Page 1 of 2

Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 8:53 pm
by Doug R.
All,

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of playing pen and dice RPGs, and one of the things I enjoyed doing was adding to and modifying the rules systems. There's a lot of role-play situations in Cantr where the only metrics are the strength or skill of the two characters, and while we would like these scenes to be lively and enriching, we're left wondering "how do I do this?" For example, if I'm role-playing an arm-wrestling scene with another character, should the stronger character always win? Wouldn't be more exciting it there was an element of chance?

I'm considering designing an odds-based role-play system around Cantr mechanics, and I'm wondering, how many people would be interested in using it? I'm hoping that it would be something that would be universally accepted, and maybe even published in the wiki.

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:04 pm
by freiana
Doug R. wrote:...if I'm role-playing an arm-wrestling scene with another character...


I thought that you were Marlie... And that probably means you have some more awesome chars...
Don't evereverever stop playing any of them! They are too awesome!

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:07 pm
by Doug R.
freiana wrote:
Doug R. wrote:...if I'm role-playing an arm-wrestling scene with another character...


I thought that you were Marlie... And that probably means you have some more awesome chars...
Don't evereverever stop playing any of them! They are too awesome!


I think I know who you are now too!

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:07 pm
by Vega
Yes, not everever xD

I think I don't understand that system...

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:12 pm
by freiana
Doug R. wrote:
freiana wrote:
Doug R. wrote:...if I'm role-playing an arm-wrestling scene with another character...


I thought that you were Marlie... And that probably means you have some more awesome chars...
Don't evereverever stop playing any of them! They are too awesome!


I think I know who you are now too!


Well yes, that's kind of obvious now xD

Edit: Also, I fail at sending PM's instead of forum messages -_-

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:14 pm
by Vega
It would had been obvious even for me!

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:20 pm
by Doug R.
Ok, I'll use Marlie and Ruby arm-wresting as an example.

I did a test drag on Ruby before it started, and it came out to 58%, so Marlie has an 8% strength advantage. But does that mean Marlie should win? In this example, what if there was an established system of points accumulation to determine the victor? In such a system, that 8% would only be an advantage, not a sure-win. The match could be divided into rounds, each side rolling a dice, taking the result, and factoring in the advantage. Whichever character reaches the point threshold first wins.

That's a rough example of something we could do and could apply to any match of strength (arm wrestling, wrestling, boxing, etc.)

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:28 pm
by freiana
Ruby would win anyway! :wink:
But, seriously, I would like this quite a lot. It would help in this kind of situations, and I think it is sort of more fair. Maybe other factors could play along too, like skill in fighting. Or maybe it could be optional which skills count? Not sure.
It -might- be interesting to use in whatever new form of combat system we will (probably never) get.

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:29 pm
by Doug R.
One big issue we'd need to figure out is the proper etiquette for actually engaging in the system. Should dice rolls be shared via whisper? Not shared at all and done on an honor system? Should we use in-character dice? I think this would be the biggest obstacle to navigate to get people to use it, because we don't want anything that would be disruptive to game flow (like excessive ooc comments).

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:44 pm
by freiana
I thought of it more as a programmed thing, in which we could have arm-wrestling tables, boxing rings, things like that which do the math for the two (or more) chars using the device. If RL dices are used cheating would be quite easy, and using IG dices would be quite a lot of "unrealistic" cluttering of the events page...

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 9:45 pm
by Doug R.
The whole premise of Cantr makes cheating easy, so I don't think we can use possible dishonesty as an argument against it ;)

I wouldn't be opposed to spending resources on the things you mentioned, I just think they would be less accessible to the characters and also susceptible to the same developmental hurdles that stymie the majority of suggestions.

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:09 pm
by NancyLee
Oh yes, you genious!

I don't really get the cheating issue, though... what would be the fun part of doing so?
The less ooc involved, the better, in my opinion, it sometimes make harder stay in character.

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:37 pm
by Doug R.
I think anyone intent on winning would just rp winning instead of subjecting their character to chance anyway.

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:41 pm
by NancyLee
I don't think that'd be especially funny, I mean, it's rp, winning or losing is not really relevant, but that's just my opinion, if the system can fight that, even better.

I used to rp lots of "training combats" with a friend and we used one of those virtual dices' sites oocly to decide the result of the combat and then rp accordingly, but this sounds far more neat.

Re: Odds-based role-play system.

Posted: Sun Apr 14, 2013 10:56 pm
by Black Canyon
I'm for it. :)