Microlite20 : the smallest thing in gaming

[Larcen]

Very interesting system and not one I have seen before either. I think it has real promise. a few comments:


I would suggest making this a draw, rather than a reroll. Attack was parried, or you almost got the lock picked, etc, try again next round. Or you could always say the extra numbers on the die are to the defender (or lock, etc), sort of the old defender always gets the benefit of the doubt thing. This would speed up the process.

Yes, for certain rolls lke a contest between two people, the extra number on the die can very well be a "goes on to the next round" type of thing.

I would the person taking the action always the same. So 1-5 is a hit, 6-8 a miss. If it was the same person attacking an AC of 6, then roll a d12, 1-5 a hit, 6-12 a miss. Hmm might have to think about that more. If you kept the mechanic relatively the same it would also speed up the process.

Tomatoes are slimey.

I see where you are going with this. You are saying the lower bonus doesn't always need to take the lower numbers on the die. The person making the roll does. That is indeed simpler since all you ever need to do at that point is roll your skill bonus or less on the selected die type. Very simple.

I went with lower bonus takes the lower numbers on the die mainly for contest-based rolls where two people are involved. I such cases it was just easier to say the lower bonus takes the lower die numbers.

Thanks for the lack of tomatoes...

 

[snikle]

Yeah I was saying use the aggressor as the lowest set of numbers, the defender the higher set, consistancy and all that. People seem to enjoy the same mechanic for games (ref: see d20 for more information )

I like what you got here though, a little more complicated than I usually like, but I think the mechanic is sound in the way you applied it.

 

[Larcen]

Yeah I was saying use the aggressor as the lowest set of numbers, the defender the higher set, consistancy and all that. People seem to enjoy the same mechanic for games (ref: see d20 for more information )

I like what you got here though, a little more complicated than I usually like, but I think the mechanic is sound in the way you applied it.

Thanks. The whole system came about because I have been reading a lot of rules-lite systems lately and one thing kept annoying me. That is since the bonuses are always so low, a huge discrepancy starts to show up fairly quickly between people who have relatively small differences in bonuses.

For instance in Risus (a game that sounds super, BTW, and I would like to try it), a person with a rating of 2 seems to be in dire trouble going up against someone with a rating of 4. The scales are tipped too far in one direction with the simple addition of 1 or 2 rating points.

I like heroic fantasy concepts and so this ratio system was a way to allow even someone who is rated a +1 to have a chance of success against something that is rated a +8, for example. Remember that success is not always killing the other player, in a hitpoint based combat system it may just mean inflicting a satisfying wound before meeting your maker...

In complex game systems this inequality is not as obvious since generally larger bonuses are used and contests are usually determined by many rolls.

Another thing I was trying to "fix" with this system was that systems that use a set die type either have this huge range of potential results (like rolling a D20 can give you +6 thru +25 for instance), or a range that seems to small and soon makes certain rolls impossible. Hopefully with this ratio system any roll seems possible and the result ranges shouldn't be an issue.

In other words the GM doesnt have to wrack his brain thinking "if I make this trap this DC, then it will be too easy for this player and impossible for this player." He can just set a DC to the trap and everyone is guaranteed to have a proportional chance of success.

 

[snikle]

Man, I need more people like you over at fouruglymonsters.com, I am also showing people there the rules-lite systems I find and trying to get games ran using those systems. Got a few people interested in m20, but not much, seems everyone is stuck on d20 games. Maybe come on over and help me stir up the masses!

I would have to say one thing I like about the system is the attack roll really being an opposed check. Where your ability at xxxxx is directly compared against your opponent's (and both have an effect on the outcome). That and it wrapped up in this nice little mechanic.

 

[Larcen]

Man, I need more people like you over at fouruglymonsters.com, I am also showing people there the rules-lite systems I find and trying to get games ran using those systems. Got a few people interested in m20, but not much, seems everyone is stuck on d20 games. Maybe come on over and help me stir up the masses!

I would have to say one thing I like about the system is the attack roll really being an opposed check. Where your ability at xxxxx is directly compared against your opponent's (and both have an effect on the outcome). That and it wrapped up in this nice little mechanic.

Sorry, I suddenly got busy at work yesterday. It happens.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I'm honored! I will check out that link at lunchtime today and see what the masses are up to there..

I have been thinking more about the Ratio system and what's bothering me at this point is that it becomes hard fairly quickly to give high level characters a real challenge without using a die larger than a D30. For instance, once a player's skill reaches +5 or so, the only way to make a skill check really difficult for this player (5% chance of success or so) would be to make the DC huge and use a D100. But I suppose if the all the GM really wants is to give the player a 5% chance at something, well then, just make it a 5% chance and roll the D100 regardless of what the relevant skill bonus is.

Luckily I am seeing some nice advantages to the system already and they seem to outweigh the perceived disadvantages. Need to think on it some more and maybe make list of the strengths and weaknesses inherent to the system for comparison.

A strange coincidence relating to all this is that I ran into another thread today that talks about all sorts of weird dice types:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=179612&page=1&pp=40

All these crazy sided dice would be perfect for a system such as this.

 

[greywulf]

It all sounds like far too much maths to me I like my games fast and simple. Meesa lazy GM, self confessed.

That said, there's a lot of possibilities in the "using different dice" as a way of gauging difficultly. Doesn't Savage Worlds do this?

 

[Larcen]

It all sounds like far too much maths to me I like my games fast and simple. Meesa lazy GM, self confessed.

Allow me to give you the abridged version then. Here is pretty much the entire system expressed in a single sentence:

Roll your rating or less on a die type determined by adding your rating to the target number.

That's it. Doesnt seem like much more math the usual "d20+bonuses vs. DC" does it?

 

[snikle]

I am working on a sci-fi map for use in a VGT and toying with the idea of running an Aliens style game on it, these rules might be just what I was looking for. Originally I was thinking of using m20 or simple20. Will have to look at each, want something fast and deadly, much like the movie was.

 

[WSmith]

This interests me more than the d20 version. It looks like what d6 should have been. It needs a new name though. How about just Microlite Fantasy? Or MicroliteD6?

Microlite Sixes?

 

[snikle]

I have been thinking more about the Ratio system and what's bothering me at this point is that it becomes hard fairly quickly to give high level characters a real challenge without using a die larger than a D30.

You know, if you ran this in a VGT, the dice would not matter much, almost all of them can roll any dice using a mechanic like /roll xDx or something like that, so you could roll a d17 if you wanted.