Tweaking the Core Mechanic.

I've had to alter the core mechanic to address an issue. I won't link to the old mechanic to prevent confusion, but the current version is at the end of this post. The only thing that's changed is how Profit and Waste are calculated. If you just want to know how things have changed, skip to The Changes, below. 

 

I like the way the core mechanic originally turned out, except for one issue that kept nagging at me. In situations where you had to roll high to succeed, you were more likely to get a lot of Profit even if you barely rolled high enough to meet or exceed the opposition's roll. 

Example:  Using a d6 Reality Level, assume you need a +5 to deliver your Effect. You have 4 FOCUS Dice and 3 BURDEN Dice. You're highly skilled, but your opposition is stronger and rolled well. 

To meet this roll, you'd need to get a 6 on your highest FOCUS die, and a 1 on your highest BURDEN Die. This means that you would automatically get 3 Profit on your Test if you succeeded, because every FOCUS die would meet or exceed the BURDEN roll of 1. 

So fighting stronger opponents would make it less likely to hit, but more likely to kill them in one blow. David and Goliath notwithstanding, it doesn't feel right for every genre. 

With the help of zedturtle on RPGnet (again), and Bloody Stupid Johnson on TheRPGSite, I think the problem is solved. 

Both of them suggested that instead of determining Profit and Waste based on the highest die in the opposite pool, that you find Profit by comparing to the FOCUS die that you use for determining success and failure. Similarly, you'd find Waste based on the BURDEN die that helps to determine success and failure. This has the side effect of making it more likely to get both Profit and Waste on a Test, which can mitigate the issue. 

Bloody Stupid Johnson further suggested that you be allowed to choose which FOCUS and BURDEN dice you'd use for success and failure. For example,  if you rolled [3,4,5,6] on your FOCUS dice, you'd get to choose between using 6 and getting no Profit, and using 3, and getting 3 Profit, or anything in between.  It wouldn't be an arbitrary decision, obviously, you'd choose the most optimal option. 

This would mean that in order to succeed sometimes, you'd have to choose to take more Waste and less Profit.  

Further, it solved the problem- you'd be less likely to get Profit on a Test that you needed to roll high on, and vice versa. 

This was very cool so far, but I realized that in situations where you needed to roll a high Attribute modifier,  such as +5 on d6s, the rest of your BURDEN dice would be Waste. This is because to get a +5 on d6s, you'd need FOCUS [6] and BURDEN [1]. Every value on a d6 meets or exceeds 1, so any extra BURDEN dice would automatically be Waste.  

Doing it this way just reversed my initial problem, and I wanted a chance for an unqualified success on a difficult roll. Sure,  Profit and Waste can cancel each other out, but you can't always rely on that, especially when you have more BURDEN than FOCUS. Sometimes Waste would be a foregone conclusion, and I wanted to avoid that. 

So I altered things so that you determine Profit and Waste based on the dice that exceed the dice you choose, rather than allowing dice that meet or exceed the values you choose. 

This means that if you rolled FOCUS [3,4,5,6] and BURDEN [1,1] and you needed a +5, you could get it with no Waste. There's no chance of Profit when you need a maximum roll, but that's acceptable. The opposed rolls in the system allow for more situations where you will be able to Profit against a more powerful foe. 

My favorite aspect of this version of the mechanic is that when fighting stronger foes, you're more likely to deal less of an Effect to them, and when you're fighting weaker ones, you're more likely to deal more of an Effect. That's exactly how I wanted the game to work. 

So, without further ado, here's the new core mechanic. Again, the basics are the same, but calculating Profit and Waste are different. 

The Basic Mechanic, for Review

Making Tests

When you make a Test with no modifiers for aptitude, situation, or handicaps,

1. Roll 1 white "FOCUS" die, and 1 black "BURDEN" die.

2. Subtract the rolled value of the black BURDEN die from the value of the white FOCUS die.

3. Add the final value of your test to your appropriate Attribute's Rank.

4. Compare the result to your opposition's Result.

5. If your result is higher you Win the test, if your Result is lower you Fail, and if your results are equal, you Match.  When you Win, only you apply your Effect, and when you Match, both parties get to apply their Effects.

FOCUS Dice

When you are above average at something or the situation make something easier, you receive up to 5 additional white FOCUS dice. Add these dice to the 1 that you would otherwise roll for an unmodified test . This gives a possible total of 6 white dice. Roll them and choose any die you like as your FOCUS die, and then perform steps 2-5 as you would for a Test without modification.There is an incentive to choose the lowest value you can that allows for success because of the way Profit works.

