would have a qualitative idea of their strengths and weaknesses and make the same kinds of decisions anyway, so I didn't find this wrong.

My probability numbers show a blatant increase in the odds of Spectacular Success (and so all success) with dice of difficulty. Take it from the perspective of a character with poor skills and stunted characteristic who would normally have no reason to attempt difficult things in a skill. His chances are rock-bottom to begin with even at Average difficulty. But the Spectacular Success rule offers increasing ways to roll 3 1's with more dice and there are the damning words in there that the occurrence is "independent of skill". If he had only a few percent odds of succeeding at something, he's looking at about a 3% increase per die of difficulty that the player can contrive to add. Why wouldn't he?

An argument was made that high-difficulty rolls wouldn't occur often and shouldn't be worried about. Maybe that's right; maybe it won't turn up. But there are many normal role-playing rule provisions that are listed that might not often turn up with the characters, such as scuba-diving rules. When they do turn up, however, you expect a sensible support mechanic -- you don't expect for the air-hose to be pre-slashed. Spectacular Success AND Spectacular Failure turning up 5%, 10%, even 15% of the time (and a small chance of Spectacularly Interesting results lurking in the wings as well) starts to bring things from "cinematic drama" (if that's the style people like) to downright cartoonish.

Of course, it's only a problem if things get hard, or desperate, forcing characters into situations with unlikely chances of success. Just at that dramatic point, though, the difficulties with Spectacular Success show up.

But we'll see. I disclose that I'm just a number-cruncher so far and haven't launched my T5 game yet. Problems may not be so large in the flow of the game as in the cold fluorescent light of my reading-lamp and my vintage programmable calculator (Hewlett-Packard Reverse Polish Notation 4evah!). The rules I'll actually be using are Pierre's Errata-Enhanced T5 PDF, full of red arrows, annotation boxes, artfully font-matched additions to the redundant planetary trade-code tables, and the occasional WWTT mark ("What were they thinking?")

 

[pendragonman]

Heck, I played with a guy a little while back in my Conan game that said he'd quit the game if his character was killed.

As a character in the party, I'd have to kill his character just to make him put up or shut up.

As the GM, "A blue bolt from the heavens descends and obliterates your character. There isn't even enough left to reincarnate. You may now pack your kit and leave."

Then assist with his hasty departure. These people poison the well for everyone else.

 

[Draconian]

As a character in the party, I'd have to kill his character just to make him put up or shut up.

As the GM, "A blue bolt from the heavens descends and obliterates your character. There isn't even enough left to reincarnate. You may now pack your kit and leave."

Then assist with his hasty departure. These people poison the well for everyone else.

People don't mind character death so much if new characters are easy to generate and equip.

And in the history of science fiction, no character was easier to generate than Lintilla from the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy! Give him that one! And also Lintilla and Lintilla, if you trust your players to handle more than one character without player intra-collusion.

Oops! Since Lintilla only appeared in the radio series, here is an explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lintilla#Lintilla

 

[Supplement Four]

As a character in the party, I'd have to kill his character just to make him put up or shut up.

As the GM, "A blue bolt from the heavens descends and obliterates your character. There isn't even enough left to reincarnate. You may now pack your kit and leave."

Then assist with his hasty departure. These people poison the well for everyone else.

Let's just say that he no longer plays with us...as, well, Homey don't play dat.