Help with Cloaks, Courts, and Gonnes (and player-facing games in general)

[Lofgeornost]

I’ve recently been looking at Cloaks, Courts, and Gonnes, an RPG—or the skeleton of one—where p.c.s are spies or agents during the Thirty Years War. Published by Sigil Stone, it’s available on Drivethru as PWYW. The game is very short; only 9 pages in all, and two of those are effectively introduction. It was apparently meant as the launching of a new rules-set, the Ten Tier system; I’m not sure if anything further came of this. As you can imagine from its length, the game is rather sketchy, and leaves some things unclear. It’s an example of a ‘player-facing’ game in which the g.m. does not roll dice. That’s not a type of system I’m very familiar with, so I’d appreciate any help with understanding how it is supposed to work.

Without going into much detail, it’s a fairly straightforward die-pool system, in which a character’s statistics determine how many D10s get rolled and what the target number (roll under or equal) is. The g.m. simply sets the difficulty (i.e. how many successes are needed in the roll), and for complex tasks (i.e. ones that last more than one round) the duration. That’s a total that the player must reach to complete the task, through one or more rounds of rolling, rather like a hit-point total in D&D.

I have some specific questions about the game, but since I suspect no-one has ever played it, I’ll defer those for now. Beyond that, I have a more general query about ‘player-facing’ games in general. How can you use them to handle events or occurrences that don’t really depend on the p.c.s?

For instance, imagine the situation in which someone is trying to scale a fortification’s wall at night without being spotted. If it is p.c. doing this, it’s pretty clear in general terms at least how to handle it mechanically. The player would probably have to make a roll using his or her Stealth to avoid detection and Agility for the climb. All the g.m. has to do is set the difficulty for these.

But, what if the p.c. is the person on watch and it is an n.p.c. attempting the climb? To determine whether he or she evades detection, you can just have the player roll using his/her Perception. But whether the n.p.c. can make the climb successfully doesn’t really depend on any quality of the p.c. watchman. So how does the g.m. determine if the n.p.c. makes the climb successfully or not?

 

[PolarBlues]

I suspect that even between player-facing systems there different approaches. But in the simple example you make, rather than rolling dice for the NPC, you just assume the NPC makes average roll, sort of like the D&D Take 10 or Fudge dice rolling 0 and apply that to their Perception (or whatever skill supported by the system in question) and compare it with the PC's Stealth-equivalent ability.

Where it can get weird is where an action by an NPC is opposed by another NPC, but you generally don't want that to happen very often in most games.

PS: I will add I am a big fan of player-facing. GM is a busy activty and I'm not a natural multi-tasker so removing that extra overhead of rolling the dice for all my NPCs frees a bit of mental bandwitdh to focus on all my other GMing duties. I also find that by keeping the focus on the players, it often leads to high levels of player engagement.

 

[Lofgeornost]

I suspect that even between player-facing systems there different approaches. But in the simple example you make, rather than rolling dice for the NPC, you just assume the NPC makes average roll, sort of like the D&D Take 10 or Fudge dice rolling 0 and apply that to their Perception (or whatever skill supported by the system in question) and compare it with the PC's Stealth-equivalent ability.

Where it can get weird is where an action by an NPC is opposed by another NPC, but you generally don't want that to happen very often in most games.

Thanks!

That makes a lot of sense. It could be hard to implement in CC&G because n.p.c.s aren't normally described by the same characteristics that p.c.s are--instead, they just have a difficulty number and duration for each general class of tasks. Those numbers are used when a p.c. attempts that sort of task against them. So n.p.c.s wouldn't have Stealth or Perception scores, as such (though you could assign them).

The die pool nature of the system can also make it hard to employ the 'standard roll' approach. One can't just set the roll of each D10 to 5 or 6, since that means all will either succeed or fail, depending on what the target number is. And without doing some calculations, it's not clear (to me at least) what the average number of successes is if one is rolling (for instance) 5D10 with a target number of 3.

 

[PolarBlues]

If the guard is just presented as a flat Difficulty Number, I would guess the average roll value is already factored into that Difficulty Number. That is how it usually works for those sort of sustem. As such the action "Guard notices PC" is resolved with PC's Stealth check vs Guards flat DN. Does that not work?

 

[Lofgeornost]

If the guard is just presented as a flat Difficulty Number, I would guess the average roll value is already factored into that Difficulty Number. That is how it usually works for those sort of sustem. As such the action "Guard notices PC" is resolved with PC's Stealth check vs Guards flat DN. Does that not work?

It does work. The system is fine as long as the player characters are the active ones, though it doesn't explain what to do when multiple p.c.s are collaborating together to get a single task done.

The problem, as I said, is when the n.p.c. is the active one. In the example above, where an n.p.c. tries to scale a wall the p.c. is guarding at night, it's clear how the system would handle the attempt to sneak past the p.c.--the player would make a roll based on the p.c.'s Perception. What isn't clear is how the g.m. is supposed to decide whether the n.p.c. succeeds in climbing the wall at all, regardless of whether or not he's seen. The rolls are all supposed to be made by the players and based on the stats on their character sheets. Those stats just aren't relevant, in themselves, to whether the n.p.c. can climb the wall or not.

