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Realistic Game Mechanics

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Started 3 years ago by M. J. Young
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M. J. Young
Moderator
And about asking for the roll on the Parkour school, I just keep forgetting that I don't know jack about how this game runs, but that's the whole point of the board, right?

Something that I've never liked about this is the way you suddenly have a major skill increase. I mean if I was at 1@10+3 on my boxing, and then got my fourth new use in the middle of a fight, I would suddenly start hitting twice as hard and twice as fast? I know there's probably no better way to do it with game mechanics, but that's far from being realistic. It's not worth arguing over, but I just never liked that idea. Oh well. You designed a cool game, it's just not always that realistic.

In a real fight, you might throw a kick that's from karate, throw a punch that's from boxing, then judo flip the guy. I bet there's no game mechanic for that, unless you're using special attacks.

Let's take this in pieces.

Yes, we're here to teach how to run the game. I think that my objection is not that you're trying to learn, but that you're acting like you think you already know. That is, "I'm going to look for something like Parkour, which is a sort of martial arts style that involves running, jumping, and escaping from things," is a much better approach than "I want you to roll such-and-such a mechanic to determine whether I can find this thing I'm hoping exists in this world."

For one thing, it's not always "realistic" for me to make such rolls. You might ask me to roll whether there are fire breathing dragons in this world. I'm not saying that there are or that there aren't, but I would say that whether there are or aren't probably is not going to be determined so much by a General Effects Roll as by my assessment of the nature of the universe.

But that's the small thing; I mention it because it was mentioned first.

I mean if I was at 1@10+3 on my boxing, and then got my fourth new use in the middle of a fight, I would suddenly start hitting twice as hard and twice as fast? I know there's probably no better way to do it with game mechanics, but that's far from being realistic.
As to whether there is a "better" way to do it with game mechanics, that is entirely subjective. For example, in Multiverser if you're doing ship-to-ship combat in outer space, you use skill checks based on weapon stats against protective defenses. In one classic space game the name of which slips my mind at the moment, you do trigonometric calculations for distances and directions in three-dimensional space to determine the probabily of hitting a target that size at that distance. The trig game is probably more accurate and more "realistic"; the Multiverser mechanic is a lot faster and accessible to a larger number of typical gamers, most of whom either can't or do not wish to do trig calculations for each shot in the game.

I certainly could have designed a game in which each incremental increase in your skill increased everything incrementally. Let's say that your chance to hit is X, and cannot be greater than 99% or less than 1%. I could then create a damage scale by which your damage range is equal to X times the weapons maximum possible damage, and the roll determines what percent of that you actually do. Thus if the weapon has a maximum of 100, and you've got X=50 and roll 45, then you would do 45% of 50% of 100 points of damage. Since your range increases with each point of possible success the values of your rolls also increase. I could also say that you get a number of attacks equal to X times the maximum number of attacks the attack form can handle, rounded up. Then if the attack form has 10 attacks and your chance of success if 50, you've got five attacks.

And if it were a computer game, maybe I would try something like that; but people have to do math at the table, and some already comment about the fact that I often bring a calculator with me (for those times when my mind is so boggled that adding a column of two-digit numbers is one too many tasks).

But saying that it's "far from realistic" is misunderstanding a basic aspect of the concept of attack mechanics.

In Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, an average guy weilding a sword against another average guy weilding a sword gets "one attack per round". A "round" is one minute. The game authors admit that it's silly to think that in one minute an ordinary guy is not going to be able to attempt to hit his opponent more than once. The way the mechanic works isn't by imagining two guys each of whom swings at the other once per minute, but imagining two guys swinging and parrying over the course of a minute, looking for openings and trying to land blows, and each of them having a percent chance that one of their attempting blows will hit the other guy per minute.

The same reasoning applies with Multiverser: you're going to try to hit more often than you're going to roll for it; the odds are figured based on the assumption that sometimes you get the opening and sometimes you don't, but on average you'll hit this hard this often.

Now, the problem with the suggested scenario above is that it is taking the dissected combat as the reality of the experience. That's tempting to do, and on one level it's necessary to do it--as referee I have to describe that you hit him, that you got hit, how badly he appears to be injured, how badly you think you're injured, and I have to do it on a move-by-move basis. In reality, though, these fights need to be seen as a whole, from the perspective of having finished them. So the kid gets in the ring, and he's pretty good, going for his shot at the big time. My paperwork says he's 1@10+3marks. He gets through the first minute and lands a blow. In the second minute he doesn't land a blow, but in the third minute he comes up with something he's never done before. He gets his new use mark, kicks into 2@1, and now he's rolling twice as often.

What does it look like, really? The kid got off to a slow start, but then his training and practice seemed to come together. He pulled an unexpected stunt three minutes into the fight, putting his opponent off-balance, and from there he got his confidence, hit his stride, and pummelled the opponent for the rest of the fight, emerging as the winner.

Remember, mathematically you are hitting twice as often and twice as hard, but in fact everything still rides on the dice. Those first two hits you landed--well, let's assume 1@10 BRA+1@10 SAL+2x7@ bias+1@10 MSV-1@6 TV=58%, damaging, then raise the SAL to 2@1 and we've got 59% dangerous. 58% damaging means once per round you've got a 58% chance of doing up to three intensities of damage on a hit. 59% dangerous means that twice per round you've got a 59% chance of doing up to 6 intensities of damage on either or both of two hits. Real quick extended math:
What has really changed?
You might hit your opponent harder than you've ever hit him before; about half of your successful blows will do this, but the other half won't be any harder than anything you've done before.
You will probably hit him twice as often--but remember, at 58% chance per minute you're really only landing a blow once every (1/(0.58x60))103 seconds, and at 59% per thirty seconds you're now landing one (1/(0.59x30)51 seconds.

As to this:

In a real fight, you might throw a kick that's from karate, throw a punch that's from boxing, then judo flip the guy. I bet there's no game mechanic for that, unless you're using special attacks.

You have the ability to change which style you are using, shifting to the attacks and defenses of the new style, once per minute.
You say "unless you're using special attacks", but then, that's really the whole point, isn't it? If you tell me you're using judo, then it's assumed that the "not special" attacks are all pushes, flips, throws, the sorts of things common in judo, and none of them are described, they're just rolled for success and damage. If you want a throw that is going to make more of a difference than just "you attacked him successfully and he is injured from it" then you have to use a special maneuver, a Leveraged Attack, Throw. But by the rules, special maneuvers are not locked into their styles--the only lock on them is whether you must have or not have something to do them (e.g., if you have a weapon-based disarm or parry, you must have the weapon). Thus if you tell me that you're doing Judo but you want to use the boxing punch and the karate kick, they're rolled as special maneuvers brought over from their styles and incorporated into yours.
Anyone who has learned two or more styles knows enough to design his own style. How well he designs it--well, that's going to be dependent on how well he understands martial arts generally and how similar it is to what he's done before. But if you want to design a style that incorporates several techniques, as long as they are not inconsistent with each other you can do so.

Modern game designers cringe at the word "realistic". It is a loaded word which means whatever the person using it wants it to mean at the time. These are simulations of imagined realities. They are always approximations, and there are always flaws in them. The trick is to get them to work as consistently as possible with the expectations of the player. I don't recall your character ever getting into a fight and you complaining that you couldn't mix bits from different fighting styles. You're complaining about things you think don't work because you've never actually seen how well they do work.

I can be offended by that. You see, if Scott (who knows these rules as well as--well, within the top five people I've known) or Adam (who has expertise in several role playing game systems including nationally recognized championships) or Graeme (who was playing role playing games long before he ever became interested in Multiverser and is now the longest-running currently-active player on the forum) wants to say that there are flaws in the system that could have been handled better, I'm willing to bet that they speak from knowledge and experience. You speak (frankly) from ignorance and naivete. You tell me what's broken in parts of the game you've never seen actually in play. Have you ever seen someone improve his skill across a level barrier in the midst of combat? It happens so rarely I can't name the last time it did; that also reminds me that the game handles it so smoothly that it wasn't worth remembering.

Please figure out how things really work, and test them, before you tell me why they don't.

Thank you.

