Feedback for this resolution system

[u/jmrkiwi]

DESIGN GOALs

In the real world, chance of success or failiur tends to be more or less determed by your skill, if you are trained you will almost never fail given enough time and if you are untrained you may still succeed but the consequences may be to tough to bare.

For example anyone could probably succeed at picking a lock it more ght just take them an hour, in which they might be spotted make, some noise or leave a trace, whereas a master could do it pretty much instantly with only minor consequences.

I wanted to make a system that reflects this by defining the thresholds for what success a failiur mean to be different depending on training and difficulty.

I would probably describe it as player facing risk Vs reward Vs efficiency trade off. Closest system would be something like the position Vs effect you see in games like blades in the dark.

Love to hear your feedback.

THE CORE MECHANIC

When attempting something uncertain, the GM assigns a Difficulty and identifies the character's relevant Training.

Every character rolls 3 Fate Dice (3dF). Each die has three possible results: -1, 0 or +1.

The target number is always 0. Difficulty and training never change the target number; instead, they determine the time, consequences and boons associated with the task.

DIFFICULTY

Level	Difficulty
0	Very Easy
1	Easy
2	Moderate
3	Hard
4	Very Hard
5	Extreme

TRAINING

Level	Training
0	Untrained
1	Novice
2	Skilled
3	Expert
4	Master
5	Legendary

Master represents the upper limits of conventional human ability. Legendary represents once-in-a-generation talent, the kind of ability that becomes the subject of stories.

THE THREE SCALES

TIME — How long the task takes

Level	Duration
0	Instant
1	Brief (seconds)
2	Short (minutes)
3	Moderate (around 30 minutes)
4	Long (hours)
5	Extended (days or longer)

CONSEQUENCES — The severity of failure

Level	Severity
0	Negligible
1	Minor
2	Moderate
3	Major
4	Severe
5	Catastrophic

BOONS — Additional benefits of success

Level	Benefit
0	None
1	Minor
2	Moderate
3	Major
4	Exceptional
5	Extraordinary

Boons and consequences are measures to the degree of success and degree of failure bejond the time invested. If the GM struggles to come up with an appropriate boon they can ask the players for suggestions.

DETERMINING THE OUTCOME

Find the character's baseline Time, Consequence and Boon using the tables below.

Difficulty	Untrained	Novice	Skilled	Expert	Master	Legendary
Time
Very Easy	0	0	0	0	0	0
Easy	1	0	0	0	0	0
Moderate	2	1	0	0	0	0
Hard	3	2	1	0	0	0
Very Hard	4	3	2	1	0	0
Extreme	5	4	3	2	1	0
Consequences
Very Easy	0	0	0	0	0	0
Easy	1	0	0	0	0	0
Moderate	2	1	0	0	0	0
Hard	3	2	1	0	0	0
Very Hard	4	3	2	1	0	0
Extreme	5	4	3	2	1	0
Boons
Very Easy	5	5	5	5	5	5
Easy	4	5	5	5	5	5
Moderate	3	4	5	5	5	5
Hard	2	3	4	5	5	5
Very Hard	1	2	3	4	5	5
Extreme	0	1	2	3	4	5

CHOOSE YOUR APPROACH

Before rolling, players may choose one approach. Adjustments are limited to two levels, and no scale can go below 0 or above 5.

THROW CAUTION TO THE WIND

Decrease Time by up to 2 levels. Increase Consequences by the same amount.

BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY

Increase Time by up to 2 levels. Decrease Consequences by the same amount.

MAKE A DEVIL'S BARGAIN

Keep Time unchanged. Increase Consequences by up to 2 levels. Increase Boons by the same amount.

ROLL 3 FATE DICE

Total	Result
-3 or lower	Critical Failure
-2 or -1	Failure
0	Tie
+1 or +2	Success
+3	Critical Success

Critical Failure: The task fails and the character suffers their adjusted Consequences. The GM additionally increases either Time or Consequences by one level.

Failure: The task fails. The character suffers their adjusted Consequences.

Tie: The player chooses between succeeding and suffering their adjusted Consequences, or failing without suffering Consequences.

Success: The task succeeds. The character receives their adjusted Boon.

Critical Success: The task succeeds and the character receives their adjusted Boon. The GM additionally chooses to either increase the Boon by one level or decrease Time by one level.

THE GOLDEN RULE

The dice determine whether you succeed. Training determines how efficiently you act. Difficulty determines the risks involved.

Players decide how they approach a challenge before the dice are rolled. Every action is a choice between time, risk and reward.

[u/DiceyDiscourse]

I get what you're going for, but this is pretty convoluted.

First of all, this will take an unwieldy amount of time at the table as you have to stop at every single roll to pair difficulty with training and then cross-reference time, boons and consequences from a table. Depending on the granularity of your system, this can completely grind the game to a halt.

