The Gaming Den

Boolean wrote: Shau --

Your 9 percent number is bullshit. You assumed a 1/6 chance of getting each move. That's not how it works.

Imagine that Oil is a level 5 move, and Fire is a level 2 move.

Assuming that Oil/Fire is the best tactic and will be used whenever possible, it goes like this:

33% X 83% = a 28% chance of the oil/fire going off in any given fight. That's often enough to make the combo a recognizable signature move for that pair, but not make things boring. Now remember, that's the probability from before the fight starts. If I roll oil, and am deciding between my oil move and my normal sword stab, I'm looking at an 83% combo rate if I choose to use oil. That's totally worth it.

The nine percent number is based on the idea that rolling high in Winds of Fate is better than rolling low in Winds of Fate. It also includes a miss chance. If the second player's best option on the next turn is to cast their level 2 spell then Winds of Fate fails because the die roll isn't important anymore. In fact, player two becomes overpowered because they have been given a chance to roll something better than a six, call it a six point five, 83 percent of the time. Meanwhile, my oil attack is so great that I am rolling better than a six 23 percent of the time. I might as well not even have a six attack. And I would seriously be happy with that, but Frank would not because the random component the he is willing to include an extra die roll for is going away. I don't know how to make that any more clear, so let's look at this from a game design perspective.

Let's look at this in terms of interests:

Shau: I want combat to be consistent and knowable because I want players to work together as a team. I want illusionists to cast grease so that rogue's can sneak attack and I want Gaia, Ortega, and Mash players to be encouraged to use the Jet Stream Attack

Frank: I want combat to be inconsistent and unknowable because I don't want people to be able to write down moves ahead of time and then go to the store. I don't want illusionists to be encouraged to use the same move and I don't want rogues because they always do the same thing.

(Frank can clarify his position if I am misstating it.)

There is seriously no way to please both me and Frank here. I want a system in which people are encouraged to team up and that requires consistency. Frank does not want that consistency. Frank actually becomes unhappy in my system because in my system players make plans to beat challenges. In my system the rogue always sneak attacks the guy who is balancing on a grease square, and indeed it set up so that the wizard casting grease and the rogue attacking that target works better than if they just took turns independently.

Now you can seriously have combos in in a Winds of Fate system, they just have to happen randomly. If my best power available is a chocolate attack and your best power available is a peanut butter attack, then they can combine into a delicious Reese's peanut butter cup. But it only works if we both happened to roll powers that combine. If the peanut butter cup is so good that you only ever use your low level peanut butter attack you are not playing Winds of Fate anymore.
Edit:

NineInchNall wrote: And what happens when the low-level Dream Eater (level 1) combo is not set up, say because your team mate was not able to get into position to use his Dream Seasoning move? Further, what if Hyper Ice Beam were to make further uses of Dream Eater on the target more potent?

If the Dream Eater combo is never set up then Frank is happy, because dream eater guy randomly throws out moves rather than spamming the same low level move. If dream seasoning occurs than I am happy, because it is a situation in which teamwork is more important than random roles. If hyper ice beam combos with Dream Seasoning then I think I am unhappy again because it sounds like every move just combines with every other move and team tactics are a joke again.

Let me also say that I am more or less thinking of team tactics from the perspective of the first players. It's logical for the second guy to say that he will will use fire when fighting a monster covered in oil by player one. It's foolish for player one to choose an oil attack because the odds are against a appropriate follow up attack being available.

shau wrote:It also includes a miss chance. If the second player's best option on the next turn is to cast their level 2 spell then Winds of Fate fails because the die roll isn't important anymore.

No, the second player's next turn is still dependent on the WoF roll: he needs a 2+ in order to use the level 2 ability.

shau wrote: Let me also say that I am more or less thinking of team tactics from the perspective of the first players. It's logical for the second guy to say that he will will use fire when fighting a monster covered in oil by player one. It's foolish for player one to choose an oil attack because the odds are against a appropriate follow up attack being available.

