Too many moving parts

[Sigtrygg]

Several recent threads have been analysing how the game engine works.

Without going into all the detail their are inconsistencies of application.

My question is... are there too many moving parts for consistency.

1. Difficulty
This is the target number you roll against... if your die roll plus DMs and minus DMs is equal to or greater than this number you succeed, your margin of success is the difference between your total for the roll and the target number.

2. DMs
Die modifiers can be a positive or negative, and here is the first moving part that gets overlooked sometimes. If a standard DM is listed as +/-2 or +/-4 why is the task difficulty not changed instead? Usually it is, but sometimes it isn't and there are mechanical consequences for this.

3. Boon/bane
We all know how this works, right?
So when do you qualify to roll boon rather than accept a DM? Or a bane and increase difficulty? (Notice what I did there)

Another consideration is that on a roll of 2d DMs have a massive effect on actual percentage chance of success.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Looks like there are only three criteria to remember. Looks good to me. Although, true, quantitively they are the same, there can be local inconsistencies of application. I like to be distinct to help create atmosphere and let the players know where their relative merits and drawbacks in arriving at the task suggestion.

People who get confused don't seem to re-read the relevant sections of the rulebook. The rulebook is quite clear with examples, IMO.

RAI, TN "difficulty" lets the players know how deep they are in trouble, or ... how routine and mundane the actual challenge is. Breaking into fort knox is not the same level of difficulty as applying a bandage. I also like making things difficult if they are following a blind alley, just to dissuade them from their line of reasoning. I try to set the TN once, and don't ever change it unless it has obviously imbalanced the game.

"DM" is the positive or negative affect coming from the PC or NPC's efforts, usually consisting of characteristic, skill, tool, or trait.

(Notice what I did there)

I like it.

"Boon or Bane" is when the task accomplishment doesn't sit squarely with the situation that surrounds the challenge. Like trying to run when you got your shoelaces tied together. It is telling the players that the challenge is "normal" but the way they are doing it is crazy or stacked in their favour. It is almost like saying luck or happenstance is on their side or against them

Another consideration is that on a roll of 2d DMs have a massive effect on actual percentage chance of success.

So does changing TN up or down a level or five. Up to +/-3 DM is fun. DMs greater than +/-6 should be very rare, or the mechanic fails to serve any purpose.

 

[MasterGwydion]

So does changing TN up or down a level or five. Up to +/-3 DM is fun. DMs greater than +/-6 should be very rare, or the mechanic fails to serve any purpose.

Sensors can easily give you a +6 bonus. Advanced sensors on a TL-15 ship versus a TL-11 ship. +6 bonus. Same with Stealth. Easy to get a +6 DM

 

[Sigtrygg]

Any bonus or penalty that is a multiple of 2 should move the difficulty up or down, otherwise the difficulty scale is a meaningless addition that is ignored more often than it is used.

You could run the game just fine with a fixed target number of 8 and stack DMs, the difficulty scale is easily ignored.

if on the other hand you want to keep the difficulty scale then more should be made of changing the difficulty and reduce the number of DMs.

Then you can start being more liberal with the use of boon and bane...

one final thought, margin of success should be +1 per difficulty level over what you need to succeed, so +1 per 2 intgers beyond your modified target number, which opens up adding bonus effect dice and the like rather than flat bonus effect

just spit-balling here...

 

[MongooseMatt]

And now we have added the idea of Narrative Checks.

This is indeed an area we are looking at.

 

[Sigtrygg]

My personal choice would be for the rules and the authors to scrap any DMs that are multiples of 2 and instead change difficulty, and do so consistently. Difficulty then becomes not just a target number but also another criteria to be leveraged, and can inform if to apply boon or bane...

not sure if I am explaining myself well here.

 

[Anstett]

I often have the players choose their own difficulty level.

"How hard do you think that should be?" let them roll, apply the mods, and then determine how they did against what I think it should be.

 

[MasterGwydion]

And now we have added the idea of Narrative Checks.

This is indeed an area we are looking at.

Depending on what you mean by "Narrative Checks"? The connotations on that term are not real positive from the viewpoint of a person that likes rules-based game systems.

 

[Sigtrygg]

He is referring to:

Thread 'New Rule (possibly): Group Narrative Checks'

Jun 25, 2025

Hey everyone,

Here is a little something we are trying out...

In the Fifth Frontier War series, Martin has been sneaking in some new rules that are really quite good. He introduced the idea of Trivial Characters (see https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/developers-diary-encounters.125712/ for an outline, if you are unfamiliar with these) which we will be adding to the core Traveller rules in due course (and, by extension, the likes of Dark Conspiracy and Pioneer).

In the to-be-released Fall of Lanth book, he has added the 'Group Narrative' rule as a sort of wider scope...

• MongooseMatt
• Replies: 67
• Forum: Traveller

• 
• 

 

[MasterGwydion]

He is referring to:

Thread 'New Rule (possibly): Group Narrative Checks'

Jun 25, 2025

Hey everyone,

Here is a little something we are trying out...

In the Fifth Frontier War series, Martin has been sneaking in some new rules that are really quite good. He introduced the idea of Trivial Characters (see https://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/threads/developers-diary-encounters.125712/ for an outline, if you are unfamiliar with these) which we will be adding to the core Traveller rules in due course (and, by extension, the likes of Dark Conspiracy and Pioneer).