--M. J. Young

Sat Nov 22 2008 4:59 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

I don't think you understood what I was saying, and I certainly never intended for it to go this far. I just can't imagine a way to use dice to determine what could happen in a real fight with someone that knows 4 martial arts styles. You must have imagined a way for it to happen. Kudos to you. Where should I send your cookie?

Sat Nov 22 2008 5:20 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

Please figure out how things really work, and test them, before you tell me why they don't.

You're right, I really should do that. I won't try to lie about it. There is one thing here though that I know better than you do.

You rolled dice and told me that my MAK 90 misfired. MAK 90s don't misfire. Period. I don't care what the dice says, they just don't do that. They're designed way better than that. If you told me that an M-16 misfired, I'd believe it.

And if you ever roll a botch on my Smith and Wesson revolver and tell me that it jammed, you better be looking at a 30 GE roll. "But a 30 is a 1 in 1000 catastrophic failure." Yeah, and an S/W revolver jamming is a 1 in 1000 catastrophic failure. That's how reliable they are. You'd need to roll at least 4 dice on a GE roll to determine the failures of that. First though, you would have to roll the 30.

I don't claim to know what this game can do. What I do know is that I am learning very slowly. I mean how long did it take you to teach me your time travel theory? I'd wager this is way more complex than that.

And I know, I shouldn't ask for the dice to be rolled. I'll try to keep that in mind.

On a different note, you seem really grouchy lately. Is it just that I am more annoying that usual, or is something bothering you?

Two posts, btw.

Sat Nov 22 2008 5:54 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

Yes, we're here to teach how to run the game. I think that my objection is not that you're trying to learn, but that you're acting like you think you already know. That is, "I'm going to look for something like Parkour, which is a sort of martial arts style that involves running, jumping, and escaping from things," is a much better approach than "I want you to roll such-and-such a mechanic to determine whether I can find this thing I'm hoping exists in this world."

Ya know, I didn't think about it until just now, but I would have thought asking about the game mechanic would be the better way to learn the game. If I say "Does Parkour exist in this world." You use whatever means you use to decide that. Well, how am I supposed to know how to do that, unless I ask about the game mechanics? Yes, there is the Behind the Screens thread, but that doesn't always tell me how you determined it. I think it kind of goes back to what I said about "Is it OK to ask for an intuition check." You know what mechanic is used to determine something I don't. If I don't ask, how can you tell me? So I would ask "Is a GE roll appropriate?" to which you would respond "Yes, that's how I would do it." or "No, that doesn't exist in this world." I would think that would be a more efficient method of teaching this. Let the player see if they can determine which mechanic to use. If they're right, and it's an appropriate mechanic, then you say so. If not, you tell them which mechanic would be appropriate. That just seems like it would be a more effective teaching method. In a manner of speaking, it would be letting the player referee themselves. They say what they want to do, they tell you which mechanic they think appropriate, and you tell them if they're right or not. Then you roll the dice or whatever and interpret that. Let the player become more involved in the decision making process. Just a suggestion.

And you don't need to get offended when someone speaks out of ignorance and challenges your game. If I knew how the thing worked, I wouldn't be asking questions. If I didn't ask questions, I couldn't learn anything at all. You kind of have to speak out of ignorance to learn anything. It's just the way the world works.

Sat Nov 22 2008 8:40 am #

M. J. Young
Moderator

There is one thing here though that I know better than you do.

You rolled dice and told me that my MAK 90 misfired. MAK 90s don't misfire. Period. I don't care what the dice says, they just don't do that. They're designed way better than that. If you told me that an M-16 misfired, I'd believe it.

And if you ever roll a botch on my Smith and Wesson revolver and tell me that it jammed, you better be looking at a 30 GE roll. "But a 30 is a 1 in 1000 catastrophic failure." Yeah, and an S/W revolver jamming is a 1 in 1000 catastrophic failure. That's how reliable they are. You'd need to roll at least 4 dice on a GE roll to determine the failures of that. First though, you would have to roll the 30.

All right, that's fair. Now let me give you the referee's side of the story.

If have a stated chance of success, you have an obviously implied chance of failure that is the inverse of it: fifty percent chance of success, fifty percent chance of failure, every roll means one thing or the other. But the game requires that there always be a chance to "botch". A "botch" means a "catastrophic" failure, more than just that you failed, that you messed things up royally.

On the other hand, because combat is already dangerous, there is an in-combat limit on botches: unless you are doing something which is obviously dangerous (trying to rig an explosive charge, for example), the worst that can happen in a botch is you lose that attack form and it costs you an attack. With a bow, you probably snapped the bowstring; with a sword, it was dropped. The easiest way to do that with a gun is for the gun to jam or misfire; it then requires an action comparable to a repair costing one attack to clear the jam and make the gun operational again.

If you take away the "misfire/jam" option from me, then I'm forced to say that the kick hurt your hand and you dropped the weapon, or the weapon broke. See, what I must do is deprive you of that attack mode until you take an action to restore it, and if "jam" is not an option, then something more serious must explain the botch.

Besides, you saidMAK 90s don't misfire. Period.But that assumes a world with an 11@ or better tech bias and an operator with a comparable bias as indigenous to the world. Note that in the chapter on Tech Skills, the section subtitled Tech Devices, below the chart giving Tech Skill Levels, on Page 83 of the Referee's Rules, it says

the bias levelrepresents the degree to which natural law is consistent and dependable, favoring technologicalexploitation.

In other words, the laws of physics which the MAK 90 and Smith & Wesson use to make them so reliable are themselves unreliable. That's part of why your chance of using these weapons successfully was lower in Dancing Princess than it was in B Monster Movie Columbus. It's also why your chance to botch is higher: machines do not work as well in technologically primitive worlds, even if they come from technologically advanced worlds. That's part of the point of bias.

Thus if the bias is lower, the guns could conceivably jam despite your belief that they cannot do so.

It also explains why things that really should work--computers, calculators, flashlights, amplifiers, automobiles--inexplicably fail to do so.

Now, if you do not want me to say that your MAK 90 or Smith and Wesson have misfired, I will try to remember to tell you that they broke and require major repairs, or that you dropped them and need to find another weapon, or that your enemy managed to shoot them or hit them in a way that damaged them beyond use. That's harder on you, really, because it means you will have to repair them or abandon them; but it satisfies me, because it temporarily eliminates the attack form, which is what the botch roll requires.

I would have thought asking about the game mechanic would be the better way to learn the game.

Yeah, sure--but not in the game. If you have questions about how game mechanics work, ask them behind the screens or in separate threads. What you post to the game thread is taken as what you as player/character are asking of the referee. What you post behind the screens or in parallel threads comprise questions about how the game works. If you confuse the two, you confuse the referee.

That's probably why Adam was so irked by out-of-character posts: it confuses what's actually happening in-game. The referee has the right to believe that what you post in the character thread is a statement of what you as a player are actually doing/having your character do. Put the posts in the right place, and you won't have that problem. "Can I ask for a GE roll" as a game thread post means "I want a GE roll"; the same question behind the screens or in a separate thread means "I want to understand how the player relates to the mechanics."

--M. J. Young

Sun Nov 23 2008 9:35 pm #

Tadeusz
Member

One useful thing for John to do would be to create a 1d10 list of likely botches for a weapon.

I remember in David Brin's "Uplift" universe you had starships which were so durable that they had been in a couple dozen wars, and had survived longer than some sentient species....like 300,000--500,000 years. So suggesting that those starships do certain botches is extremely unlikely....but there has to be some botches.

So its not a situation that is strictly limited to the MAK.

On the other end of reliability, I remember a SF story about the near future where every piece of technology was in effect a Beta Test version. Tech was advancing so rapidly that it just didn't get tested enough. I found this reality strangely believable.

Furthermore, there is one suggestion for a Champions universe of superheroes. In such a universe, superagent groups (large groups of perhaps gov't guys who have supertech, but are not equivalent to a superhero) have things like laser blasters and flying cars. Now the question comes up, if the Superbeing Response Team at the FBI and the Rapid Paranormal Force out of the Marines can have laser blasters and flying backpacks with force bubbles....then why can' the ordinary joe?

