Botch tables query

This was a recent botch list behind the screens.
1. Swap minds with target
2. Wrong target
3. Brain burn
4. Psionic shockwave
5. Neural breakdown
6. Mind meld
7. Reverse effect

I'm wondering how many can be on the list, and if there is ever a roll twice again botch. It could be really interesting to see a wrong target mind swap/meld, or a reverse effect plus brain burn, or so on. Of course, two botches at once could be quite ridiculous, but it would be interesting. Then again, an effect on the list could simply BE a compound effect that goes well together....

What do you guys think?

I don't see why not. I generally tend to keep my botches in perspective of what's bias-possible in the world. If you can't do it on purpose, you generally can't do it by mistake either. MJ tends to use 10-slot botch tables because it's easy to come up with 10 things and d10s are usually easy to have around. If you happen to have a d12 there's no reason you couldn't add "Roll Twice Again and ignore 11-12" and "GM's Choice".

My botch tables almost always include "random explosion" as #1. Because to me psionics and magic always have the potential to just go wild and blow something up.

If you can't do it on purpose, you generally can't do it by mistake either.

This isn't strictly true. Magic botches in particular tend to violate this principle, but I'm sure we could think up a few for Bod or Tech. Skynet, anyone?

As for how many, I keep adding things until it takes me more than five or six seconds to come up with the next entry, and if I have an odd number at that point I add one more. I also try to have around .15 to .25 of the total entries be arguably "good" results (or at least "not that bad" or "I can work with that").

Also, I would never include "roll again twice." If I include this, I'm opening up the possibility of any two entries being combined, whether they're compatible or not, and I don't want to slow myself down while I'm drawing up the table with considerations of whether my newest idea will play well with my other ideas should I happen to roll "roll again twice." If a combination of two entries on the table strikes me as a fun idea, I'll add that combination to the list; I have no use for a random re-combiner.

I would never add "GM's Choice" either, but for different reasons. Part of the point of the botch table is to assure the player that he is being treated fairly, even in his moments of misfortune - especially in his moments of misfortune. Introducing an element of choice, even if that choice is only exercised after a particular random result, undermines that aspect of the botch table. By making the results random, I have effectively washed my hands of the player's plight; why would I want a roll of 12 to dirty them again?

(Of course, all this hides the fact that the real GM's Choice is my choice of what goes on the table in the first place. If I'm thirsting for a particular botch, I can make the table shorter to improve my odds, or pad the table with variations on that theme. I wouldn't want to do it too often or too obviously, but I think this is a better solution than putting a wildcard on the botch table.)

Alright, I agree with you on GM's Choice.

I still think 'Roll Again Twice' is a neat idea. You don't have to make sure they're compatible. Why couldn't you get, for instance, Psychic Shockwave and Brain Burn? Or Psychic Shockwave and Mind Switch (maybe it Shockwaves and then mind-switches so you wind up on the receiving end of your own shockwave)? Or Reversed Effect and Delusions (you don't realize you're actually broadcasting your thoughts and all you're 'hearing' is your own echo)? Pretty much anything is combinable somehow.

I still think 'Roll Again Twice' is a neat idea. You don't have to make sure they're compatible.

I don't want anything on my botch table that I didn't put there on purpose. Adding this option without thinking about the compatibility of the component entries effectively adds possibilities to the table which I haven't explicitly approved. Thus, I'll only add it if I have considered all possible combinations. I'm not saying that will never ever happen, but if it does happen, it won't often.

Of course, if you like it, there's nothing stopping you from using it. I would be careful about effectively giving two botches for one, though. Botching is an expected part of the game, but a psionic shockwave and an explosion from a single telepathy botch is outright unfair.

Why can't botch tables just be things that are completely harmless? I've been told somewhere that botches are the leading cause of death for versers. Why do they have to be? Why not make the botch table 9 things that would be funny as all get out, and only 1 thing that could potentially kill them? Why do botches HAVE to go bad?

