Underwhelmed
- Thread starter tbeard1999
- Start date
Yup, I'm liking what I'm seeing.
Skills are well balanced, the task system robust, and timing/effect adds some nice nuances to the blunt 2d6 system.
I think chargen works well, but needs a bit of an overhaul in layout to make it more user friendly.
The new tech adds all the cool stuff that sci fi has invented in the past 30 years, without being waffly and complex and without breaking the elegant system (or impacting on the OTU too much).
And I really like the idea of ship shares, and the cost of mortgage repayments. Makes almost all spacecraft economically viable, which is about time.
The only major tweak I can see is the weapon damage vs armour vs penetration.
Events work very well (though perhaps a 6 by 6 matrix for Life Events) and the connections rule is a good attempt to end the "well you all spot each other in a bar" party beginnings.
The thing it has brought to Traveller that is new is greater player agency in tasks (choosing timing over effect) and it seems there'll be less multiple rolls. I've played games where the ref required 20 or more rolls to overcome obstacles or some such. It seems the emphasis here might be on a single roll to accomplish all tasks, no matter how long or complex they are (very complex tasks will use the neat helping and multiple task systems).
It's almost all good, as as I'm concerned.
Skills are well balanced, the task system robust, and timing/effect adds some nice nuances to the blunt 2d6 system.
I think chargen works well, but needs a bit of an overhaul in layout to make it more user friendly.
The new tech adds all the cool stuff that sci fi has invented in the past 30 years, without being waffly and complex and without breaking the elegant system (or impacting on the OTU too much).
And I really like the idea of ship shares, and the cost of mortgage repayments. Makes almost all spacecraft economically viable, which is about time.
The only major tweak I can see is the weapon damage vs armour vs penetration.
Events work very well (though perhaps a 6 by 6 matrix for Life Events) and the connections rule is a good attempt to end the "well you all spot each other in a bar" party beginnings.
The thing it has brought to Traveller that is new is greater player agency in tasks (choosing timing over effect) and it seems there'll be less multiple rolls. I've played games where the ref required 20 or more rolls to overcome obstacles or some such. It seems the emphasis here might be on a single roll to accomplish all tasks, no matter how long or complex they are (very complex tasks will use the neat helping and multiple task systems).
It's almost all good, as as I'm concerned.
Icosahedron
SOC-14 1K
I don't recall seeing anything about mortgage payments, where was that? I'll have to compare it with my mortgage house-rules.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Unfortunately, these "nuances" are statistically dubious.
For instance, take a task roll of 8+. There are 15 combinations that will generate a roll of 8+.
If the timing/effect dice are not chosen by the player, here are the number of times each number appears in 2d6 rolls totaling 8+:
1 -- None
2 -- 1 (7%)
3 -- 2 (13%)
4 -- 3 (20%)
5 -- 4 (26%)
6 -- 5 (33%)
So...there is no chance of a "1" appearing in a 2d6 roll of 8+, but there is a 7% chance of a "2" appearing and a 33% chance of a "6" appearing.
What this means is that a "6" -- a spectacular result -- will occur nearly 5 times as often as a "2".
Indeed, there is a 59% chance of the task succeeding in an "Exceptional" or "Superlative" fashion and only a 7% chance of it succeeding "Poorly". And of course, there's a GREATER chance of it succeeding Exceptionally or Superlatively (59%) than of it succeeding in an Average fashion (46%).
Similarly, there's a 59% chance of taking only 1 or 2 increments and only a 7% chance of it taking 5 increments.
A modest -1 to the task roll plays havoc with these probabilities due to the fact that the -1 means that a 9+ must be rolled for success. This means that there will be *no* 1's or 2's rolled. The chance of a poor or worse result increases from 7% to 10%, but the chance of getting at least an Exceptional success drops from 59% to 30%. The chance of a poor result doubles from 7% to 15%. A -2 to the roll makes it impossible to get an Exceptional+ success and a 17% chance of a Poor success.
A +1 has a similarly dramatic effects -- the chance of at least an Exceptional success increases from 59% to 75% and the chance of a Poor result decreases from 7% to 5%. A +2 increases the chance of an Exceptional+ result to 79% and makes a Poor- result impossible.
Letting the player choose which die is the effect die virtually guarantees at least an exceptional success. Of the 15 rolls that can equal 8+, 14(!) of them include a 5 or 6.
Also, there's a 27% chance of the result being *both* an exceptional+ success and taking 2 time increments or less. A modest +1 modifier increases this to 60%(!).
