Your thoughts?
Good/bad/meh?
As good or bad as the guild makes use of em.
6 Likes
I find a lot of dice systems to be clunky, over complicated and imbalanced in some instances. I also think a lot systems take way too long when a large number of people are playing. It gets boring fast and I don’t want to have to think so much about maths and keeping up with numbers and stuff. I don’t have any experience with d20 roleplaying games so I may not be used to it but It’s not my thing.
5 Likes
What would you consider a bad use of one?
My short answer $.02:
For combat, perception and other encounter RP events, they can be good so long as the GM running the event can manage to group players’ rolls together and get back to them in a timely manner. Waiting 10-15 minutes for your turn and another 10-15 to find out if you hit can be annoying.
However, a roll system with basic stats, bonuses and flaws per character that have a chance for stat or bonus advancement can make for more RP opportunities.
Also, only running dice system based RP gets tedious - so break that up with regular RP. And so does only using dice for hits and damage. Using dice for perception, stealth and a few other things keeps it more interesting.
5 Likes
Systems designed for content or context that aren’t being used in their manners. A complicated system is not good for large groups, and a basic system can sometimes be too simple to function in a live environment. Stuff of the nature, everyone else is nailing it down better than me.
2 Likes
i don’t like rolling for rp at all but i don’t trust most people to properly respond to situations so i let the dice decide destiny
3 Likes
There is no perfect system to please everyone. It boils down to preference, and being able to read the room. As a Dungeon Master/Storyteller, it’s important to figure out your own hosting style first. Until you figure out a system that works best for you, you will not be able to create a system that works for others.
In my experience, systems that are simple (easy to pick up) and bespoke work best. This is especially the case if you’re in a community with multiple storytellers and storytelling preferences.
4 Likes
I’m a sucker for mechanics in roleplaying because they allow you and your players to express their characters’ combat identities in a way that’s efficacious.
But I don’t use them for at least two reasons:
- I can’t find a system that doesn’t reduce combat success/failure to luck
- It severely bloats combat time
Instead, I try to allow characters to express themselves through judicious DMing and giving the party interesting choices to interact with.
3 Likes
I consider dice systems to be poorly designed and/or poorly used when they do any or all of the following:
- Significantly slow the pace of RP, especially in scenarios where actions should ICly be happening quickly.
- Cause players to be sitting around for long periods of time waiting for their turn to get to do anything.
- Cause the narrative to grind to a halt because poor rolls are forcing characters to try over and over again to accomplish one task.
- Invalidate IC skill and experience by linking the character’s competence to the random chance of a die roll.
The first two are going to depend a lot on your players, and especially on how many of them you have. Things like rules complexity, turn taking, and toughness of enemies can take a lot of valid forms depending on what kind of RP experience you’re looking for, and what circumstances you and your group are playing under.
The last two, in my opinion, are usually caused by either requiring rolls for things that shouldn’t be rolled for, or badly framing the causes and contexts of failure.
Rolls should be used when both success and failure can bring an interesting outcome.
For example – If a character succeeds in climbing this wall, they can sneak attack an enemy on the other side; if they fail, they’ll be spotted, get captured by the enemy, and have to escape from the dungeons. Either way, the story moves forward in an engaging direction.
Also – again in my opinion – failing because of a random number and then having it represented as your character just suddenly being inept feels bad. Failed actions should be framed as an intervention of outside circumstances.
If something has to happen in order for the narrative to progress, and if no interesting consequences can be incurred in the attempt, then it shouldn’t be subjected to chance. Don’t make people roll to climb a wall if the only result of failure is that they’ll have to try again.
6 Likes
Unpopular opinion: I prefer using WoW’s in game combat for conflict resolution. I’m not even good at PvP but if I wanted to play a game with dice rolls for resolution I would find another tabletop group or go to any number of forums or chat/discord groups online and not give Blizzard money every month.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand why someone would want to use a dice system, but it isn’t for me. I’ve still done it before, but only because sometimes the only other option is “not RP with people”, and I’m not going to try to make people change their ways when I’m the odd person out.
4 Likes
Yeah, I get what you mean. But how would you resolve conflicts with story based npc’s that might not “physically” be there in game to attack?