This is not quite true. If the appropriate follow up attack (player two) is a high probability event (low level attack) then the odds of an appropriate follow up are high.

Shau wrote:There is seriously no way to please both me and Frank here. I want a system in which people are encouraged to team up and that requires consistency. Frank does not want that consistency.

Unless you become unhappy when there are systems with to-hit rolls, I don't think tht's true.

Teaming up doesn't require consistency. It just requires synergy. Synergy doesn't have to always work, it just has to outperform completely random actions.

Selecting a grease move because your friend has a lot of fire moves on his list is a totally valid, synergistic, teamwork-oriented tactic - whether it's consistent or not. I simply don't see a difference between greasing up an enemy in the hopes that your friend will hit with his fire move that may miss and greasing up an enemy in the hopes that your friend will make the activation roll to be able to select with a fire move and then hit with it. From the standpoint of making the decision to grease up an enemy there is simply a probability of your friend landing a fire move in the next round - and without knowing the systems in place we have no idea whether the chance of hitting with a fire move that you can always select is greater then or less than landing a fire move that you can only use some of the time based on a Tide of Battle roll.

Seriously, iterative probability being what it is, both the first one and the second are just numbers. In 4e you hit about half the time. If this was a different system where you hit about 3/4 of the time and you were hoping to synergize with an ability that can be used 2/3 of the time you're looking at about the same chance of pulling off your combo.

Your stated demand - that teamwork has to matter and that player choice has to outperform random choice is in no way incompatible with the idea of randomly available options on a turn by turn basis. You just have to have a fair number of options no matter what the roll comes up, and those options have to allow you to chain up maneuvers a statistically significant amount of the time.

If you have some other unstated demand that players have to necessarily be able to always use any of their powers at a moment's notice, then I don't see how any resource management scheme would make you happy.

-Username17

NineInchNall wrote: No, the second player's next turn is still dependent on the WoF roll: he needs a 2+ in order to use the level 2 ability.

It's dependent in that it possibly for player 2 to fail. It is not dependent in that it does not matter if they player rolls a 2 as opposed to a 6.

Look, I don't care if it comes down to an 83 percent chance. If everybody has team combos that happen when they roll anything greater than a one (69 percent combo chance) then I am satisfied. But I don't think Frank is because everyone knows what everyone else is going to do and you can totally just play Smash Brothers during your turn.

Edit: Maybe I misunderstood you Frank. I don't mind a to hit roll, but I do think when each action has a low opportunity for sucsees then combo attacks fall by the wayside and that Winds of Fate would introduce more randomness.

But now I don't know exactly what you want from Winds of Fate. You discussed stuff like Legolas only occasionally being able to climb the elephant. That would mean that Legolas has a move like colossus climb which is only circumstantially available. That would mean if I cast Spider's Climb or something to help and he did not get the action we both lost a turn. If cast flaming arrows and he did roll high enough to cast colossus climb than I lose a turn because he will climbing instead of arrows. This of course means that I more motivated to ignore Legolas and just do my own thing.

If Legolas is consistently an archer then an archer buff always works, and I am fine. But then I don't really see much of a point in Winds of Fate. If you have basically the same shtick and you just roll for awesomeness then why can't you just write up a list of moves and go to the store?

shau wrote:

NineInchNall wrote: No, the second player's next turn is still dependent on the WoF roll: he needs a 2+ in order to use the level 2 ability.

It's dependent in that it possibly for player 2 to fail. It is not dependent in that it does not matter if they player rolls a 2 as opposed to a 6.

And this is important ... how?

Anyone else feel like getting away from the "WoF rules.", "No WoF sucks." and "No, the fact that WoF is superior is a fundamental truth build into the very fabric of the universe"? If I give it a chance WoF might rock my world ... but I wouldn't give it a chance ... I find the concept that aesthetically displeasing. Nothing anyone could say could really convince me other wise, I'm absolutely convinced without a shadow of a doubt that it's a matter of taste and WoF is not to my taste. What are the alternatives?

