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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: TheMouse on August 14, 2011, 03:07:23 PM
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The problem is the integration of difficulty modifiers with contested rolls.
The way it works now is simple enough. As per page 193, contested rolls are you rolling something and someone else rolling their thing, then you compare. Higher roll wins. Very simple.
We all know about fate points and Aspects and how those modify rolls. This isn't part of the problem, so it doesn't matter in this topic. This is because in contested rolls it modifies the roll, not the difficulty. So the math works out just fine.
Now, we have non-fate-point-driven modifiers. The rules for these start on 311. This section is a little hand-wavy, but it comes down to this: When factors are against you, the difficulty goes up, typically in units of +2. In a rush? +2 difficulty. Lacking some equipment? +2 difficulty. Very simple, again.
Now comes the problem. Turn to page 142 and check out the Stealth trapping Hiding. In a few words, it lays out the rules for hiding in a situation with difficulty modifiers from page 311. In short, you set the difficulty to hide, then your roll becomes the difficulty to spot you.
Why is this a problem? Well, low difficulties mean that low rolls can be successful. But that means that it's easier to spot you, because you rolled low. So your successful rolls, being lower, mean it's actually easier to spot you than if you'd rolled a barely successful roll against a higher difficulty.
For example, if the difficulty to hide is +0 and you rolled +2, it's easier to spot you than if the difficulty had been +2 and you'd rolled +3. Never mind that you've got 2 Shifts on the lower difficulty. You're easier to spot by 1.
This bugs me.
So I've come up with two simple ways to resolve this:
1. Modifiers to the difficulty during contests are multiplied by -1 and applied as a modifier to your roll. So a -2 to your difficulty (making it easier by 2) instead gets applied as a +2 to your roll (making it easier by 2). Likewise, a modifier of +2 to the difficulty (making it harder by 2) gets applied as a -2 to your roll (making it harder by 2).
2. Compare Shifts in contested rolls rather than the rolls themselves. If you beat your difficulty by 3 and the other dude beat his by 2, it doesn't matter that his roll is higher, because you have more Shifts. So you win.
They both accomplish pretty much the same thing: People can make contested rolls against different difficulties, and the degree to which you succeed matters. The first one sets all difficulties to the same baseline and the second counts degrees of success. These are more or less the same thing.
Thoughts?
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I need to sit down and re-read the specific pages you reference, but the first thought which comes to mind is that a contested roll (at least the way I run it) is typically directly contested, not against a difficulty which is then contested.
Basically in the case of a contested Stealth/Alertness roll, if someone is trying to Hide, they roll their 4dF, modified by any applicable Scene Aspects, and possibly using character and temporary Aspects as well and then add their Stealth skill, which is then opposed by the contesting person/things 4dF roll plus their Alertness skill, and the modified by any relevant Aspects they wish to use.
The idea of a skill roll against a Difficulty to hide successfully, which is then opposed, basically gives the person hiding/attempting to hide two chances to fail the same action. Either I', not doing something according to RAW, or you're reading something in the RAW which doesn't make sense (at least to me).
Now, which could make some sense (and again, I'd need to re-read the relevant pages) would be a Stealth check vs. a difficulty to hide, with success giving the person attempting to hide temporary Aspects they can use to their advantage during the actual opposed Stealth/Alertness test.
-Cheers
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I need to sit down and re-read the specific pages you reference, but the first thought which comes to mind is that a contested roll (at least the way I run it) is typically directly contested, not against a difficulty which is then contested.
Most contested rolls are straight up. But they don't have to be that way.
Difficulty modifiers to contested rolls exist. I gave the page numbers. 142 is where it says outright that it can happen, and the section is really short.
Basically in the case of a contested Stealth/Alertness roll, if someone is trying to Hide, they roll their 4dF, modified by any applicable Scene Aspects, and possibly using character and temporary Aspects as well and then add their Stealth skill, which is then opposed by the contesting person/things 4dF roll plus their Alertness skill, and the modified by any relevant Aspects they wish to use.
As I said, I'm avoiding Aspects. I love Aspects, but they're not the solution to everything. So stuff that isn't Aspect driven needs a buff, IMO.
And this resolves numerous problems that people often have with Fate. How many times have you heard, "So, wait. If my guy is trying to sneak down the hallway past a mook, and the hallways is really bright, it's no more difficult than if the hallway was dark?" The answer given is usually that the GM should Compel the scene-Aspect to make it so the PC can't sneak... which works, but it doesn't actually address the issue of making a roll any harder, because Compels don't do that.
The idea of a skill roll against a Difficulty to hide successfully, which is then opposed, basically gives the person hiding/attempting to hide two chances to fail the same action. Either I', not doing something according to RAW, or you're reading something in the RAW which doesn't make sense (at least to me).
It's rules as written. Check out 142. You roll against a difficulty, then the other guy rolls against your roll. It's very simple, and it creates the problem that bothers me.
Now, which could make some sense (and again, I'd need to re-read the relevant pages) would be a Stealth check vs. a difficulty to hide, with success giving the person attempting to hide temporary Aspects they can use to their advantage during the actual opposed Stealth/Alertness test.
Two things:
1. There's more to the game than Aspects. Trying to resolve everything with Aspects creates lots of problems. I've spent a huge chunk of time trying to resolve these problems for other people, and just doing it the way I list in the OP resolves most of those problems without making it complicated.
2. Rolling to get a bonus to your roll is super awkward. It's also two actions, so you can't actually do it at the same time. You need to Maneuver, hope that the guy you're hiding from doesn't look for you, then roll to actually hide. This is more than a little problematic.