1 Like
That is an excellent question! There is no answer that is simple and easy to do that. Keep in mind that I haven’t had time to run, or even participate, in larger storylines since I got married, and we’re over a decade past that at this point, but historically when any time I’ve run or participated in those, there were no NPCs that were not physically present.
There were a couple ways to go about that. One was to have individuals in the same faction meet up with the characters in an open PVP arena, Gurubashi Arena or something to that effect, and duke it out there. An alternative was to coordinate with opposite faction folks and have them serve as the NPCs, so that you could have it take place anywhere. These days it would be easier to portray different types of NPCs with all the different transformation toys available, but with sharing I don’t know if you’d even end up in the same place.
Anyways, that was all on a different server a long time ago. It required a lot of open communication on both sides of the fence and a strong server community to make it work. These days I can’t schedule my time around a video game anyways so most of what I do is random walkup RP, when I have time to RP at all, and with that on the rare occasion where that would escalate to a conflict dueling works out just fine.
1 Like
As someone that recently started an RP guild with an old friend of mine, I RP with a lot of folks who I may have only met a few weeks ago. I have found it easier in both my new guild and in others to introduce someone to a roll system with set rules than to try to police a group of people. Letting the mechanics do the balancing instead of having to personally interject.
In regards to event length with a roll system, I am someone that very much tries to get the meat of any combat event done within two to three hours as I like to actually sleep. Given many combat events I have been to that seems to be on the more succinct side.
3 Likes
Pretty much how I feel. I make characters with a set of strengths and weaknesses, with extensive backgrounds and possible experiences. I’ve never found nor used a roll system that didn’t feel like it ended up invalidating what a character is supposed to be.
The general problems always end up being
- Pure role system where nothing about the character matters, and a man with no arms has as good of odds as a seasoned warrior to win a fight.
- Statted rolls which end up bogging down the pacing as people need to calculate things.
- Breaks narrative/story flow because no one rolls the magic number(s)
Really, the only way I can make rolls work is for variance in events instead of being the outcome controller.
The main problem I’ve always felt with rolls systems, especially ones like D&D uses, is I never feel like I’m playing a character or can’t get invested in it. I end up feeling like I’m playing a stat sheet where nothing else about it matters, because I have no control over what happens since I can’t control what dice land on.
1 Like
I think dice systems are better than nothing. Simple is best when it comes to dice systems, in my opinion. Too clunky and it gets confusing, for the DM and the Participant alike. That said, a lot of people I know prefer complex and feel it’s more immersive - it’s a tough issue and probably my least favourite thing to deal with as a GM.
That said, I think it ends up being a more fair system than PvP resolution (which sucks for low leveled people and alts) And it allows you to fight “NPCS” as part of a guild storyline.
(P.S. this is Sarestha’s Alliance alt that I felt like posting on because of his majestic beard - I do not claim to be the GM of the Endless Watchers 
)
3 Likes
I couldn’t agree more.
2 Likes
In a guild context, I find flat rolling frustrating and time consuming when the baddie just doesn’t take any damage for hours. I think a guild setting would really benefit from modifiers but it could equally benefit from having a storyteller over a dungeon master.
For PVP RP events, they’re not bad though. When you really have no context of who you’re up against but still in a mostly trustworthy environment… But being honest, I really only ever went to a few /roll events.
There was a time that I was elbow deep into developing a /roll-play addon in a similar vein to the RP flag addons. Character sheets with stats to make modified rolling and calculating easier plus some HP plates to make it easier to keep track of damage and effects visually. I was hoping to also have a DM mode for NPCs and minions. I quit playing before I really got anywhere with it but it was neat to ponder for a while.
2 Likes
Thanks for all the responses, guys. Really appreciate you sharing all your points of view. This is exactly the kinda info I was looking for.
Something that I seem to notice among the replies is the correlation between dice and character experience/power. Do you feel systems where you get to pick your power level at the start are better than say a leveling type system where you work to progress to more power/skills? (Aka leveling up vs starting at max level)
Anytime I hear roll fights, I remember in Wrath rolling a 100 versus a 1 and my dwarf with a shotgun sent a armored death knight flying with both barrels.
Those were great times.
3 Likes