Is Hero too preditable?

[Seenar]

I recently had a friend say to me he thought that Hero was no fun because once you start rollilng a lot of dice, the outcome was too predictable. In other words, 10 dice is usually pretty close to 35 points.

 

Obviously, the more dice you roll, the closer to the mean you will tend to roll. But, I for one like the excitment of rolling lots of damage dice and counting up to the high number.

 

I have given what he said a lot of thought and wondered if he might have been looking for the "crit on 20" sort of thing, where players get the excitement of rolling again.

 

What are people's thoughts on this?

[Simon]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Errr....

 

The per-die average is close to 3.5 the more dice you roll. The actual total will vary by an ever-increasing number the more dice you roll.

 

Roll 10d6 for a while....let us know how many times you roll 35. Your rolls will average around 35, but will vary in both directions.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

He's right that Hero is more predictable than most RPGs. However, I consider this a feature, not a bug. It's one of the game traits that drew me to Hero in the first place, and that keeps me a die-hard Hero loyalist almost 20 years later.

 

IMO, games that have mechanics like a critical success one time in ten or twenty are too chaotic. There should be a fair amount of predictability in results. If my character could lift a sofa yesterday, then he should be able to lift the same sofa today. If shooting one bad guy in the chest with a crossbow killed him, then shooting a similar bad guy in the chest with a crossbow should probably kill him too, and so on.

[Mentor]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Interesting point. If one only views the Hero combat as a matter of how much STUN and BODY penetrate the various defenses at the end of the day, then the game is predictable in the extreme. Nothing could interest me less.

 

OTOH, how the team got to the the villains, what obstacles were overcome to engage the final guardians, what the Heroes say and do; how they respond to threatened normals and an easy cheap shot based on their characters; what do they say to the villains; do they give thm an opportunity to surrender or attack with hot and passionate lust for justice or revenge? Do players whine when the Brick or nergy pProjector dish out or take less STUN than the Mentalist or Martial Artist in an average twelve phase turn? Number crunching? "Yawn".

 

These and the numerous role playing aspects which can only be engaged in the imagination of the players and GM alike through descriptive language from both parties is what separates hero from Yahtzee or craps, where it is all just about the pips on the dice. Even those games make it more interesting with a wager or limited number of sets.

 

So in the final analysis, hero, or any RPG for that matter is only as predictable as the participants make it.

[MitchellS]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

There's nothing wrong with predictable. I've run several games over the years using average damage [10d6 = 35 stun, 10 body] instead of rolling it, and then just giving extra damage for a to-hit roll of 3 [+10 stun, +3 body] or 4 [+5 stun, +1 body]. By doing that I was able to speed up the game and give a "crit" factor without really changing the system.

[Cancer]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Yeah, this is a rephrasing of the flat versus peaked probability distribution function debate. I hate flat p.d.f.'s with a passion, so my comments have to be taken with that in mind.

 

Preferring a flat p.d.f. (like d20) is saying you'd rather be lucky than good, so you'll never be good. You'll always have that 5% critical failure chance, and IMO, no one who's actually good at something will fail at routine tasks in that endeavor anywhere close to 5% of the time.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

I don't consider it "predictable" as much as I consider it "stable." In d20, the rule applies in a similar fashion, really - you add the insane bonuses you receive based on circumstance, strength, enchantments, etc. and toss 2d6 for great sword damage. The d20 provides a variable chance of a critical threat (5 - 15% for most weapons) and then is rolled again to determine if a critical hit is rolled. I suppose, from a PC standpoint, that's very exciting.

 

But from the DM chair I sit in, I don't see a great deal of difference. Yes, yes, I know I tend to use a tilda to represent an equals sign more often than I should, but hear me out for a moment. In HERO with normal damage, each 6 deals 2 body, each pip is STUN. People have a to hit, they have defenses. You're still calculating damage, looking to make the most of opportunities, etc. Because there are so many ways to hurt people in HERO, I have difficulty thinking in terms of "This effect works the same every time, therefore it's boring."

 

IMHO, d20 spells cap out to similar effects. A 10th level Fireball is no different from a 15th level Fireball - you've reached the maximum effect of the spell, but it'll never be Armor Piercing, any more than your opponent is likely to be Hardened. There are more variables in how damage is handled the deeper you get into HERO.

 

I think what I'm saying is that you're comparing apples & oranges, so what I see as being roughly equating (dealing damage with dice to an appropriately powerful foe) may be a left field concept for some people. But as a convert to the Church of FREd, I can say with total honesty that HERO combat is far from boring. I consider it to have more options, and be more interesting, than d20 combat.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

It sounds like an excuse or cop out on the part of your friend to actually learn and play the system.