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I don't think it has to be made that complicated. Just let the guy roll his stealth without any modifiers when he tries to hide, or outright deny it (maybe granting a fate point in the process). If there are aspects that would make hiding more difficult, let the other guy tag them on his alertness/investigation roll, when trying to find the hidden guy. That way, you only need to worry about those modifiers, when they actually come into play and not calculate any difficulties. If there are aspects that benefit and aspects that hinder someone hiding, both characters could tag them alternately, if need be, to stay ahead of the other.
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I don't think it has to be made that complicated. Just let the guy roll his stealth without any modifiers when he tries to hide, or outright deny it (maybe granting a fate point in the process). If there are aspects that would make hiding more difficult, let the other guy tag them on his alertness/investigation roll, when trying to find the hidden guy. That way, you only need to worry about those modifiers, when they actually come into play and not calculate any difficulties. If there are aspects that benefit and aspects that hinder someone hiding, both characters could tag them alternately, if need be, to stay ahead of the other.
You seem to have completely missed the point of this thread. I can tell this because you say things like, "Without any modifiers," and, "If there are aspects that would make hiding more difficult, let the other guy tag them."
Now look at the OP. It says that Aspects aren't part of this topic, and it says that it's about modifiers that come from non-fate-point sources.
In a thread about not-Aspects and modifiers, your solution is Aspects and not-modifiers. Which is to say, your solution isn't in fact a solution and is totally off topic.
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"We all know about fate points and Aspects and how those modify rolls. This isn't part of the problem, so it doesn't matter in this topic."
Doesn't make sense to me. If something is not part of the problem, it can still add to a functional solution.
Granted, if for some reason a particular DM doesn't want to use fate points or Aspects to address a particular thing, then s/he goes with what seems right.
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You seem to have completely missed the point of this thread. I can tell this because you say things like, "Without any modifiers," and, "If there are aspects that would make hiding more difficult, let the other guy tag them."
Now look at the OP. It says that Aspects aren't part of this topic, and it says that it's about modifiers that come from non-fate-point sources.
In a thread about not-Aspects and modifiers, your solution is Aspects and not-modifiers. Which is to say, your solution isn't in fact a solution and is totally off topic.
I like to treat everything as aspects, including those modifiers, which makes sense, because most modifiers are in fact the "+2" you get for invoking an aspect. Aspects are THE central idea of the game, so discussing a problem in the rules without considering them is kind of like trying to run a car without gas. The fate system tries to get rid of those usual modifiers. Yes, there is a chapter in the book, that deals with them, but to me that seems more like an effort to make the transition from other RPG games easier.
I just think it benefits the game, when you don't take 5 minutes to way all the modifiers against each other to reach a difficulty number for the player to roll. If you go the "all aspect" route, you don't have to, because those modifiers will only come into play, if they are actually part of the narrative.
So no, I don't think I am off topic, and yes, I think it is a solution. It might be a solution you don't like, but it is how I would do things.
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This seems like a good solution to a problem I've never had.
If I ever do have that problem, I suppose I'll use one of the methods here to solve it.
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So no, I don't think I am off topic, and yes, I think it is a solution. It might be a solution you don't like, but it is how I would do things.
No, it's not a solution. It doesn't address the problem. It avoids it. Let me put illustrate this with an analogy.
Me: There are two doors on my house. The front one works fine, but the back one slams really loudly. I'd like to fix the way the back door slams.
You: Just use the front door. It works fine.
Me: That's not a solution.
You: Yes it is. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it not a solution.
Not using the back door doesn't actually solve the problem that the door slams loudly. It just avoids using the back door. What if I park the car around the back instead of the front? Am I supposed to walk around to the front if I'm carrying something heavy? Or am I supposed to put up with the slamming back door? Why not just fix the spring so that it doesn't slam in the first place?
That's pretty much what's going on. I want to fix how difficulty modifiers work. You're telling me to fix them by not using them. That's not a fix. It's evasion. I want to actually fix the problem, not avoid it.
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Not using the back door doesn't actually solve the problem that the door slams loudly. It just avoids using the back door. What if I park the car around the back instead of the front? Am I supposed to walk around to the front if I'm carrying something heavy? Or am I supposed to put up with the slamming back door? Why not just fix the spring so that it doesn't slam in the first place?
That's assuming there is a back door. To stay in the metaphor, I would see the back door you want to use more like trying to get in through a window and complaining, that it is too difficult.
1. Modifiers to the difficulty during contests are multiplied by -1 and applied as a modifier to your roll. So a -2 to your difficulty (making it easier by 2) instead gets applied as a +2 to your roll (making it easier by 2). Likewise, a modifier of +2 to the difficulty (making it harder by 2) gets applied as a -2 to your roll (making it harder by 2).
I think we pretty much mean the same thing, we only apply it differently. First, are we in agreement, that ever difficulty modifier can be represented by an aspect? That would be the most important thing, if we don't agree on that, we won't agree on anything.
If you apply a negative modifier on a contested roll, you could instead apply a positive modifier on the other guy, the difference in shifts would be the same, so your situational modifiers and my tagged aspects are in fact pretty much the same.
I just think it makes the game more interesting, if you don't have to factor in every aspect or modifier like you would do in any other game, but use them when they actually come up. In the case of hiding, you don't hide from the environment, you hide from someone looking for you, so that's where the focus should be. I agree, that the hiding rules as written are strange, but that does not change the fact, that I don't like using modifiers in this game. I would let people roll their skills and if there is need for modifiers, I'll take aspects. If there is no need, well... there is no need.
I am not saying your way of doing things is wrong, far from it, and I apologise if it sounds like it. It just would not be the way I would do things.