Considering that anyone with a legal pad and Excel can run these numbers in a few minutes, I'm skeptical that the designers actually analyzed the statistical qualities of this task system beforehand. Worse, there's no way to fix this problem without tossing out the effect and timing dice. And I suspect that the designer is way too invested to do that. In my experience, the result is usually to deny the problem (or come up with a series of logically absurd "it's not a bug, it's a feature" rationalizations).
This makes me unable to share your enthusiasm...
Given that the economic system has not been published yet, I assume that this is a statement of faith, rather than a statement of fact. If they simply lift the previous economic systems from T4, MT, CT, etc., the economics will still be broken and many ships will be economically nonviable or over-viable.
I disagree that "shares" are a particularly elegant solution; simply awarding X MCr would have accomplished the same result. I'm also curious as to why ships of the same approximate cost have significantly different numbers of shares in some cases. (I.e., the MCr 37 Free Trader has 75 shares; the MCr 41 Far Trader has 100 shares -- a 33% difference in shares yet only an 11% difference in cost). The Corsair seems very underpriced in shares double the shares of a Free Trader, while cost four times as much. I see little benefit in adding a second such valuation mechanism.
Of course, I object to rewarding multi-million credit starships to players during character generation, but MGT isn't unique in this offense.
Also, the mortgage payment information is incomplete; we're told that the minimum monthly payment is 1/500 of the loan amount, but we're not told the length of the loan. Nor are we told how much an average ship is worth at various stages in the ship's life. Such information is necessary to evaluate the strength of MGT's economic systems.
And given the fact that thousands of mortgage calculators can be found on the WWW, I am perplexed as to why this is considered such a mysterious topic to Traveller refs and requires such efforts towards simplification.
It's almost all good, as as I'm concerned.
Wish I shared your optimism.
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sablewyvern
SOC-12
I do agree that, as written, a spectacular success is too easy to come across. My simple solution is to remove spectacular successes from the game entirely. Manage an Effect of 6, and you've done an excellent job, nothing more. The engine you were fixing runs as well as you could have been expected to make it, not 50% higher than it's rated output or some-such.
For the most part, I'll probably treat an Effect of 1 as a marginal success, 2-5 as an acceptable success and 6 as an excellent, but ultimately unexceptional, result. And that, of course, is only in circumanstances where we care about degree of success at all in the first place.
For the most part, I'll probably treat an Effect of 1 as a marginal success, 2-5 as an acceptable success and 6 as an excellent, but ultimately unexceptional, result. And that, of course, is only in circumanstances where we care about degree of success at all in the first place.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
I guess I should outline the proof of some of my claims about the statistical weakness of the task system. For simplicity, I'll limit my comments to an unmodified roll of 8+.
Here are the possible 2d6 combinations for 2d6 rolls of 8+:
2 6
3 5
4 4
5 3
6 2
3 6
4 5
5 4
6 3
4 6
5 5
6 4
5 6
6 5
6 6
Total number of rolls: 15
You can also see that 9 times out of 15, a given die will roll 5+.
Similarly, a given die will roll 2- only 1 time out of 15.
Since 5+ is the threshold for unusually good success/unusually short time and 2- is the threshold for unusually poor success/unusually long time, you can see that there is a FAR greater chance of the former than the latter.
And you can see that there is only *one* roll that will *not* have at least one 5 or 6: 4 and 4.
Similarly, you can see that 4 of the 15 rolls will have a 5+ on both dice.
Here are the possible 2d6 combinations for 2d6 rolls of 8+:
2 6
3 5
4 4
5 3
6 2
3 6
4 5
5 4
6 3
4 6
5 5
6 4
5 6
6 5
6 6
Total number of rolls: 15
You can also see that 9 times out of 15, a given die will roll 5+.
Similarly, a given die will roll 2- only 1 time out of 15.
Since 5+ is the threshold for unusually good success/unusually short time and 2- is the threshold for unusually poor success/unusually long time, you can see that there is a FAR greater chance of the former than the latter.
And you can see that there is only *one* roll that will *not* have at least one 5 or 6: 4 and 4.
Similarly, you can see that 4 of the 15 rolls will have a 5+ on both dice.
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tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
You haven't solved the problem and have arguably made it worse. With no modifiers, you will still have an Excellent success 33% of the time and you will *never* have a poor success (you cannot roll a 1 on either die and still get an 8+ on the roll).
