I actually played for about five sessions like this, in a previous game. For the same reasons that you state.
A few issues:
Having a higher level of ability makes you more likely to succeed than your opponent. The dice result in question is mehcanically no different than the dice in D20 coming up too low to make you hit. Is the skill "worthless" in that case because you still missed? So, really, it's just a matter of the amount of difference.
Yes, the differences, when low can be minimal as pointed out already. But this isn't really different than having a one point difference in a percentile system, or many other systems like this. What's cool about HQ is that it's a curve based on the difference, as opposed to linear. The wider the margin, the bigger the chances of success (Masterys mess this up a lot, but in general it's true). That's a really cool effect. Yes, the alternate system does this, but in a diminishing return fashion. That is, instead of accellerating the differences, in general the other system makes each higher number of difference have less of an increase in the chance of success (watch the phrasing there, we're talking second order derivatives now).
Worst of all, it means that the underdog becomes unable to beat a superior foe much more quickly, barring crits. Basically, the range of suitable foes becomes smaller with this system.
>From a style POV, it seems to make sense to make skills feel like they're
more in control of the outcome of contests. But that's only true if you're
looking at the outcomes of contests in a very mechanistic way. That is, what
the curve that exists does is to keep things more dramatic. Yes, a bit
wilder. Players should fear losing, because they will - a lot. The GM and
players should just drop the idea of controlling outcomes, as the game is
just much more fun if you roll with the outcomes.
Have you hosed them good yet? That is, have you put them up against somebody who has waaaay higher ability levels than they can hope to match? If you haven't, make it the next encounter. When you roll, and defeat them, and get that minor victory, and assign a -10% for the leg wound t their character, suddenly they'll get it - the system doesn't punish you for failing. It just makes your character more fun to play. (This is also immensely freeing for the GM).
When they realize that, then they'll stop worrying about trying to make the character more effective, and just do augmenting to "display" the character in the context of the contest. And they'll stop worrying about whether the dice are taking these augments into account. That's what happened in our games, at least.
Mike
Powered by hypermail