[Vondy]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

In my Freedom Patrol game I used a modified standard effect chart based on the margin of the to hit roll. This made the damage effects and to some degree combat aspects of characters more linear, but also sped up play, and really rewarded good "to hit" rolls with a big payoff. The motivations were:

1) I had one player with an advanced degree (not math) who couldn't count up 10D6 to save his life or tell me what DCV he hit, and another who could handle arithmatic without a pen and paper... but time crept on like a slow worm on a straight razor.

 

2) Its really lame to roll a "3" to hit at a critical moment and then turn around and roll "12" on 10D6 for damage (its happened).

 

3) As you add more dice the flatter the curve gets - and using time to count up a flattish curve isn't my biggest joy (though others love it). If its predictable, then lets not waste time verifying what we already know and focus on the cool descriptions and collective story.

It had the following positive effects:

1) The quality of the hit corresponded to the quality of the damage, and that meant really good to hit rolls could have dramatic effects.

 

2) Because most effects were in an expected range my players worried more about "character" and less about "build."

 

3) The focus on better to hit rolls than more damage dice ended the attack/defence arms race common to champions games, which made my life easier in terms of long-term campaign planning and maintenance.

 

It had the following neutral effects:

1) There was a shift towards skill levelism as opposed to big attackism, which meant martial artists and super-soldiers became very popular, though other character concepts can also support skill level buys.

2) Characters on the low end of the DCV chart tended, because they had to roll well to hit at all, to hit big. This, however, often proved both in-concept or dramatically appropriate.

 

And the following negative effect:

1) Sometimes the builds I received (or made) were, well, predictable. They were built to linear standards because the expectations were fairly linear. On the other hand, this meant the look and feel of the character, as well as their special effects and story, were the main course. This is good if you are story-centered, bad if you are a mechanics hound.

 

2) I needed to pay close attention at design time to builds to ensure the combination of damage dice and high CV wouldn't be a total killer. I didn't have a rule of X beyond an experienced GM gut, but there it was.

Overall, because my players were mostly "dramatists" and "thinkers," and because we were very big on descriptive action over abstract number effects, the speed it provided, as well as the linear mechanical expectations, freed us to do what we enjoyed most. Other groups, especially tinkerers, might not feel that way. I got to the point where, beyond a quick notation, I just looked at the "level of effect" and described the results accordingly.

 

Basically, I divided the characters "to hit margin" into three parts. For example, a character with a 10OCV attacking a character with a 9DCV (12 to hit) would have the following margins (STN/BDY):

Roll 10-12: Standard Effect: 3/1

Roll 7-9: Standard Effect: 4.5/1

 

Roll 3-6: Standard Effect: 6/2

 

For killing attacks I did the following:

1) If the attack was purchased with "normal weapon" then:

 

Effect: 3 Body per die + Stun X.

 

This kept players who liked bricks and power-armored types from buying ridiculously high defenses that skewed the campaign levels upward in fear of goons holding up convenience stores with handguns.

 

2) If the attack wasn't purchased with "normal weapon then, if we use the same CV ratios as above:

 

Roll 10-12: 3 Body per die + Stun X.

 

Roll 7-9: 4.5 Body per die (round up) + stun X.

 

Roll 3-6: 6 Body per die + stun X.

 

For us it worked, but different people have different wants and needs. Your mileage may vary.

[Kristopher]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

I'm pretty sure that the average per-die on d6 is always 3.5, no matter how many dice you're rolling.

[Vondy]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

I'm pretty sure that the average per-die on d6 is always 3.5' date=' no matter how many dice you're rolling.[/quote']

 

You are correct.

 

And as an aside, the fact that the "standard effect" rules state you round down for each die instead of rounding up for the total dice is kind of a raw deal.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

HA! I only THINK it is predictable, then, just when I've got the next seven moves worked out to the fourth decimal place it goes and does something unpredictable.

 

Have your friend roll one damage die and multiply by the DC

 

Seriously folks, Hero damage is completely different from dnd: for one thing we have important thresholds, like defences which subtract damage (unlike most games) and CON levels for stunning: a few points difference can make all the predictability fly out of the window and turn into butterflies.

 

Thinking that the range of possible damage is the measure of predictability is not thinking the whole thing through - probably because your friend is assuming that Hero is just another sort of dnd - it is not - it is qualitatively different.

[Seenar]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Interesting point. If one only views the Hero combat as a matter of how much STUN and BODY penetrate the various defenses at the end of the day, then the game is predictable in the extreme. Nothing could interest me less.

 

OTOH, how the team got to the the villains, what obstacles were overcome to engage the final guardians, what the Heroes say and do; how they respond to threatened normals and an easy cheap shot based on their characters; what do they say to the villains; do they give thm an opportunity to surrender or attack with hot and passionate lust for justice or revenge? Do players whine when the Brick or nergy pProjector dish out or take less STUN than the Mentalist or Martial Artist in an average twelve phase turn? Number crunching? "Yawn".