One answer is that such tech is just unreliable enough to be not safe for common use. If a backpack has a 1/10,000 failure rate....thats pretty good actually, but they wouldn't sell it on the commercial market.

Sun Nov 23 2008 10:56 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

That's probably why Adam was so irked by out-of-character posts: it confuses what's actually happening in-game.

The referee knows the rules, the player doesn't. If you're going to teach the rules to the player, I'd think the best way to do it would be to explain things in game as they're happening. Of course, I'd also think that a guy with my obvious charm and charisma would be dating a supermodel. What I'd think isn't always what's true.

Sun Nov 23 2008 11:24 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

OK MJ, I understand why my MAK 90 had to jam. That makes since, and it would certainly be preferable to the gun breaking (which it wouldn't do either) I guess if it were me as the referee, I would give a positive sit-mod if I knew that the gun was well known for reliability.

An AK-47, upon which the MAK 90 is based, can fire fully auto underwater. That scene in Lethal Weapon 4 where Mel Gibson shoots Jet Li with an AK-47 underwater? That's very possible. It's the only fully automatic assault rifle capable of doing that. It only has a range of about 50 feet shooting like that, but it can be done. The AK-47 is arguably the single most reliable battle rifle ever built. It would be second only to the WW2 M1 Garand in that department, if someone wanted to nitpick. The only difference between the MAK 90 and the AK-47 is that the MAK is not fully auto.

So, like I said, if I knew that the gun was well known for reliability, I'd probably give a positive sit-mod.

Mon Nov 24 2008 3:44 pm #

JTM
Member

Um, that introduces the more than slight problem that the AK-47 would become more accurate than other weaponry, likely including more accurate weaponry, if you attempted to simulate increased reliablity with a sit-mod.

Mon Nov 24 2008 8:16 pm #

johnosevens
Member

Is it possible to have a sort of... illusory sit-mod?

What I mean is, while an AK-47 is less likely to jam/break/self-destruct than other guns, it does not inherently shoot straighter. Would it be possible to say, for example, "The AK-47 is reasonably accurate, providing a +5 sit-mod to attack, but is incredibly reliable - for purposes of botch percentage, treat as if this sit-mod were +15"?

Two-bits from the new kid.

Mon Nov 24 2008 8:28 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

The M-16 is accurate, but temperamental. You can hit a 1 inch target at 100 yards with it. However, it likes to jam and break. My uncle had 2 AR-15s (Semi Auto M-16) blow up in his face. I would believe an M-16 exploded.

The AK-47 isn't nearly as accurate, and you would be lucky to hit a 4 inch target at the same distance. However, it never jams. To quote Nicolas Cage "It is a 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It does not break, jam, or overheat. It will fire whether it is covered in mud, or full of sand." Is there a sit-mod that can cover reliability of the weapon? Like what Osevens was saying.

Just an anecdote. A guy that I know was in Vietnam. He said that he found an AK-47 in a river. It was full of mud, water, and God knows what else. Without cleaning it, or even wiping it down, he held it at arm's length and pulled the trigger. It emptied the magazine without a hitch. That is a well built gun.

Mon Nov 24 2008 9:11 pm #

M. J. Young
Moderator

With a gun you've got five variables, and you can play with them independently.

You can indeed sit-mod a weapon so that it is less likely to fail and thus less likely to botch; this also means greater accuracy at its ranges.
You can adjust the ranges. You've got five range categories. The are defined as
- Point blank, where the target is so directly and obviously right at the end of the barrel of the weapon that it would be almost unimaginable that you could miss, +20 range sit-mod;
- Short, the range that is too close for practice to be beneficial for the amateur user shooting at man-sized targets (standard archery targets), the unmodified range in combat, no range adjustment in combat.
- Medium, the range at which an amateur ordinarily would practice, -10 sit-mod in combat.
- Long, the maximum ordinary range for the weapon, -25 sit-mod.
- Extreme, any shot beyond the ordinary range for the weapon. At extreme range the gun takes a -25 penalty plus a penalty equal to the percent of the long range beyond the long range to the target. That means that if the long range is 100 yards and the target is at 101 yards, that 1 additional yard means an additional -1 sit-mod to the chance to hit. If the target is at 201 yards, the additional penalty is -101. If the weapon's long range is 50 yards and the target is at 101 yards, that additional 51 yards is -101, because it is 100.5% over the maximum long range. These are in addition to the -25 penalty for long range. In addition, any weapon fired beyond its long range takes a damage category penalty, and any weapon fired beyond twice its long range takes two, and so on. This is because you can't hit as well and in many cases the weapon will lose force--energy dissipation, et cetera.
Damage category--you can make a weapon with large high-velocity bullets base lethal and one with small slow bullets damaging. The gun with a short range but high damage is going to be better in close combat than the gun with the long range and low damage, but vice-versa in distant combat. A gun with high damage and long range is a superior weapon for a single shot than one with low damage and short range. Also, you can tweak damage with damage point bonuses and penalties, creating a weapon that has a lower chance to hit but will always do above average damage, or one that has a very high chance to hit but sometimes doesn't actually hurt on impact.
A gun has a repeat factor: how quickly after you fire it can you fire it again? This is not only a mechanical question; it is a design question that assumes that the user must aim and fire each shot individually. (A fully automatic weapon can be aimed for the first shot, but after that is covered as "throwing lead", not as targeted shots but as a general effects roll for whether the other bullets hit anything.) A gun with a faster repeat factor will get more shots in a minute, or at least will get through its shots earlier in the minute.
Guns have maximum loads. These can vary--there are clips of several different sizes available for an M-16--but in most cases they are fairly standard. If a gun runs out of bullets it has to be reloaded, and reloading takes time, during which the character cannot also attack unless he can perform one of the actions hands-free.

And I agree, Eric--next time John botches with a gun, I'll let him create the botch list for it (subject, of course, to my approval).

--M. J. Young

Tue Nov 25 2008 7:22 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

MJ, the problem that I have with botches in this instance is that I can understand magic and psionic botches. Those are powers beyond normal usage and control. Those botches make sense. However, speaking as someone who has fired tens of thousands of rounds through dozens of different guns, the worst "botch" I've ever had is that the gun jammed. I also had an assault rifle slam fire a time or two. However, just normal use with normal ammo, guns don't "botch" and they certainly don't botch with the frequency that Multiverser allows. I mean I had a 54% chance to hit in Dancing Princess, IIRC. That means a 4% chance to botch. That means that 4 out of every 100 rounds would jam. If your gun jams 4 rounds out of 100, it's time to buy a new gun, cuz they're not supposed to do that. I have had a gun or two that did jam that frequently, however, that's far from being normal. Four rounds out of 1,000 is more like it for a weapon of any kind of quality.

In all honesty, the botch list I would create for a MAK 90 would be something like a 1D50 list

1-45 "Gun Fires Normally"
46) Gun slam fires (Fires fully auto until it runs out of ammo)
47) Gun jams
48) Gun misfires
49) Gun breaks/explodes
50) Delay Fire (Pull the trigger, nothing happens. Then the gun just fires whenever it feels like it. Usually when you open the bolt to remove what you think is a dud round.)

As you can see, 9 out of 10 botches with a MAK 90 would be that the gun fired as it was supposed to. That's how reliable it is. I'm not trying to be a smart ass or break the system. This is what I honestly feel would be an accurate botch list for the MAK 90. Nine out of ten botches are that I wouldn't know I botched. If my math is right, that means with a 4% chance to botch the gun would malfunction on 1 out of every 1,250 rounds fired. That would be completely accurate to the reliability of this particular weapon. And no, I am not making this up at all.

For the Smith and Wesson revolver, it would be a 1D40 list

1-36 "Gun Fires Normally"
37) Misfire
38) Jam
39) Gun Breaks/Explodes
40) Accidental Discharge (Similar to a delay fire. The gun just decides that it wants to fire. My uncle came within an inch of shooting himself in the foot with a 38 because of this type of malfunction.)

Again, I am not trying to be a smart ass. I really feel that this is an accurate botch table for an S/W revolver. I've only seen a revolver jam twice in my life. Same gun on the same day, and it was because we were using extremely old and cheap ammo.

