Alamantus

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

Oh, btw, I also added a sentence about it being dark on the other side of the hole to my last IC post.

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

The thing I was curious about was just the whole 2 dice vs 1 die ordeal that I noticed, since it seemed like one die would always have a higher chance of success (50%) than two dice (44%, even if we interpret numbers as low as 3 and 3 or 3 and 4 as successes). Therefore, it seemed like having 1 in a stat would be better than 2. However, you did just say that if someone has too low a stat, they might not even be allowed to roll for something at all. So then it seems more like a give and take deal? You aren't allowed to roll for some things if your stat is only 1-- but if your stat is 2, you're allowed to roll for more things, but your chances at success overall decrease somewhat.

That might balance out on higher numbers since the chance for doubles increases like you said. I think the 2v1 might be the only slightly skeewy one...?

@Vertigo

So the way I see getting around this issue is by understanding the levels of a quality as that person's experience/skill in that quality. This is less helpful for the GUTS stats than the custom ones, but conceptually the idea of being "better at" the thing could be helpful. So if a person with 1 Gumption tried to do that, they might give up more easily than someone with 2 Gumption. So what I meant by "not letting them roll" is that instead, upon receiving the suggestion "I kick the door" from a person with Gumption 1, I would say "Ok, your character kicks the door, but when it doesn't budge, they get tired from the effort and give up" or something like that. Your stats/qualities are also meant to tell who your character is in addition to how good they are at something, if that makes sense.

With that in mind, even if you rolled a 1 and a 6, that weighs more heavily toward success than failure and can provide more of a "flavor" of success ("you kicked the door, and while it didn't move, it dented in a little"), while a simple 1 or 6 is simply a result based on a low skill level ("you kicked the door successfully"). A 3 and a 6 weigh even more in the character's favor, and depending on the attempted action or character, the GM might simply take the 6 and ignore the 3. Having more dice gives the GM more to interpret with, which allows them to come up with the best outcome for the characters.

It is definitely super nebulous, though, so I do need to come up with a better way to explain the process... The original idea was that the GM themself takes away the skew problem when they can/need to.

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

Duncan prepares for another kick, but Pebs stops him, pointing toward the middle of the door, explaining the concept of the hollow center versus the solid frame. With this new information, Duncan adjusts his aim, rears back, and... (Duncan rolled 1 and 4)

BANG!

His foot crashes into the door and out the other side where it gets a little bit stuck. It takes some time to get his foot out safely, but after a few minutes of bending the thin wood and breaking pieces out of the way, he is able to pull it back into the room.

Once his foot is back in the room, there's a hole just a little bit less than a foot tall and roughly half a foot thick just to the right of center, closer to the door knob than the middle of the door. Through the hole is nothing but darkness—not even the light from the room reveals anything beyond the door.

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

@Typical @Vertigo

Cool, so since Pebs' 3 didn't create a double with Duncan's 1 or 4, neither of those dice can be modified, but I will say that Duncan's roll is a Near Success because of Pebs' help. She'll explain the concept of the door and just say to kick closer to the middle.

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

@Typical @Vertigo, sorry this got kinda long!

So GUTS+ does heavily rely on GM interpretation, but GMs are also encouraged to 1) favor the characters, 2) only ask for rolls on things that could have consequences, and 3) take the situation and the characters into consideration when interpreting. Also, more amorphously, the interpretation is not the average value of all the dice.

So in Duncan's case right now, he's trying to kick open a door that opens inward by kicking near the door's latch, i.e. the solid outer frame of the door. In my reasoning, even as a strong basketball player, it would take a miracle to break the sturdy door frame (by which I mean the piece that the door's hinges are connected to and has a lip that prevents the door from opening regularly) and let the door swing outward when the door is designed to open inward. Instead of simply saying it is impossible (which it's not—if super lucky, he could break the knob/latch mechanism or if he used another method, i.e. kicking the middle of the door that's hollow or ramming through that hollow section), I asked for a roll because there's a possibility that if he rolls low, his kick could land wrong and give him a minor injury on his foot. I probably should have communicated the low possibility a little bit more clearly... If Duncan has only 1 Gumption, he would not have been given a roll if he tried to kick the door that way, but his 2 Gumption gave him a slightly higher than 0 chance at getting lucky.

