Traveller, d10 variant.

[Sigtrygg]

Mongoose announcing its Dark Conspiracy game had me adapting DC character gen to MgT rules.

Just now I had a different thought.

In the same way T2300 adapted the DGP system to a d10 you can do exactly the same with MgT2e, and take the opportunity to fix some of the things GDW got wrong.

Instead of rolling 2d6 + DMs due to characteristic + skill, roll 1d10 with DMs due to characteristic and skill.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
2d6	100	100	97	92	83	72	58	42	28	17
1d10	100	90	80	70	60	50	40	30	20	10

Set your standard target number for the d10 to 7+ rather than the typical 8+ on 2d6

Characteristic DM ranges from -3 to +3, skill DM +1 per skill level (unskilled -3, skill level 0 to 4)

Just a thought exercise really.

 

[Varulv]

Mongoose announcing its Dark Conspiracy game had me adapting DC character gen to MgT rules.

Just now I had a different thought.

In the same way T2300 adapted the DGP system to a d10 you can do exactly the same with MgT2e, and take the opportunity to fix some of the things GDW got wrong.

Instead of rolling 2d6 + DMs due to characteristic + skill, roll 1d10 with DMs due to characteristic and skill.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
2d6	100	100	97	92	83	72	58	42	28	17
1d10	100	90	80	70	60	50	40	30	20	10

Set your standard target number for the d10 to 7+ rather than the typical 8+ on 2d6

Characteristic DM ranges from -3 to +3, skill DM +1 per skill level (unskilled -3, skill level 0 to 4)

Just a thought exercise really.

It would make life alot easier many times. E.g. a scope that gives DM+1 equals 10 % in the D10 system, but is "unpredictable" in the 2D6 system.

One problem is that 10 % steps are quite large, better with 5 %. But then we're talking about a D20, and...

 

[Terry Mixon]

Mongoose announcing its Dark Conspiracy game had me adapting DC character gen to MgT rules.

Just now I had a different thought.

In the same way T2300 adapted the DGP system to a d10 you can do exactly the same with MgT2e, and take the opportunity to fix some of the things GDW got wrong.

Instead of rolling 2d6 + DMs due to characteristic + skill, roll 1d10 with DMs due to characteristic and skill.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
2d6	100	100	97	92	83	72	58	42	28	17
1d10	100	90	80	70	60	50	40	30	20	10

Set your standard target number for the d10 to 7+ rather than the typical 8+ on 2d6

Characteristic DM ranges from -3 to +3, skill DM +1 per skill level (unskilled -3, skill level 0 to 4)

Just a thought exercise really.

Might want to adjust your color in the post to make it more readable.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I'm on dark mode, to me it looks like white text on a black background with a red header on the table.

Tried fixing it in normal mode, then had to fix it again for dark mode.

No idea what it looks like now...

 

[Sigtrygg]

It would make life alot easier many times. E.g. a scope that gives DM+1 equals 10 % in the D10 system, but is "unpredictable" in the 2D6 system.

With an 8+ target number on a 2d6 or a 7+ on 1d10 DMs are worth:

	DM +1	DM+2	DM+3	DM+4	DM+5	DM+6
2d6	16% (+16)	30% (+14)	41% (+11)	50% (+9)	55% (+5)	58% (+3)
1d10	10%	20%	30%	40%	50%	60%

One problem is that 10 % steps are quite large, better with 5 %. But then we're talking about a D20, and...

Down that path lies madness...

 

[swordtart]

A single dice roll makes it quite swingy.

 

[Sigtrygg]

A single dice roll makes it quite swingy.

As do the variable ranges of DMs as shown in the above table.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I'm on dark mode, to me it looks like white text on a black background with a red header on the table.

Tried fixing it in normal mode, then had to fix it again for dark mode.

No idea what it looks like now...

It’s blue and readable now. Thanks.

 

[Endie]

A single dice roll makes it quite swingy.

Agreed. I like the bell curve effect of 2D6 in making the lowest and highest effects unlikely.

On a pragmatic level, this would hopefully never happen: it would undoubtedly split the community - importantly also known as the customer base - into those of us who remain with the old system and those who shifted to any novel one. I suspect that the number of neophiles would be far lower than that required to support a game.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I do like the bell curve because people tend to usually perform at an average. Sometimes they succeed a little better or a little worse, but all in all in that range is where they usually operate. Then sometimes, the universe aligns and you succeed spectacularly or it gives you the finger. lol This aligns with My real-life experience.

 

[Sigtrygg]

2d6 is not a bell curve, it is a triangular distribution, mean of 7 standard deviation 2.4
68% of the dice rolls you make will sum to between 5 and 9.

I too prefer it over a d10 roll.

 

[MasterGwydion]

2d6 is not a bell curve, it is a triangular distribution, mean of 7 standard deviation 2.4
68% of the dice rolls you make will sum to between 5 and 9.

I too prefer it over a d10 roll.

Terminology failure on My part.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Nah, it's pretty common to just refeer to any distribution as a bell curve, only pedants like me will chime it

Knowing the 68-95-99 spread for a distribution is useful for a referee to guesstimate percentages on the fly, and it is amazing how few gamers actually know the probabilities they are dealing with. The relative worth of a +1 to +3 DM on a 2d6 based target number...

