Great conversation! Even after 40 years of playing and DMing, it's exciting to hear stories and scenarios from others. I have to say, for many years, my style of DMing was hewn to the rules. Now, as one who absolutely loves 3.5, I've taken to introducing the dilemma...maybe not to the mechanical level of a broad series of gradients (success, success with a complication, etc.) but a difficult choice to make
Love the talk so far, degrees of success without the distraction of math is why I prefer dice pools to single-die systems. Also, love the discussion about difficult decisions. The issue here is that Pathfinder and D&D are strategy games first and roleplaying games second, so you may be wasting your time mentioning these topics with certain players or GMs.
1-I liked the discussion about swapping the terms Epic Heroes for easy mode by adding another level to someone new to the game learning. Not sure I would want a level spread like that but it does sound interesting. 2-The statements on a party of only 3 players, all 1 level higher than the suggested adventure level sounded interesting. I would like to try that one day, or maybe a campaign. 3-The variant success and drawbacks of high tension cases sounded interesting, not sure I would want to stick with it but it was a bit intriguing.
I really enjoyed this conversation. I watched all of KoLC's RotRL campaign and enjoyed it greatly and learned from it. I frequently listen to Stephen's games also, and think he has a lot of valuable insight on this topic as well. I would like more videos like this.
I made the reddit thread we discussed in this video! You can find it here: www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1ebdb62/making_a_sacrifice_for_another_pc_how_would_you/
Generally, I think the partial success is built into the gm interpreting the context of when a check is nessicary, what the DC is, and what sucess/failure means. Ie, a rope is attached to a 2 ton weight and thrown off a cliff. One gm might make the players make an int check to get that it is not possible to keep the weight from falling and if you try to grab it, it will just pull you down if you pass the strength check. Another might make a str check where if you succeed you can hold it for a round or slow it down. Still another might make the pc make a Reflex save to avoid cutting their hands on this rope that is not going to be stoped by the PC. As a style, I do not think it makes you a better gm for using it or not. It is kind of a situation where if you run a lot of mystery and investigation games it makes you better at running mysteries, but does not always translate to running dungeon crawls. It is useful if you use that style, but not really useful or nessicary if you don't use that style.
Ironically I'm in the midst of a total conversion of PF2.r to a bespoke d30-based system that realizes 4 degrees of success/failure for all rolls. I also swapped out saves for effect/spellcasting checks, so that all rolls use the same maths.
There are a few RPGs from the 80s that did a lot of this variable success thresholds long before GNS Theory and the push of modern game design that treats it like it's something new and revolutionary. None of this is new.
Rolemaster had partial successes, rated by percentages. You keep rolling until you rolled a critical failure which ruins your activity or you achieve 100% (or you run out of time if your activity has a time limit)
One of the biggest issues of having "success, but..." as a common result is that it puts a lot of work on the GM to come up with something every time. And if the "but..." results in the player making a second skill check to resolve it you end up in an infinite cycle of constantly picking up after yourself and dropping something at the same time.
Yes more content like this. Getting insights from you both is extremely helpful in my journey to be a better GM
Love the show! Amazing discussion between 2 very qualified veterans 🙂
Great conversation! Even after 40 years of playing and DMing, it's exciting to hear stories and scenarios from others. I have to say, for many years, my style of DMing was hewn to the rules. Now, as one who absolutely loves 3.5, I've taken to introducing the dilemma...maybe not to the mechanical level of a broad series of gradients (success, success with a complication, etc.) but a difficult choice to make
Love the talk so far, degrees of success without the distraction of math is why I prefer dice pools to single-die systems. Also, love the discussion about difficult decisions. The issue here is that Pathfinder and D&D are strategy games first and roleplaying games second, so you may be wasting your time mentioning these topics with certain players or GMs.
I use fail forward or successful failures when normal failure would lead to a roadblock.
Great talk about Tricky choices.
1-I liked the discussion about swapping the terms Epic Heroes for easy mode by adding another level to someone new to the game learning. Not sure I would want a level spread like that but it does sound interesting.
2-The statements on a party of only 3 players, all 1 level higher than the suggested adventure level sounded interesting. I would like to try that one day, or maybe a campaign.
3-The variant success and drawbacks of high tension cases sounded interesting, not sure I would want to stick with it but it was a bit intriguing.
I really enjoyed this conversation. I watched all of KoLC's RotRL campaign and enjoyed it greatly and learned from it. I frequently listen to Stephen's games also, and think he has a lot of valuable insight on this topic as well. I would like more videos like this.
Mark's insider viewpoint and creativity are awesome and appreciated, too!
"derik the sadist evily cackling" is my favorite moment of this video
FFG's Star Wars and Genesys systems are famous for this.
I made the reddit thread we discussed in this video! You can find it here: www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1ebdb62/making_a_sacrifice_for_another_pc_how_would_you/
Great stuff 🎉🎉
Generally, I think the partial success is built into the gm interpreting the context of when a check is nessicary, what the DC is, and what sucess/failure means. Ie, a rope is attached to a 2 ton weight and thrown off a cliff. One gm might make the players make an int check to get that it is not possible to keep the weight from falling and if you try to grab it, it will just pull you down if you pass the strength check. Another might make a str check where if you succeed you can hold it for a round or slow it down. Still another might make the pc make a Reflex save to avoid cutting their hands on this rope that is not going to be stoped by the PC.
As a style, I do not think it makes you a better gm for using it or not. It is kind of a situation where if you run a lot of mystery and investigation games it makes you better at running mysteries, but does not always translate to running dungeon crawls. It is useful if you use that style, but not really useful or nessicary if you don't use that style.
As a mouse guard I would look into the eye, pick both things and perhaps survive, but survive together with the medicine.
Ironically I'm in the midst of a total conversion of PF2.r to a bespoke d30-based system that realizes 4 degrees of success/failure for all rolls. I also swapped out saves for effect/spellcasting checks, so that all rolls use the same maths.
Sounds like someone's been playing Fate
There are a few RPGs from the 80s that did a lot of this variable success thresholds long before GNS Theory and the push of modern game design that treats it like it's something new and revolutionary. None of this is new.
Rolemaster had partial successes, rated by percentages. You keep rolling until you rolled a critical failure which ruins your activity or you achieve 100% (or you run out of time if your activity has a time limit)
One of the biggest issues of having "success, but..." as a common result is that it puts a lot of work on the GM to come up with something every time. And if the "but..." results in the player making a second skill check to resolve it you end up in an infinite cycle of constantly picking up after yourself and dropping something at the same time.