Tue Nov 25 2008 8:13 am #

KellyKeck
Member

In all honesty, the botch list I would create for a MAK 90 would be something like a 1D50 list

1-45 "Gun Fires Normally"
46) Gun slam fires (Fires fully auto until it runs out of ammo)
47) Gun jams
48) Gun misfires
49) Gun breaks/explodes
50) Delay Fire (Pull the trigger, nothing happens. Then the gun just fires whenever it feels like it. Usually when you open the bolt to remove what you think is a dud round.)

If the gun is reliable enough that a botch isn't likely to make it fail, then the failure has to come from some other source. You've already rolled a botch, which means "something very bad happens and you lose that attack." If you're not comfortable with the bad thing being due to the gun failing, then the failure has to come from the person or the environment--you drop the gun, for example, or get something in your eyes (something not permanently damaging, such as dust) and can't make the shot.

Your chart might be reasonble in an 11@ tech bias world, but 1-45 have to be replaced by some kind of human error or alternate problem--as MJ said, the gun gets damaged, dropped, or kicked out of your hand, for example.

A positive sit-mod for a very accurate gun, like an AK-47, does make sense. It would have a lower chance to botch. But once you've rolled the botch, you have to botch in some fashion. Having the gun fire normally shouldn't be an option. (To give a D&D example, if I roll a 1, I fail. Doesn't matter if I'm a level 20 fighter beating up on a kobold and mathematically I should always succeed. The one is a critical failure--therefore, failure, period.)

One thing to keep in mind with die rolls is that they're a way of determining probability for anything and everything that the referee and players don't get to just declare by fiat. That is, my attack roll determines not just whether I have the skill to attack successfully but also all the other factors that might affect my success. Does my opponent get distracted or trip and give me an opening? Do I lose my footing on uneven or wet ground as I'm trying to attack? Am I positioned in such a way that the sun is in my eyes and I can hardly see the other guy, let alone hurt him? Similarly, is the sun in his eyes, preventing him from avoiding an attack? Is that minor scrape I got in the last round bleeding in my eye, or is the resultant headache from being punched in the back of the head making it tough to concentrate? (These are all random examples--the particular combat scenario you're in will have other random examples, but the point is that there are always lots of things that can go right or wrong in any combat situation--it's not just your skill and the reliability of the weapon.)

One of the neat things in one of the Multiverser books is that a character once was versed out, at least in part, because his foot fell asleep. He was hiding in an uncomfortable position and when he tried to get up and run, it didn't work so well. It's a stupid thing to have kill you, but it made sense in the context and is the sort of thing that could happen.

All kinds of random things can affect your chances of success. Deciding which random thing happens (your gun misfiring versus being dropped versus a minor scrape bleeding into your eyes such that you can't see well to attack until you bandage it) is more a matter of flavor than anything else.

Tue Nov 25 2008 2:00 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

Well, I said "Gun fires normally" I didn't say that you hit anything when it did fire normally. Missing your intended target would be losing the attack wouldn't it? The sit-mod would make the gun more reliable AND more accurate. This botch table just makes it more reliable. If you're shooting at something so big that you can't possibly miss, then the botch would be that you missed. Missing the target would count as losing the attack, wouldn't it?

I recall a botch option once used was "Failure, no bad result" Well, if that can be a botch option, then missing the target can be as well. If you roll a botch and "Gun Fires Normally" it wouldn't matter if you were shooting at an aircraft carrier that was right in front of you. You still missed. This botch table would make the gun more reliable but not more accurate. And I honestly and truly believe that it is a realistic botch table.

Tue Nov 25 2008 7:10 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

So I guess the botch would be "Gun fires normally, automatically miss target." I'm not kidding in the slightest. That would be realistic.

Tue Nov 25 2008 9:12 pm #

Tadeusz
Member

I think that could work, John, but I would like to see some more examples in this botch chart of the sort of thing that Kelly was talking about.

Including...you put the safety on, the release for the clip was hit and the banana clip became unseated...

I like 'you slipped on wet ground, and had to regain your footing'. I've used something like that a lot of times as a GM.

And you're ignoring the point thats been made repeatedly to you....your view of the gun is formed in a universe with an 11@ Tech Bias.

Wed Nov 26 2008 5:26 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

And you're ignoring the point thats been made repeatedly to you....your view of the gun is formed in a universe with an 11@ Tech Bias.

So in a universe with a 6@ tech bias, it would be 5% more likely to jam. What's 5% of a nearly infinitesimal possibility? The gun is the same.

Wed Nov 26 2008 6:01 am #

M. J. Young
Moderator

John, you are wearing down my patience on this matter. I am tempted to class your "non-jamming" guns as inherently dangerous, and declare that on any botch roll you shot a friendly for maximum damage, even if the only friendly available is you. I don't like that result, but I'll use it for grenades and explosives, and I can use it for guns if I run out of other options.

MJ, the problem that I have with botches in this instance is that I can understand magic and psionic botches. Those are powers beyond normal usage and control.

No, they're beyond your understanding.

In fact, you've already objected to failures and botches in the mag realm, when I've connected them to your prayers; you think it's not possible to botch when you pray. And this in an area where you admit you don't really understand how things work. Of course you're going to object when you're dealing with things you think you understand.

However, speaking as someone who has fired tens of thousands of rounds through dozens of different guns, the worst "botch" I've ever had is that the gun jammed. I also had an assault rifle slam fire a time or two. However, just normal use with normal ammo, guns don't "botch" and they certainly don't botch with the frequency that Multiverser allows.

I believe that the tens of thousands of rounds you have fired through dozens of different guns were not what I would call normal use but what I would call practice: shooting at targets, sometimes shooting at moving targets such as game (borderline there--target may evade). I don't think you've ever been in a situation where you fired twenty-five bullets at someone who was shooting back at you--or swinging a sword or arching arrows or otherwise putting your life in jeopardy in response to your attacks. Nor, I think, were you running or ducking or dodging at the time. You were using the guns in what were mostly controlled situations, with little danger of harm to yourself.

I mean I had a 54% chance to hit in Dancing Princess, IIRC. That means a 4% chance to botch. That means that 4 out of every 100 rounds would jam. If your gun jams 4 rounds out of 100, it's time to buy a new gun, cuz they're not supposed to do that.

If I recall correctly, The Dancing Princess is a swords and sorcery fantasy world. Your guns aren't supposed to work well there; you're supposed to discover that guns are not always reliable and that it helps to have a bit of magic on your side. You, in fact, built a fair base of magic while you were there, precisely because it tended to work. That lowered reliability in that world is a feature, not a bug. If you were thinking that your guns performed up to expectations in that world, then I would have failed in my design objectives.

In all honesty, the botch list I would create for a MAK 90 would be something like a 1D50 list

1-45 "Gun Fires Normally"
46) Gun slam fires (Fires fully auto until it runs out of ammo)
47) Gun jams
48) Gun misfires
49) Gun breaks/explodes
50) Delay Fire (Pull the trigger, nothing happens. Then the gun just fires whenever it feels like it. Usually when you open the bolt to remove what you think is a dud round.)

In all honesty, those first forty-five are not legitimate botch results. However, let's try a list like this:

Shoot self for maximum damage
Shoot allied person for maximum damage
Shoot bystander for maximum damage
Damage personal equipment
Damage property of important person
Hit something that will explode (oil container, gasoline tank, nuclear device)
Undetected defect in gun from previous conflict causes critical failure (gun breaks)
Gun slam fires (Fires fully auto until it runs out of ammo)
Gun jams
Gun misfires
Gun breaks/explodes
Delay Fire (Pull the trigger, nothing happens. Then the gun just fires whenever it feels like it. Usually when you open the bolt to remove what you think is a dud round.)Gun slam fires into operator
Gun slam fires into allied characters
Enemy attack damages gun
Divine intervention causes gun to vanish as a deity is offended at the use of the weapon

I really don't care what you think the probability of a botch ought to be. A botch remains a botch, and if you don't like the safe botches, you're going to get the dangerous ones. It's as simple as that: if a botch is rolled, it's a botch, and there is no way to turn a botch into just a failure (and if you ever saw that on a botch list, it was a mistake). Botches exist to make it dangerous to do things not supported by the bias, even when you are very good at them.