Nor does this really fix the problem of very large probability shifts caused by modest modifiers.
There is no fix for this defect, I'm afraid. I spent all weekend trying to fix it and everything I tried (including your solution) failed to fix the problem or introduced worse problem. The mechanic is fundamentally broken, which probably explains why I intuitively disliked it from the start. (My subconscious sometimes sees a problem long before my conscious mind does).
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Oh, and the task system is just as broken when we're dealing with failures.
On failed 2d6 rolls (assuming no modifiers), a die will come up 1 or 2 about 53% of the time (11 times out of 21).
At least one die will be a 1 or 2 86% of the time.
And as above, modest modifiers have very large effects on the probabilities.
On failed 2d6 rolls (assuming no modifiers), a die will come up 1 or 2 about 53% of the time (11 times out of 21).
At least one die will be a 1 or 2 86% of the time.
And as above, modest modifiers have very large effects on the probabilities.
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tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Oh, and basing weapon damage on the effect die will make an overly predictable combat system worse in that regard.
Assuming an 8+ to hit roll, 9 of the 15 possible rolls will be a 5 or 6. This means that weapon damage will be very predictable and tend to be very high.
Assuming an 8+ to hit roll, 9 of the 15 possible rolls will be a 5 or 6. This means that weapon damage will be very predictable and tend to be very high.
sablewyvern
SOC-12
You are correct in that I haven't changed the possibility of getting a 6 for Effect.
However, given that that 6 result ceases to have dramatic consequences, who cares?
That said, I've re-thought my position in any case.
Apart from combat, just about the only time Effect will really matter will be when Timing also matters. If Timing doesn't matter, then I will generally assume that a successful PC takes the time required to do a good job, and gets good results.
If Timing does matter, then we no longer have to worry about high results always going into Effect. When they do, they'll be doing so at the expense of Timing. By your own analysis, the player can pretty much guarantee decent Timing or decent Effect, but he can't guarantee both.
It may not be the best possible system, but it does place players into situations may they have to make meaningful decisions about whether they want to be hasty or effective.
That being the case, my initial comments about consolidating 2-5 into a single "good enough" category are now thrown to the way-side. I still intend to reign in spectacular successes though, and just consider them successes that meet all the requirements, with no shortfalls -- not "vastly better than expected" results, as presented.
sablewyvern
SOC-12
The question them becomes whether or not an extra point or two of damage is reliably better than a point or two of initiative. If there isn't a clear and consistent advantage to taking the high die for damage, then you will find players taking the high die for iniative a reasonable percentage of the time, thus providing a wider range of damage outcomes. Your issue still exists, but is potentially smaller than it appears.
If damage (or initative) turns out to be obviously of greater importance, then your point definitely stands.
tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
<shrug>
My problem is this:
First, we are told (not necessarily by you) that the new task system is the greatest thing since sliced bread and that it will introduce a whole new layer of yummy goodness to the game.
But when fatal, systemic flaws are identified, the response seems to be, "well, I'll just ignore the system most of the time and/or not give effect to the system's results (or minimalize them)."
This seems to be a significant retreat from the "it's wonderful" claim.
And if that's the path taken, my question is "why bother with it?"
Oh, and there are other systems that you can use to "place players into situations may they have to make meaningful decisions about whether they want to be hasty or effective". One system that comes to mind is the simple system that I already use informally -- 2d roll, 8+ to succeed. For every point above the success roll the player can choose to enhance effect or cut the time required. Such a system would need some polishing and playtesting, but I can't imagine it would be worse that the current kludge.
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tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
To me, the issue is whether there is any compelling reason to use such baroque, nonintuitive and statistically dubious mechanics.
And I note that on 9 of the 15 possible rolls *both* dice will be 4+. So 2/3 of the time, damage will vary between 4-6 points. At some point, this kind of minimal randomization isn't worth the effort and hassle, it seems to me.
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sablewyvern
SOC-12
You've certainly raised some excellent points that need to be seriously considered.
As far as critical successes go, I was leery of them the moment I laid eyes on them, even when I thought they would be far less common then you've shown they can be. I've always thought they need to be toned down (since there's not really any way to limit their freqency with the system as it stands).
My biggest gripe with the system is the damage and armour, such that I've already come up with an alternative. Since that system turns Effect into a damage multiplier, a 4-6 range as standard should be wide enough - Effect 6 is half as much damage again, in total, than Effect 4. I do agree that it doesn't really seem like a wide enough spread for the official system as it stands.