First lets start with the problems, charge casting and a lack of variety, I'll separate out charge casting a bit ... the problems as I see them :

1 : pre-buffing
2 : starting off with the most powerful abilities
3 : being able to plan before combat reducing variety in combat.

I personally don't consider the last one a problem, there is always a context dependent component to abilities ... you never have full knowledge of the context, and it can change at a moment's notice (at least in 3E, if you castrate magic like for instance 4e the context becomes a lot more static). The plan is often the first thing to die. But lets include this for those who do think it is a problem anyway.

WoF solves the latter two problems and does nothing about pre-buffing, it's simply not an option for me though.

Daily resources half-assedly tackles the latter two problems, as long as the DM railroads the players into doing enough encounters in a day ... has the advantage of being familiar.

Martyr points? As I said, you can simply hurt yourself pre-combat ... sure it's a little more risky than the usual charge up, but it's effective nonetheless. Doesn't solve anything.

Gem Pools? You can't define "start of combat" in any consistent way without it becoming a DM fiat storytelling system affair. Lets assume for a moment that is not an option, then start of combat would be chicken strangling before you kick down the door with a party with a perfect gem pool set up and a planned sequence can be executed (again, expending some resources to get the perfect setup has a cost ... but it will still be well worth it generally). Doesn't solve anything.

Finding a non storytelling way to define the start of combat is a rather fundamental problem for finding an alternative to WoF or daily resources for problem 2. I suggested building a memory into the environment to remember when combat starts (ie. more abilities used in an area unlocks higher level abilities). Anyone have a viable alternative?

Has anyone here played one of the Super Robot Wars games? Its a series of Japanese SRPGs in which the player controls a variety of super robots. It actually handles the Voltron Sword problem rather well which is unsurprising since Voltron is actually in a few of them.

Basically the system works by having certain attacks only work if you have enough morale. Morale is gained by various actions depending on the game and the unit, but usually is done by killing enemies. So Getter Dragon would only start with his tomahawks, but after a few kills get's to use Getter Beam, and later Stoner Sunshine Spark. A separate ammo system keeps prevents you from spamming the biggest attack you have after reaching high morale and since the boss' get tougher as the lose HP you are significantly better off if you finish them with an ultimate attack rather than a chipping away.

It does not do well with the bag of rats problem however. And it involves dividing the world into a series of distinct combats or encounters.

Let's say you have a dragon. He breathes fire and that is his big trick. Other than that, he can engage in dragon fu where he claws things, bites things, and hits things with his tail. For whatever reason, we have decided that he should breathe fire every six rounds as some sort of game balance thing.

Options:

• Fixed Recharge Time He breathes fire, and then there are fie more turns where he can't breathe fire. What he does at this point is breathe fire, fuck off for five rounds and come back to breathe fire again.
• Variable Recharge Time He breathes fire, and then he can't breathe fire again for 2d4 rounds. What he does is breathe fire, roll the dice, and then fuck off for about five rounds and comes back to breathe fire again.
• WoF Every round he roll a die and on a 6 he gets to breathe fire. What he does is gets in there and mixes it up and never fucks off at all because the turns he spends hiding beyond range are just as likely to be breathing turns as any other.

That is why planning is bad. If dragon breath comes on some kind of schedule, people will set their watches to it - instead of doing what they should actually be doing: which is hitting knights with their tail slaps while they are waiting for another chance to belch flames.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:That is why planning is bad. If dragon breath comes on some kind of schedule, people will set their watches to it - instead of doing what they should actually be doing: which is hitting knights with their tail slaps while they are waiting for another chance to belch flames.

The problem, I think, is that some people - and I'm not mentioning any names - actually are under the impression that the watch-setting model with which they are familiar is the pinnacle of tactical enjoyment.