The outcomes, positive or negative, depend on what's being done. Since GMs can't plan for everything, like this situation, I had to think of what could happen. If something truly comes out of left field, the negative impact is often a negative Status Effect, for example "Duncan kept trying to kick the door open the same way, but beyond bending the door handle up, he just gets frustrated. Duncan gets the Frustrated status, which reduces the value of any one die rolled for Thought rolls by 1." Or something like that.

As for the number of dice thing, here's where the "not an average" idea comes in: if someone's Gumption is 6 and they're trying to jump over a 10-foot gap over a ravine and they roll 1, 3, 4, 6, 6, 5, then that skews heavily toward success plus they get a double if they want to use it—or if that person was an expert long jump competitor, then it would be a Positive Impact because of the character and the situation. If that same character rolled all 1's and 2's, then the doubles might help them, but there's always a chance in life that you trip. If that same roll were applied to say moving a log out of the way of an entryway, it would most likely be a Positive Impact because the task is easier. As such, die rolls could be compared to divining interpretations, which is why players are also encouraged to reason with the GM and make arguments for success. For example, I've never personally tried to kick down a hollow-core door from the inside, but if you have and it's actually much easier to do than I think, then you can say so and argue for it! It's kind of a checks and balances thing when the result is gray.

I hope that all makes some kind of sense. I'm also not an expert in statistics, which is why I designed it with so much GM power. Rolling doubles was designed to help the odds a little bit and it gets more likely that you'll roll doubles the higher your level, but the GM interpreting outcomes and players arguing against interpretations they disagree with is still pretty important.

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

First off, BUST IT DOWN still works if we’re just fighting the hollow-core door, so just trying/rolling again would work right @Alamantus

@Typical

Correct! It won't work for all strategies moving forward, but this one in particular does have a positive and negative end state.

Secondly, what’s the point of throwing more dice at a time if it’s just the averages? Doesn’t that kinda make results gravitate towards 3/4? So having more dice will reduce your chance of getting a both a positive impact success and a failure. Is that the goal then, achieving an average action score despite possibly becoming high-levelled in a stat?

@Typical

The more dice you have, the more opportunity there is for rolling doubles, which bumps up the values of each individual die to a more successful outcome, pushing it toward Positive Impact. It also affects the rate/possibility of gaining experience points. (Side note, that bell curve problem is specifically one of the issues I had to address when building out that section of the rules haha.)

Does that make sense? I'm also open to hearing ideas for ways to make it better if you have any! GUTS+ isn't "published" yet, so it's still somewhat flexible.

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

@Vertigo No problem! I didn't doubt you had read it, but it is different, so I figured I'd reiterate it. :)

Also, the description is up, I just forgot to tag you both in it. Sorry about that! I'll try to better at that, too.

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

Duncan's kick is pretty well-aimed at a space near the latch and is overall pretty solid, but despite Duncan doing everything right per his previous experience kicking doors open, this door does not budge. He glances to the left and sees the door's hinges, realizing that this door opens inward—by kicking the door from this direction, he's fighting the door's solid frame rather than the much weaker latch itself!

^{@Vertigo, @Typical}

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

Ah, gotcha! That's 2d6, for a total of 7. Will add it to my post as well.

@Vertigo

Awesome!

Just FYI, Check rolls in GUTS+ use each of the dice values individually rather than the total, and the GM interprets success based on the dice—not quite the average of the values, but on the "feel" of it based on the situation and attempted action (see "Handling Conflict" for the full details). I was looking for a high "Full Success" or a "Positive Impact" for this attempt, but this roll was a 2 and a 5, so I'm going to interpret it as a "Near Success".

Hopefully that makes sense and doesn't feel unfair or anything! Also, I'm just trying to inform you about my process and interpretation of the rules, not trying to scold or anything like that—I haven't personally seen another RPG that uses dice like this before, so I understand it might not be perfectly straightforward the first time you see the outcome of a multi-die roll. :)

(And I'm sorry if I end up explaining myself too much!)

[GUTS+] You Awake in a Dark Room

@Vertigo If it's a kick from a standing position, I think I'd like a Gumption check. If he was going to do a running charge, I feel like Athletics would be a better fit.

Lol you can make a Thought check if you want, but it's up to you! Playing it off how you did is pretty good. :)