Anyone that plays Dungeons and Dragons knows that a Dungeon Master can be very lineant on dice rolls and such. Lets say someone needs to cross a river, and he will have to make a swim check. What if the swim check fails, should he be allowed to try over and over and over until the check passes? or should he die, or some other type of punishment?
These type of design situations are slowing my compleation of the Fantasy Realm Engine. I want to leave it up to the DM to decide, and have it designed in such a way to do so, as well as a defualt way of handling this.
I am wondering what some of you people think I could do with these cases, on dice rolls and such. I have ran out of ideas, and i'm searching for more.
Hopefully I will be able to come up with a way to do this in such a way to where if the DM doesnt like the defualt way, he can simply change it with a click and a selection. I also dont want to bog down the DM with millions of changes. Lets say the DM doesnt like any of the defualt options, he would then have to go through each and every option and change them all to his liking. A side effect of his decision? or just a flaw of the engine?
FIREking
ID:154331
 Dec 30 2001, 2:24 pm
|
|
|
Dec 30 2001, 3:57 pm
|
|
Mertek
 |
You should check out Lord of Water's TextMUD Engine. I think the way it's done, anything is possible. Nothing is set up perfectly, but the tools there are great.
|
If I understand correctly, a dice roll for a given situation results in pre-determined outcomes?
If this is so, allow for another option to create a custom outcome with customized effects. This could be a bit drawn out, depending on how your system works... Another option could be to simply let the GM re-roll up to a certain number of times, say 3 or so. Maybe have the outcomes switch up every re-roll to offer more outcomes that were not previously available... ~X | |
As a Game Mistress, I have a very simple rule for dice. Some events are predetermined. Some aren't. The ones that are predetermined, I never roll dice for (except for show... never hurts to make the players feel lucky on good "rolls")... if a player is supposed to make it across the river, why roll dice for it? If it's an event that could logically fail or succeed, and that you need to have real risk attached to, you roll the dice... and you let them stand. Otherwise, why are you rolling them?
As far as letting someone reroll until they succeed... depends on the action. If you mean, just let them do the roll over so their character doesn't die... that's the same thing as not rolling at all. But if, for instance, the characters are caught in a chasm and they have some rope, and one of the characters knows how to throw a lasso, you could give that character any number of skill rolls... each roll represents one attempt, though, so the more rolls it takes, the longer the characters are stuck down in that chasm and the further away the evil Dr. Diabolico has gotten with the Prism of Destiny. Very few rolls should result in instant death, unless the player knows going into the action that it's obvious failure will be fatal. For instance, if a player attempts to swim across a river, and any failed swimming roll is fatal, this obviously is a) an incompetent or overencumbered swimmer, and the player should know that about the character before attempting to swim or b) no ordinary river, and the players should be told that the first time they lay eyes on it! If you tell the players: "The angry river, swollen far beyond its banks with runoff from Doomingpeak, laps hungrily at your feet. It's a good ways across... and the current would pull you far downriver by the time you made the other side. If you made the other side." then they have no call to complain if they dive in, chainmail and backpacks and all, and promptly drown. On the other hand, if you say: "Okay, there's a river here. Roll to swim across it. Joe, failed. You're drowned. Martha, failed, you drowned. Ernest, you made it... oh, no. Your swimming skill is only 11. I'm sorry, you drowned." then of course the players are going to say the rolls are unfair. Actually, though, it's the situation that's unfair. You've allowed the PCs to bet their lives on something that isn't even obviously a gamble, from their point of view. In "a routine swim", a failed swimming roll (from skilled, reasonably unencumbered persons) should represent a minor cramp, pulled muscle, mouthful of wholesome river water, extra fatigue, or some other routine mishap. Inconvenient if there's a fight coming up, or if dysentery is common in the region, but not fatal. | |