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I think we pretty much mean the same thing, we only apply it differently. First, are we in agreement, that ever difficulty modifier can be represented by an aspect? That would be the most important thing, if we don't agree on that, we won't agree on anything.
We are only sort of in agreement.
See, not all modifiers can be applied well as Aspects. Nor should all modifiers be applied as Aspects. It's an option to do so, certainly, but it is not nor should it be the only option.
Sometimes you need a modifier that isn't tied to an Aspect. These exist explicitly in the game. Running and hiding at the same time? +2 difficulty. It says so right there on page 312. And that's NOT using Aspects. It may be mechanically similar to someone Invoking an Aspect to get +2 to a roll, but it's not the same thing; the +2 is applied to a difficulty and not someone's roll, and no one either spends or gets a fate point.
Also, check out the Speed powers. The final power listed under all of them is a penalty negation. Aspects do not apply penalties, so this clearly doesn't involve them.
So, non-Aspect modifiers exist in the rules. They're written in very vaguely, sure. It often requires checking out different sections and sort of gluing them together to get them to work. But they're there.
And here's the key point: People who want to use them aren't somehow doing it wrong. Attempting to move them toward other things when they've said that they want to use these things isn't only counter productive, but it's actively unhelpful.
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If the hider knows his roll will become the difficulty to spot him, isn't there incentive enough for him to boost his roll and not be satisfied with a roll that barely succeeds a lower difficulty? It seems like the mechanic is trying to make a routine hiding into something more interesting by encouraging spending Fate on Aspects.
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It seems like the mechanic is trying to make a routine hiding into something more interesting by encouraging spending Fate on Aspects.
Not everything is an Aspect, and not everything involves fate points. Nor should it.
People, can we just STOP finding other ways to suggest that I just use Aspects? I know Aspects are there. I know how they work.
So, for anyone who thinks that they're being helpful or informative by suggesting yet another time that I just use Aspects, you're not being helpful. You're not being informative. You're repeating stuff that has already been said multiple times on this thread, that I already knew about before I started the thread, and that I hinted you shouldn't bother with in the OP.
You'd rather just use Aspects. Message received. Got it. Check. Understood. Can we pretty please with sugar on top just keep moving past that, preferably in a way that does not involve so much as a single use of the terms "Aspects" or "fate points"?
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So... what you'd like to do is to compare the shifts of Effect of the two rolls, rather than merely their Effort?
So long as you reliably remember to assign appropriate base difficulties to each side of the opposed roll, (and so long as the rest of the table is on board), I don't particularly see any inherently catastrophic problem with that.
It does have the potential to make the game somewhat more granular than it would otherwise be, but I understand that some gaming groups find that sort of thing desirable.
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So... what you'd like to do is to compare the shifts of Effect of the two rolls, rather than merely their Effort?
That's the way that involves the least mucking about. The other way is to always modify rolls rather than difficulties. Mathematically, these are basically interchangeable.
So long as you reliably remember to assign appropriate base difficulties to each side of the opposed roll, (and so long as the rest of the table is on board), I don't particularly see any inherently catastrophic problem with that.
I didn't see anything blowing up, either. I just like putting these things out into the world for people to think about, just in case something I wasn't thinking about went kerplewie. (That's the first time I've tried to write down that particular sound effect. Spell check wants nothing to do with it.)
It does have the potential to make the game somewhat more granular than it would otherwise be, but I understand that some gaming groups find that sort of thing desirable.
And that's another reason to put it out there. There are lots of ways to play games. There are lots of ways to put emphasis on what's mechanically important. The more obvious options there are, the more groups have an easy time getting into the game.
This is why, incidentally, I think that Fate games should have a section discussing different ways to use the things the system does well, when to do that, and what effect that would have. So many, "How do I get an Aspect to do Stress because it's a burning building Aspect?" and, "Why isn't it easier to sneak down a dark hallway when I'm out of fate points?" conversations could have been prevented. Because those always suck.
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Not everything is an Aspect, and not everything involves fate points. Nor should it.
People, can we just STOP finding other ways to suggest that I just use Aspects? I know Aspects are there. I know how they work.
I wasn't suggesting you use aspects.
I was suggesting that the existing mechanic assumes you try to hide as hard as you want not to be found. Not just good enough based on the difficulty. The cognitive dissonance you're experiencing is because you've envisioned a situation where a character is hiding, when no one is searching. Hiding from whom? Successful hiding assumes a finder.
If rolling an uncontested Stealth, maybe your setting up a block to being discovered. Well, that's easy enough on the existing rules. Roll = Block strength. Page 142 suggests that difficulties could lower the block strength.
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I wasn't suggesting you use aspects. It was in no way suggesting you use aspects.
So when you said, "It seems like the mechanic is trying to make a routine hiding into something more interesting by encouraging spending Fate on Aspects," you were not in fact suggesting the use of Aspects? Not in any way?
The cognitive dissonance you're experiencing is because you've envisioned a situation where a character is hiding, when no one is searching. Hiding from whom?
No, the cognitive dissonance exists entirely because someone is searching for them. The problem only happens when the roll is contested, and the one contesting it is searching for them.
The problem is that an easy difficulty for hiding also makes it sometimes an easy roll for finding the hiding person. If it's easy to hide, how is it easy to find the hiding person? The two things are at odds, because it's a tautology that when it's easy to hide it's difficult to be found.
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So when you said, "It seems like the mechanic is trying to make a routine hiding into something more interesting by encouraging spending Fate on Aspects," you were not in fact suggesting the use of Aspects? Not in any way?