 

These and the numerous role playing aspects which can only be engaged in the imagination of the players and GM alike through descriptive language from both parties is what separates hero from Yahtzee or craps, where it is all just about the pips on the dice. Even those games make it more interesting with a wager or limited number of sets.

 

So in the final analysis, hero, or any RPG for that matter is only as predictable as the participants make it.

 

 

I think this is a good point. If you want to emphasis role-playing, a stable sysstem is the way to go.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

I'm pretty sure that the average per-die on d6 is always 3.5' date=' no matter how many dice you're rolling.[/quote']Yes, but that doesn't mean the total doesn't become more "stable" or "predictable" (or whatever you want to call it) as you add more dice.

 

Your chance of rolling maximum damage on 1d6 is one in six.

 

Your chance of rolling maximum damage on 15d6 is about one in 50 million.

[tesuji]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Preferring a flat p.d.f. (like d20) is saying you'd rather be lucky than good, so you'll never be good. You'll always have that 5% critical failure chance, and IMO, no one who's actually good at something will fail at routine tasks in that endeavor anywhere close to 5% of the time.

 

Just to add some facts here...

 

In D20, for skills, there is not "fail on a 1 rule" in MOST versions of D20 (like DND and most of its derivatives) though some OGL games (Spycraft for one) do add criticals on skills rolls for success and fail they also have a second element, like spending a hero point, to activate said critical. So when talking skills, D20 games usually don't do the crit/fail thing.

 

In D20, for attacks, which do have the 1 and 20 rule, it is actually very rare for the 55 chance to be your only chance of failure. most challenges will by their defense vs your offense have you failing by the numbers 3 or more times in 20. In cases where the target is stationary and so "only on a 1" might be an issue, you don't have to roll. As for crit successes, the probability varies and requires a second roll, so its really not so clean.

 

Now, some might feel missing an actively evading combatent 1 time in 20 is too frequent... but for me, it really hasn't ever seemed so in practice.

 

As for flat vs bell curve, and the predicatbility of outcomes, its much more in the choice of the DC than the dice used that gives you probability "flatness" or "predictability. if HERo says 12- and D20 says 6+ they are both saying "75% success" and "25% fail" even though one says it with 3d6 and the other says it with one d20.

 

The big difference between the two is one hands me as Gm nice even 55 increments to scale with while the other hands me variable increments from 12.5% to way less than 1%.

[Rapier]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Oh...I thought maybe Hero was running around eating all the rest of the other RPGs. Chew on some D20? Talk about indigestion!

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

There's nothing wrong with predictable. I've run several games over the years using average damage [10d6 = 35 stun' date= 10 body] instead of rolling it, and then just giving extra damage for a to-hit roll of 3 [+10 stun, +3 body] or 4 [+5 stun, +1 body]. By doing that I was able to speed up the game and give a "crit" factor without really changing the system.

 

I kind of like this, though I think I would make the extras relative to the to hit roll - +10 STUN for rolls 8 less than required, +5 for rolls four less than required.

 

I did a version of that but I lost all the fun of rolling fistfuls of dice and have recently decided that I would add 1D6 to the damage dice for every 2 I rolled below the to hit number (but retained a maximum STUN and BODY based on the original dice).

 

That had the side bonus of adding to the number of dice being rolled but didn't change the extreme ranges in anything but probability - the randomness of the 3D6 to hit roll was counterbalancing the tendency to the mean of the 10+D6 damage rolls...

 

 

Doc

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

I don't find Hero combat that predictable; if it were then I wouldn't mismatch combats so badly as GM. There are so many variables (defenses and such as Sean mentioned, and various attack powers as Thia mentioned) that you can't really say it is predictable. If I hear something like that from a player, my response is that you need to be more creative in combat if you are bored just throwing 10d6 each time you hit. This is a role-playing game, not Monopoly.

 

That said, I do empathize with the idea that you can roll a 3 and then do lousy damage. Our house rule is that if you roll under half of what you needed to hit (that is if you need a 12 to hit and you roll a 6 or lower), or a 3 in any event, then you get to roll damage twice and take the better roll. It does take slightly longer, but let me tell you players love being able to redo a bad roll.

 

__________________________________________________________

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little influence on society." - M. Twain.

[Kristopher]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Yes, but that doesn't mean the total doesn't become more "stable" or "predictable" (or whatever you want to call it) as you add more dice.

 

Your chance of rolling maximum damage on 1d6 is one in six.

 

Your chance of rolling maximum damage on 15d6 is about one in 50 million.

 

Well, yeah, but that's not what I was addressing. I saw a comment by someone that the average moves closer to 3.5 the more dice you roll.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Just to add some facts here...