Oh, you wrote:

So in a universe with a 6@ tech bias, it would be 5% more likely to jam. What's 5% of a nearly infinitesimal possibility? The gun is the same.

It's much more complicated than that.

First, I'm assuming you mean as compared with a universe with an 11@ tech bias and that the user has at least an 11@ tech bias himself; that means that the chance of success drops by twice the difference, 10%. That means that the chance to botch increases by 1% of the total of all possible outcomes. However, the percentage increase in the chance to botch depends on the original chance to botch. If you have a 70% to hit under the 11@ bias, then you have a 60% chance under the 6@ bias; your chance to botch goes from 3% to 4%, which is an increase in the chance to botch of 33%. If the chance of success dropped from 80 to 70, that's an increase from 2% to 3%, a 50% increase. If you had a 90% chance and it went to an 80% chance, that's from 1% to 2%, a 100% increase. If your original chance of success was 91% then you had 0% chance to botch, and when success dropped to 81% and botching increased to 1%, that was an infinite increase in the percent chance to botch. That's a lot; but it's still only a difference of one in one hundred shots.

--M. J. Young

Wed Nov 26 2008 7:07 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

MJ, I'm sure I'm about to get my character in a boatload of trouble, but I'm still going to say it. You asked me to write what I felt was a realistic botch table for a MAK 90. Don't get mad at me because you don't like what I feel is a realistic botch table. How many rounds of ammo have you fired, and how many different guns have you fired them through? From what you've told me of your experience with firearms, I'd be surprised if you've fired 100 rounds in your life. I don't think I've ever gone to the shooting range and fired less than 100 rounds. And indeed, I once shot about 1,200 rounds in one weekend. That means that I probably fired more shots the first time I went to the range than you ever have in your entire life. So, which of us knows what he is talking about? You know game mechanics. I know guns. I know that the reason why 90% of the world's armed forces use the AK-47 is BECAUSE it does not jam or malfunction.

Yeah, my shots were almost all fired in practice. (I've only ever shot one animal in my entire life) However, the gun doesn't know what it is being used for. The gun doesn't know that you're practicing as opposed to shooting at a home intruder. What you're saying, inherently, is that the gun is going to decide not to function properly because it doesn't like what it's being used for. I don't think guns are capable of doing that.

So, in the 6@ tech bias of Dancing Princess, I would have a 54% chance of success and a 4% chance to botch. In the 11@ bias of our world, it would have a 64% chance of success and a 3% chance to botch. Look me in the eye and tell me that a military force is going to use a gun that malfunctions 3 out of every 100 rounds. You could fire 100 rounds in a matter of seconds with a MAK 90. (I've seen it done) Ya know how many times it jammed? NONE!!!!! Yes, we were at the shooting range, but the MAK 90 didn't know that.

You asked me to write what I felt was a realistic botch table for a MAK 90. Now you're saying that you don't like the botch table because it doesn't fit into Multiverser mechanics. You got offended when I questioned Multiverser mechanics which I knew nothing about. I'm really tempted to get offended when you question my knowledge of firearms, of which you know nothing about.

Another thing. Increasing the distance you're shooting at decreases the chance to hit, and therefore, increases the chance to botch. So you're basically saying that the gun is more likely to jam just because my target is further away. Well, who told the gun that? The gun doesn't know that the target is 500 feet away, as opposed to 5 inches away. Why would the gun be more likely to jam just because the target was further away? If anything, the gun would be LESS likely to malfunction if the target was further away. If I have a harder time hitting him, then he also has a harder time hitting me. Therefore, I would be under LESS stress at long range, therefore, a LOWER chance to malfunction.

I really don't care what you think the probability of a botch ought to be. A botch remains a botch, and if you don't like the safe botches, you're going to get the dangerous ones. It's as simple as that: if a botch is rolled, it's a botch, and there is no way to turn a botch into just a failure (and if you ever saw that on a botch list, it was a mistake). Botches exist to make it dangerous to do things not supported by the bias, even when you are very good at them.

And MJ, don't threaten me because you don't know jack shit about what you're talking about. That's the equivalent of killing the mailman because you don't know who wrote a letter that you got. You don't know guns. I do. I don't know Multiverser mechanics. You do. That's fine. However, if you can look me in the eye and tell me that you honestly believe a military force is going to use a gun that malfunctions 3 out of every 100 rounds, then you're either deluded, a moron, or both.

Now you're going to say that the soldiers have professional ability and that reduces the chance to botch and blah blah blah blah. I don't give a flying shit what Multiverser mechanics say about how a gun is "Supposed" to function. THEY DON'T FUNCTION THE WAY MULTIVERSER SAYS THEY DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The first time I ever fired a MAK 90 was also the first time I ever went shooting IN MY LIFE. If I remember right, it was the first rifle I ever fired. By Multiverser mechanics, my 1@1 ability in the 11@ bias should mean that it should have jammed half a dozen times. You know how many times it jammed? ZERO!!!!!! We were at the shooting range, but who told the MAK 90 that?

A good many of these "Professional" soldiers using the AK-47 are 14 years old. Do the math on that. By Multiverser rules, how many times should an AK-47 jam in the hands of a 14 year old boy? Let's say they had a 47% chance to hit. So, 47% chance to hit, 5% chance to botch. So, these AK-47s are malfunctioning 5 out of every 100 rounds the boys are firing. Is that what you're saying? The average AK-47 magazine is 30 rounds. That means that it would malfunction an average of 3 times per 2 magazines. Look me in the eye and tell me that a military force would use a gun which malfunctioned that often.

You need to forget Multiverser mechanics and use your brain. I know you have one, I've picked it enough times. Multiverser mechanics are completely totally dead wrong about how firearms function. The botch table that I gave would be completely realistic and accurate. Not just for a MAK 90, but for a great deal of all the guns in use in the world today.

If this is how Multiverser mechanics handles firearm usage, then I can say with certainty that I found a major hole in the Multiverser mechanics.

Wed Nov 26 2008 7:41 am #

JTM
Member

That depends. According to Wikipedia, the AK-47 fires at 600 rounds per minute. Thus, if you get twenty attack rolls in a minute, it will jam/misfire/hit somthing you like once every twenty clips on average. Of course, that assumes no reload time and continuous autofire, but it also assumes you make twenty rolls in one minute.

You seem to be forgetting that attack rolls =/= shots fired. That would take way too long when you're in a dogfight.

Wed Nov 26 2008 9:07 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

Well, I was firing a semi auto AK called a MAK 90. MJ rolled for every shot fired. The existing mechanics make the jam ratio completely unrealistic. Unless you're shooting a bottom of the barrel gun, that is.

I told you that I had only seen a S/W revolver jam twice in my life. It was the first day I went shooting. Uncle Bob took me shooting. The revolver jammed when Uncle Bob was shooting it. He has professional ability easily. I would have had 1@1. That means it should have jammed in my hands, right? NOPE!!! It jammed when Uncle Bob shot it. But Multiverser would have made that highly unlikely....... Riiiiiiiight.

Wed Nov 26 2008 11:36 pm #

Tadeusz
Member

I'm going to recommend a one post-one reply for John's objections. John gets his one post to make his plea. MJ replies after duly weighing John's objections and analysis, and then he gives his decision and the reasons supporting it (at least as far as he thinks John can understand them), and then the matter is closed.

Thu Nov 27 2008 1:06 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

I have had a few guns that did jam as often as Multiverser seems to allow. Needless to say, I didn't keep them very long. No soldier is going to carry a weapon into combat which jams that often. MJ, I would like to suggest that you go back and reread my post up there a few more times before replying, just to make sure you understand what I am saying.

Thu Nov 27 2008 3:11 am #

M. J. Young
Moderator

John already seems to know what I'm going to say.

John, you wind. YOUR guns never jam. Instead, you drop them, or you shoot something you did not want to shoot (such as yourself) or an enemy hits them in a manner that damages them severely. You're closing off from me the option of making the botch nice; you get the bad botches.

