Fighting dicing chaos

[Donnadogsoth]

The chaoticness of task resolution dice rolling bothers me. If I roll % climb and climb a wall once, why can I not climb it automatically the next time? Haven't I literally proven I can do it? If I roll % strength and lift a portcullis once, why can I not lift it automatically the next time? And in the latter case, how can a lower-strength person lift something a higher-strength person has failed to?

The factors stopping me from performing my task in subsequent attempts could be extra elements like sore muscles or icy handholds or drunkenness or haste or a forgetting of the specific route last taken in dealing with the obstacle, in which case the ability will lower or the difficulty rise as the case may be.

Or it could be random elements that no amount of ability can compensate for, like running through a field of gopher holes at night—e.g., a 17% chance of sustaining a twisted ankle per 100 yards. Set aside the random elements except insofar as skill can be used to avoid them.

If I succeed despite any extra elements of difficulty, then there again I have proven I can do it and it should be easier to do subsequently—and all the easier if said extra elements are absent.

The dice roll, then, should not merely determine success or failure, it should also determine the nature of the world in question. If the wall is impossible to climb (failed roll), then it is impossible to climb for all of that skill level, all the more for those of lesser skill. If the wall is easy, then it should be easy for all of that skill level.

For example, in Living Steel, task rolls are a difficulty + skill or less on 3d6. If noble Ben (climbing 6) wants to free climb a frosty cobblestone wall (difficulty 8), he needs 14 or less on the dice. Let's say he make it—he or the GM then notes down that the wall is climbable by climbing 6 or higher.

Now say the perfidious Fontaine (climbing 2) attempts to pursue Ben over the wall. He needs a 10 or less. If he makes it, the wall is climbable by climbing 2 or higher. If he fails, the wall is unclimbable by climbing 2 or less, still potentially climbable by climbing 3-5, and climbable automatically by climbing 6 or higher. The same difficulty (8) continues to be used for those with middle-range skill levels, subject to these restrictions.

(Props to Lindybeige for broaching this topic.)

[Segev]

While I could certainly see your proposed system working, I will note that the best way I've seen what you're annoyed by handled is to have failures accrue due to different factors each time.

Perhaps you climb the wall once, and that's great! But next time, a stray gust of wind blows at the wrong moment, or a handhold that was stable before breaks this time. Or it's slick now, because water fell on it or you left sweat on it before. Or your arm cramped up at the wrong moment. Or you got overconfident after your last success and tried to do it too fast.

Or maybe you got lucky last time.



As an example of the real world: just because I bowl a strike once doesn't mean I can do it every time. I can't even make the ball go to the same spot in the pyramid each time.

Your skill, your efforts, and your luck all factor in to these things, and they don't happen identically each time.

[Khedrac]

Ouch - you just made me think of a good thing about 3.5 D&D's skill system - taking 10 (and taking 20).

Taking 20 - keeping on trying until you do the best you can, can only be used to tasks with no penalty for failure.
Taking 10 - can only be used when not under pressure (expect for certain class features) - and represents somethign pretty close to what you describe.

Part of the logic is that a wall easy to climb on a sunny day is not so easy to climb on a sunny day while someone is shooting at you. (Hence when under pressure no taking 10.)

Now, you might argue that what about harder climbs, once you know them you should be able to do them. Well, part of that could be a circumstance bonus for knowing the climb; but also there is the fact that one does not always succeed when attempting hard tasks (part of the fun of the challenge).

Now if you will excuse me - I just defended 3.5 D&D and need to go and wash my brain.

[Segev]

*good points about 3.5's skill system*

Now if you will excuse me - I just defended 3.5 D&D and need to go and wash my brain.

There, there. Nothing shameful about pointing out good things. You don't have to like everything else about it.


But, just in case... Let the cheese flow through you. Join the d20 side.

[Jay R]

The chaoticness of task resolution dice rolling bothers me. If I roll % climb and climb a wall once, why can I not climb it automatically the next time? Haven't I literally proven I can do it? If I roll % strength and lift a portcullis once, why can I not lift it automatically the next time? And in the latter case, how can a lower-strength person lift something a higher-strength person has failed to?

