Rules to Story - Let's Play Mechanic Discussion Game

[koipond]

The rules to thread thing got me to thinking that maybe we should have a chat about specific Rules and what we feel they bring to a game.

Maybe use an example of a rule to start.

System: FATE
Rule: Fudge Dice

Okay, so the one I'm going to pick is Fudge Dice. With Fate being ... well pushed by Evil Hat and anyone else who currently feels like jumping on a bandwagon (this isn't to slight FATE or E.H but more as a comment on people going, "Oh, that's the big thing I will make my game using that."). If we look at the curve for 4df then we get.

Chance of very high result (+2 or better) 18.5%
Chance of acceptable result (-1≤m≤+1) 63.0%
Chance of hitting trait level exactly (m=0) 23.5%
Chance of very low result (-2 or worse) 18.5%

So the goal of using FUDGE dice is really to limit the ammount of variance that goes into the game. Does that drive a lack of huge gains and huge failures? FATE is sold as an actiony adventury system, does it by its very nature drive the players towards aspects as a way to create that huge success margin (if +2 is considered a high result then starting at +2 is worth noting).

Thoughts?

[Onix]

A game design like this has to be kept very simple. Adding anything to what a player can do makes a big difference and if not balanced exactly, can throw the whole thing off. That's just the design side though.

On the play side, the dice are extremely simple. The math is extremely simple, this leads the rolls to be calculated with very little mental effort and the game moves quickly. I think this is why it feels "adventury".

There are benefits to simplicity. (There are also benefits to crunch)

[rayotus]

It's interesting that the changes the Evil Hat crew have made to the system since SotC (mostly making the damage tracks shorter) makes the system even less cinematic by making characters more fragile but more cinematic by making combats quicker. I think FUDGE/FATE is a hard example to start with. As the last two posts have noted: the fact that the dice are zero centered and have a very narrow bell curve makes it less cinematic, while the fact that the dice are easily manipulated (and bonuses easy to "buy" into) makes the game more cinematic.

Is FATE schizophrenic or perfectly vanilla and optimized for tweaking on a setting by setting or genre by genre basis? I don't know the answer to that.

[koipond]

[Onix]

I think the number of aspects raises the complexity of set up but not necessarily the play complexity. If multiple aspects are routinely put into play, the contest becomes less of an issue of the dice and more of how many aspects a player can fit into the situation. That may be the point every once in a while but if it's done all the time, the dice roll quickly becomes irrelevant.

As far as if simplicity and speed is the only benefit, It also achieves an unusual results curve in a very small number set and I have to imagine that was what the designers were looking for. If there's more, I don't really know but it doesn't mean it's not there.

[koipond]

Okay, anyone else have a mechanic that they'd like to bring up?