Oh, and also, I do believe that when you are shooting at targets, you don't have to worry about them shooting back. You usually don't have to worry about them weaving or dodging or manuevering into a position where your clean shot suddenly passes through your dufflebag or your partner. You don't have to try to get the shot off while you've got a chance, and you don't have to run or duck. Your aim need not be hurried, and if you don't like the shot you are under no pressure to take it.

Now, if you told me you fired in Samurai-style competition, that you had to ride the horse at a full gallop and string and fire six arrows in sequence through two inch diameter rings hanging from strings at thirty yards distance, in a timed competition in which a single miss disqualified you, that would approach the pressure that is put on you in combat. In that case, you could argue that you had to take the shot even if you were not ready for it, that you didn't have time to make sure the gun reset properly, to wait for the next bullet to enter the chamber before pulling the trigger again--this is a pressure situation, in which an amateur is likely to make a mistake. If you were an expert, your chance of making a mistake would be notably lower. But we're not talking about target shooting here--in fact, that's exactly why you don't botch in practice situations. You're telling me that you've been in thousands of hours of practice situations and never botched. I've already told you that if you are in a practice situation you won't botch. You haven't told me that you've been in thousands of hours of combat and never accidentally put a shot into vital equipment or the guy next to you or a can of gasoline, or pulled the trigger hard when the safety was still engaged, or knocked the clip release when you swung the gun wildly into position, or bent some piece of the weapon when you went to use it, or banged it into an obstacle that damaged it.

I've already agreed that in the kind of shooting you've done, you will never botch. You are telling me that this is your experience. I am telling you that in the kind of shooting you do when people are fighting back and the pressure is on to kill or be killed, you have a lot less opportunity to focus on the weapon, a lot better chance to do something completely stupid, and a much higher chance to botch, relatively speaking.

Now, you can argue that the probability to botch ought not go up due to the difficulty of hitting the target. That is to some degree an unavoidable artifact of the game mechanic, and the best I can do with that is attempt to be mindful of that as one of the factors in defining the botch list--if the target is too small or distant to hit easily, more botches should involve hitting objects you don't want to hit; if the object is too heavily armored to hit, more botches should involve shots glancing off the protections and striking secondary targets. That's a very difficult line for a referee to walk, particularly given that in many cases one of the factors is simply that this is low bias and the gun does not work as reliably (PERIOD).

When I referee combat botches, I keep them simple: you dropped the weapon, or the weapon jammed. With guns, I go for jams, because you can clear a jam in a few seconds and so not lose so many attacks. With hand-held weapons I go for drops, not merely because they don't jam but also because the time it will take to recover a dropped weapon (or draw another) is just about right for you to miss the next attack. What matters to me is you missed the next attack.

Now, if you don't want me to say that your gun jammed and you can't be satisfied with my streamlining the game that way, we can either take out the color completely and I can say "you botched, that attack missed and you don't get another one right away" or I can create very colorful botch lists full of dangerous outcomes such as those discussed in this thread. Meanwhile, Adam's guns will continue to jam, and he will clear them, and he will not suffer the kinds of botch penalties in combat that the rules were designed to avoid.

--M. J. Young

Thu Nov 27 2008 4:47 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

Since I see that this is an argument that I can't win, I'm going to let it go.

I don't think botches of ANY sort are as likely as this allows. Even in extreme combat. I have friends who were in Desert Storm, Vietnam, even am uncle who is a WW2 veteran. I bet even they would back me up on this.

I feel like a victim of the Kassandra plague mentioned in Twelve Monkeys. That even when you know you're right, and can prove it, no one would believe a word you said.

Since it's an argument that I can't win, go ahead and make the guns jam.

Yes, I have thousands of hours of practice and not thousands of hours of combat. However, you don't even have thousands of hours of practice.

Kassandra is an evil witch, isn't she?

Thu Nov 27 2008 5:04 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

Ya know something? When I fell asleep last night, I fell asleep in a huff because MJ was an idiot that wasn't "hearing" a word I said.

When I woke up this morning, what he said made a lot more sense. I don't know why, but it just did. Maybe God just removed the mental block whilst I was sleeping or something.

Maybe I'm not a victim of the Kassandra plague after all.

It just made more sense when I woke up. I don't know how else to explain it or describe it. It just made a lot more sense.

Maybe MJ isn't an idiot who wasn't hearing what I said after all.

I read a story about a guy who was about to commit suicide. He prayed for God to give him a sign that he shouldn't do it. All of a sudden, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, and it said "Almighty God." The guy was in awe. God was calling him on the phone. However, he was too in awe to answer the phone. He didn't commit suicide though. The next day, he called the number back. It went to The Almighty God Church and Tabernacle. The pastor had apparently dialed a wrong number the night before. The guy started going to the church and turned his life around.

I feel like that guy this morning.

I could write out a lengthy, bleeding heart apology. However, since the thing that MJ hates the most is people wasting his time, I'm not going to do that. Just accept the apology I'm offering. God opened my eyes when I woke up.

Thu Nov 27 2008 4:00 pm #

M. J. Young
Moderator

A quick check tells me no, Cassandra was daughter of the last monarchs of Troy, gifted by Apollo with the ability to see the future, but cursed by him because she spurned his desire for her, and thereafter would not be believed. She predicted the fall of Troy, and her father locked her away because he refused to believe her. She predicted her own death and that of her captor Agamemnon, both at the hands of his wife and his wife's lover. She appears as a tragic figure in Greek stories.

She was not a witch, save in the sense that word is sometimes used to describe anyone who has and uses a supernatural gift. She was apparently beautiful enough to win the heart of Apollo and brave enough to win the concern of Athena, according to the legends.

It appears that she was an historical figure around whom a mythology arose; I'll not dare venture to speculate as to whether she actually had a divine gift to foretell the future or whether she was simply shrewd enough to recognize an overwhelmingly dangerous situation others were ignoring.

--M. J. Young

Fri Nov 28 2008 1:53 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

I think what I need to do when I'm certain that I'm right is realize that I'm wrong and just wait until I figure out why. It would probably save everyone a lot of trouble.

Sat Nov 29 2008 3:59 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

The other thing that I can't seem to wrap my head around with this though is that there is a peak end to the skill ability level. I also understand that it's a game mechanic, and that there's a mechanical reason for it. However, that does not change the fact that I think it is wrong.

For example, let's suppose that I landed in some high-tech society and had my eyes replaced with cybernetic eyes. These bionic eyes give me 3@10 visual acuity. You know just as sure as God made little green apples, sometime in the near future, someone is going to develop better cybernetic eyes. However, the eyes that I have already give me 3@10 visual acuity. How can these eyes be better? You could argue that technology could peak and never get any better, but they said that when the crossbow was developed. Technology has advanced more in the last 100 years than it has in all of history before that. So, I get my cybernetic eyes, I have 3@10 visual acuity, then they come out with something better..... What do the new eyes give me, if I've already got 3@10? See what I mean?

Tue Dec 2 2008 4:17 am #

M. J. Young
Moderator

Actually, those bionic eyes do not give you 3@10 visual accuity. You have to learn to use them to reach that level. Probably what they would give you is improved range (20/10, 20/5, 20/2), but you would still have to roll your skills to use those eyes, and you would have to get better at using them.

So the eyes are a poor example twice, first because it is not true that simply having better equipment gives you better skill, and second because the quality of the equipment is easily defined by specifications, and thus can be improved by virtue of those specifications.

I do agree that there are problems. After all, I can imagine someone getting to 3@10 Use Computers, and then encountering an alien system outside his knowledge. But then, the narrowing of scope rules apply--he would be 3@10 at computers of a particular type, and the alien system probably falls in his 1@10 range.

I have not yet found a case where the 3@10 was inappropriate as the maximum possible skill.

--M. J. Young

Wed Dec 3 2008 1:33 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

OK, so bionic eyes are a bad example. What about bionic limbs that give you 3@10 strength, agility, and stamina? Someone is going to build better bionic limbs.

Steve Austin could run 60 MPH and had a bionic arm capable of picking up a car. (How he did that without tearing his ribcage in half is beyond me) However, his son (also made bionic as result of an airplane crash) could run 300 MPH and his arm was way stronger.