The problem with your theory is that real life doesn't work that way.

I remember a time when I could climb up to the first branch of the tree in our back yard about a third of the time.
I have fallen out of a tree I've climbed successfully countless times.
Golfers who have hit a hole in one can't do it again.
Accidents on sports happen all the tim e to people who have successfully completed that move over and over.
All professional basketball players have made some free throws, and none of them have a 100% record.
World records are held by people who never equaled that feat again.
My students have been known to miss questions on the algebra exam which they got right earlier on the homework.

It's not true that if I've done something once, I can always do it. It just isn't.

[Donnadogsoth]

The problem with your theory is that real life doesn't work that way.

I remember a time when I could climb up to the first branch of the tree in our back yard about a third of the time.
I have fallen out of a tree I've climbed successfully countless times.
Golfers who have hit a hole in one can't do it again.
Accidents on sports happen all the tim e to people who have successfully completed that move over and over.
All professional basketball players have made some free throws, and none of them have a 100% record.
World records are held by people who never equaled that feat again.
My students have been known to miss questions on the algebra exam which they got right earlier on the homework.

It's not true that if I've done something once, I can always do it. It just isn't.

I hear you, but must maintain that there are such things as reliable competencies. A professional photographer circa 1983 will, barring untoward factors, be able to develop photographs in her darkroom. A professional climber has odds approaching nil of falling in the climbing gym. A sailor knows how to tie knots and might fail only in a storm. An auto mechanic knows how to change tires and has little chance of failing at it. And Aragorn, Duncan Idaho, and Conan all know how to use a sword to defeat amateurs.

Flukes can be allowed for in the fraction of a percentage range, like in the case of the grandmaster tightrope walker who fell to his death walking across a rope spanning between two office towers, a distance he had doubtless done hundreds of times before. And of course I have not dismissed factors of whatever type. But these are either random factors, which no skill can compensate for, or extra factors like strong winds, or a failure of nerve leading to sweaty palms, lack of concentration, or forgetting about certain details of the task. Underneath these are tasks for which professionals can have reliable competencies.

Professionals reaching to the limits of their abilities may not be able to repeat their performance, but any professional athlete can easily best a beginner, with no need to have them roll their skills to see who beats whom. I remember as an eight year old having beginners luck with a Chess master and managing to take his queen, but what of it, he was playing ten games at once and beat me anyway. Is there any chance in the world, aside from some grievous psychological blow or a calculated secret dosing him on an hallucinogenic drug, that I could have beat him? He had reliable competency at Chess.

Which to say: consider something annoying me buried in what I have already said annoys me: the automatic 5% failure rate built into some systems d20 rolls. I remember a DM who mandated this, and I disagreed but was too unimaginative to properly object. Do people fall down their staircases 18 times a year? Do people crash their cars 5% of the their trips taken? How often do people fail to sit down in a chair, or mow their lawn? That is one reason I liked the Living Steel system, that it allowed for automatic successes (which I suppose I can supplement by saying everything has a 1 in 1000 chance of failure even if the skill + difficulty numbers total 18). Let my people do things without big automatic chances of failure!

[Koo Rehtorb]

Part of it is to just not make rolls for anything where failure isn't interesting to the narrative. From Dogs in the Vinyard:

"Drive Play Toward Conflict

Every moment of play, roll dice or say yes. If nothing’s at stake, say yes to the players, whatever they’re doing. Just plain go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs. Sooner or later— sooner, because your town’s pregnant with crisis— they’ll have their characters do something that someone else won’t like. Bang! Something’s at stake. Launch the conflict and roll the dice. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes. Roll dice or say yes."

[Jay R]

I hear you, but must maintain that there are such things as reliable competencies. A professional photographer circa 1983 will, barring untoward factors, be able to develop photographs in her darkroom. A professional climber has odds approaching nil of falling in the climbing gym. A sailor knows how to tie knots and might fail only in a storm. An auto mechanic knows how to change tires and has little chance of failing at it. And Aragorn, Duncan Idaho, and Conan all know how to use a sword to defeat amateurs.