Because that is their purpose. Botches are the risk; without that, experimentation would carry only reward. Without dangerous botches, players could say things like, "I try again until I succeed," and the referee is stuck with rolling some dice and saying, "several hours later, you do." With dangerous botches, the player has to say, "I try again until I succeed or botch" - and that isn't something he'll say unless it's worth the risk of pain or loss.

Scott, you're making the common mistake of thinking that "non-lethal" means the same as "painless". It doesn't. When I say funny as all get out, I mean things that would be embarrassing or hurtful, without being dangerous.

So, my character is going around town psionically lifting ladies' skirts, and botches "Botch, you made all of your own clothes disappear." So now I am the one running around naked, instead of my victims. That would still serve as the same kind of deterrent, just not harmful or really dangerous. (Worst thing that could happen really is you get arrested for streaking) See what I mean?

Yes, I thought as much. The initial idea was roll again, but as I thought about it it made more sense to just have the combos on there.

Even numbers, you say? That's not particularly necessary if you use a random number generator, but that is a bit difficult in real time.

I found a Discordian site: http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia, I like what I see. I am reading about the Rant, and how most people have one really good Rant in them at least. It's funny-I have them around once a week, and I have 8 saved to my hard drive. It's amazing that in all my researches into religions, I only ever heard of this one in passing; it certainly matches my thoughts on all the contradictions out there. Hehe.

At least don't use really painful or potentially lethal botches at the start of the world. Dancing Princess, I botched and killed myself right after saving the royal family. Using a healing prayer and versing out on a botch right in the middle of the final battle would suck royally!!!! I wouldn't use any potentially hazardous botches until the player had gotten to a finishing point. If another story comes up, and they get involved in it, go back to non-lethal botches. At least let the story be told, ya know?

So if you're in the middle of a good story, you're safe, once that's over, the botches get worse.

(Doing Therapy)

You'll notice, in the case of the botch table above, that only one effect is immediately lethal, and several rolls happen to determine how much damage a shockwave does; Botches are bad, and they probably happen more than you realize, but they are rarely lethal. I disagree though, with making all botches non-lethal to at some point. It is a major element of the game that you can always screw up, and screw up majorly. For example, people are STILL talking about how B Movie Monster World ended; even were you to botch immediately, your character learns something, and it makes a fun story, but the likelihood of your first botch killing 80% of the population is really really low.

I tend to do a d30 roll for how bad the botch is. If you get a 3-4, I'm pretty likely to give you a 'good botch'.

Forex, you're trying to read Joe the Guard's mind. It doesn't work, but you do put him to sleep, and now know Psi Cause Sleep 1@1. If its '30', you're instantly dead. Forex: You don't read Joe's mind cause your brain exploded. If it's 26, you're in severe danger of being versed rapidly. Forex: You've given most of your mental strength to Joe to create a berserk fury in him directed at you. He's superhuman, you're barely able to stand up.

O.K., there's a lot in this thread; let me see if I can cover it all quickly.