Editted above to clarify my point. But, no I wasn't suggesting that Aspects are better than modifiers. You know my views on that already. I was suggesting that rolling for "successful hiding" in a easy to hide location, where your goal is success v. a difficulty is the problem because the player is ignoring the rule that their roll sets their opponent's difficulty later. The game is pretty obviously built for the player to try to maximize their hiding result.
Underneath my view is the idea that it is just as easy to hide in a brightly lit room or a darkened alley, if no one is contesting you. Only when there is a conflict do we find out if you are hidden.
So, before contested roll you can Maneuver or Block. But, hiding is not like breaking into a shed.
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I think the system works well as it is if you think of it like this, If it is hard to hide in a location you need to work harder to stay hidden and as a result you are being more careful and are less likely to make a stupid mistake and be found, whereas if you are hiding in a place where it is easy to hide you can put just as much effort into hiding and be just as hard to find or put in less effort and be more likely to make mistakes, so in this view your stealth roll says how much effort you are putting into trying to hide. If this view still makes the RAW seem off I see no problem with the idea of modifying rolls instead of difficulty.
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I think the system works well as it is if you think of it like this, If it is hard to hide in a location you need to work harder to stay hidden and as a result you are being more careful and are less likely to make a stupid mistake and be found, whereas if you are hiding in a place where it is easy to hide you can put just as much effort into hiding and be just as hard to find or put in less effort and be more likely to make mistakes, so in this view your stealth roll says how much effort you are putting into trying to hide. If this view still makes the RAW seem off I see no problem with the idea of modifying rolls instead of difficulty.
I don't buy it like that. If it's easy to hide, it should be hard to spot you. If it's hard to hide, it should be easy to spot you. This is tautological. If I were to ask a person on the street for a plain English definition of "easy to hide" which referenced someone searching for you, they'd give me something about it being hard for the person searching for you to find you.
This is just a logic fail for the system. I imagine that it originated in the Evil hat folks not worrying about contested rolls while writing the modifiers rules and/or them not thinking about modifiers when writing the contested rolls rules.
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What other skill trappings have this issue?
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Alright if you find my explanation to be a stretch I do have one suggestion on how to simplify the alternative rule while staying a little truer to the spirit of the system. if you attempt to hide you make a stealth check against a set difficulty, shifts above the difficulty modify contested stealth rolls to remain hidden and if you fail the original roll you don't hide in the first place.
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What other skill trappings have this issue?
I was trying to think about this because I look at Stealth specifically as a "if a tree falls in the woods" problem. If you hide when nobody's looking for you, does it matter if you're hidden? To me, no, but Mouse isn't asking specifically about Stealth.
What about demolitions work, then? I could see a base difficulty needed to properly set and arm explosives, but your roll could still be contested if someone wanted to disarm your bomb.
Driving in a chase: You have to make at least, say, a Good roll to make the jump over the ravine, but your roll's contested by the guys trying to catch up to you as well.
So yeah, there are other situations where TheMouse's suggestions work. And I think his suggestions seem okay BTW. Just flip the penalties into bonuses, like in percentile systems where a +20% is a bonus if applied to the skill, but a penalty if applied to the roll.
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Well, this has been a interesting discussion so far, to say the least. However, one thing popped up in my mind: do you always have to set a difficulty for hiding? I know it is easier in a dark alleyway than in a brightly lit room (won't start using the A-word, thank you), but it seems a bit silly to roll just to see -if- you can hide in some situations, as opposed as to how well you hide.
Put in another way, for example: why would you have the hider roll against 3 and the searcher against 2, instead of a more simple contested roll against one another? This seems a bit complicated.
Now, I get the OP and I think the solution in there could work well, this question is just for my own benefit, so to speak.
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The way I think it currently works is that the hide roll vs a difficulty determines whether you are hidden and once you are hidden you keep the stealth to decide how well you remain hidden or how well you ambush an enemy. So they keep the roll to speed up the game even though it represent two or three actions.
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Put in another way, for example: why would you have the hider roll against 3 and the searcher against 2, instead of a more simple contested roll against one another? This seems a bit complicated.
There's no reason to adjust the difficulty of more than one person. The other will just default to a +0 difficulty. So it won't be one person rolling against +2 and the other rolling against +3; one will roll against +0 and the other +1.
And it really isn't that complicated. It would work out like this:
GM: OK. You're in the dark room and the thug is coming toward you. What do you do?
Player: Well, I'm hurt, so I don't really want to fight. I'm also out of fate points. I'm just going to find a dark spot that's out of the way and hide.
GM: Okay. It's pretty dark in here. So I'm going to give you a -2 difficulty to hide. The default is 0, so your diff is -2. The thug rolls against 0.
*Player and GM roll dice*
Player: Okay. I rolled +2. +2 -(-2) is +4, so I've got 4 shifts.
GM: He rolled +3. +3-0 is +3, so he's got 1 fewer shift than you. He slows down at one point and looks around, then mutters something under his breath, but it's pretty clear he didn't actually see you.
The most complicated step in the whole thing is subtracting one integer from another, and it's possible that they're both negative.
Okay, I've just now considered something, and I feel silly for only getting this now: What if you both fail? There aren't negative shifts. So I've just now come up with an advantage to just adding something to the roll of the advantaged person.
Reworking that example, it'll work out like this:
(The same up until the player and GM roll)
Player: Okay. I rolled a +2. Add 2 for the darkness, and I'm at 4
GM: He rolled +3, so you have him by 1. (Etc, etc.)
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To be fair, I wonder whether the Hiding rules are just badly worded in the rulebook.
