# RPG A DAY 2024: Desirable dice / Superb screen tags: #thoughts #thoughts/RPGaDay/2024 ![[RPGaDAY2024-024x723.jpg]] After yesterday's veritable tome, today's entry leaves me a little less than inspired. Technically, I should say today's two entries, since I'm still doubling up in the chase down to convention time. The problem is that I've already talked about [[RPG A DAY 2024 - An accessory you'd like to see|my favorite dice]] when I was talking about accessories. In addition, I just don't use GM screens, and I never have. All of my rolls have always been out in the open. If I need reference tables, I know that everybody *else* at the table needs reference tables. So there's no point in putting up some sort of artificial barrier between us. If they want to look over at my notes, all they're seeing is the notes on the game we have already played together. This is the glory of the GMless motif. There is nothing for them to learn that they can't already know, because there is no GM. I'm just another player, even when I'm a facilitator. So, where do I go here? I guess I'll just freeform jazz for a bit. ## Desirable dice There has always been discussion about what is the *"ideal die mechanic."* What is the perfect mechanism for resolving conflicts mechanically? Is it a dice pool that has an additive process? Is it a dice pool that is match and countdown? Is it a dice pool with target numbers? Is it some set number of dice or even a single die versus target numbers? Is it a single die versus another single die? Honestly, there is no answer. There are some manifestly *bad* mechanisms. I would argue that [THAC0](https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/THAC0) is one of the *worst die mechanics ever implemented* and widely accepted while being simultaneously loathed. No one likes THAC0. If anyone tells you that they do, you know that they are untrustworthy and you should never loan them money or invite them into your life in any way. This is a simple fact of existence. I would also argue that single die plus modifiers versus a target number is not a particularly good core mechanic, even though it is extremely simple, easy to understand, and easy to talk about probabilities. All of those probabilities are linear and unless you're talking about a single D6, the variance is shockingly huge. I suppose if you want a game which focuses on conveying the fact that luck bears far more influence than competence, then that would be an appropriate mechanism to put in place to resolve conflicts. I don't like it one bit. Percentile falls into this same bin, really. Entirely too linear to be useful. On top of that, the quanta is 1%. Nobody likes 1% modifiers in any game experience. The smallest quanta that really moves the needle is 5%, and at that point, you might as well just use a D20. I would comfortably argue that at the bare minimum you need a mechanic that spits out more than a binary result. You need at least a *trinary* result — success, failure, and something partial in between. What that in-between thing means when the result comes up is a matter of other resolution issues, but it certainly provides an opportunity for the unexpected while allowing character competence to occur. Not only to occur, but to be contextualized by different narratives and narrative approaches. There is a distinct difference between a partial success being described as *"You did the right thing, but forces beyond your control intervened to blunt the effect,"* and *"Your bumbling attempts to pull this off were more lucky than well done, but you still managed to get partly there."* The former is the crew of the **[Event Horizon](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119081/)**, and the latter is the amount of getting beat up for success in **[Die Hard](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095016/)**. Both of them are perfectly reasonable ways to interpret partial successes, and that makes it a lot of fun. There is another alternative for resolution, and that is offsets, which is exactly what **[[Fudge]]** does with its special dice, which have two blank sides, two pluses, and two minuses.^[Sure you could use standard D6 and read 1-2: -, 3-4: blank, 5-6: +, but what are you, a barbarian?] Every trait has a value associated with a word tag, and those values are on a hierarchy, while whatever offsets you roll move the value up and down with a target determined by some absolute measure of value. For the record, those levels are: - Terrible - Poor - Mediocre - Fair - Good - Great - Superb As you can see, it doesn't really matter what the zero value is (though it usually is considered to be Poor), it only matters what the offset slide is. This is shockingly fast and easy to resolve, and you can get shades of success. The more you exceed or fall below the threshold value necessary, the stronger the description one way or the other becomes. This is actually quite nice because the default fudge dice pool is always 4DF. The range of variance is constrained. Expectations are constrained, and you get a nice bell curve out of it. Pleasant indeed. I could go into more specific discussions of particular game systems mechanics, but we would be here all night. The important thing to know is that linear is bad, and you should be able to do at least a tiny little bit of probability in your head to the point you don't find parabolic curves threatening. That's all. If you're designing your