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RoE Development => Regent Guide => : DM B March 05, 2010, 02:36:11 PM

: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: DM B March 05, 2010, 02:36:11 PM
The Take 10 rule is causing me some headaches.

It makes setting base DDC for certain actions very hard...players will strive to take 10...but once they can't do that the DDC is so high they have to expend and unseemly amount of influence to have a chance of success. So its either auto-success or very little chance of success.

Unless I find a clever fix for that, the Take 10 rule will be phased out (not this turn though).
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-Osoerde (Alan) March 05, 2010, 08:08:38 PM
Won't this neccessitate changes to action DDCs?
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: DM B March 05, 2010, 08:42:32 PM
Won't this neccessitate changes to action DDCs?

Clearly.
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-Osoerde (Alan) March 05, 2010, 11:33:54 PM
Alan bows to Bjorn the Terse. :)
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: DM B March 06, 2010, 07:30:00 AM
Alan bows to Bjorn the Terse. :)

I'm just playing around with numbers right now - the problem with taking 10 being either that you get an auto-success, or have to spend heaps of RP/GB.

The good part is that players really go out of their way to gather enough bonuses not to have to roll the dice. Which is in the spirit of RoE.

I may end up NOT changing the rule. We'll see.

(but if anyone has any feedback, now is the time)
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-EOM/SS (Tristan) March 06, 2010, 08:54:50 AM
Maybe go with the idea of taking 10 only on rolls that are not contested or their is no penalty for failure (apart from the spent resources).

The way I see it if the action simply requires the attention of the domain and the appropriate amount of resources then a dice roll is a waste of time.
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander) March 07, 2010, 01:19:21 PM
It is my impression that DDC 10 is in general the "magic number". A lot of actions are not attempted at all unless you can take 10 and if you have to take an action you want to reduce it to 2+.

If this is not intentional, then something has to be changed.

I do not think that simply removing Take 10 is a solution though, it would remove the magic number issue, but I think it would hurt the game as is.

Actions represent a huge investment, in time (you at most have 5 regent actions), RP, and GB. Since the investments into actions are that big, people are naturally very risk-averse since those 5 actions are all that you get to do that turn and you have finite resources (quite limited resources in some players' cases).

If you succeed at an action you get what you wanted (usually) if you fail you get nothing at all, for some actions there is even a risk of the situation getting worse (agitate, notably).

Couple that together with the fact that a turn's actions are the result of a month's roleplaying and wheeling and dealing, you get risk-averse behavior.

Is this a problem? If it is, something has to be done...

I'm just not sure what to suggest.

One thing to do would be to reduce the resources risked (e.g. on a failed action you get half the resources you invested back, still a loss, but not as painful). This could lead to a resources-bloat in a few turns though.

Another thing would be to make success and failure more granular. Have a scale of success and failure instead of complete success and nothing. I think it would mostly be the failure end of things that need to be adressed - success is already pretty powerful for most actions.

For example - failing, but getting within 4 of the DDC means you keep all the influence you spent on the action if you want to attempt it again. Highly relevant for rule, contest and agitate actions.

Getting within 8 of the DDC means you keep half the influence.

Failing, but getting within 12 of the DDC means you get +2 if you attempt the same action again.

And so on, not sure I would go with that, but it's an example of what I mean. It could also encourage working on the same thing across multiple turns, which would be a good thing IMO.

Also, if we phase out the Take 10 rules, some actions would need some revamping - it would be outright silly for a move unit action to fail in conjunction with a wage war action, or at least a nightmare to administrate. Some would need to be automatic successes actions - unless some other player is acting against it.

: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: DM B March 07, 2010, 03:50:35 PM
Maybe go with the idea of taking 10 only on rolls that are not contested or their is no penalty for failure (apart from the spent resources).

The way I see it if the action simply requires the attention of the domain and the appropriate amount of resources then a dice roll is a waste of time.

That is already the case.
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: DM B March 07, 2010, 03:54:43 PM
Problem:

DDC is 14, you have a +3 mod to DAC. You can't take 10...actually you'll have to gain 12 influence to get that magic 2+ number. Ouch.

DDC is 13, you have a +3 mod to DAC. Woot woot, no chance of failure.

The main problem is NOT actions like contest and rule. Those can quickly be forced to roll anyway by someone spending a single RP. So that works well enough.

Problem is every other action...its just impossible to find a fair DDC that makes the actions possible, without the taking 10 rule coming in and hitting with auto-successes.