Wed Dec 3 2008 1:53 am #

WilliamTWodium
Member

Again, there is a difference between Skill Ability Level and what the skill can do. Steve Austin has a skill at running 60 miles per hour (a B3@8 Run at Traffic Speeds). He has this at some SAL that I don't care about. His son has a different skill, a skill at running 300 miles per hour (B3@10 Run at Flight Speeds). I don't care about his SAL either, because it has very little to do with how fast he can run. (It has more to do with how well he can run 300 MPH - how quickly and reliably can he achieve that speed, how often he falls down on rough terrain, etc.)

Actually, those skills might be T12@4 Use Bionic Legs skills, depending on your referee and the legs, but it doesn't change the fact that the two sets of legs use entirely different skills.

Wed Dec 3 2008 3:02 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

No Scott, I think you misunderstood me. (Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you) What I was saying wasn't that he has skill at running, but that the running speed would peak at 3@10.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say that Steve Austin's son, able to run 300 MPH was 3@10 running speed. That's not a reflection of his skill at running, the 3@10 refers to his maximum speed. He is the 3@10 speed runner.

Then someone builds better bionic legs, and someone can now run at 400 MPH. That means either Steve Austin's son is no longer has 3@10 running speed, or the other person has 4@1 running speed. Does that make more sense?

Wed Dec 3 2008 3:16 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

Two posts

Superman supposedly has 3@10 strength. So what happens when he meets someone who is stronger than he is? (And there are a few, Doomsday, for instance) Either Superman only has 3@9 strength, or Doomsday has 4@1. But since we've established that Superman has 3@10 strength, then Doomsday can't be stronger than he is, even though it was established that he is stronger than Superman.*

*And please, let's not turn this into an argument about comic book characters. This is all just supposing for the sake of argument.

Wed Dec 3 2008 3:52 am #

M. J. Young
Moderator

John, the thing you've missed is that 3@10 is not a running speed; it is an ability to perform the skill.

Let's leave aside the question of whether this is a tech skill or a bod skill by eliminating the bionics. Let's use a greyhound and a cheetah. Let's say that we've got the two most incredible animals in the entire multiverse, both of them 3@10 at a B3@1 Four-legged Dash. According to the chart on this page, the greyhound has been clocked at 39.35mph in a quarter mile, and the Cheetah at 70mph in a 100 yard distance. We'll give the greyhound 40mph for simplicity. That means in our fifteen second dash (the measure of the skill is the distance traveled in the specified time) the cheetah can cover 513.33... yards; the greyhound in the same time can cover 293.33... yards.

For convenience, we'll round that. Our greyhound has 3@10 Four-legged Dash 300 yards B3@1; our cheetah has 3@10 Four-legged Dash 500 yards B3@1.

Our original bionic man could run 60mph, Dash at Traffic Speeds 440 yards B3@8; our upgraded bionic man has Dash at Flight Speeds 2200 yards B3@8. The original can outrun a greyhound but not a cheetah; the advancement can outrun a cheetah and leave it in the dust. This, though, is completely independent of how well either of them can run at that speed. Maybe our original bionic man is 2@10 at running and his son is only 2@1. That has nothing to do with how fast they can run, because skill ability level is not about the speed but about the reliability of the skill.

Particularly with running, if you roll a success you are exceeding your stated speed; if you roll a failure that is not a botch, you have fallen short of your stated speed, still running but slower than anticipated. Thus if we assume for our runners each a 1@10 BRA and 7@ bod bias, the greyhound and the cheetah (3@10 SAL) have a 74% chance to run at least as fast as stated, the old bionic man (2@10 SAL) 64%, and the new bionic man (2@1) 55%. Optional mechanics for time rate skills can be used to determine exactly how fast someone runs on a success or a failure, although in most cases it will be a matter of whether he ran "fast enough" or not. Further, unless he botches, the new bionic man will probably outrun even the cheetah. (Using time rate rules, the cheetah with a 74% chance to run at 500 yards in fifteen seconds on his best possible roll would cover 870 yards. Assuming that the advanced bionic man's worst roll is 96 (97 is a botch), we can apply the mechanic that that's 96-55=41% below the mark, 1298 yards in the same fifteen seconds. So even on a failed roll, depending on circumstances, the advanced bionic man outruns the cheetah. As to a race between the original bionic man and the cheetah, that 440 yard standard on a successful roll of 64 gives him 721.6 yards; the cheetah's worst possible roll is 98 (99 is the botch), which is 380 yards. So the race is not always to the swift (nor the fight to the strong), but that's the way to bet.

Looking at this entirely differently, let's take two guns. We've got one guy who is 3@10 with a cap-and-ball pistol whose long range is 100 feet; we've got another guy who is 1@1 with a PSG-1 sniper rifle with a long range (without scope) of 800 feet. The skill ability level affects how likely each user is to hit a target that is within the range of the weapon and even beyond it; it does not affect the range of the weapon. The expert with the cap-and-ball pistol has no little of hitting the broad side of a Death Star at eight hundred feet. The guy with the sniper rifle could. In the same way, your skill ability level is not a measure of how fast you can run, but how well you can run however fast you can.

Does that make more sense?

--M. J. Young

Wed Dec 3 2008 4:16 am #

M. J. Young
Moderator

Cross posted.

Your argument from Superman is answered relatively simply: either he does not have a 3@10 strength, or there is no one stronger than he is. Since Superman is not a character in any world I run, I do not have to make that decision.

So how can someone appear to be stronger than Superman? Well, as wonderful as it is to have a 3@10 strength, the only way anyone knows you have it is because you use it--and using it almost always involves skills.

A person with a 3@10 strength can, in theory, lift anything based solely on a difficult strength check. The check is penalized based on the weight of the object lifted, but the roll of 1 on a d30 (11 on d30+10) will lift any object of any weight. On the other hand, Thor also has a 3@10 strength (the avatar of the god; I don't know about the Marvel Comics version), and yet it is said that few other gods can lift his hammer. That's because Thor also has a 3@10 skill at lifting, which combined with his 3@10 strength and high bod bias gives him a 100% chance of lifting objects within certain parameters. Presumably Superman does not have this high a skill ability level at lifting (or throwing), and so he sometimes fails. Similarly, we think that when Superman punches the villain, he does the damage he does because he is so strong--but in truth, for Superman to hurt anyone by punching, he needs martial arts skill in punching. That means that some villain might have better martial arts skills in addition to a 3@10 strength, and be able to hit harder or faster because of it.

So I can give Superman the absolute highest possible strength (if I wish--I need not do so) and make opponents seem stronger by enhancing their strength-based skills (even if they are not as strong). The system has interacting elements, and it is in the interaction of the elements that most such problems are resolved.

The reason I do not worry about a player character becoming "overpowered" is because I can always design a more powerful opponent for him. Even though there are limits to the maximum skill ability levels and attributes, there are no limits to the number of skills, and something can be designed that will give the enemy an edge.

--M. J. Young

Wed Dec 3 2008 4:28 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

Yeah, that does make more sense MJ. What about what I was saying though about the 3@10 strength? Go up a few posts for that.

And just a fun trivia fact about greyhounds and cheetahs. While the cheetah has a faster top speed, it has a much slower acceleration. The greyhound can hit 40 mph within 3 steps. The cheetah takes longer. So, in a race of 100 feet, the cheetah always wins. But in a race of 10 feet, the greyhound always wins. It can reach 40 MPH before the cheetah can.

Wed Dec 3 2008 4:29 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

Two posts

Yeah, we did cross post.

How does this difficult strength check work? I mean I know that I couldn't possibly lift something that weighed a metric tonne, no matter what the dice said. (Or could I?) Also, those moments where a person becomes stronger than normal under stress or duress, how are those handled? I've seen a video of a guy who lifted a 1,500 pound helicopter to get a friend out of it when it crashed upside down in a pond. That's not normal. Considering that the helicopter was full of water, he was probably lifting a lot more than 1,500 pounds. I've also read a true story about a guy who flipped a van onto its side after it crashed into a pond. (It was in Reader's Digest, so I'm assuming that's a reliable source) The guy was a passerby trying to rescue the passengers after a crash. The only way he could save them was to flip the van over.