I've checked out a couple of other Fate games and neither seems to impose an initial difficulty on the roll as such. It's just treated as a straight comparison of the hider's stealth roll vs the searcher's perception. In Spirit of the Century modifiers are applied directly to the hiding roll:
+4 for Pitch Black, no visibility
+2 for Darkness, Smoke, Thick Fog
0 for Dim Lighting
-2 for Good Lighting
-4 for Bright Lighting
These bonuses can be modified further by small things that may be taken into account (-1 or +1 depending on what the small thing is). SOTC actually goes as far as to say that you don't begin to make any sort of stealth roll unless there is someone looking.
That said, having the difficulty as presented in the rulebook does have echoes of the Evocation rules, where your roll not only tells you whether you draw the power successfully, but also how well you target it, so maybe it's intentional.
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The more I think of it, the more I think that this whole issue is because of the desire to avoid stating anything as a penalty to a roll. If penalties are expressed as an increase to difficulty, you don't have to penalize a roll.
The irony of this is that it creates problems with contested rolls, where you always have the option of expressing penalties as a bonus to the opposition. So if the rules for modifying difficulties stated that they adjusted static difficulties, but gave a bonus to the advantaged side in contests, this would work itself out in most instances. (The exception being when more than two people are competing, which gets a little awkward, but would be workable none the less.)
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I was trying to think about this because I look at Stealth specifically as a "if a tree falls in the woods" problem. If you hide when nobody's looking for you, does it matter if you're hidden? To me, no, but Mouse isn't asking specifically about Stealth.
What about demolitions work, then? I could see a base difficulty needed to properly set and arm explosives, but your roll could still be contested if someone wanted to disarm your bomb.
Driving in a chase: You have to make at least, say, a Good roll to make the jump over the ravine, but your roll's contested by the guys trying to catch up to you as well.
So yeah, there are other situations where TheMouse's suggestions work. And I think his suggestions seem okay BTW. Just flip the penalties into bonuses, like in percentile systems where a +20% is a bonus if applied to the skill, but a penalty if applied to the roll.
I pretty much still look at it as a 'tree falls in the forest" type issue. Perhaps I just haven't really encountered the issue Mouse is concerned about, or perhaps I have a workaround which I just automatically have been doing. :-\
With regards to both examples of a setting and then disarming a bomb, and a car chase involving jumping a ravine... From my perspective, neither of those are really opposed roles.
Setting a demolitions charge would be a straight difficulty to set (properly), as well as a straight difficulty to successfully disarm said charges as well. The number of shifts of success the person setting the charges achieves would dictate how effective the charge is once it goes off, assuming that even happens (either by failing to successfully set the charges or being disarmed). It is also quite possible that a very poor roll while setting the charges could cause them to go off prematurely, either trapping the person setting the charges, or perhaps just turning them into chum.
The reason (from my perspective at least) that the difficulty to disarm wouldn't increase is because if someone is using a normal type charge, there are only so many components involved and only so many ways they can be arranged. A basic example would be something like dynamite, a blasting cap, battery/electrical source, and a trigger to complete the circuit. Unless the person setting the charge goes out of their way to make it more complicated, adding redundant items like multiple triggers, auxiliary electrical sources, etc to it more difficult to disarm, then it should just be a straight difficulty to successfully disconnect some of the items to disarm the charge. If the person setting the charge wishes to make it more difficult, they of course could choose to do so, prior to attempting the skill roll for Demolitions, which would have an increased difficulty because of the extra work the person is attempting with the device. My reasoning behind this increase in the difficulty to set the charge initially is because by adding extra items to the charge to make it more difficult to stop/disarm, there is a greater chance for something to be set incorrectly and either not have the charge go off, or have it go off at a time when the person setting it doesn't want it to (like when it's in their hands...)
With the car chase and having to jump a ravine, there are two parts to that. If both the chaser and chasee are traveling a path which forces them to jump a ravine, the ravine is an obstacle which both parties will encounter. Presumably the chasee has the head start, and would encounter the ravine obstacle first. If they pass their Drive skill test, then the chasee can proceed past the ravine, if they fail, then they would most likely have some sort of car wreck and the appropriate results from that. The chaser, once they come into contact with the ravine obstacle, would also have to pass the appropriate Drive test, whether they have to jump it to continue on, or stop short, whatever is required. Now if the chasee fails the Drive test and the chaser passes, then yes the chaser should be able to 'catch' the chasee since they would most likely be crashed in the ravine. However, if the chasee passes the Drive test but the chaser fails, then the chasee should be able to escape easily since the chaser is the one who crashed in the ravine. It's also quite possible that both parties ended up crashing in the ravine, which would mean that the chaser did catch up to the chasee, but either group is likely in any condition to do anything about it.
-Cheers
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Forgot to mention:
No, my issue isn't exclusively with Stealth. It's just that I realized the problem was there while reading the section on how Stealth works, and it's a convenient example.
I mean, it being dark is bad for spotting people and good for hiding. It's not like chasing someone up a hill, where the slope is bad for both people.
And there is of course the issue where there isn't a general rule for modifying difficulties when making opposed rolls. Such things logically exist in general, but it explicitly exists in regards to hiding and light modifiers. I'm sure I could think of other situations that could benefit from this, but with this one I can point to page reference numbers that apply to it.
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What about demolitions work, then? I could see a base difficulty needed to properly set and arm explosives, but your roll could still be contested if someone wanted to disarm your bomb.
But do any modifiers that make it easier to set the explosives make it harder to disarm the explosives?
Driving in a chase: You have to make at least, say, a Good roll to make the jump over the ravine, but your roll's contested by the guys trying to catch up to you as well.
Again, assuming you wanted to do this, aren't the situational modifiers you face in jumping the ravine also faced by your pursuers?
