I played the game with this system for about five sessions. Then I went back to the normal system. The big problem with it is that it narrows the range of abilities that the characters can challenge dramatically. Also...
>Without this change (the way the system is now), the 17 vs. 14 has a ~49%
>chance of success, and the 12 vs. 14 has a ~47% chance of success.
People keep quoting that. It's true, and, further, a good thing. The fact that small differences in ability have marginal effects over the entirity of a scale which is, after all, larger than a percentile scale, is actually a boon in play. Yes it makes things more "random" and less predictable. This is both realistic with this sort of variation, and fun to play in dramatic terms. No longer is there a stituation where somebody can go into a conflict confident that they'll come out unscathed. All conflicts with anyone on approximately your level are hard to predict.
The effects on play are wonderful, IMO. Only when you do have a mastery difference over your opponent or more do you feel really confident.
>The other change that I've considered, but not tested in play, is dropping
>the standard resistance to 12 or 10. I would still give the marginal
>victory to the higher roll, since this differentiates the ratings better as
>mentioned above. Both changes (marginal victory to higher roll and standard
>resistance 10) result in 17 vs. 10 yielding a ~73% success rate, and 12 vs.
>10 yielding a ~56% success rate.
Again, if you think that the characters should do better, then give them higher levels of ability, and keep the scale intact. The system works well as written, IME.
Mike
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