The reason I'm asking (and I hate to say it) is I'm forced to wonder all of a sudden if I could have possibly broken those handcuffs before the jeep hit the guardrail. It doesn't matter, I'm just wondering for the future. I was under duress at the time (obviously) so I'm wondering.

As I told Steven when relaying that story to him: "With one single typed sentence, stating this action, I had changed what would have been a fun and exciting world into a total $#!+-fest for my character." Then I blamed everyone else for it. I've always been a slow learner. I'll tell you right now though, that's the last time my character is getting arrested. He will verse out before that happens again.

I personally know a gentleman who can and does break police handcuffs. He's a Christian pastor, and claims that he does it under the power of The Holy Spirit. I've seen videos of him doing it. He also breaks cinder blocks with his bare hands, also supposedly under the power of The Holy Spirit. (I say supposedly because there's really no way you could prove that's how he does it. I believe he does it how he says he does.) I know that doing it under the power of The Holy Spirit is Magic bias, so that has no relevance to a difficult strength check. However, I was just wondering if I could possibly have done it.

Wed Dec 3 2008 3:25 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

Three posts.

Ya know MJ, I just realized something. What you said about botches. Dale Earnhardt I'd say had AT LEAST 3@7 driving. He got killed. Maybe it was his fault, maybe it was someone else's fault. I don't know, and neither does anyone else, we weren't in the cars, after all. However, Dale Earnhardt must have botched on his accident evasion roll. I can't imagine anything less than a botch causing that accident where he was killed. I guess if even Dale Earnhardt, arguably the best driver in the entire history of NasCar, can botch, so can an amateur with an AK-47. I'm sorry I doubted you. I know it's off-topic, but I put it here so you wouldn't have to look at 2 different threads, BTW.

Ya know, that's actually not a bad idea. Why not just make one thread the "Chit Chat Thread." That way, MJ doesn't have to waste time bouncing between them. (No offense MJ, but you've probably got the slowest internet connection of all of us.) Let's just make one for random talk. Questions, getting to know you, etc. Thoughts?

Instead of starting a new thread, just make one for questions and whatnot. It would save MJ the trouble of needing to spend so much time bouncing between threads. Probably save on site memory too. Anyone else have a thought on that?

And Adam, you're making an attempt to be civil with me. I can be civil with you if you can be civil with me. Check your Myspace messages, BTW. Pearl Harbor was just something I had to get straight in my head. You couldn't understand. (And on second thought, since that does sound mildly insulting, I mean that as "You couldn't understand why I had to get it straight in my head.")

And yes, I'm doing psychosis therapy, BTW.

Thu Dec 4 2008 12:34 am #

M. J. Young
Moderator

Last things first, since I open all the threads that need my attention before I answer any of them, the loading time does not make that much difference. I spend more time reading and writing responses than waiting for the Internet.

Since the time-consuming part is sorting through the messages and figuring out how to respond, it goes faster if discrete ideas are in discrete threads--I don't have to organize single posts covering a dozen different topics. Of course, it goes even faster if there aren't as many questions/subjects broached, but the point of having me here is to answer questions, so there's no sense in not asking them. It's just faster if they're separated from each other.

The strength check system usually works in a seat-of-the-pants best guess by the referee. There's a chart on page 405 and again on page 443 which is the outworking of a formula described on page 404. For any stated strength there is a maximum encumbrance, which is the amount it is assumed you can lift and carry automatically, albeit with difficulty. Anything up to twice that can be lifted on a simple strength check, and anything up to twice again that can be lifted on a difficult check. For the 3@10 the rule is specifically stated that a difficult check will successfully lift up to seven thousand six hundred eighty pounds (and you've only got one chance in thirty of failing that check), and that for each doubling of the maximum weight the character suffers +1 on the die, but that on a roll of 1 (11 calculated) any weight can be lifted. Skills enhance strength abilities above that.

It is within the referee's discretion to give a character a similar bonus, within what the referee thinks reasonable, especially if the character has a 3@ strength. That is, if a character had a 3@1 strength his difficult check would allow him to lift up to five thousand nine hundred fifty-two pounds on any roll not greater than (d30+10=)30. Particularly if this is happening in a superhero or magical fantasy world, I would allow twice that weight on any roll not greater than (d30+10+1=)30, and allow him to keep doubling on greater penalties--but I would not apply the "any weight on a one" rule, which I think is reserved for the 3@10 strength. For a character with less strength, I would probably consider allowing some doublings of the maximum weight lifted on a penalty--but with a caveat. It is pretty much given that if you do not have a 3@10 attribute and you roll a 40, that's the attribute equivalent of a botch; in strength, you probably pulled a muscle or otherwise injured yourself (can anyone spell hernia?). If you are attempting to exceed the maximum weight for a difficult check, I would impose the penalty, base my decision on my assessment of how strong the adrenaline rush would be in this circumstance (and thus how many doublings of the maximum weight I would allow) and rather strictly enforce and maybe increase the botch outcome. I note as I type this that since the penalty is a die addition, each doubling increases the chance that the calculated roll will be at least 40, so that's already inherent in the system (clever of me, in retrospect, and probably part of why I did it at the time).

I might have given you a single difficult strength check to attempt to break your handcuffs. I might have penalized it. I probably would have decided that you caused yourself significant pain if you failed (and maybe even if you succeeded), but only considered serious injury if you botched. If you had a 2@ strength, I would certainly have allowed the check, probably without penalty. (The difference is whether I think the force required falls in the category of the weight that can be lifted at that strength.)

Did I cover everything?

--M. J. Young

Thu Dec 4 2008 6:10 am #

JohnA1nut
Member

OK MJ, so it seems my attempt to save you time would actually cost you time. No problem.

Hey, at least I admit it when I realize I'm wrong. You have to give me that much credit!!!!

Fri Dec 5 2008 9:18 am #

johnosevens
Member

On the other hand, Thor also has a 3@10 strength (the avatar of the god; I don't know about the Marvel Comics version), and yet it is said that few other gods can lift his hammer. That's because Thor also has a 3@10 skill at lifting, which combined with his 3@10 strength and high bod bias gives him a 100% chance of lifting objects within certain parameters.

If I may, boss: Thor does indeed have 3@10 Strength, 3@10 Lifting, but the rest of your example is somewhat erroneous. In the actual mythology, there is nothing that prevents others from using his hammer. It is, on at least one occasion, stolen from him, and even the hated Jotun have no trouble lifting it, carrying it, and so on.
In the Marvel Comics version, people other than Thor cannot lift it, not because it's heavy, but because it actively resists anyone who is not worthy to wield it. Wonder Woman, for instance, can wield it as easily as does Thor himself, while the Hulk - for all his "I juggle tanks" strength - could lift it only a matter of inches, and that was considered an unprecedented success.

On the other hand, one thing I've seen done in D&D and other things, but not had occasion to see in MultiVerser yet, is scale. Does being big affect your ability to lift, to damage, and so on? Do elephants and the like have Strength on the same scale? Vehicles? Giant mecha? Or, on a smaller scale, does a large, ogre-sized thing like Doomsday have any bonuses over a human-sized thing like Superman?

Fri Dec 5 2008 8:49 pm #

JohnA1nut
Member

Yeah, ya know, I was wondering about that too, Osevens. Ants, for instance, have 3@10 strength. They can lift 50 times their own body weight. ("Well, anyone can lift 50 times an ant's weight har har har") But can YOU lift 50 times YOUR body weight?

However, because of their size, it would probably be something like 0@1 strength.

I mean microgram for microgram, I think they're the single strongest animal on earth, but their tiny size would make them weak, compared to most other animals.

Fri Dec 5 2008 9:01 pm #

M. J. Young
Moderator

The strength scale is in theory fixed, such that if a man and an elephant have the same strength score they have the same strength.

It is a recognized problem with the system, particularly since it means that if you have creatures with 3@ strengths they ought to be able to improve those strengths with training. Fortuitously, there are no living creatures which might have 3@ strengths which also have the intelligence to develop and follow strength training programs, so I think the danger minimal.

--M. J. Young

Sat Dec 6 2008 12:27 am #

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