The advantage of a d10 or a d(anything) really is a flat % for each result, the disadvantage is the swinginess as has already been mentioned.

The advantage of an d(anything) is that it will be a distribution with standard deviation, but good luck memorising the raw percentages for each result and the effect a variable DM can have...

 

[ross]

The biggest problem with this is it removes the bell curve and makes skilled characters less effective.
One of the great things about Traveller is that is a success based system. That is an average character with an average skill has a more than 50% chance of achieving. Without that curve, this is not the case.

 

[swordtart]

Nah, it's pretty common to just refeer to any distribution as a bell curve, only pedants like me will chime it

Knowing the 68-95-99 spread for a distribution is useful for a referee to guesstimate percentages on the fly, and it is amazing how few gamers actually know the probabilities they are dealing with. The relative worth of a +1 to +3 DM on a 2d6 based target number...

The advantage of a d10 or a d(anything) really is a flat % for each result, the disadvantage is the swinginess as has already been mentioned.

The advantage of an d(anything) is that it will be a distribution with standard deviation, but good luck memorising the raw percentages for each result and the effect a variable DM can have...

I could never see the point of dice less systems when I was new to the hobby, but other than the sometimes painful implementations, the value of a system that is not wholly dependent on chance is more attractive. I try to avoid too much flux and leave the dice checks for when players (or I) have no ideas or do not have the right skills to implement the ideas they do have. Success is determined by decisions not by luck.

That said a +x is not the olny tool in out toolkit. We have re-rolls (Bane and Boon rolling three and choosing the best (or worst) two is effectively rerolling the lowest or highest value). We can double boon and allow them to roll 4 dice and chose the best 4 and whilst that makes higher scores and success more likely it still cannot result in a 13 and 2 is still possible.

Fine weapons showcase another tool in that there 1 and 2 count as 3. This shunts the probability over to the higher end and (for 2d6) still preserves the 12 maximum (though now the lowest result is 6 and each dice averages 4 rather than 3.5.

When I played CoC (the d100 version) it seemed easier, but the referee (Keeper) ended up making arbitrary decisions on how much of a negative modifier to apply to any dice rolls. "Hmmm, what is your chance to hit with your pistol with the deep one's jaws clamped onto your arm." It isn't something you can look up with google and determine with any confidence but needing to make it a percentage implies an accuracy.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The biggest problem with this is it removes the bell curve and makes skilled characters less effective.
One of the great things about Traveller is that is a success based system. That is an average character with an average skill has a more than 50% chance of achieving. Without that curve, this is not the case.

So you change the target number to 5+ for an average task... but since a 7+ on a d10 is 40% if you have a +1DM you now have a 50% chance, +2 60% - easy.
Much easier than trying to remember what a +1 or a +2 is worth to a 2d6 roll with a target number of 10...

Going from personal experience I honestly don't think the majority of Traveller referees or players I have gamed with over the years know the probabilities of the rolls they ask for.

3/5/7/9/11 become your target numbers or 80%/60%/40%/20%/0% bonus or penalty is 10% per +/-1DM

If you want a bell curve then you should use 3d4 or switch up to higher target numbers and 3d6 since 2d6 is not a curve.

Again from personal experience I think over time people develop an innate sense of 2d6 probabilities despite not knowing the math.

 

[J. L. Brown]

One system that I liked the look of was used in 7th Sea -- Roll Xd, Keep Yd. In this paradigm a 'Bane' die requires you to eliminate a high die from the pool of available dice before you select the ones you want to keep; a 'Boon' die adds to the number of dice you have to select from.

An example:
Roll 2d6; this is roll 2d6, keep 2d6. Roll 2d6 +Bane is roll 3d6, discard the high die & then keep any two of the remaining (two) dice. Roll 2d6 +Boon is roll 3d6, and choose to keep any two of the remaining (three) dice. Roll 2d6 +3Boon +2Bane is roll 7d6 -- then eliminate the two highest dice (2x Bane dice); keep any two of the remaining (five) dice.

It works better when the number of Boons and Banes do not completely overwhelm the number of dice in the base roll. In this sense, the old WEG Star Wars 'bucket o dice' d6 system (where a character might have five or six d6 in a skill check) was maybe a bit better suited to this approach than base Traveller.

It gets even more fun when you throw in polyhedral dice. If normal checks are made with (for example) d6, then a d4 'Bane' or a d8 'Boon' can make a big difference.

 

[Sigtrygg]

MgT already has boon/bane.

The same rule would carry over to the d10 version.

 

[swordtart]

MgT already has boon/bane.

The same rule would carry over to the d10 version.

Once you do that though you loose the simplicity of the known percentage that is the strength of that system. Boon and Bane require some understanding of probability interactions to implement by the referee. A referee content with that doesn't need a simplified system as 2d6 isn't particularly hard to work out and with only 6 values for a dice even if you use the 36 square grid method the grid is quite small.

We need more maths and critical thinking in games not less

 

[J. L. Brown]

MgT already has boon/bane.

The same rule would carry over to the d10 version.

Boon and Bane works alongside. I was talking about the Roll/Keep system generally. If you are changing the die convention, then you might consider expanding the number of dice rolled generally.