Wouldn't just giving the average party a few heal spells fix the dragon problem? Or any sort of a root or slow spell?

That is why planning is bad. If dragon breath comes on some kind of schedule, people will set their watches to it - instead of doing what they should actually be doing: which is hitting knights with their tail slaps while they are waiting for another chance to belch flames.

What? Why is that bad? That sounds awesome.

NiN wrote:The problem, I think, is that some people - and I'm not mentioning any names - actually are under the impression that the watch-setting model with which they are familiar is the pinnacle of tactical enjoyment.

Hey, you know what, buddy? Someone who said that they get paralyzed looking at a Chessboard shouldn't be making backhanded snipes about what people enjoy.

FrankTrollman wrote:[*] WoF Every round he roll a die and on a 6 he gets to breathe fire. What he does is gets in there and mixes it up and never fucks off at all because the turns he spends hiding beyond range are just as likely to be breathing turns as any other.

At the cost of removing one of the most iconic attacks dragons have (the strafing run).

FrankTrollman wrote:Let's say you have a dragon. He breathes fire and that is his big trick. Other than that, he can engage in dragon fu where he claws things, bites things, and hits things with his tail. For whatever reason, we have decided that he should breathe fire every six rounds as some sort of game balance thing.

Options:

• Fixed Recharge Time He breathes fire, and then there are fie more turns where he can't breathe fire. What he does at this point is breathe fire, fuck off for five rounds and come back to breathe fire again.
• Variable Recharge Time He breathes fire, and then he can't breathe fire again for 2d4 rounds. What he does is breathe fire, roll the dice, and then fuck off for about five rounds and comes back to breathe fire again.
• WoF Every round he roll a die and on a 6 he gets to breathe fire. What he does is gets in there and mixes it up and never fucks off at all because the turns he spends hiding beyond range are just as likely to be breathing turns as any other.

That is why planning is bad. If dragon breath comes on some kind of schedule, people will set their watches to it - instead of doing what they should actually be doing: which is hitting knights with their tail slaps while they are waiting for another chance to belch flames.

-Username17

Of course that ruins plausibility. I can understand having fickle magic at all, but fickle sword fu? I prefer a counter system:

Dragon: FIREBREATH MOTHRAFUCKER!
Knight: Noob, I gots shield ready, bitch!
Wizard: Ice Shield, loser!
Monk: Can't touch this. Bawm!
Dragon: Dang.

Then why would the dragon use fire breath at all? You just neatly made it so that the dragon can expect to fail with it.

Maybe if the counters were harder to use or have in place, it would be fine, but if shield beats fire, then a knight with a shield can safely consider dragon fire a nonissue.

It just gets worse when its multiple counters, because then you have to wonder what fire breath -does- beat.

I think people are really missing a bit point here and that is a cooperative storytelling game is not a fighting game nor is it a game of chess.

In a fighting game you have different strategies and counters. The most effective strategy on attack is the one you know is the most likely one to be countered. The point is not for the GM to beat down all the players streetfighter style one by one.

Chess has lots of possible strategies and lots of counters and it take a really long time to play. It's the complete antithesis of the model you want to use when trying to model:

"I go over there and kill that motherfucker with my sword."

Really when the game is players vs. GM player skill should matter but it's not the GM playing chess against all the players at once. That's why we roll dice. The GM makes up all the opposition. Having a whole system of strategies and counters is, I think, almost undesirable in that case.

A in combat resource management scheme is never a source of tactical interest. It is meant to exist entirely so that players don't use their best move every round. It's a hinderance that is supposed to annoy because that relieves the monotony of throwing the same spell all the time every time.

I think people have just been duped by too many years of people telling them that running out of ammo is tactically interesting.

Elennsar wrote:Then why would the dragon use fire breath at all?

Assuming D&D for a moment ... since all those counters exist there ...

Because the Dragon acted first? Because he engaged them in melee and rather than spending his standard action on readying his shield each round the knight decided to attack him? Because even with evasion the wizard and monk can still be damaged if they roll low on their saves? (Fire Shield isn't evasion exactly, but close enough.)