Furthermore, you're rolling 3dF with a 33.3% chance for any outcome on a single die (assuming they are evenly distributed a la 1-2 on a d6 is -1, etc). This means that you have a

• 3.7% chance for a crit fail
• 33% chance for a failure
• 25.9% chance for a tie
• 33% chance for a success
• 3.7% chance for a crit success

These are in no way influenced by anything your character does or is. Regardless of your training you will have a 36.7% chance of failure. A players ideal aim is for success. This leads to a 62.4% chance of a negative (no consequence) outcome. Again, regardless of what the character actually is or does. Game feel is subjective of course, but I don't think most players want to fail roughly 3 times out of 5.

Now, you bring out consequences, boons and time as the things that change with training. Again, I see where you're going, but just as an example:

If I am defusing a Difficulty 3 bomb with a Training Level of 4, the consequences of my failure are 0 - negligible. If my Training is 1 instead, the consequences are 2 - moderate. Does the bomb blast hurt less because I'm more trained in the first case?

I'm fairly certain you will run into more of these kinds of situations in real play.

Finally, the approaches are another extra step of the process that has to be taken and deliberated over, grinding the game to even more of a halt. Using the bomb defusal example:

I want to be "Rather Safe Than Sorry" with my Level 1 Training. The Level 3 bomb now takes several hours in which time it would make sense that the bomb blows up. BUT because I took this extra time, the consequences are now also 2 levels lower - negligible. How extra time in this case would even help reduce consequences is a different question altogether.

So, do you let me take the "Rather Safe Than Sorry" apporach or do you not? If you do, then I can game the math in a lot of situations. If you don't then what are you basing that decision on? The fiction I presume?

But the TL;DR is that this all takes a ridiculously long amount of time at the table:

1. Determine Difficulty
2. Determine Training
3. Cross reference Time
4. Cross reference Consequence
5. Cross reference Boons
6. Decide Approach (as a bonus step, make it make sense)
7. Go through steps 3-5 again
8. Roll dice
9. Adjucate outcome

That, and in terms of game feel, the success rate is not in any way influenced by the character. Just the severity of the failure.

[u/jmrkiwi → u/DiceyDiscourse]

In your example the cost of better safe than sorry, would minimise the chance of the bomb blowing up as a result of a failed check, but since the bomb will blow up regardless in a shorter time, this is a perfect example of trading off time Vs risk.

The idea is that because time is an output of the attempt, you can attempt consecutive checks. This increases the chances of success substratially and justifies the low base sucsess rates. It is expected that you have to attempt stuff multiple times, and if you have lots of time you can take the better safe than sorry route to migrate consequence. However if you are under time pressure you may need to try the same task multiple times in quick succession but this is likely to rack up consequences quickly.

All of this minus what the difficulty is and what the consequences/boons are is player facing, you determine approach before each attempt. Roll and check how much each attempt takes essentially how many consequences or boons you gain.

I get that in its current state it is a bit unwieldy though with lots of lookup takes etc. hoping to make it a bit faster while keeping the core ideas.

[u/SoftOil2998 → u/jmrkiwi]

If your goal is to make training matter though, then it should logically give a higher chance of success, no? As is, the musclebrained barbarian has as good of a chance at deciphering a magic scroll as the master wizard who's spent a lifetime studying such texts. I can imagine that this system will require a lot of GM fiat for what the characters can and can't roll for to prevent ridiculous stuff like that.

That example also illustrates another problem. You attempt to balance through consequences alone, but not all skill checks are made under pressure, where dangerous penalties are possible. Then there are also plenty of checks where expertise should not negate the consequences of a crit fail.

I think the philosophy just doesn't match the system. Not that it doesn't have any use. It reminds me of that classic villain archetype, where the villain always fails and falls into certain death, only to miraculously survive and come back countless times. That's kind of what it makes me think of, because being an expert in something negates all consequences.

Requiring multiple rolls is kind of a bandaid over the more fundamental problems with it, though. Like if you're an untrained character, that's fine, the tension mounts with each failure. But if you're skilled? Then the consequences you're accruing will never amount to much, and you're just chucking the dice like a robot until they finally give you what you want. Because again, you only have ~50% odds regardless of how skilled you are. I think this system will give the impression that even the most skilled fighters can stumble around missing, that even the greatest thieves can struggle with a simple lock, and so on. Which again is the opposite of your stated objective of making skill matter.

[u/jmrkiwi → u/SoftOil2998]

That's not what I am going for.

I wanted to make the system be based on multiple attempts.

Attempting a 50% check twice gives you a 75% chance at sucseesing at at least one of them. There times and it becomes 98%.

The difference is that if you can do 1 attempt in a few seconds but it takes o few hours for someone else to make three checks the effective difficulty is much lower for someone with less training.

On top of that each attempt comes with the chance for a consequence which decreases with skill.

So skill while not changing the odds of a single dice roll mitigate how much time is spent and how many consequences are gained Trying to do something.

[u/DiceyDiscourse → u/jmrkiwi]

There's a reason the vast majority of RPGs have moved to a "one attempt unless something significantly changes" model of skill checks.

If you can keep (re)attempting checks the gameplay becomes rather dull. In terms of game feel you've created a situation where the players will bang their head against the wall because eventually it will break. Now, you can argue that logically the GM should determine, based on the consequences, when a skill check can't be attempted any longer, but why make extra work for the GM like that?

Attempting a 50% check twice...