 

In D20, for skills, there is not "fail on a 1 rule" in MOST versions of D20 (like DND and most of its derivatives) though some OGL games (Spycraft for one) do add criticals on skills rolls for success and fail they also have a second element, like spending a hero point, to activate said critical. So when talking skills, D20 games usually don't do the crit/fail thing.

 

It's not so much the crit thing in d20. Crits are damn difficult to get unless you are skilled. You might get lucky, but being skilled actually helps. You have to make a second roll upon getting that lucky 20, and that second roll just has to succeed normally. If you are completly unskilled and need that 20 just to succeed, you probably aren't going to crit.

 

But there is this happy little rule that a 20 always succeeds anda 1 always fails. And this is regardless of skill. There's a tiny little rule that says if you would fail by 10 or more even if you roll a 20, you automatically fail without a roll, and something similar to succeeding on a 1, but such things are rare. You basicly have a 5% chance of failing something you are really good at (with is way too high) and a 5% chance of succeeding at anything you totally suck at (which again, is too high).

 

Does it make the game more unpredictable? Sure as hell does! The skilled failing and the unskilled succeding would define upredictable.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

But we were talking about dmage rolls or something, right?

I recently had a friend say to me he thought that Hero was no fun because once you start rollilng a lot of dice, the outcome was too predictable. In other words, 10 dice is usually pretty close to 35 points.

 

Obviously, the more dice you roll, the closer to the mean you will tend to roll. But, I for one like the excitment of rolling lots of damage dice and counting up to the high number.

 

I have given what he said a lot of thought and wondered if he might have been looking for the "crit on 20" sort of thing, where players get the excitement of rolling again.

 

What are people's thoughts on this?

 

As your friend some questions:

 

1) Which do you find more fun: rolling dice, or role-playing? If he answers rolling dice, suggest he play Yatzee.

 

2) Which do you find more enjoyable: skilled characters failing do to random chance while unskilled characters succeed for the same reason (making whether or not a character is skilled at something of little importantance), or the knowledge that if your character is skilled at something, he'll succeed where the unskilled fail? Or in otherwords, when protraying his character, would he rather depend on random chance, or on making good decisions and having the skill and ability to carry them out?

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Well' date=' yeah, but that's not what I was addressing. I saw a comment by someone that the average moves closer to 3.5 the more dice you roll.[/quote']Ah, gotcha. They should have said it the other way around... the more dice you roll, the closer the total on the dice stays to (3.5*x), where x is the number of dice rolled.

[Simon]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Ah' date=' gotcha. They should have said it the other way around... the more dice you roll, the closer the total on the dice stays to (3.5*x), where x is the number of dice rolled.[/quote']

Which is not, in fact, the case.

 

The observed average of the dice that you roll will get closer to 3.5. The total on the dice that you roll will average 3.5*x, but the deviation will increase (note: as a number, not percentage of total) the more dice that you roll.

 

Roll 100d6. You'll see rather large swings in the total vs. what you see when you roll 2d6.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Which is not, in fact, the case.

 

The observed average of the dice that you roll will get closer to 3.5. The total on the dice that you roll will average 3.5*x, but the deviation will increase (note: as a number, not percentage of total) the more dice that you roll.

 

Roll 100d6. You'll see rather large swings in the total vs. what you see when you roll 2d6.

 

Numerically, yes, but only because you are dealing with larger numbers. With 2d6, the max you can possible deviate from the mean is 5. I've no doubt that when you roll 100d6 you'll deviate by more than 5 on nearly any roll. But while you'll roll a 2 or a 12 very often on 2d6, you'll almost never roll 100 or 600 on 100d6. You won't ever get close. Compared to the possible results, you'll almost always roll within a very tight group centered around the average result of 350. In fact, the chances of getting above 400 or below 300 is very very low. Imagine rolling just 1d6 and only ever rolling a 3 or 4.

[Simon]

Re: Is Hero too preditable?

 

Numerically' date=' yes, but only because you are dealing with larger numbers. With 2d6, the max you can possible deviate from the mean is 5. I've no doubt that when you roll 100d6 you'll deviate by more than 5 on nearly any roll. But while you'll roll a 2 or a 12 very often on 2d6, you'll almost never roll 100 or 600 on 100d6. You won't ever get close. Compared to the possible results, you'll almost always roll within a very tight group centered around the average result of 350. In fact, the chances of getting above 400 or below 300 is very very low. Imagine rolling just 1d6 and only ever rolling a 3 or 4.[/quote']

Which changes nothing about what I said. I'm not talking about maxing out your roll -- I was discussing the amount of variation (net, not as a percentage) that you will see. Since you don't average your numbers in Hero, there's very little point in saying that your percentage variation is less and less the more dice you roll -- it's the raw numbers that count, and they will vary by ever-increasing amounts.