Opposed Rolls Confusion

[Quintus]

Interesting thoughts. But why bother with all that? As GM, your in control. If a player wants to search for a secret door, there must be a reason for it. If you want them to know that searching may be a good idea, have the bad-guy run though it, a sleeve caught in it, slightly adjar, or scratches, drafts whatever. Its a story, not a dice rolling competition. I dont ever let dice rolls dictate the flow of a game. If there is a door that they dont know about and seach for it, let them roll. WHo cares if they find it or not. You can tell them that they succeeded, or found nothing at all. Players like to FEEL they are in control over the story, and thats how it ought to be. Autonemous personalities. I just dictate eventualities and conflicting sources, and their outcomes when players reacted in certain fashion with the environment. Roleplay...not ROLL DICE.

If a search will turn it up, it turns up. If its concealed, then it may still just turn up. If someone definately hid something, a persistent search will find it.

I use perception to enhance to story. Let players roll perception when they "could" notice something, that may help them, but is not needed. When the players walk down a corridor, let them all make a special roll for perception at time X, and see how "aware" they are. Then let the player who succeeded find something that benefits the players. If they all fail, make up something that enhances the story...like a secret door bursting open, 2 orcs with knives at each others throats, hell bent on ripping each other appart. - now that gets players back into the action. And have someone at the bottom of the pile, so they dont just run away...

Gist is...dont let dice rolls ruin your game...ever. Let players think they are in absolute control of their destiny - to do otherwise (with fance opposed rolls etc) they will loose the illusion of anonymity. And they feel more reward for their actions...and have more fun. Storytellers, thats what DM's are...not rule mongers.

Q...

 

[Magistus]

Why make this an oppsed skill roll? With the example of player is looking for a secret door and has a skill of 110% and the build had a skill of 65%, why not make it some kind of modifier that makes it just one roll for the player, if they make it the find it, if they don't then they don't.

 

[Rurik]

Interesting thoughts. But why bother with all that? As GM, your in control. If a player wants to search for a secret door, there must be a reason for it. If you want them to know that searching may be a good idea, have the bad-guy run though it, a sleeve caught in it, slightly adjar, or scratches, drafts whatever. Its a story, not a dice rolling competition. I dont ever let dice rolls dictate the flow of a game. If there is a door that they dont know about and seach for it, let them roll. WHo cares if they find it or not. You can tell them that they succeeded, or found nothing at all. Players like to FEEL they are in control over the story, and thats how it ought to be. Autonemous personalities. I just dictate eventualities and conflicting sources, and their outcomes when players reacted in certain fashion with the environment. Roleplay...not ROLL DICE.

So you prefer diceless role playing? I would think the mechanics of MRQ shouldn't be a problem for you then. Don't let mechanics or rules get in the way, just storytell.

Really, are you saying there is no need for a perception skill, or that if I play in one of your games I shouldn't bother putting any points in it 'cause you don't use it?

Normally, when running a game, I take down all the characters, spot, listen, etc. skills. Occasionally I just roll a bunch of dice. May mean something, may not. If you only roll when there is something to notice, then you always tip the players off. Sometimes I ask to look at a players character sheet and then roll dice. Sometimes for no reason. Sometimes I'm rolling a check that I know is coming up 2 rooms down the hall. That is just part of my style.

I've found through the years that players LIKE rolling dice. Try telling a group of players you will roll all their attacks and parries and damage and spells and so on for them and I bet they will not like the idea. Using the Opposed mechanic from MRQ lets me have the players roll the dice in instances I normally would roll for them, and I like that.

It has nothing to do with not role playing, or not storytelling.

 

[Rurik]

Why make this an oppsed skill roll? With the example of player is looking for a secret door and has a skill of 110% and the build had a skill of 65%, why not make it some kind of modifier that makes it just one roll for the player, if they make it the find it, if they don't then they don't.