Interestingly, last I heard from Gar on combat, he was trialling a multiplier system as well. If he peeks in here, he may well decide that's the way to go.
As to this specifically, if the bugs can be ironed out, I think there are tremendous benefits. The initiative system is what really got me interested in the game, and I want to see it work. Outside of combat, Timing/Effect has been officially declared an optional rule since day one, and I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that they should only be used in particular circumstances where the Timing/Effect dichotomy serves a useful purpose.
As far as critical successes go, I was leery of them the moment I laid eyes on them, even when I thought they would be far less common then you've shown they can be. I've always thought they need to be toned down (since there's not really any way to limit their freqency with the system as it stands).
My biggest gripe with the system is the damage and armour, such that I've already come up with an alternative. Since that system turns Effect into a damage multiplier, a 4-6 range as standard should be wide enough - Effect 6 is half as much damage again, in total, than Effect 4. I do agree that it doesn't really seem like a wide enough spread for the official system as it stands.
Interestingly, last I heard from Gar on combat, he was trialling a multiplier system as well. If he peeks in here, he may well decide that's the way to go.
As to this specifically, if the bugs can be ironed out, I think there are tremendous benefits. The initiative system is what really got me interested in the game, and I want to see it work. Outside of combat, Timing/Effect has been officially declared an optional rule since day one, and I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that they should only be used in particular circumstances where the Timing/Effect dichotomy serves a useful purpose.
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tbeard1999
SOC-14 1K
Again, it seems to me that your fix does not solve the real problem -- combat is way too predictable. With your system, a weapon will do 3 levels of damage (and a very disproportionate amount of time, it will be the highest level).
It isn't. I tried it out this weekend and it didn't work much better than the current system. Two main reasons -- first, the statistical anomalies are still there and are exaggerated in a multiple system. Second, a multiple system will quickly outrun the hit points scale. When the average character has 21 or so hit points, and the average damage roll is around 4.7 (and seldom less than 4), the multiple for a rifle will need to be around 3. That severely limits the designer's ability to meaningfully distinguish between weapons. Weapons are gonna be light (x2), medium (x3) and heavy (x4) damage. Pretty bland and most un-Traveller like.
Oh, and it's clumsy to play.
I know I keep repeating this, but the basic system is defective and there are no simple fixes. Or indeed, any effective fixes at all. And my observation has been that once a designer falls in love with a particular mechanic, he's far more likely to ignore its flaws than to replace it with a less flawed system. And the more fussy and "innovative" the flawed system is, the less likely the designer is to replace it.
Depends, I guess, on how you define "works". The initiative system is unintuitive and fussy. It makes it nearly impossible to model real world skirmish tactics. It does nothing (IMHO) that Snapshot/AHL's action points system didn't do better. It seems to yield very dubious results (especially when coupled with the broken damage mechanic).
It *is* very gamey, but then, so is Chinese Checkers. But I don't think Chinese Checkers would necessarily make a good sequence of play for a Sci-Fi RPG combat system. The same is true of the MGT system in my opinion.
Except that the mechanic is BROKEN and does not lend itself to any obvious fixes. And since the mechanic is NOT optional in the combat system, its defects have a profound effect on the game regardless of whether it is optional in the rest of the game.
And I'm just not all that enthusiastic about another crappy Traveller combat system.
sablewyvern
SOC-12
Well, I think your position is fairly clear.
I don't have the motivation to run all the numbers myself, and analyse your analysis to see what conclusions I reach, but I look forward to seeing if anyone more dedicated than myself does so, and what conclusions they reach.
I don't have the motivation to run all the numbers myself, and analyse your analysis to see what conclusions I reach, but I look forward to seeing if anyone more dedicated than myself does so, and what conclusions they reach.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
captainjack
SOC-13
...or indeed many, many, many task based resolution systems: skill + attributeoid +/- difficulty mods, roll to hit,succeed, etc.
Supplement Four
SOC-14 5K
Riiiiight.
UGM is 2D for 8+ for success.
UGM's difficulty numbers are:
Easy +4
Routine +2
Standard +0
Difficult -2
Challenging -4
Formidable -6
Insane -8
Impossible -10
Now, what about that is closer to the UTP than the UGM? What, the UTP and the Mongoose system both use 2D6?
The Mongoose system IS the UGM except for how they implement stats (which, under their method, overweights stats at the sufferance of skills).
Sure, the UTP is closer to the Mongoose system than the UGM (facetious).
In what way?
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