[Forge-main] Re: [freeroleplay] The Ideal Mechanic

[John Kim]

On Fri, 21 Nov 2003, Ricardo Gladwell wrote:
> Therefore, the following bullet points define my ideal concept of the
> perfect task resolution mechanic:
> * All elements of the mechanic must share a common numerical range
>   (e.g. 0-10).
> * The common range must be easy to understand (i.e. 0-10, rather than
>   5-16, for example).

        First of all, I think it's great to define first what you want.
One of my pet peeves is people who come up with the dice to roll first,
and only later discover what the results of it is.

        These first two I find problematic, though.  Really, there is
no universal range.  A superhero game, a WWI grunts game, and a
kids-in-fantasy-world game will all have different ranges of numbers.
Never mind pixies, anthropomorphic mice, and giant robots.

        If you try to force everything to always come out 0-10, then
IMO you will run into all sorts of problems.  Here's a simple example.
The fastest human (i.e. running speed) is maybe 2 times faster
than an average human.  However, the *strongest* human (i.e. bench
press) is more than 5 times faster than average.

- John