From: gharris@Jade.Tufts.EDU
Date: Wed 26 Jan 1994 - 18:04:41 EET
I hate the alternate system of awarding a set number of
I very much dislike the new method of differentiating
skill checks at the end of an adventure. It's one more thing for
the GM to have to keep track of, it will lead t idiot-savant
runelords who can't do anything except their cult skills, and
it's meant to solve a problem (skill check frenzy) that I've seen
only very rarely and in extreme moderation, and that could be
solved more effectively with less munging around with the system
with a paragraph or two advising the GM *not* to give skill
checks in unimportant situations, like pulling out a different
weapon to finish off that maimed trollkin. Obviously, this rule
was written for people who have a completely different experience
and preference for gaming from mine, so I'll just say I hate it
and leave it at that.
among Easy, Medium and Hard skills with respect to experience.
Now, when awarding skill checks during the adventure, a
gamemaster will have to think: "Let's see, I should award a
skill check for that. Wait, is that a hard skill? Was that good
enough to merit a check for a hard skill? Or is it just a medium
skill? I'd better look it up." What you'll end up with is a
situation where the GM will either give up on differentiating
among the various skill difficulties altogether, rendering the
difference moot, or a situation where the GM will end up never
giving skill checks for hard skills. Now, if you have all skills
treated exactly the same, you end up with a whole lot less worry
for the GM, so he can get on with important stuff like actually
running the game. Putting the difference in the skill gain roll
itself, with 2d6 for an easy skill, 1d6 for medium, and 1d3 for
hard, gives you exactly the result you want to achieve, with a
whole lot less worry for the GM, and a much greater probability
of actually getting the result you want.
I also dislike the change in awarding POW gain rolls.
Training: again, to keep consistent with my preferences
Practice and Research. I think the idea of practice as
Now the GM will have to keep in mind how long ago it was that he
last gave a character a POW gain roll, how active he's been
magically since then, let's see, where's that calendar, when was
that POW check? Maybe I better wait a week. In the end, you're
probably going to get a situation gives almost no POW gain rolls,
or one where he hands them out every 2-4 weeks like clockwork
without regard to the characters' activity. The whole problem of
Pow check frenzy can be handled perfectly well by putting a
paragraph or two in the gamemasters' section advising against
awarding Pow checks for trivial and meaningless accomplishments,
such as disrupting that maimed trollkin (hasn't anybody finished
him off yet?).
for learning by experience, I suggest having a training session
last the same amount of time for Easy, Medium and Hard skills,
but have the increase at the end be 2d6, 1d6, or 1d3. This
system is perfectly reasonable, no more complicated than the
proposed, and is consistent with what I feel is an easier to
implement method for learning by experience.
Also, wasn't there going to be mentioned the possibility
of not including the skill category modifier when figuring how
long a training session is going to take? I think that should be
mentioned, and not just as an optional rule in the appendices. I
feel not including the skill category modifier in calculating
training times gives much more reasonable results with respect to
how quickly and well people with a high intelligence, say, learn
knowledge skills when compared with people that are otnay ootay
ightbray.
opposed to research, taking twice as long, is a good idea.
However, the change in research from requiring a skill gain roll
at the end of a session to having sessions take twice as long
with a guaranteed increase at the end is very, very, very bad.
Bear with me for a little while, and I'll explain why I feel this
way. For the purposes of my example, I'm going to assume a
medium skill with a zero skill category modifier. I'm not going
to present the derivations of the formulae I use. If anyone's
interested in the gory details, email me and I'll send them
along. Also, I'm going to say that a training session for a
skill at 54% takes 5.4 days rather than 6 days. This makes the
formulae simpler, and doesn't substantially change the results.
As it turns out, the time it takes to train a skill to a
certain level, which we will call N, is a quadratic equation in
N. That is, the time T = a*N^2 + b*N +c. Since we are
interested in how much time it takes to train a skill from one
level, say M, up to N, we end up with something like this: if
T(M,N) is the amount of time it takes to train a skill from M to
N, then
T(M,N) = (N^2-M^2)/70 + (M-N)/20.