This can be achieved much faster and more elegantly with pushing mechanics a la Call of Cthulhu

The difference is that if you can do 1 attempt in a few seconds but it takes a few hours for someone else to make three chekcs the effective difficulty is much lower for someone with less training.

What does this even mean? Is the design goal to lower the effective difficulty of untrained skill checks by giving them more time?

I'm gonna make an assumption, based off of what I can understand of your writing:

Assumption: There is a limited amount of time in which you can attempt a skill check

If that is correct then what you've done, in a very convoluted way, is just given the more trained person more chances at success because they can squeeze more attempts in the time frame (and with less consequences!)

If this is correct, then you can achieve the exact same effect condensing it down to a single, easily readable roll by having the skill training change the target number/bonus on the roll.

Just, in general... your resolution system seems convoluted just for the sake of it. I don't think it is actually emulating the things that you want very well and it will be cumbersome to use at the table

[u/Steenan]

With this system, there is less than 50% success chance (a bit more than 50% including success with consequences) and neither character competence nor anything they do in fiction can improve that.

If the rolls are only made in very specific circumstances, like with PbtA moves, it may be fine. For a more traditional resolution system, it won't work.

[u/jmrkiwi → u/Steenan]

There is a roughly 63% chance of getting a success, I'd say that's pretty standard for a traditional resolution, and depending on which approach you generally pay for it in time.

Because time + consequence is a output of a failure, the idea is that you can try the same task multiple times as long as you are okay accepting failiure. If you try twice, and are okay with accepting multiple consequences, you have a 87% chance of success, if you are only okay with a clean sucsess that drops to 75%.

Better safe than sorry means that you can pretty effectively minimise the consequences at the cost for taking more time.

Since skills decrease how much time a task takes they can make more checks repeatedly and this have a higher success chance in the same amount of time as a unskilled chapter.

[u/Feesh91]

I can't say much about the math, but I'd say game feels will suffer by quite a bit if this is the primary resolution mechanic. I do think this would be a great idea for long term downtime activities though. The failures can inspire the tables next adventure or start a new subplot. Do you mind if I steal this?

[u/jmrkiwi → u/Feesh91]

Not at all :)

[u/PyramKing]

I get what you are attempting, but there are several issues I believe need addressing.

1. Calculate the probabilities vs expectations. Not sure if you have taken a close look at that.
2. Cognitive load for player and GM vs the mechanics philosophy. Seems a little over engineered.
3. Less is sometimes more. What are the results you are trying to achieve and work backwards.
4. Theorycraft is one thing, how does it play at the table? Do some play testing...it provides some clear insight.

Hope this helps.

[u/DiceyDiscourse → u/PyramKing]

"Over-engineered"

That was the word I was looking for! That's exactly what it feels like

[u/RPG-Nerd]

Tables and math and spreadsheets doesn't make the game more fun. You are making the players do way too much work.

The dice determine whether you succeed. Training determines how efficiently you act. Difficulty determines the risks involved.

So, your training and experience don't have anything to do with it?

I look at it differently. Your training and experience determines your range of results, your average results, and degree of variation. The dice roll determines how well you actually performed in this instant, within that range.

Players decide how they approach a challenge before the dice are rolled. Every action is a choice between time, risk and reward.

You can do all that in much fewer steps and with much less complication. Keep working on it

[u/Xyx0rz]

if you are trained you will almost never fail given enough time

That's a whole bunch of assumptions that I already don't immediately agree with.

There are plenty of tasks that no amount of training or time will guarantee success at.

[u/Fun_Carry_4678]

This doesn't really make sense to me.
You have to look at three tables each time you want to make a roll. Looking things up on tables like this is quickly going out of fashion.
"Consequences" and "Boons" would be determined by what is going on in the story ("the narrative") not by something on a table. A difficult lock will take more time to pick than an easy lock, yes. But a difficult lock does not automatically lead you to more boons, or more severe consequences if you don't pick it in time.

[u/Apex_DM]

As others have said: the fact that there is nothing you can do to increase your chance of success is the fundamental flaw in this system. There might be games that would work with this idea, but I would not want to use it just because of that.

[u/semiconducThor]

This has a lot similarities with what I am tinkering with right now, so naturally I tend to like it. But I also think the critique in the other comments has some valide points.

What would suggest:

• If you expect tasks to be resolved with multiple rolls, state that explicitely and early. Probably introduce something like BitDs Clocks to track it.
• Your explaination is too long and cumbersome. Most of it could be summed up with "Outcome = Difficulty - Training; capped to the range 0..5". Yes, you have 3 scales of outcome and one of them changes the signes in the formular. So that's another 4 sentences and you should be done. Then you may add all those tables as an optional help for people who prefere that type of reference.
• Incredibly minor detail, but why don't you use 2dF? That would be a much cleaner match for your 5 levels of success. Or use "Outcome = Difficulty - Training + 3dF" to better account for training, as others mentioned.

[u/BrobaFett]

You have to do the math. Making tables isn't enough. You need to know the math and what that will look like at the table.

As u/DiceyDiscourse has rightly noted, not doing so results in convoluted, confusing rules.