Yup. If there is no stress, and it's not hard for you, just take 10. Or if there's plenty of time, take 20.

Stress-free situations in which you cannot fail, should not require a die roll. The die is used only in a high-stress situation, or a truly difficult task, or an opposed roll, in which nobody has a 100% chance of succeeding.

If a skill roll can have a fumble, there should at least be a confirming back up roll, so it's only 5% of all failures.

But walking a tightrope quickly, so guards won't notice you, or climbing to avoid a tiger charge, are not stress-free, and do require rolls.

[Khedrac]

There, there. Nothing shameful about pointing out good things. You don't have to like everything else about it.

In many ways I do like the system, it's also the one most of my gaming circle knows so it is the one we play, sometimes I just wish to go back to BECMI...

I hear you, but must maintain that there are such things as reliable competencies.

Which is where "take 10" comes in as I said.

Note: you did not specify a D&D version. Probably my least favourite skill system is the optional one for BECMI from the Gazetteers - I think it has all the worst features of what became the D20 skill system with none of the later fixes. To me it defines what you cannot do not what you can. This was why I specified 3.5 in my response.
If you want a skill-based system go for a Basic Roleplaying descendent (or in my case RuneQuest 3 or Call of Cthulhu).
I know there are lots of other ways to do skills (e.g. I like Lost Soul's system) but BRP is a very good place to start looking.

Which to say: consider something annoying me buried in what I have already said annoys me: the automatic 5% failure rate built into some systems d20 rolls.

I think you will most people here totally agree with you - and that is why D&D (3.0/3.5) does not have that rule (which you did not assert). I too completely agree on this point and if using a system with that rule will house-rule away (or at least partially away).

If one wants to acknowledge the chance of the master messing up the easy job (e.g. the old, well-used chisel suddenly snaps) then there are a few variants which make more sense:
a) On a 1/20 subtract/add 10 (or 20) to the total result. A master still won't fail an easy task on a '1', but a competent person might.
b) On a 1/20 re-roll and subtract/add the second die result (repeat on 20s). This one is actually a direct inherit from RoleMaster which did this on rolls of 01-05 and 96-00 for all rolls. RoleMaster then added fumbles (and gaining experience from both fumbles and successes). This also reduces the chance of a master failing to less than 5% (how low depends on difficulty and skill level) and a 1 followed by a 1 is usually still a success being a net 0 on the dice.

Yup. If there is no stress, and it's not hard for you, just take 10. Or if there's plenty of time, take 20.

Remember take 20 is if only if there is a penalty for failure. If the DM will rule that something breaks (like an arm when you fall out of the tree) then take 20 is not for you.

[BayardSPSR]

A large part of the problem is the concept of binary success/failure. If you instead choose to interpret low rolls as adding negative qualifiers to something technically successful, things get more plausible (for instance, "you climb the thing, but you struggle to find the same handholds as last time and take much longer" or "your limbs give out and you need to take a break halfway up"). That is, a roll could be seen as representing the results of the action on a spectrum from "worst reasonable" to "best reasonable," rather than toggling between "yes" or "no."

[Yora]

AngryGM wrote a long article about these things a few years back.

[Donnadogsoth]

Groovy stuff, everyone. Thanks.

In Living Steel I'd have to change 10/20 to 3/10, since LS is a 3d6 rolling equal-or-under system.

For example, a painter struggles to paint a worthwhile picture. He has skill 14 and the difficulty of painting a masterpiece is -8. His reputation is at stake so he can't take 3, but he can take 10 and become a very skilled hack.

[Vitruviansquid]

I always considered that in, say, lockpicking, the die roll doesn't represent your skill at lockpicking, but instead represents how difficult the lock turned out to be. The tricks you know, the tools you have, and the muscle memory you've practiced stays the same, but until you start picking that lock, you don't know how well it was made.

So if you succeed on the lockpicking roll that first time, you get a free pass any other time on the same lock. This applies to any similar skill roll taken under similar conditions, like climbing a cliff or leaping a chasm, but if new conditions arise that make the challenge more difficult, another skill roll would be called for. For example, if I leap over a chasm successfully, I can keep leaping over that chasm successfully until the GM rules that I'm getting tired, or there is a very fierce storm hindering footing and visibility, etc, then I need to roll again.