Lago PARANOIA wrote:

NiN wrote:The problem, I think, is that some people - and I'm not mentioning any names - actually are under the impression that the watch-setting model with which they are familiar is the pinnacle of tactical enjoyment.

Hey, you know what, buddy? Someone who said that they get paralyzed looking at a Chessboard shouldn't be making backhanded snipes about what people enjoy.

'Twas all in good humor. Sometimes I have an irrepressible urge to inject a facetious spin on things.

Remove the implicit smirk from the sentence, and you get this:

"The problem is that some people like the watch-setting model and enjoy its tactics."

Which is true: you want the dragon to do his strafing run and spend a few rounds recharging before coming in for another pass.

I'd prefer that the dragon at least consider getting into melee and using those other iconic abilities. After all, dragons aren't just known for their habanero breath. They also have these really big gnashing teeth, pointy claws, and tails the size of semis. I want the dragon fighting scene from the first episode of the Lodoss to happen every now and then.

Don't you?

Because the Dragon acted first? Because he engaged them in melee and rather than spending his standard action on readying his shield each round the knight decided to attack him? Because even with evasion the wizard and monk can still be damaged if they roll low on their saves? (Fire Shield isn't evasion exactly, but close enough.)

They're still basically able to make the dragon wonder if it should even bother. A counter should never be so good as to make a move have no reason to exist, and having fire shield/evasion/shield whatever all exist means that it is a lot harder for a dragon to use "breathe fire" than some other move.

Now if the things they could to do to the dragon were equally blockable, that would be okay, because it would mean both sides would be searching for a move the other guy doesn't have a counter for.

But when the dragon is left in the position its best move is "fly away", that's probably not a good situation.

Elennsar wrote:They're still basically able to make the dragon wonder if it should even bother.

He shouldn't, they are PCs ... he is going to die.

A counter should never be so good as to make a move have no reason to exist, and having fire shield/evasion/shield whatever all exist means that it is a lot harder for a dragon to use "breathe fire" than some other move.

If nothing else it's still a great opener before counters are up. Also since actions are the most precious commodity and it takes actions to prepare a counter the only way they are going to be certain to guard against his fire breath is if he uses it exclusively/predictably ... it's almost like the mere existence of counters forces him to neither use it exclusively nor predictably ...

He shouldn't, they are PCs ... he is going to die.

That makes him an idiot. If he has no chance of winning and has any chance of escape, he shouldn't fight the PCs. And while there's nothing wrong with wanting lots of PC wins, having their opponents be morons who don't have a clue what they're doing is dull.

If nothing else it's still a great opener before counters are up. Also since actions are the most precious commodity and it takes actions to prepare a counter the only way they are going to be certain to guard against his fire breath is if he uses it exclusively/predictably ... it's almost like the mere existence of counters forces him to neither use it exclusively nor predictably ...

Which would be fine if it wasn't for the fact the existance of counters means that he has no reason to use it at all unless he knows they don't have the counters, because one blast is not all that great an effect.

Personally, I would like to have there be a reason to specialize/focus on something, instead of having to learn a dozen widely different things because no one of those things is something I can rely on.

Its fine if there are times to use both "swing" and "thrust", for instance, but making a preference for using one over the other a -bad- thing is adding diversity purely for its own sake.

Honestly you could make an awesome Winds of Fate system just as you could make a good whatever system. Really if you're charging your laser or waiting for a 6 doesn't matter.

If your moves set is bad, Winds of Fate does nothing for it. D&D 4th edition won't magically get better if you get 5 abilities to choose from randomly every turn. That's because some will obvious kick the pants off others so I'm left with bullshit choices (does I pick awesome or fail?). Sometimes I get just fail (no ae in a perfect ae situation). If I can charge my laser without anyone able to do anything about it, then I'm in the same boat, I do A, B, C, and D. There's E and F and using different orders, but I don't care because they suck.