• As to the number of items on a botch list, that's entirely up to the referee and the players. When I'm playing live, I often take suggestions from the peanut gallery--that is, the other players at the table, and even from the player himself. My eldest son reminds me that you want one of them to be good, and maybe more than one if you have a long list. I don't like to go fewer than six, because usually in the first six I have things that are either very dangerous or very predictable (e.g., nearly all psionic botch lists include shock wave, neural breakdown, and brain burn, and that's already 50% of the results on a list of six, so they would turn up inordinately frequently). I don't have a maximum, but like Scott says, I don't want to spend all day trying to think of just one more. I try to match the number of items on the list to a die I have available, but I'm really good at generating odd curves with existing dice, so that's not a major deal. When I'm here and you guys botch, sometimes I'll wander out into the living room and ask whoever's there for botch ideas. I think sixteen is the longest list I ever created.
• I agree with Scott on referee's choice. The point of doing the list is precisely to eliminate referee's choice.
• Botch lists are not the only way to do botches. For example, there's the bod botch injury table, which creates results from knocking the wind out of yourself to being so completely demolished that you're going to zygote into the next world, and in that case the referee puts the "color" into the accident--but that's because the part that matters in that case is how badly hurt the character is, not how it happened.
• I also agree that it's better to create botch combinations by intent than by random combination. Backfire and misfire are not compatible botches, really, and there are probably many other "ordinary" botch results that do not work well together.
• I certainly would not say that you cannot always have an explosion on psionic and magic botches; however, the book suggests that explosion botches should be included for skills from around 9@ and up. For psionics, that's the level at which you start tampering with molecular structures; for magic, that's energy creation ex nihilo. The idea is supposed to be that the more potent principles in these areas release more power. Of course, you could have explosions at a lower level, but you'd probably want a custom table--a multiple obliterative universal explosion for a read minds attempt is really out of scale.
• I make no promises that you can't do by botch what you can't do directly. You can't botch when trying to do something that is impossible under the bias, but you can do something impossible under the bias on a botch. Nor, incidentally, do I promise that there is a way under the current bias to fix whatever you did. I recall a character in a flatlined psi (and mag) world trying to save himself in a martial arts combat in which he was entirely overmatched by pulling a P10@1 force shield out of his bag of tricks. His botch made him non-corporeal, and the question became whether there was a way for him to verse out of that world to get to a world where he could fix the problem.
• If you want GM's choice, just ignore the process of creating a botch list and announce what happens. The rules do not say that you can't do that. You can decide the botch any way you want. The value of a botch list is that it creates a sense of fairness, that the referee is not out to get the player, and is not playing favorites by making one person's botch easier and another harder. If you can create that atmosphere while running botches strictly by fiat, that's fine. On the other hand, you really do need a tremendous amount of player trust to make any roll playing game work. Save your capital for things like choice of next world, design of encounters, stuff like that.
• John, we've been over this before: botches have to include danger, because they are the deterrent to overuse of skills. Further, no one guarantees that you will finish the world successfully.

  Consider this: you're facing Godzilla, and you've decided you need to bring him down. You've cobbled together a makeshift bomb. This thing has only about a 10% chance of actually working, but if it does it's going to do obliterative damage. You have a 90% chance of failure, and that means a 9% chance to botch. But you go ahead with it. Why? Because without the chance of a fatal botch, there is no deterrent--you know that you have what is called "plot immunity", that you can't possibly die before the story reaches its resolution. So maybe the bomb will kill Godzilla, and maybe it won't, but it certainly won't kill you, because that would require a fatal botch, and fatal botches have been eliminated.

  Now, you're not talking about botching with a bomb. You're talking about botching with a psionic or magic skill. What makes you think, though, that those skills are less dangerous than a nuclear bomb? You tap into all the power of the supernatural realm and there's a very real chance that you will lose control of that power. Even tapping into your own inner power might release more than you can control. At least with the bomb, you and everyone else around you are aware of the danger and can take precautions. With psionics and magic, probably no one else can intervene, because no one knows that you're doing something dangerous.

  We had a great time years ago when Tristan was very young and Chris was playing at the same table with him. Every time Chris said, "I have an idea," Tristan would say, "I wrap my arms around his legs so that when he verses out I'll go with him." More than once he was right, that Chris' idea was just crazy enough that he botched trying to do it (although a few times he killed himself by succeeding).

  And who is to say when the story is ending? Sure, Dancing Princess is a very structured story, but does it end when you reveal to the princesses that they are dancing with demons, or when you destroy the demons, or when you receive your reward? I love it when a structured story ends with the verser dying at the very moment victory is achieved--but I don't run that many structured stories. In Why Spy, should botches become potentially fatal when the verser is facing the chief villain in the current adventure, and then go back to safe if he starts another mission? Look at Executive Decision: Steven Seagal's character died in a botch right as they were boarding the plane. Do you want to tell me that those things can't happen? That's not the way stories work.

Did I cover everything?

--M. J. Young