In the to-be-released Fall of Lanth book, he has added the 'Group Narrative' rule as a sort of wider scope...

• MongooseMatt
• Replies: 67
• Forum: Traveller

• 
• 

Oh. Okay. I already commented negatively on that. I have no more to say on that issue or Trivial Characters.

 

[MonsterX]

You could run the game just fine with a fixed target number of 8 and stack DMs, the difficulty scale is easily ignored.

This is effectively what I end up doing on checks where difficulty is referee defined, because it all comes to the same thing anyways. Somehow it is easier to just add up a bunch of pluses and minuses and go for 8+, rather than think of a difficulty level, but have one less plus or minus to it.

 

[MasterGwydion]

This is effectively what I end up doing on checks where difficulty is referee defined, because it all comes to the same thing anyways. Somehow it is easier to just add up a bunch of pluses and minuses and go for 8+, rather than think of a difficulty level, but have one less plus or minus to it.

Which is great until you run into things that are limited by Difficulty level such as Expert Software and Robot Brains.

 

[Sigtrygg]

This is effectively what I end up doing on checks where difficulty is referee defined, because it all comes to the same thing anyways. Somehow it is easier to just add up a bunch of pluses and minuses and go for 8+, rather than think of a difficulty level, but have one less plus or minus to it.

Which begs the question of why bother with difficulty levels at all?

Target number 8+, +/-DMs, boon/bane as referee determines.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Which begs the question of why bother with difficulty levels at all?

Target number 8+, +/-DMs, boon/bane as referee determines.

Because then we would have to come up with a new way to limit what tasks robots can do before they are sophonts.

 

[Limpin Legin]

Which begs the question of why bother with difficulty levels at all?

I think because the referee is not obliged to tell the players the difficulty level, but the players can know their own DMs. The other reason is that the very presence of a known or unknown difficulty level sets an objective, which may be partially understood or completely understood at the precise time of the players action.

I'll be sad if Traveller degenerates into a game of "up one, down one and move along" - which merely reminds me of snakes and ladders.

You could also ask similar of computer games. I mean, why bother give the protagonist skill upgrades if that triggers a proportionally equal increase the stats of all the npcs?

 

[MasterGwydion]

Here is an idea that makes My head hurt. What is considered "average" difficulty, should change based on your skill and stat.

Admin/3 INT+2=5 Average Difficulty = 13
Admin/0 INT+0=0 Average Difficulty = 8

A task is much harder to do the less skilled you are. Now "average difficulty" actually means something. Average Difficulty now means "the target number your character can hit with a natural roll of 8 or higher".

 

[Sigtrygg]

But it already is in a lot of cases.

As to unknown difficulty, the referee is under no obligation to reveal the -DM total...

If difficulty levels are to remain then use them, move up and down difficulty levels for every +/-2DM, and stop presenting adventure situations where you are stacking DMs of +11...

 

[MasterGwydion]

But it already is in a lot of cases.

As to unknown difficulty, the referee is under no obligation to reveal the -DM total...

If difficulty levels are to remain then use them, move up and down difficulty levels for every +/-2DM, and stop presenting advanture situations where you are stacking DMs of +11...

TL-15 Advanced Stealth Ship versus TL-11 Basic Sensors? Opposed rolls? Huge DMs

 

[MonsterX]

Which begs the question of why bother with difficulty levels at all?

Target number 8+, +/-DMs, boon/bane as referee determines.

Because the description of the task difficulty gives the referee a sense of the target number for a certain kind of task generally should be. It gives you permission to handwave easy tasks for skilled people, and permission to let people with world-class skills do heroic impossible things with very high rolls. Some referees need permission to do that, and don't have a good sense of how hard certain things in the setting should be, or how often you succeed or fail at certain target numbers. I don't have any problem with just going 8+ with modifiers and making the game flow well and be immersive, I guess you don't either, but I've seen referees that would make you crash your ship on a docking maneuver if you rolled a 7. Not everyone has an intuitive understanding of probability, and how it interacts with the setting,.

 

[Saladman]

Without going into all the detail their are inconsistencies of application.

My question is... are there too many moving parts for consistency.
...

This seems like an aesthetic objection rather than a substantive one.

This is indeed an area we are looking at.

It's a net plus you listen to player and customer feedback, but shifting the rulebook for one or only a few vocal forum dwellers isn't automatically an improvement for the rest of us.

In fact the Auto Fire thread is an indirect example of the danger of making simple fixes. Auto fire used to be balanced, well it had a gameplay tradeoff anyway, but it was balanced in some odd ways that no one including me much misses. Then the edition change threw out those unpopular forms of balance and replaced them with... nothing much at all. If you've got the ammo, always auto fire. Though this one's not so big a deal so I just run RAW (until now), but it's an example.

TL-15 Advanced Stealth Ship versus TL-11 Basic Sensors? Opposed rolls? Huge DMs

Speaking of which, I never liked the blanket TL difference as modifier to begin with. But that's a battle I've definitely lost.

Added: what would be nice is if you could get authors of subsystems and supplement books to cool it with all the stacking modifiers. Because Gwydion is right about huge DMs, but it's a little embarrassing to see huge DMs in a 2d6 system to begin with. It doesn't seem like the right base system for it.