I already have several options on my table (including keeping it the way it is). So keep coming with feedback.
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: DM B March 07, 2010, 03:57:54 PM
Other options:

- Take 8 instead of 10. Makes rolling the dice somewhat more attractive.
- No take 10 for court actions, but overall lower DDC and 1RP = 1 influence.
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-IHH/Wallac Isilviere (Kasper) March 07, 2010, 04:39:55 PM
I have gotten used to how it is and for all I care there is no need to change it. Is it just me??
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-Osoerde (Alan) March 07, 2010, 05:58:57 PM
Hmm...if you reduce RP influence cost to 1:1 it removes one of my favorite things, the RP.  On the other hand, reducing this makes turn accounting a lot easier (since it removes a number of rules, related to the expenditure of RP to gain influence).

Maybe you can tie the ability to Take 10 to the bonus actions available to a regent?

eg:

A fighter can Take 10 with Wage War Actions.
A Cleric can Take 10 with Agitate actions.
Etc.
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-IHH/Wallac Isilviere (Kasper) March 07, 2010, 06:20:15 PM
Making regents with levels from many different classes much better than others with just one or two kinds
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-Osoerde (Alan) March 07, 2010, 07:21:32 PM
Not really. 

Most regents have 2 classes (usually Noble and another). 

Many landed regents probably have 3 (noble, warrior (of some kind) and something else). 

Therefore, we are talking about 1 additional action which the regent can take 10 on.

: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-ETN/Maire Cwyllmie (Libor) March 07, 2010, 10:18:48 PM
It may be useful if a regent have to pay some set amount of influence to be able to take 10. In the case of really low DDC it may be better NOT to take 10 then. And if he can't take 10, the rise of influence spent wouldn't be so steep. However there are 2 problems with this:
1) Military actions in scope of Wage war action (as was pointed before). They are so numerous that I think hardly anyone really bothers to list all of them properly in DO. And they are often resolved before DO is handed to DM.
2) It doesn't make game mechanics simpler but on the contrary.
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy) March 09, 2010, 09:25:28 PM
Problem:
DDC is 14, you have a +3 mod to DAC. You can't take 10...actually you'll have to gain 12 influence to get that magic 2+ number. Ouch.

DDC is 13, you have a +3 mod to DAC. Woot woot, no chance of failure.

Right now those advantage bonuses and the odd other bonus can bring you to the magic 10, that makes them hugely valuable, similarly realm morale, keeping it up becomes very important for a temple, even when the GB income isn't good simply b/c the extra +1 might be key.  That gives incentive to get support from others, and avoid being opposed, as it saves you 20 RP in smashing the DC down from 11+ to 2+.

I like Alex's idea though, although I'd be more inclined to try 'fail by 1 or 2, and you can use a court action to repeat the action next turn without needing a regent action, or inflating action DCs of the next turn, fail by 3 or 4 and you can repeat with a court action at +2 DC'- that keeps the resource cost, but reduces the risk of losing the action, right now the action cost is the most significant to me, and I wouldn't want too much resource return for partial success to avoid bloat (not that I'd ever bloat with my costs but its the principle).  But then, as a priest regent losing an action each turn to bless and generally another to diplomacy actions are precious...
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: DM B March 09, 2010, 10:03:52 PM
Very interesting.

Keep it coming :-D
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: X-Tornilen/SM (Alexander) March 10, 2010, 05:44:35 PM
Even if "take 10" is removed, there needs to be some alternative for actions that are not really intended to be rolled - I am mostly looking a the military actions here. Having to roll for every move unit action and change status would be an administrative nightmare. So if the ability to take 10 is removed, some alternative should exist for those actions.

The problem, if I understand Bjørn right, is that the effective difference in cost between performing an action, fx a rule action at a (total) DDC of 10 and 11, is huge depending on whether you can take 10 or not. It's weird that it can cost you 2 GB to rule a holding at 100% success chance (ish, you never know if someone spends influence against you) and at the same time 12 GB for 95% success chance.

IMO the best solution to that is to simply remove the take 10 rule and make certain actions autosuccessful under certain circumstances. I think military actions should then be succesful if performed together with a wage war action. Administrative actions (fx changing taxes) should be successful if the province/realm is not in rebellion and so on.

Then just lower the DDC on some actions to make them easier to perform and you will be done, imo.

However, if the goal is to make it worthwhile to spend a little resources on a lot of different actions and not make it necessay/compelling to go for 2+ on so many... then something to make it less likely, that all the resources spent just disappear, is needed. Degrees of failure would be the obvious route for that. Andy's suggestion is very cool - changes the action dynamic somewhat, but could work.
: Re: Taking 10 - Phasing out?
: DM B March 12, 2010, 01:22:24 PM
This one will be put on ice for now; I'll consider it in the future, but right now I have more promising projects I'd like to waste my time on :-P