The only place in the book where I find this issue of difficulty modifiers that make it easy to do something lower the difficulty of the opposition in undoing it is in the Hiding trapping. I'm thinking it may be that not enough thought went into that paragraph. I mean if they had said something like "your roll to hide sets the base difficulty when someone tries to find you and you apply situational modifiers to that base difficulty when the searcher rolls," it would be pretty much in keep with the way a Block works in RAW and you wouldn't get into this mess where the success of your hiding roll seems irrelevant.
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Man. I am ten times more confused after reading this thread.
Good points about the car chase and the demolitions examples. Those were shitty examples. I was trying to think of some other situation so people weren't focusing on Stealth specifically, but apparently Stealth is the only situation where this stuff happens. That said:
Bright lights (or other arbitrary modifiers that make sneaking harder) don't give a penalty to the ninja AND give a bonus to the guard. That's double jeopardy. There's only one man alive who can do that (http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Technology/images-2/alex-trebek.jpg).
Just pick one. Either the ninja gets a penalty or the guard(s) get a bonus. I'd personally penalize the ninja. Hiding in bright light is stupid and stupid ninjas get what they deserve (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Wd20SyEiWp8#t=138s).
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Good points about the car chase and the demolitions examples. Those were shitty examples. I was trying to think of some other situation so people weren't focusing on Stealth specifically, but apparently Stealth is the only situation where this stuff happens.
Stealth is the only place where this explicitly occurs of which I am aware. Any time there's a contested roll in which one side is advantaged because of an environmental or situational modifier that isn't based on the fate point economy, you get the issue of which this thread speaks.
Let's look at a theoretical situation in which someone is trying to get a piece of non-specified equipment online before someone can cross an expanse to reach them. The GM decides that this is a contested roll of Athletics versus Craftsmanship, and the guy trying to get the equipment online is rushed, so he takes a +2 difficulty. One can extrapolate from existing rules that he rolls versus his difficulty, then if successful that becomes the difficulty for Athletics guy.
But this creates the same problem. Since Crafts guy is rushed, his minimum successful roll is +2. If he wasn't rushed, it'd be +0. So Athletics guy actually has a more difficult minimum should the roll be successful because Crafts guy has a hard time... which doesn't really make sense.
So, I think that the simplest way to run this is to give Athletics guy a +2 to his roll rather than Crafts guy a +2 to his difficulty. You avoid the strangeness of something being harder and therefore harder to stop, and you also retain the system's tendency to avoid giving penalties to any rolls.
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Stealth is the only place where this explicitly occurs of which I am aware. Any time there's a contested roll in which one side is advantaged because of an environmental or situational modifier that isn't based on the fate point economy, you get the issue of which this thread speaks.
Let's look at a theoretical situation in which someone is trying to get a piece of non-specified equipment online before someone can cross an expanse to reach them. The GM decides that this is a contested roll of Athletics versus Craftsmanship, and the guy trying to get the equipment online is rushed, so he takes a +2 difficulty. One can extrapolate from existing rules that he rolls versus his difficulty, then if successful that becomes the difficulty for Athletics guy.
But this creates the same problem. Since Crafts guy is rushed, his minimum successful roll is +2. If he wasn't rushed, it'd be +0. So Athletics guy actually has a more difficult minimum should the roll be successful because Crafts guy has a hard time... which doesn't really make sense.
So, I think that the simplest way to run this is to give Athletics guy a +2 to his roll rather than Crafts guy a +2 to his difficulty. You avoid the strangeness of something being harder and therefore harder to stop, and you also retain the system's tendency to avoid giving penalties to any rolls.
The 'athletics guy' has a hard time getting to the 'craftsmanship guy' 'in time' because the 'craftsmanship guy' is rushing.
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The 'athletics guy' has a hard time getting to the 'craftsmanship guy' 'in time' because the 'craftsmanship guy' is rushing.
Yes, but the athletics guy is rushing as well. They're both rushing. That's the point. It's just that crafts guy is in a situation where he needs to rush more... which for some reason makes it harder to catch up with him.
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Hmm, I can't say that I'd have that situation as a direct contested roll anyway, it doesn't make sense from a mechanical or narrative point of view :-\. Surely the difficulties of the rolls are pretty much unrelated. The athletics guy's action is based on area boundaries and the difference between the time it would normally take and the how long they want it to take (within common sense depending on whether they have any sort of speed ability). The craft guy's roll is based around the complexity of what he's trying to assemble, how much he's rushing and any other minor environmental factors.
The result is entirely dependant on the time reduction part of the equation though which is a judgement call by both parties as to how fast they think they need to be. If the Athletics guy pushes to make it there in 'half a minute', but the Crafter has reduced their crafting time to 'a few moments' it doesn't matter if athletics guy rolls higher, he'll still be too late.
If they've both elected to reduce their times to the same timeframe then it depends on a bunch of other stuff, not least of which are just how fast athletics guy can move and how fast the the tech activates when the last piece is in place, and what it actually does.
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Effectively, in a contested roll each character is setting the other's difficulty. So, if rushing to get the equipment online makes it more difficult to do, the modifier should just increase the roll of the Athletics guy. Making it harder for the craft guy to succeed. That's how I'd do it at least.
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That example is really easy.
"MacGuyver, you and Usain Bolt both roll your respective skills. If Usain's Athletics beats Mac's Craftmanship, then Usain reaches him before he finishes. If not, Mac finishes his gadget."
If you still need to know if Mac finishes the work correctly - if that's actually part of the conflict, which it may not need to be - then you can add: "...Oh, and MacGuyver, if you don't roll at least a Good result, you've rushed your work too much and made mistakes - or you took too much time, regardless of the quality of the work you started."
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Yes, but the athletics guy is rushing as well. They're both rushing. That's the point. It's just that crafts guy is in a situation where he needs to rush more... which for some reason makes it harder to catch up with him.