[Donnadogsoth]

I always considered that in, say, lockpicking, the die roll doesn't represent your skill at lockpicking, but instead represents how difficult the lock turned out to be. The tricks you know, the tools you have, and the muscle memory you've practiced stays the same, but until you start picking that lock, you don't know how well it was made.

So if you succeed on the lockpicking roll that first time, you get a free pass any other time on the same lock. This applies to any similar skill roll taken under similar conditions, like climbing a cliff or leaping a chasm, but if new conditions arise that make the challenge more difficult, another skill roll would be called for. For example, if I leap over a chasm successfully, I can keep leaping over that chasm successfully until the GM rules that I'm getting tired, or there is a very fierce storm hindering footing and visibility, etc, then I need to roll again.

Suppose you have proven you can leap chasm X at 75%, but then it starts snowing lightly, making the chasm edges slippery. It's not a huge problem, it might only reduce your chances by 10%, but why should you have to make the full roll against the chasm's difficulty when there's only just this small new problem causing you to roll at all? Shouldn't the odds of leaping the slippery chasm be relatively increased? Instead of fighting the 65% of slippery chasm X, then, you're really only fighting the 10%, because you now have Familiarity: Chasm X. If the 75% becomes 100% with proven expertise, then the effective odds of leaping the slippery chasm should then be 100 - 10 = 90%.

Also, if I have lockpick 45% and roll a 10 when attempting to pick a given lock, then I have succeeded at it by 30. It's a really easy lock. In future I have a 100% chance at picking it, and anyone else should have +30%. If I had rolled a 40, it would be a hard lock and others attempting it would have +5%.

[Vitruviansquid]

There's some GM making a call involved. If it's not that big of a deal or if it's inconvenient to the flow of the game, I'd rule that the chasm could still be leaped with no roll

I'm not familiar with these familiarity rules. I will, say, however, no matter what one character's relationship with the lock is, another character will make a brand new roll. Since I don't know that much about lockpicking, I assume there are different challenges involved in different locks, and someone who's worse at lockpicking in general may have a unique knowledge of a lock that lets him pick a lock that someone who is better in general could not.

Kind of like how you may have read more books than I, but if we need to know about a particular book, I might've read it while you haven't.

[Segev]

Suppose you have proven you can leap chasm X at 75%, but then it starts snowing lightly, making the chasm edges slippery. It's not a huge problem, it might only reduce your chances by 10%, but why should you have to make the full roll against the chasm's difficulty when there's only just this small new problem causing you to roll at all? Shouldn't the odds of leaping the slippery chasm be relatively increased? Instead of fighting the 65% of slippery chasm X, then, you're really only fighting the 10%, because you now have Familiarity: Chasm X. If the 75% becomes 100% with proven expertise, then the effective odds of leaping the slippery chasm should then be 100 - 10 = 90%.

Also, if I have lockpick 45% and roll a 10 when attempting to pick a given lock, then I have succeeded at it by 30. It's a really easy lock. In future I have a 100% chance at picking it, and anyone else should have +30%. If I had rolled a 40, it would be a hard lock and others attempting it would have +5%.

Er, not at all?

Leaping the chasm is like bowling or golfing or any number of uncertain tasks: you have to do it right every time, and messing up can cause you to fail. The way you go from 75% to 100% chance to leap it is by improving your chasm-jumping skill. Not by doing it successfully once.

[Keltest]

Suppose you have proven you can leap chasm X at 75%, but then it starts snowing lightly, making the chasm edges slippery. It's not a huge problem, it might only reduce your chances by 10%, but why should you have to make the full roll against the chasm's difficulty when there's only just this small new problem causing you to roll at all? Shouldn't the odds of leaping the slippery chasm be relatively increased? Instead of fighting the 65% of slippery chasm X, then, you're really only fighting the 10%, because you now have Familiarity: Chasm X. If the 75% becomes 100% with proven expertise, then the effective odds of leaping the slippery chasm should then be 100 - 10 = 90%.