Thus, the amount of time it takes to train a skill to a
particular level N is on the order of N^2. This hasn't changed
from RQ3, although the actual values of T(M,N) have.
Now, suppose we define research much as we did in RQ3,
that is, you research for a period of time equal to the skill
level divided by 10 in days, and then if successful in a skill
gain roll the skill increases by (in our example) 1d6. What does
the function R(M,N), defined as the average amount of time it
takes to research a skill from M to N), look like? Well, I won't
bore you with the details, but we get something that looks like
this:
2 100-M
R(M,N) = _ * [ 1000 * ln (_____) + 10* (M-N)].
7 100-N
Hard to believe, eh? But, the main question is, how does
this function compare to T(M,N)? Well, I'm glad you asked.
Let's calculate T(10,20), which is the amount of time it
is expected to take to train an average skill from 10% to 20%.
It turns out to be about 3.8 days. Let's compare this to
R(10,20), the time it is expected to take to research a skill
from 10% to 20%. That comes out to about 5.1 days. Okay, so at
low levels of skill it doesn't take much more time to research
than it does to train. That's not too surprising. After all, if
your skill is low, there's lots of stuff you don't know, so
finding new information isn't too difficult even without
guidance.
So now, let's calculate T(80,90), which is the amount of
time it takes to train a skill from 80% to 90%. Plugging and
chugging, we end up with an answer of about 23.8 days, or nearly
five weeks. That's not too surprising; we expect it to take
longer to improve a skill that's near master level. Now, for
comparison, let's calculate R(80,90). That ends up being about
169.5 days, which is over four seasons!
So we see at low skill levels, research doesn't take much
more time than training; maybe a third again as much. However,
at high skill levels, it can take seven times as long, or more.
This is indicative of the fact that when you are highly skilled,
it's much more unlikely that you will stumble upon a new
technique; you already know most of them. Moreover, with this
method of research, it's possible (indeed, likely) that you would
study for eight or nine days, and then get nothing. Meanwhile,
in the proposed new method, research takes exactly twice as long
as training regardless of your level of skill, and at the end of
a period of research you are assured of having your skill improve
at least somewhat. So, why is this bad?
This makes it not only possible, but easy and reliable to
research a skill up from, say, 75% to 90% in a fairly short time.
Library Runelords! With the proposed method, it only takes an
average of 69 days of research (less than two seasons), or 138
days of practice to get a skill from 75% to 90%. With the old,
reliable, tried and true method, it would take on average 220
days of research (more than a year) or 440 days of practice to
get the skill from 75% to 90%. Moreover, with each session of
research or practice in the proposed method, you are guaranteed
that your skill will increase by at least 1%, so even if you only
rolled a 1 on 1d6 15 times in a row, it would take you at most
242 days of research, or 484 days of practice, to get the skill
up to 90%. This is comparable to the *average* with the old-
fashioned method. So, it becomes relatively much more rewarding
to stay safely in town and practice, practice, practice than to
go out and seek fame, fortune and adventure. I don't think this
is a good change.
Changing research from requiring a skill gain roll to
succeed to taking a straight twice as long as practice no matter
the skill level makes actual experience much less valuable than
it used to be, and also eliminates the factor that research is
relatively more useful at low levels, and much less certain at
high skill levels, which finds strong support in the real world.
I fear this change was made with but a cursory consideration of
what its impact on the game might be, and feel strongly that the
simplification gained (eliminating a single percentile roll) is
far outweighed by the loss of realism and the extreme devaluation
of experience. I have to ask: did anyone really think that the
old way of doing research (an uncommon activity in most
campaigns) was so unwieldy, flawed and overcomplicated that it
required this change? I say not. The previous method worked
very well, and was in no way difficult. If it ain't broke, don't
fix it.
increase
-- George W. Harris gharris@jade.tufts.edu Dept. of Mathematics Tufts University Days, I remember cities. Nights, I dream about a perfect place. Days, I dive by the wreck. Nights, I swim in the blue lagoon. 0,,
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Sat 05 Jul 2003 - 20:32:13 EEST