The purpose of the relevant Athletics trapping is to rush. The same cannot be said of craftsmanship's 'building things'.
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Let's look at a theoretical situation in which someone is trying to get a piece of non-specified equipment online before someone can cross an expanse to reach them. The GM decides that this is a contested roll of Athletics versus Craftsmanship, and the guy trying to get the equipment online is rushed, so he takes a +2 difficulty. One can extrapolate from existing rules that he rolls versus his difficulty, then if successful that becomes the difficulty for Athletics guy.
But this creates the same problem. Since Crafts guy is rushed, his minimum successful roll is +2. If he wasn't rushed, it'd be +0. So Athletics guy actually has a more difficult minimum should the roll be successful because Crafts guy has a hard time... which doesn't really make sense.
You're thinking about this from the wrong direction. Athletics Guy doesn't have a more difficult time. In fact, Athletics Guy has the advantage in this situation. How so? Well, normally, Crafts Guy would roll, and that would set the difficulty for Athletics Guy. Now, you've changed the situation: if Crafts Guy rolls a +1 or less, he automatically loses - and Athletics Guy doesn't even need to roll. So, sure, the "minimum difficulty" for Athletics Guy is higher - but you're overlooking the fact that this is because sometimes, Athletics Guy will simply win without having had to roll at all. (And thus without having to run the risk of getting a -3 on the dice, or getting his "sprained ankle" consequence invoked against him, or whatever.)
That said, I would agree that in general I'd just run with this being a bonus to Athletics Guy's skill roll (or a penalty to Crafts Guy); dealing with minimum difficulties and failure conditions is just too finicky to be worth the trouble under normal circumstances.
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The purpose of the relevant Athletics trapping is to rush. The same cannot be said of craftsmanship's 'building things'.
You're wrong, because it's my example, and the roll is to see if you can do it in time. Crafts guy is trying to get the non-specific gadget up and going before Athletics guy can get there to stop him. That's what the contested roll is for. It's to see if crafts guy can do one thing quickly before someone else can do something else quickly. The example situation exists wholly in my head, so believe me when I say that this situation is about one person rushing to do something before someone else rushes to do another thing, but one person is at a disadvantage and so would normally receive a +2 to their difficulty.
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You're wrong, because it's my example, and the roll is to see if you can do it in time.
You misunderstand. I'm not talking about the rolls, but the TRAPPINGS.
The purpose of the athletics trapping that allows you to move quickly is to move QUICKLY. 'Rushing' is integral to its purpose.
The purpose of the craftsmanship trapping that allows you to build things is to BUILD THINGS. The fact that the character in this example needs to do so QUICKLY is an added complication.
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I am not sure I see your problem.
Hiding sets up an opposed contest between the person who is hiding's Stealth and the person who is looking's Alertness or Investigation. If it is easy to hide say because there is a lot of cover and shadows and what not the person who is hiding gets a bonus to his Stealth roll, and the person who is looking has to roll his Alertness or Investigation and beat that the number rolled plus the environmental difficulty modifier in order to find them.
If the situation is reversed and the environment is very hard to hide in due to it being brightly lit with no cover then the person who is looking gets the environmental difficulty modifier bonus to his roll on Alertness or Investigation and the person who is hiding still sets the difficulty to be found using his Stealth skill.
Since a Stealth roll is always an opposed roll against an opponent's Alertness or Investigation roll you give the environmental difficulty to whomever would get the benefit of the environmental difficulty modifier on their roll and therefore make it more difficult for his opponent.
So hiding in a dark environment with lots of cover has an environmental bonus of +3 to hide. Hider rolls his Stealth skill +4DF +3 points environmental bonus vs the Looker who rolls his Alertness or Investigation skill +4DF and see who is the winner.
Spotting someone in a brightly lit environment without any cover has an environmental bonus of +3 to spot. Hider rolls his Stealth skill +4DF vs the Looker who rolls his Alertness or Investigation skill +4DF +3 points environmental bonus and see who is the winner.
In both situations the environmental difficulty modifier makes it more difficult for whoever would have difficulty on their roll due to the environmental difficulty modifier.
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I am not sure I see your problem.
Hiding sets up an opposed contest between the person who is hiding's Stealth and the person who is looking's Alertness or Investigation. If it is easy to hide say because there is a lot of cover and shadows and what not the person who is hiding gets a bonus to his Stealth roll, and the person who is looking has to roll his Alertness or Investigation and beat that the number rolled plus the environmental difficulty modifier in order to find them.
If the situation is reversed and the environment is very hard to hide in due to it being brightly lit with no cover then the person who is looking gets the environmental difficulty modifier bonus to his roll on Alertness or Investigation and the person who is hiding still sets the difficulty to be found using his Stealth skill.
Since a Stealth roll is always an opposed roll against an opponent's Alertness or Investigation roll you give the environmental difficulty to whomever would get the benefit of the environmental difficulty modifier on their roll and therefore make it more difficult for his opponent.
So hiding in a dark environment with lots of cover has an environmental bonus of +3 to hide. Hider rolls his Stealth skill +4DF +3 points environmental bonus vs the Looker who rolls his Alertness or Investigation skill +4DF and see who is the winner.
Spotting someone in a brightly lit environment without any cover has an environmental bonus of +3 to spot. Hider rolls his Stealth skill +4DF vs the Looker who rolls his Alertness or Investigation skill +4DF +3 points environmental bonus and see who is the winner.
In both situations the environmental difficulty modifier makes it more difficult for whoever would have difficulty on their roll due to the environmental difficulty modifier.