The reason I like the Opposed roll is that the player can roll and not really know if he suceeded or not. In the past I would usually roll perception tests in secret. Using an Opposed mechanic allows me to let him roll his own dice - since he can't see my roll his roll doesn't tell him how well he did.

 

[soltakss]

Funnily enough, as a GM, that's exactly why I don't like them.

 

[Mugen]

There is actually a noteworthy difference between "High roll wins" and a "margin of success" system when crits beats normal successes.

With "High roll wins", I will never score a normal success with values ranging from 0 to (skill/10), while in a margin of success system, I will get all possible results from 0 to (skil-1).

For skills above 100, I'd simply add the amount above 100 to the dice determine who is the winner if needed.

 

[soltakss]

Is that right?

If I have 80% skill and I roll 01 to 08 then I have criticalled on both a High Roll Wins and a Margin of Victory system.

So, for an 80 vs 60 contest, we have:

High Roll Wins and Crits beat normal rolls:
80% 01-05 probably wins, unless 60% rolls a higher critical 01-06
80% 06 probably wins, ties if 60% rolls 06
80% 07-08 wins as this is a critical
80% 09-59 depends on what the 60% rolls, as highest wins and 60% might critical
80% 60 probably wins, might tie if 60% rolls a 60, loses if 60% criticals
80% 61-80 wins as 60% has failed, unless 60% criticals
80% 81-00 depends on what the 60% rolls, as highest wins, unless 60% succeeds or criticals

Margin of Victory Wins and Crits beat normal rolls:
80% 01-02 wins as better critical than 60% can achieve
80% 03-08 probably wins, unless 60% rolls a better critical 01-06
80% 09-19 wins unless 60% criticals
80% 20-79 might win, depends on how much 60% succeeds by, 60% might critical
80% 80 might win, ties if 60% rolls 60, loses if 60% rolls 01-60
80% 81-100 loses if 60% rolls 01-60, wins if 60% rolls 81-00, otherwise might win, might tie, might lose

So, in both cases, there is a 2% chance of automatically winning via a critical, a 20% chance of automatically winning unless the 60% criticals.

So, it looks pretty similar to me. I'd need to check it against actual rolling, though.

(By the way, I don't like to do this statistically, I like to have a program use two loops, each 1-100, and to compare the results. This gives absolute scores of who is likely to win, but it takes a long time - 10,000 calculation sets per skill pair - and the calculation results can be fiddly to program.)

 

[Rurik]

Funnily enough, as a GM, that's exactly why I don't like them.

Actually, I hated the same aspect about them at first. I seriously considered ditching the MRQ opposed roll mechanic alltogether.

Having decided to stick with it, this 'quirk' has grown on me.

I hate the fact that high roll is better, but after all the brooha about alternate methods, it is the simplest and works as well as the others.

 

[Cowboy]

From a probability point of view I'm not sure I agree with the 'higher roll wins'

Using my simplistic mathematically challenged brain, if Bob has 10% in a skill and Ernie has 50%, Ernie is five times as skilled as Bob. In other words, using the base skills only, Bob has a 20% chance of winning a competition with Ernie.

You derive the 20% chance Bob should have of beating Ernie on Bob having 10% of Ernie's skill. You'll find that if you calculate Ernie's chance of beating Bob the same way, his probability would be 500%.
(And if they'd both had the same level of skill, your math there would result in them both having a 100% chance of beating each other)

 

[Itto]

In an opposed contest I have it so that a critical means that the character achieves the best he can get, which may still not be enough.

fex. Silky Simon, has 80% stealth, Dolorous Derek the down beat guard has 40% perception.

If Silky Simon gets 06 (a crit) these means he actually scores 80. Derek gets 20. Silky Simon skitters past onwards to glory.

If Silky Simon got 52 and Dolorous Derek got a 03 (a crit), Derek scores 40. Even though Derek got a crit, he just didn't see the shadowy silhouette of Silky Simon slither on by.

 

[weasel_fierce]

In an opposed contest I have it so that a critical means that the character achieves the best he can get, which may still not be enough.

Thats really clever too. I like that