BURDEN Dice

When you are below average at something or the situation makes something harder, you receive up to 5 additional black BURDEN Dice. Add these dice to the 1 that you would otherwise roll for an unmodified test. This gives a possible total of 6 black dice. Roll them and choose any value you like as your BURDEN die, and then perform steps 2-5 as you would for a Test without Modification.There is an incentive to choose the highest value you can that allows for success because of the way Waste works.

You can have up to 6 FOCUS dice and 6 BURDEN Dice at once, for a total of 12 dice to be rolled.

The Changes

Profit

When you roll a Test, choose any FOCUS die that you like to serve as your FOCUS die for determining success or failure. There is an incentive to choose the lowest value that allows you to succeed.   

Any other FOCUS dice with values that exceed the chosen die are considered Profit. Dice that match are not Profit.

Profit can be added to the Rank of any Features in the Effect you're Testing. When an Effect has multiple Features, you can divide your Profit dice among those Features any way you like.

Profit can't raise an Effect or Feature of an Effect's final Rank beyond 5.

Profit can also be used to activate certain bonus Effects altogether, such as knocking a foe backwards when hitting them with a club. 

Finally, Profit can be given to the opposition, where it serves as Waste. This is the only option for using Profit when you Fail. The GM can use it for his or her NPCs or activate negative events in the environment. 
 
Waste

When you roll a Test, choose any BURDEN die that you like to serve as your BURDEN die for determining success or failure. There is an incentive to choose the highest value that allows you to succeed.   

Any other BURDEN dice with values that exceed the chosen die are considered Waste. Dice that match are not Waste.

Waste is subtracted from the Rank of any Features in the Effect you're Testing. When an Effect has multiple Features, you can divide your Waste dice among those Features any way you like.

Waste can't lower an Effect or Feature of an Effect's final Rank below 0 (Non-existent).

Waste can also be used to activate negative Effects or complications in the scene such as breaking the table that you're fighting on top of, or starting a fire.


Finally, Waste can be given to the opposition, where it serves as Profit. This is the only option for using Waste when you Fail. The GM can use it for his or her NPCs or activate positive events in the environment. 


Getting Both

It is possible to receive both Profit and Waste to your action. Profit can cancel Waste out on a 1 for 1 basis at your option, but you can also apply both to separate Features of Effects. An example of this might be adding profit to the damaging Feature of an Attack, but subtracting from its duration or taking a consequence.

Quick Update-Alpha and Omega.

Just a quick update to let any readers I have left know that I'm still working.

I'm currently reexamining some of my core mechanical assumptions, which if I were to post about them prematurely, might just lead to frustration to anyone reading. I'd likely have to recant anything I posted now.

I will say that I'm working on a way to build a simplified version of Tribute, possibly without Functions. This would likely work as a Basic version of the game; you'd add Functions for the Advanced version of the game. This would allow the basic version of the game to use plain English for Effect descriptions if I can pull it off.

I'm toying with calling the basic version "Tribute Alpha" and the advanced version "Tribute Omega". I know that Alpha tends to mean "Work in progress" in software circles, but I like the pairing.

I'm not sure if I can pull this off, honestly. It will require some significant changes to how the numbers work. I know I haven't really gotten into them on the blog, but I have always had a basic idea of how they would interact, and things like what kinds of ranges I'd need. All of that would have to change if I went the way I think I might be going.

For example, it's looking like Powers will have to have Ranks- or maybe not. I have a lot of thinking and discussion with game design friends to do.

There may be some dead air on the blog for a while, or it might come to me in a flash. I'll have to wait and see.  But trust me when I say that I'll be working on this set of problems constantly.

Thanks.

I NEED DRIVEs

In looking at the game, I don't like a recent change I've made. Adding NEEDs is a good thing, but dropping DRIVEs takes something away from the game.

For example, in another post I'm working on, the character Katara from Nickelodeon's "Avatar: The Last Airbender" has numerous BONDs describing her emotions towards various other characters in the series. But she also has a strong DRIVE to "Become a Better Waterbender". This DRIVE came into play most prominently when she had the opportunity to procure a sacred waterbending scroll.

This isn't a NEED as defined in the game, and I don't want to redefine NEEDs so that it is. It's not a BOND, because Waterbending isn't a person, place or thing- it's an activity/skill.

It's a DRIVE- a strong desire to do something.

Replacing BONDs with DRIVEs might work because BONDs as written are one-sided. I could redefine all BONDs as DRIVEs, but I think the game might lose something in the process. I've always seen Tribute as being "about" a character's motivations and connections to others as much as whatever abilities they have. Having a BOND Element brings that home in a way that DRIVEs alone might not.