Also, if I have lockpick 45% and roll a 10 when attempting to pick a given lock, then I have succeeded at it by 30. It's a really easy lock. In future I have a 100% chance at picking it, and anyone else should have +30%. If I had rolled a 40, it would be a hard lock and others attempting it would have +5%.

Ultimately that depends on the task youre performing, and many systems allow for a circumstance bonus (ie the DM saying "yeah, you jumped this before, you can almost certainly do it again) that can be used to represent this familiarity.

Having said that, with your particular example, I don't think the experience of having jumped once would necessarily aid you in jumping again. For example, you might not find quite as solid a purchase to leap from the second time around, or your shoe isn't tied as tightly, or the wind is different... basically, there are too many variables outside of your skill at leaping this particular chasm for me to bestow automatic success.

[Donnadogsoth]

Er, not at all?

Leaping the chasm is like bowling or golfing or any number of uncertain tasks: you have to do it right every time, and messing up can cause you to fail. The way you go from 75% to 100% chance to leap it is by improving your chasm-jumping skill. Not by doing it successfully once.

Surely it is possible to become familiar with certain tasks without becoming higher skilled in the field overall?

[Donnadogsoth]

Ultimately that depends on the task youre performing, and many systems allow for a circumstance bonus (ie the DM saying "yeah, you jumped this before, you can almost certainly do it again) that can be used to represent this familiarity.

Having said that, with your particular example, I don't think the experience of having jumped once would necessarily aid you in jumping again. For example, you might not find quite as solid a purchase to leap from the second time around, or your shoe isn't tied as tightly, or the wind is different... basically, there are too many variables outside of your skill at leaping this particular chasm for me to bestow automatic success.

But the confidence, man, the confidence of having done it once. If it was a close shave the first time it won't be automatic the second, but if you've proven to yourself you can do it, that should offer a bonus to just about anything, no?

[Segev]

Surely it is possible to become familiar with certain tasks without becoming higher skilled in the field overall?

Yes and no. But jumping that specific chasm isn't that kind of a task, really. MAYBE climbing its walls would be; there's enough specific to familiarize with. But leaping? Nope.

[BayardSPSR]

But the confidence, man, the confidence of having done it once. If it was a close shave the first time it won't be automatic the second, but if you've proven to yourself you can do it, that should offer a bonus to just about anything, no?

Not necessarily. Sometimes luck is actually luck. The fact that I was able to shoot a 3-pointer once says nothing at all about the probability of me doing it a second time.

The system you're proposing sounds very heavy on the GM, which gets away from the point of rolling dice in the first place (that is, determining the results of action without stopping to think about every single thing impacting it, and abstracting those into a die roll).

[Donnadogsoth]

Not necessarily. Sometimes luck is actually luck. The fact that I was able to shoot a 3-pointer once says nothing at all about the probability of me doing it a second time.

The system you're proposing sounds very heavy on the GM, which gets away from the point of rolling dice in the first place (that is, determining the results of action without stopping to think about every single thing impacting it, and abstracting those into a die roll).

Yes, I was thinking one can go overboard with the familiarity thing. I'm imagining a +2 to do anything the second time, in a 3d6 system. In other terms, if the odds were 5% the first time, and one did it, it's not blowing believability for the second time's odds to be 10%. A 90% chance of failure is still huge. I'd like to think this represents not just familiarity of object, but familiarity of subject--the character knows himself in this situation better and therefore gets a bonus to tapping into his willpower, hence the 1 + 1.

[goto124]

Why would a PC leap over the same chasm twice, in the exact same conditions as before? Did she make the leap, then changed her mind and turn around to leap back?

[Algeh]

It is very much possible to fail at something that you've succeeded at before. For example, if you watch American Ninja Warrior, every time there'll be someone who fails on an obstacle in the city finals that they passed in city qualifying.

Not everyone who manages to ding their car on something involving their garage does it the very first time they put that car into their garage, either.