My problems with Winds of Fate is that it reduces any party tactics since it adds another chance of failure. My other problem is that not being to use a power due to a Winds of Fate roll is different from using a power and missing. The difference is that in the latter, I chose an action and now it is resolved. I made a choice. It might not be the best choice, but it was the best from what I could decide. Winds of Fate just slaps blinders on my options in a "you can't do that" sort of way. It doesn't solves the store problem since a greedy algorithm is perfect for it. You can still "charge" by waiting for good option rolls by the party.

Generally I err on the side of player choices with consequences. I don't think Winds of Fate solves the issues that need addressing, meaningful choice. At best it can beat you away from stupidly powerful choices some of the time.

Some of this might be due to different opinions on the number and nature of fights in a game. I aim for one to two fights lasting 1-3 hours per 6 hour session with fairly sober players against opponents who should pose a threat to PC success (be it in terms of the mission/adventure or survival). So I want tactical fights full of plans and counter-plans that can be engaging for quite a while. Winds of Fate isn't a good system for that. This is different from the general D&D paradigm of combats. You tend to be in a lot of fights against opponents are designed to lose to the PCs without much fuss (like costing 25% of expendable resources). For such a system, Winds of Fate might be good. It's fast (rolling is faster than deciding), creates variation of moves (if by brownbeating them into use), and doesn't greatly reward planning. I view it as an ineffective way of doing these things, but it works.

A version of WoF which is not purely random would be, in my humble opinion, more enjoyable than a purely random version. Thus, I propose the following:

All moves have a value between 1 and 6. The higher the number, the better the move. Every round, you roll a dice. You can use any power with a value less than or equal to the number that came up on the dice. Thus you have the following percent chance to be able to use a move of a certain power level each turn:

1 - 100%
2 - 83%
3 - 66%
4 - 49%
5 - 33%
6 - 17%

All players have a level 1 move which provides a +1 to your next roll, giving you the following percent chances to be able to use a move of a given power level:

1 - 100%
2 - 100%
3 - 83%
4 - 66%
5 - 49%
6 - 33%

As a result, if you roll badly, you can spend the turn testing the enemy's defenses to give yourself a higher than normal chance of doing a badass move next turn. If you roll well, you do something badass this turn. And the player, if they really want to use a specific ability, is pretty much assured to get to use it at some point during the fight.

the_taken wrote:
Of course that ruins plausibility. I can understand having fickle magic at all, but fickle sword fu? I prefer a counter system:

Dragon: FIREBREATH MOTHRAFUCKER!
Knight: Noob, I gots shield ready, bitch!
Wizard: Ice Shield, loser!
Monk: Can't touch this. Bawm!
Dragon: Dang.

That isn't the resource management system at all though. That's the damage system. You still need a resource management system of some kind. Those counters are going to need to make checks to see if they are available or have a limited number of uses or have to recharge or something, and so is the firebreath.

You haven't addressed the point in any way. The Dragon uses Firebreath, the Wizard uses Ice Shield, now what? Next round does the Dragon just spam firebreath again while the wizard spams ice shield again? Does the dragon spam firebreath confident that the wizard has now used up his ice shield? Does the dragon have to wait on breathing fire but then not even bother because he knows the wizard has an ice shield available?

No matter what you do, you need a resource management system to prevent everyone from just using their "best" attack over and over again against the enemies "best" defense and then grinding it out until the dice come up with someone winning. Whether your attack/defense matrix is based on die rolls, RPS, counters, or action cards doesn't really matter. You still need a resource management system of some kind.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:If you have some other unstated demand that players have to necessarily be able to always use any of their powers at a moment's notice, then I don't see how any resource management scheme would make you happy.

I'm going to make that almost stated demand for me. The only exception should be moves that activate after some other move is used. Essentially I don't think a well written WoF system would be as enjoyable as a well written Chess Masters system.