The standard pattern is for character stats to affect the likelihood of different outcomes with the consequentiality…

The standard pattern is for character stats to affect the likelihood of different outcomes with the consequentiality…

The standard pattern is for character stats to affect the likelihood of different outcomes with the consequentiality of those outcomes being generally fixed (e.g. roll+STAT, on a 7-9 choose 1, on a 10+ choose 3). Has anyone experimented with reversing that, so that the various outcomes have fixed probabilities but the consequentiality varies based on features of the character (e.g.: Roll 2d6+0, On a 6-8 choose 1, on a 9+ choose 1+STAT)? I have a theory about how that would influence play in a game, but I’m curious if anyone has already explored that in an AW hack and has any actual experience.

19 thoughts on “The standard pattern is for character stats to affect the likelihood of different outcomes with the consequentiality…”

  2. How Apocalypse World’s never-completed immediate ancestor, Storming the Wizard’s Tower, did it was: roll a pool of dice equal to your stat, spend your hits to buy outcomes. There was no 7-9 vs 10+, there was instead a curve of 0 to maybe 6 hits.

    It worked fine! The moves needed to be built a little differently, of course, but no big deal.

  4. I’ve got a draft of something quite like what Vincent outlined (though I never got my hands on StWT). Also with a risk factor for your action that you can buy off with hits (leading to a range of mixed outcomes).

  5. For “pick options = to stat” stuff, Jonathan Walton did that in his Path of Ghosts compendium class, although it’s combined with the normal rolling procedure, and Paul Riddle did that for some of the moves in Undying, but there’s no rolling. I guess I did something similar in the first draft of Black Seas of Infinity where if you do something dangerous the MC picks several consequences and for each advantage you have you can ignore one consequence (again, no roll though).

    Storming the Wizard’s Tower works like a few things in Burning Wheel work — binary dice pool, for each success you “buy” effects in the fiction. So there’s still a connection between your stat and how many dice you roll.

  8. Somebody introduced me to the beauty that is “you get Hold equal to your STAT,” but I don’t remember who. Everything else just followed obviously from there. “Choose options equal to your STAT,” “Inflict your STAT in harm,” etc.

    Shreyas’ Exalted hack, Radiant, also uses something similar to Storming the Wizard’s Tower, where you buy impact with rolled results. I think Ammo 2: Deus vs. Machina is also similar, maybe?

  9. I think a “roll for number of successes” system isn’t exactly what I’m looking for, since I think that still feeds character stats into the question of “how likely is it that I’ll succeed?”. I’m exploring a theory from psychology that claims that humans tend to value feasibility and desirability in different ways at different times, and that perceptions of probability can impact which mindset we’re in. I’m thinking that the “do I succeed at all?” element might have something to do with feasibility, while the “what impact do I have if I do succeed?” seems to be more in the realm of consequentiality.

    My thinking, based on extrapolating from some of the research papers I’ve been reading, is that decoupling the probabilities from different results might let people feel more comfortable making in-the-moment move choices based on their instincts and intuitions when they’re strongly identifying with their character. And making the stats more about consequentiality than likelihood could make the incentive effects more salient when they’re operating at a more abstract level. (I’m not 100% sure this is the right interpretation of what I’ve been reading yet, but I’m curious if that would be the effect).

  11. If there are no stat mods I’d make 6-9 a partial hit, simply because I think the game is built with the assumption most players will try to only roll with +1 stats if possible.

  12. Marshall Miller The hypothetical example is assuming that zero is the minimum stat (I think the user-interface would get kind of funky if the “strong hit” started looking “worse” then the medium result).

  14. Johnstone Metzger is probably alluding to Undying. In Undying, Hunting and Feeding are probably the closest moves to what you are describing, Dan: < http://enigmamachinations.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/undying-beta-v3-0-2-play-sheets.pdf>

    These moves get a really visceral response in the moment, because you want to choose them all; but, you probably can’t and what you want to choose really depends on the circumstances. Undying is also different in that the stats that drive these moves, status and humanity, are decided by the GM and the other players based on how you play. So they vary from session to session, giving ups and downs to what, in this diceless system, would otherwise be a fixed number.

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