So I'm going to add DRIVEs back in for now, giving a total of 8 Frames, once again adding an extra Element, and once again breaking the Kabbalah correspondences. So be it.

Element Shakeup

Sorry for the lack of posts in the past few days, I was struggling with some design issues.

I talked about some of the problem here. 

I've decided to bite the bullet and add three new "Scale" Elements- CYCLE,  REACH,  and SPREAD. These Elements respectively define duration for Effects, the distance from their origin that they can be placed, and the size of a phenomenon. I struggled with adding them primarily because I am loathe to add more Elements if not absolutely required, and because I felt that the latter two were only useful in the real world. However, a friend of mine helped make it clear that they could have applications in any HOUSE. Socially, REACH can be very important, and SPREAD can do things like determine things like how likely a Target is to be thinking of a given subject when you read his or her mind.

This definitely breaks the Kabbalah correspondences, but that's immaterial to the game. The game needs to be playable without strange or convoluted ways of modeling useful things. 

Adding CYCLE stepped on HOLD's toes, and it was already an odd fit. BLOCK covered some of what it did that didn't relate to duration, and it felt wrong as a FORCE derived Function. Arresting or sustaining action felt like a role COUNTER functions should fill. I've replaced HOLD with HARNESS, which is about gaining control of a target Phenomenon. This Function in turn stepped on the toes of ANNEX, and I decided to remove the extraneous aspect of control and make it a more perfect mirror to SLICE, by changing it to LINK.

Finally, I changed DRIVE to NEED. I started to see the use for a NEED Element for things like spell components, etc, where DRIVEs wouldn't be able to model situations that would prevent use of an ability if the NEED wasn't met.

After talking with my friend Greg (I'm not sure if he wants me to post his full name)  I came to see that a NEED is actually more fundamental than DRIVE, and that the emotional components can be covered by BONDs.

Additionally, DRIVEs had a bit of overlap with BONDs anyway, and I've been trying to avoid overlap whenever possible.

All of the changes described here are already on the Summary of the Elements.

This is the exact kind of process that I've been through with the entire game so far- one change has ripple effects and they all need to be addressed before the game hangs together again. Hopefully the game will now stay stable until we hit playtesting.

On Another Topic:

My goal is to begin posting on more interesting topics from now on. I have at least one post in the works on how to model parts of the "Avatar: The Last Airbender" universe which should be interesting.

I'll also begin posting the actual mechanical rules for Each Element into individual posts for future reference. By the time the playtest rules are ready, you should already be able to play the game if you wanted to, just by copying and pasting from the blog.

Update- What can contain what?

This should be the last post before I post the Element Summary - likely some time tomorrow.  That post will contain up-to-date definitions for the Elements which I'll fix as the game matures. I'll use it as a reference in future posts. 

After I get through these mechanical posts, I plan to try to put up some material that may be more interesting to people other than system junkies. I admit my posts have been getting a bit dry.

Frames and "Loose" Effects

Now that I'm handling INFLUENCEs as Powers, it's become much clearer that having loose Effects (Effects that aren't part of a Power) inside Frames makes little sense. It wasn't sitting right with me even as I wrote that it was possible. I think I was just trying to avoid cutting off options. The result was fuzzy thinking. 

Constant Effects inside a HOUSE or other Frame should have been represented by INFLUENCEs even when they were Frames. Without a Power containing them, they couldn't be used for actions inside the Frame- they wouldn't actually  do anything because the Effects would have no acceptable target type (such as an ATTACK's "unwilling Target").  

So, another change is in order.  For now, I'm going to try the rules that:

• Frames can contain other Frames, Attributes, and Powers, but not loose Effects.
• Powers can contain other Powers, and Effects.
• Effects contain Functions.

All this gives me an inkling of an idea for allowing people to run a simplified subset of the total system at their table by abstracting lower levels of this hierarchy, but I won't speculate on how to do it in this post. It would need some real thought to work and I can't give it the proper effort at the moment. 

A Note

If you're frustrated by all of the changes I'm making to previously stated concepts, I apologize. The purpose of the blog, however, is to help me write a solid playtest document, and to take it from there.  

I'm avoiding correcting posts except for ones with the "Reference" tag as much as possible, because I want them there as a record of the process. 

I just thought that an open design process would be helpful, and it definitely has been so far. I appreciate all the comments and the help I've been getting in refining my ideas and the way that I express them.  

Thanks for reading.  

-Scott