[color=darkblue]OK, as much as I love the Feng Shui universe and the cinematic action theme, I've come to the point in the last few months that I really don't want to use the pos/neg dice mechanic anymore.
I've never been terribly fond of it, honestly, because there's just not enough variance to make it interesting. The pos and neg simply cancel each other out, for the most part. It still comes down mostly to having the right AV to beat the difficulty before you even roll the dice, with the dice only modifying the roll by plus or minus one or two, in the majority of cases. I don't find that very exciting. (I know some people advocate the use of d8s or d10s with the game, but I think it skews the Difficulty ratings, and makes failures even worse more often than they should be.)
But I certainly don't wanna give up on the whole game, obviously. I'm just brainstorming a way to convert it to a D6 system. I always liked WEG's Star Wars, and the basic D6 mechanics appeal to me. So it's really just a matter of finding a formula for converting Shui stats to a number of six-siders. I could always just change out the Shui Difficulty ratings for Star Wars Difficulty ratings.
So I guess my question is, what's the best way to convert the Feng Shui AVs to d6 mechanics? I was thinking at first along the lines of 1-3 AV = 1d6. So most new PCs would have 2d6 in starting Attributes, before modifying them. Adding 3 or more AVs to an attribute during char-gen would bump it up another 1d6 then.
Ooooor... maybe just leave the AVs as is, and add d6 rolls, but only positive ones. To be honest again, I'm not real keen on Way Awful Failures, or any other effects of negative Outcomes. I'm more of a "You succeed or you fail" guy, so I could do without the whole negative Outcomes aspect of the mechanics.
I dunno. I'm just totally throwing this crap out off the top of my head. Any thoughts from the gang?
Actually, using d8s or d10s reduces the number of catastrophic failures. Using d6, 16% of your rolls have the potential to be catastrophic failures, and of those, maybe 16% will be really bad, so roughly 2% of all rolls. By using a d10, that drops to 10%, and only about 10% of those rolls will be really bad, so roughly 1%. Essentially, you cut the catastrophic failure rate in half by switching to d10s.
(Something similar occurs in d20 if you use 2d10 instead of 1d20... you drop the percentage of a critical success from 5% to about 1%, but a whole buncha people seem to think that 2d10 is "more cinematic"... feh.)
The average 1d6 roll = 3.5, 2d6 = 7, so you can map AVs across fairly easily:
That takes care of Skill AVs... not sure what you'd do with attributes, since 5 is considered average human, 10 is about human max, and 11-12 is generally super-human. Been a long while since I looked at the d6 system.
You want to know the best part? If you use Fortune Dice, your average Everyday Hero can go toe to toe with the schticked-up archetypes with no problem (3D6+2 plus a Fortune Die puts an AV 13 character at Old Master level for the duration of the shot), but he can only do this for so long until his "luck runs out"...
Isn't that the point? To easily "calculate" how hard a task is? Ok, för my sake I hate to subtract the two dices. An easier way to do this is to have a negative and a positive die, roll them and just look at the lowest number. If the negative die is the lowest, then it's a negative outcome. If the positive number is the lowest, then it's positive outcome. If both is equal, it's zero.
To be honest, I don't understand why there are open dices or why there's a fumble rule that perhaps occur 2% of the rolls. That's useless. But ok, you don't find that very exciting and that's a strong argument (because it's your opinion and the whole reason why you did this thread), so I shouldn't argue about that.
The easy way is to divide by 3 and use the rest (the remaints? Don't know the word) as a positive modifier.
EXAMPLE
AV 7 = (7 / 3 = 2 rest 1 =) 2d+1
AV 11 = (11 / 3 = 3 rest 2 =) 3d+2
AV 15 = (15 / 3 =) 5d
I think you should keep the difficulties in Feng Shui. otherwise the RP's will be pretty lousy. It's hard to do stuff in Star Wars d6.
Fortune points could work as the Star Wars wild die, ie is an open-ended roll that adds to the total.
The only thing I have to complain on is that Star Wars d6 isn't all that quick.
[color=darkblue]Thanks for the feedback, guys! Everybody's said some good things for me to think about.
"The easy way is to divide by 3 and use the rest (the remaints? Don't know the word) as a positive modifier. EXAMPLE AV 7 = 7 / 3 = 2d+1
[color=darkblue]Oh, hey, I like this. I was pondering what to do with the remainders, and this would work pretty much like the D6 system, indeed.
"Isn't that the point? To easily "calculate" how hard a task is?"
[color=darkblue]
Well, my feeling when I play is that the Difficulty rating indicates how hard a task is, it's just that if the Difficulty is even a few points higher than one's set AV, the chances of someone succeeding are small. That creates a sense of 'why bother?' in the situation. Sure, they could blow a Fortune Point, but I'd prefer my games to have a higher chance of success for my players more often, that's all. I don't want them to have to really rely on an exploding positive 6 to perform some heroic and ass-kicking deed, which is the theme of the game. I don't want my players to think, Why bother? about any game situation.
I don't know yet if the D6 mechanics will alleviate this problem, but years ago when I played D6 Star Wars, I know we never had that feeling of not wanting to try something because our base scores didn't come close enough to the Difficulty. So my theory is that the D6 system might give me more of the sense of heroicism I'm looking for. We'll see, I guess.
"I think you should keep the difficulties in Feng Shui. It's hard to do stuff in Star Wars d6. "
[color=darkblue]Hmm. Maybe I'll keep the Feng Shui Difficulty scale for a few games and see how that works. That's a pretty good idea to start off my experiment, thanks.
"You want to know the best part? If you use Fortune Dice, your average Everyday Hero can go toe to toe with the schticked-up archetypes with no problem ...but he can only do this for so long until his "luck runs out"."
[color=darkblue]Yeah, I really like this aspect of the system myself. It kinda' lets the less combat-oriented PC types from being totally useless in fights. We had a PC like that once; he wanted to play a scholarly archetype, but found out that he was useless in the fight scenes, which wasn't fun for him at all. This system could temper that a bit, I think.
"Actually, using d8s or d10s reduces the number of catastrophic failures."
[color=darkblue]
I can see what you mean, I guess my concern was that it would produce more chances for normal failures than a d6, albeit not catastrophic (exploding dice) ones, wouldn't it? I've never tried it, so I'm not sure. (And math was never my strong suit.) I mean, with a d6, you have a chance of rolling up to a -5 modifier, but with a d10, you have the chance of a -9 modifier. I cringe at introducing negative AV modifiers that large into my games.
Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. I appreciate the viewpoints.
In the long run, for every -9 you roll, you roll a +9. I don't see anything all that cringe-worthy... how would rolling a -9 be any different than rolling a -5? You just say, "Ok, you miss" and move on to the next shot.
The important part about the mechanics is they should roughly give you the type of experience you want out of the game and then melt out of the way. If your players are trying to calculate odds or are scared off from a course of action because they've calculated a poor chance of success... well, okay, that's an not inherently wrong way to play the game, but I generally shoot for "coolness trumps math". The positive/minus mechanics of Feng Shui were designed to be just a bit more complicated than flipping a coin to satisfy the grognards long enough that they stop worrying about calculating the odds and thinking more about what they want to do.
But there's a little bit of klunk to them... you have to subtract the negative from the positive, reroll sixes and keep adding/subtracting, then calculate the Outcome, subtract toughness to figure out wounds...
If you can get the same effect without the klunk by switching to d6, go for it. d6 is a bit simpler, and the Drama die adds enough to the "roll over TN" that you can get a very cinematic experience out of it with very little effort. There's enough fungibleness in it that the players can pick "what would be coolest" over "what gives me the best odds of success".