own game, keep that well in mind. If you're trying to decide what to play with your friends this weekend, this might not matter at all. You're going to play what everybody has or what somebody takes it into hand to run. But if it's you, pick a system with a good die mechanic. ## Superb screen Why? Just why? That's an unfair question, actually. I know *exactly* why. You're playing a game where you are responsible for bringing all the entertainment to the table. You've got six and a half pounds of preparatory material that you are shuffling through on a regular basis. There's 65 reference tables that you need to have up in front of you, and of which might be hit at any given time. Plus you've got all your little scribbled notes on all the moving parts going on in the world that you absolutely, positively *cannot* have the players seeing and understanding because you're terrified that they may metagame and thus ruin the two weeks of preparation that you've sunk in to all of this garbage. So to keep them from even the temptation, you put up a wall between you and the players, and stick stuff all over the inside, though it may come with stuff stuck all over the inside. You hide your notes behind this wall to make sure that the players have absolutely no idea where the good stuff is in the game. That's why you have a GM screen. *These are terrible reasons.* I say that as someone who actually likes games with a fair number of tables, when I'm throwing down armored battalions crashing into other ones at the feet of giant robots slugging it out with particle beams. The need for fast reference to mechanically complex tables of information that can't be derived or interpreted from simpler, more axiomatic structures, I get it. I don't like it myself, but I get it. You want crunch and circumstance. Fine. The problem is with hiding information from the players. The problem is with the two weeks of prep. The problem is, you and I both know, most of what you sit around and doodle together is not actually going to be seen by the players. And that's fine if you enjoy the *["lonely fun"](https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/lonely-fun)* of just doing world building and plot exploration, which may never actually show up at the table. I play solo and journaling RPGs a lot these days. The *whole thing* is composed of *"lonely fun."* That's the good stuff, in my opinion. The problem is keeping it from the players. The more that the players know about what's going on out in the world, the more they can enjoy it, the more they can react to, the more they can actively subvert their characters who have individual wants and needs that they can't satisfy, in the service of experiencing cool things. The typical counter-argument is that this destroys any sense of player identification and immersive engagement with said characters, because there is a complete disjoint between player knowledge and character knowledge. To which I have found only one reasonable reply: *"You know you're playing a fucking game, right?"* There is an inherent and native disjoint between character knowledge and player knowledge, a rift which can never be crossed and can never be actually joined. You are utterly aware that you are playing a character, interfacing with a world through mechanics, and there is no way to lose track of that at any point. You may become immersed in a particularly intense interaction, and that's fine. Just like you may become immersed in a given passage in a book, and imagine yourself in the place of the characters, engaging and acting as they do. A reasonable assumption and desire, but at no point do you forget that you are reading a book, you're looking at the thing, you're reading words, you're holding it. Do me a favor: *lose the GM screen*. Just don't use it. Lay it flat. Give everybody access to the tables. Let them look over at your notes if they want to. They probably can't read your handwriting anyway. Tell them what's going on elsewhere in the world beyond the knowledge of their characters. Let them be part of that feedback. If you have a player who just can't resist the metagaming and positioning their character in the best possible place all the time because of that knowledge, let it happen. What would that look like to other characters in the setting? Are they considered supernaturally endowed with prescience? Are they considered the luckiest bastard in the world? Do people start staying away from them in droves because somehow, some way, they always end up in the worst possible locations full of conflict, death, destruction, and anarchy? Play it out. Let it happen. [[RPG A DAY 2024 - Peerless player - Acclaimed advice|To reference yesterday's post, "Play to find out."]] I feel comfortable guaranteeing that you will have a better and easier time of it as GM or facilitator. Your players, while being initially confused, will have a better time in the long run. Plus, one way or another, those notes, even if they don't actually turn up on the table in terms of events, may interest your players. Hell, they may interest the players enough for them to gently steer their character in the direction of interesting stuff you've prepared, even to their detriment. In fact, it's best when they do it *particularly to their detriment*, simply because they want to see what happens and they know that bad things have to happen before the payoff. You don't need a screen. You need a projector.