In some ways, the second and third times can even be worse, because the very first time, you know it's a new thing for you and you're more likely to be cautious. The second time, you know you can do it but don't yet have the muscle memory to do it well consistently and know which ways you accidentally didn't screw up last time.

If I had players who, for whatever reason, wanted to repeatedly practice climbing a certain wall, I'd let them have a bonus on climbing that particular wall after they practiced it for a good long while on a regular basis, but not the very second time. (Assuming they had a reason why they'd need a roll to climb it in the first place, like it having sharp rocks at the bottom if they fell or needing to do it in a hurry. I'm not a big fan of "roll to see if you tied your shoelaces correctly today" situations unless we're specifically doing a humor game that session.)

Pragmatically, keeping track of familiarity with each individual challenge in the game universe and who has succeeded at it at least once would also be a lot of bookkeeping. If it's a very special whatever-it-is that the players have been making a point of specifically practicing, then everyone will probably remember it as long as it's important. On the other hand, if they maybe picked the lock on the mayor's house in a session 2 months ago, but no one remembers off the top of their head, I think it's reasonable to assume their character has probably also forgotten what made that lock so special by now rather than have me dig through my notes to make sure they didn't instead break in by finding an open window last time.

[goto124]

If I had players who, for whatever reason, wanted to repeatedly practice climbing a certain wall, I'd let them have a bonus on climbing that particular wall after they practiced it for a good long while on a regular basis, but not the very second time.

That... actually makes sense.

[BayardSPSR]

That... actually makes sense.

And the improbability of such an event means that having such a practice will almost always be the same as not having such a practice.

You don't need to design a whole system just to cater to specific edge cases.

[Zombimode]

And the improbability of such an event means that having such a practice will almost always be the same as not having such a practice.

You don't need to design a whole system just to cater to specific edge cases.

Exactly. That is what a circumstance modifier to a check means.

[Jay R]

The real problem is the assumptions of the flat d20 system. It assumes that a circumstance that would change a 5% chance to a 15% chance for an untrained character would also change a 40% chance to a 50% chance for a trained one. This seems unlikely to me. If it will triple the untrained person's probability of success, then it should make a trained person's nearly automatic.

Consider a rope added to the wall climb. It should make a trained climber's climb much easier.

But in order to use the same simplistic mechanic for all actions, we have to make an unjustified assumption of linearity.

Note that if you rolled 3d6, then a +2 circumstance bonus would increase the lowest level roll from 0.5% to 4.6%, a mid-range probability from 37.5% to 62.5%, and a higher probability from 90.7% to 98.1%. That makes more sense.

But the over-simplicity of a single mechanic was a more important goal for 3E than simulation.

[JellyPooga]

All I'm going to ask is; how many times have you choked while drinking a glass of water, stumbled over the curb when crossing the street, fail at saying or spelling a word you use regularly or any of those other little things you do on a daily basis and still manage to critically fail? Why does the Real Life GM even make us roll for such things?

Now imagine you're doing something a bit more dangerous; climbing a wall, lifting a heavy object or fighting a guy with swords.

I can totally buy into swingy systems or having to make a new roll for things you've done before. It's rare that a day goes by without something going wrong, despite your own competence, so in the exciting lives PCs live, forgiving a little chance goes a long way.

[Max_Killjoy]

The real problem is the assumptions of the flat d20 system. It assumes that a circumstance that would change a 5% chance to a 15% chance for an untrained character would also change a 40% chance to a 50% chance for a trained one. This seems unlikely to me. If it will triple the untrained person's probability of success, then it should make a trained person's nearly automatic.

Consider a rope added to the wall climb. It should make a trained climber's climb much easier.

But in order to use the same simplistic mechanic for all actions, we have to make an unjustified assumption of linearity.

Note that if you rolled 3d6, then a +2 circumstance bonus would increase the lowest level roll from 0.5% to 4.6%, a mid-range probability from 37.5% to 62.5%, and a higher probability from 90.7% to 98.1%. That makes more sense.

But the over-simplicity of a single mechanic was a more important goal for 3E than simulation.

Very true. the 1d20 mechanic is right there on my list of reasons I don't like D&D.