The problem is they've been misreading "the roll" to mean only what you rolled on the 4df rather than roll+modifiers(stealth+environment+etc...). I was going to comment on it a while back but I didn't feel like getting pedantic'd to death.
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Since a Stealth roll is always an opposed roll against an opponent's Alertness or Investigation roll you give the environmental difficulty to whomever would get the benefit of the environmental difficulty modifier on their roll and therefore make it more difficult for his opponent.
So hiding in a dark environment with lots of cover has an environmental bonus of +3 to hide. Hider rolls his Stealth skill +4DF +3 points environmental bonus vs the Looker who rolls his Alertness or Investigation skill +4DF and see who is the winner.
That's not how the rules work. You're actually repeating one of my fixes.
Environmental modifiers affect the difficulty of rolls, not the rolls. I've given page references in this thread.
The way that works by the book: Joe wants to hide in the dark. His difficulty is modified by -3 because of lighting. He rolls. Whatever he gets becomes the difficulty for someone to spot him. Since the modifier is to the difficulty, and not to the Effort, all that the darkness modifier does is make lower Efforts successes, which means that it's actually easier to spot someone in the dark.
Let me put this more concretely.
Let's say that the base difficulty would be 0 to hide. Actually, you know what? I'm gonna use rules without naming Skills. People get caught up on the Skills.
It's difficulty 0 to do a thing. Roll Skill A, and an Effort of 0 or higher succeeds. If someone wants to contest that, they roll Skill B. Because the difficulty is 0, the Effort necessary to contest is 0 or higher.
Now something good happens for the person rolling Skill A. They get a -2 difficulty! Now they need only roll a -2 or higher Effort to succeed. Great! Wait... While they succeed more often, the opposition still only needs to match the Skill A Effort, which now begins at -2 and goes up. So while Skill A succeeds more of the time, Skill B beats it more of the time.
That's my problem. Your mistaken impression of how the rules work is actually one of my proposed fixes, and it does indeed seem to solve the problem. But it's not how the rules in the book actually work.
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The problem is they've been misreading "the roll" to mean only what you rolled on the 4df rather than roll+modifiers(stealth+environment+etc...). I was going to comment on it a while back but I didn't feel like getting pedantic'd to death.
Who has been making this mistake? I haven't noticed anyone doing it.
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That's not how the rules work. You're actually repeating one of my fixes.
That's my problem. Your mistaken impression of how the rules work is actually one of my proposed fixes, and it does indeed seem to solve the problem. But it's not how the rules in the book actually work.
Okay perhaps I am mistaken. Can you tell me where the -2 to rolls comes from in the rules? It seems like from the pages you quote in your original post example, say that difficulty modifiers add to the difficulty to do tasks rather than subtract from the roll to do them. My reading of a Contested roll is that the difficulty to succeed is set by the opponent's roll and so there is no base difficulty other than what is rolled by the opponent. Whatever difficulty modifiers there are therefore added to the opponent's roll rather than being subtracted from the roll of the person who is having the difficulty.
If Environmental modifiers add to the difficulty of making a roll, and the difficulty of a Contested roll is determined by an opponents roll, then it seems to me that in that case Environmental modifiers do add to rolls.
In a Contested roll it is not difficulty 0 to do a thing. Skill A rolls and sets the difficulty against the opponent who rolls Skill B and tries to meet or beat the difficulty set by Skill A's roll.
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Now something good happens for the person rolling Skill A. They get a -2 difficulty! Now they need only roll a -2 or higher Effort to succeed. Great! Wait... While they succeed more often, the opposition still only needs to match the Skill A Effort, which now begins at -2 and goes up. So while Skill A succeeds more of the time, Skill B beats it more of the time.
Again, this is fallacious logic.
It would be more accurate to say that Skill A's success rate while being contested by Skill B is only minisculely improved by a reduced base difficulty to Skill A, as Skill B is then more likely to actually have to bother rolling, rather than simply having Skill A fail the base difficulty and thus fail the task without contest.
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Who has been making this mistake? I haven't noticed anyone doing it.
Pretty much everyone. The way I read it in YW it's Roll=4df+Stealth+other modifiers. If Roll > difficulty, you didn't completely fail to be sneaky. Anyone in a position to see you rolls 4df+Alertness/Investigation/whatever+modifiers and has Roll as their difficulty to beat to detect you.
Standard contested skill mechanics.
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Pretty much everyone.
Well, I haven't. If you think I have, go back and take a look at what I wrote. Unless the context is explicitly about what the dice rolled (which I don't think I said anything about, but I'm too lazy to read everything I wrote), you should read me as talking about the effect.
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Pretty much everyone. The way I read it in YW it's Roll=4df+Stealth+other modifiers. If Roll > difficulty, you didn't completely fail to be sneaky. Anyone in a position to see you rolls 4df+Alertness/Investigation/whatever+modifiers and has Roll as their difficulty to beat to detect you.
Standard contested skill mechanics.
Actually, Lots of folks in the thread have said to do the same thing. So "essentially everyone" is a bit much.
Now, I can see how one could parse the Hiding trapping as saying something else. Namely, roll to hide vs. a difficulty + modifiers. Then use the roll as a the base difficulty for the finder's roll. But, there are problems with this reading:
1. Ignores the text on Stealth which says Stealth is always directly opposed by alertness.
2. Ignores the established mechanics of contested rolls, which fit the situation perfectly. The hider is either defending, blocking or maneuvering. Why set a static difficulty? What good is it to succeed at hiding and then fail at remaining hid in the next roll?
3. Requires special rules to make it work at all.
4. Ignores the commonsense notion that if you're hiding in an empty room nothing of import happens until the guy looking for you rolls.
But hey...