Opposed rolls

[Lord Twig]

Originally Posted by badcat

I'm out. Obviously this new book has nothing to offer except headaches. So long.

Hahaha! Good one!

[soltakss]

Originally Posted by badcat

I'm out. Obviously this new book has nothing to offer except headaches. So long.

There's more to BRP than one rule. If you don't like opposed rolls then don't use them. I'm sure there will be many rules in BRP that I don't like, but that won't stop me buying it when it comes out.

The thread on Typos etc has supported my decision not to buy BRP.0, though, I'd have hated to buy a book and then had to apply a large errata.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Lord Twig

I don't remember what thread, but I asked Jason about opposed rolls since I was confused and he cleared it up.

The point is, not whether the Opposed Roll mechanism can work or not, but that introducing it breaks the stated design principle of using rules from previous BRP incarnations. And worse - it's not just an option, but officially the only way.

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by badcat

I'm out. Obviously this new book has nothing to offer except headaches. So long.

Originally Posted by frogspawner

The point is, not whether the Opposed Roll mechanism can work or not, but that introducing it breaks the stated design principle of using rules from previous BRP incarnations. And worse - it's not just an option, but officially the only way.

I'm not going to use the opposed rolls, and I'm not going to use the major wound table as it stands. I'm still excited about the book though. When I get mine, I'll organize the wiki in the same manner as the book, and we can all add our houserules.

SGL.

[Shaira]

It strikes me everyone's getting a bit heated about a rule which is quite straightforward. OK, maybe it requires a paragraph break or an extra clarification, but to be honest when I read it through I had no doubt what it meant. Here is what it says:

i.) The character that achieves the highest degree of success in an opposed roll wins the contest. Success trumps Failure, Special trumps Success, Critical trumps Special, etc. HOWEVER, if the loser also succeeded their roll, the winner is "bumped down" one level of success for every level of success of the loser. As follows:
If the Loser Succeeds, Winner's Critical becomes Special, Special becomes Success.
If the Loser Specials, Winner's Critical becomes Success.

ii.) If both rolls achieve the same degree of success, the higher roll wins.

Note that there is no mention of Bumping in example (ii). This is clear from the wording, but could definitely be made more explicit - on a casual skim through you *could* misunderstand and assume its all basically one rule instead of two. The example does make it clear what's intended, though.

It looks like Jason has agreed to put a clearer wording in the full release, which clears it up nicely.

It's a neat, elegant rule. I'll be using the first part unchanged; for me, I'll be calculating Success Margins (how much you make your roll by) for the second part, as I anticipate lots of 100%+ characters in time!

BTW - in general, the book is really impressive. It's clear it's a proof copy, with niggles which are now being cleared up, but I've been gaming since 1980, and whilst I threw my hands up in horror at the mess that was MRQ, I see nothing here deserving anything but the highest praise. Typos and unclear bits get cleared up in proofreading - that's normal. We're just casting an expert eye and doing our bit to help.

It's good stuff, guys!

Sarah

[NickMiddleton]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

The point is, not whether the Opposed Roll mechanism can work or not, but that introducing it breaks the stated design principle of using rules from previous BRP incarnations. And worse - it's not just an option, but officially the only way.

But the only way to include the previously published BRP options would to have an entry saying something like "Opposed Skills: gloss over it." or a blank space... Or a few ad hoc specific (and different in each case) examples fro the most common pairs of skills...

Seriously, a LOT of criticism is levelled at BRP for lacking a generalised Opposed skill mechanic, and a LOT of people have used a variant rule like Jason's included as the "default" as a house rule for decades. Plus optional variants are included.

Also note that Combat (Attack, Parry and Dodge) are special cases (they were in the playtest draft anyway), as they've always been in most BRP games: RQII and III handled the specific cases of opposed skills it bothered to mention (Sneak vs Spot mostly) very differently to combat.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[NickMiddleton]

Originally Posted by Shaira

i.) The character that achieves the highest degree of success in an opposed roll wins the contest. Success trumps Failure, Special trumps Success, Critical trumps Special, etc. HOWEVER, if the loser also succeeded their roll, the winner is "bumped down" one level of success for every level of success of the loser. As follows:
If the Loser Succeeds, Winner's Critical becomes Special, Special becomes Success.
If the Loser Specials, Winner's Critical becomes Success.

ii.) If both rolls achieve the same degree of success, the higher roll wins.

Note that there is no mention of Bumping in example (ii). This is clear from the wording, but could definitely be made more explicit - on a casual skim through you *could* misunderstand and assume its all basically one rule instead of two. The example does make it clear what's intended, though.

It looks like Jason has agreed to put a clearer wording in the full release, which clears it up nicely.

It's a neat, elegant rule. I'll be using the first part unchanged; for me, I'll be calculating Success Margins (how much you make your roll by) for the second part, as I anticipate lots of 100%+ characters in time!

Quite agree - but there is a flaw in this version: If I special my Sneak against the Guards critical Spot, he only gets a normal success (he won, I got a success two steps better than failure, so I get to bump him down two steps from Criticla success to normal successs). But if I critical my Sneak, but still lose, against his critical Spot he still gets a critical Spot...

Hence Pete Nash and I saying (in different fashions) that in case ii, the rule should be "higher roll wins, but only achieves a normal success" or, "bumping happens in case ii, but can't reduce a winner's degree of success to worse than a normal success" whichever is deemed clearer. This address the flaw.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

Quite agree - but there is a flaw in this version: If I special my Sneak against the Guards critical Spot, he only gets a normal success (he won, I got a success two steps better than failure, so I get to bump him down two steps from Criticla success to normal successs). But if I critical my Sneak, but still lose, against his critical Spot he still gets a critical Spot...

Hence Pete Nash and I saying (in different fashions) that in case ii, the rule should be "higher roll wins, but only achieves a normal success" or, "bumping happens in case ii, but can't reduce a winner's degree of success to worse than a normal success" whichever is deemed clearer. This address the flaw.

I take your point - and I think the "higher roll wins, but only achieves a normal success" solves it nicely. I'll have a think just to see if there aren't any weirdo side effects, but it sounds good.

Has Jason commented on this?

[CruelDespot]

Thanks to Shaira for posting the actual rules from the book.

What Shaira posted from the book is different from what I expected based on the earlier comments in this thread. I assumed the rules in the book followed the more common BRP rule of "best degree of success wins; if both roll the same degree of success, the higher roll wins." That is what I would prefer. I understand why a crit vs a success should be less overwhelming than a crit vs a failure, but the genius of BRP has always been in its elegant simplicity, IMHO.

[soltakss]

I wouldn't bump/degrade at all.

What I'd do is have success by levels. That would then determine any success-level-dependent results.

Criritcal vs Fumble = Succeeds by 4 levels
Critical vs Failure = Succeeds by 3 levels
Critical vs Normal = Succeeds by 2 levels
Critical vs Special = Succeeds by 1 level
Special vs Fumble = Succeeds by 3 Levels
Special vs Failure = Succeeds by 2 Levels
Special vs Normal = Succeeds by 1 Level
Normal vs Fumble = Succeeds by 2 Levels
Normal vs Failure = Succeeds by 1 Level
Failure vs Fumble = Succeeds by 1 Level

For opposed roll victories based on highest roll/greatest margin
Critical vs Critical = Succeeds by 0 Levels
Special vs Special = Succeeds by 0 Levels
Normal vs Normal = Succeeds by 0 Levels
Failure vs Failure = Succeeds by 0 Levels
Fumble vs Fumble = Succeeds by 0 Levels

It's quick, easy and you don't need mental gymnastics to degrade rolls.