 

[PolarBlues]

I'm flying blind here as I am not familiar with this specific system. The two approaches I seen for NPC does action that is not resisted by an PC are:
1. Basic GM fiat - NPCs just do what the GM wants them to do in these instance -or-
2. Assuming scaling the wall and the NPC both have thier own flat Difficulty Number (as potential challenge to a PC) then is the NPCs Difficulty Number is >= to the walls, he succeeds, otherwise he fails. It is just a direct comparison, no randomisation.

 

[warwell]

Does player-facing mean that the GM can never roll dice?

I've never used a formal player-facing system but I've run homebrew games that employed the mechanic. For example, I never rolled for monsters. The PCs would just make a defense roll. There were still times I would roll dice to randomize stuff. Does such and such happen? Yes on a 4+ or no on a 3-.

Although, in your example, I would probably assume that the NPC succeeds unless the PCs prevent him. Not much player agency if the NPC just falls off the wall and breaks his neck.

 

[AsenRG]

I’ve recently been looking at Cloaks, Courts, and Gonnes, an RPG—or the skeleton of one—where p.c.s are spies or agents during the Thirty Years War. Published by Sigil Stone, it’s available on Drivethru as PWYW. The game is very short; only 9 pages in all, and two of those are effectively introduction. It was apparently meant as the launching of a new rules-set, the Ten Tier system; I’m not sure if anything further came of this. As you can imagine from its length, the game is rather sketchy, and leaves some things unclear. It’s an example of a ‘player-facing’ game in which the g.m. does not roll dice. That’s not a type of system I’m very familiar with, so I’d appreciate any help with understanding how it is supposed to work.

Without going into much detail, it’s a fairly straightforward die-pool system, in which a character’s statistics determine how many D10s get rolled and what the target number (roll under or equal) is. The g.m. simply sets the difficulty (i.e. how many successes are needed in the roll), and for complex tasks (i.e. ones that last more than one round) the duration. That’s a total that the player must reach to complete the task, through one or more rounds of rolling, rather like a hit-point total in D&D.

I have some specific questions about the game, but since I suspect no-one has ever played it, I’ll defer those for now. Beyond that, I have a more general query about ‘player-facing’ games in general. How can you use them to handle events or occurrences that don’t really depend on the p.c.s?

For instance, imagine the situation in which someone is trying to scale a fortification’s wall at night without being spotted. If it is p.c. doing this, it’s pretty clear in general terms at least how to handle it mechanically. The player would probably have to make a roll using his or her Stealth to avoid detection and Agility for the climb. All the g.m. has to do is set the difficulty for these.

But, what if the p.c. is the person on watch and it is an n.p.c. attempting the climb? To determine whether he or she evades detection, you can just have the player roll using his/her Perception. But whether the n.p.c. can make the climb successfully doesn’t really depend on any quality of the p.c. watchman. So how does the g.m. determine if the n.p.c. makes the climb successfully or not?

In such systems usually the Referee is expected to come up with an ad hoc ruling that can be switched for different situations.

For example, I could decide that 1) the NPC can't make the climb, the attempt is undetectable, and the PCs can find only traces of it the next morning, 2) the NPC can make the climb, PC rolls for Awareness vs Stealth, 3) the NPC can make the climb, but has to make some noise, reducing the TN for the Awareness check, 4) the NPC can't make the climb at all, but the PC can roll Awareness to detect the attempt, or 5) roll 1d10 for the NPC to see if it makes the climb, 1-3 leads to option 1, 4-6 leads to option 4, 7 exactly leads to option 3, 8-9 leads to option 2, and 10 exactly leads to "the NPC makes the climb without effort, and from such an unexpected angle it gets higher TN on the Stealth check".

Or I could even decide to use that last one without rolling, if the NPC was well-known for ability to scale sheer walls. Or I could roll something else, including 1d12 or 1d30, or 1d100, or 2d6, depending on how I feel at the moment. You get my drift, I hope? BTW, dice can be replaced with cards, or Jenga blocks, whatever.
The only thing that limits the Referee is his knowledge of the game world, IME.
BTW, in a similar vein, don't make PCs with high stats roll for easy shit. It's pointless, unless you need a breather to figure out what happens next, but don't want to take a formal break!

But yeah, at the end, it's simply about making a ruling. The shorter the system, the more often you'd have to do that, anyway, IME.

 

[PolarBlues]

Does player-facing mean that the GM can never roll dice?

I've never used a formal player-facing system but I've run homebrew games that employed the mechanic. For example, I never rolled for monsters. The PCs would just make a defense roll. There were still times I would roll dice to randomize stuff. Does such and such happen? Yes on a 4+ or no on a 3-.

Although, in your example, I would probably assume that the NPC succeeds unless the PCs prevent him. Not much player agency if the NPC just falls off the wall and breaks his neck.

Yes, that is exactly it. It generally applies to task/conflict resolution. It does not necessarily mean GMs can't consult tables or use the dice to randomise other things. Discussion on player-facing can often get sidetracked by very rigid interpretations of "GM never rolls the dice".

 

[Bill White]

The hardest thing for GMs who are used to non-player-facing mechanics (call them what, symmetrical systems?) to get a handle on seems to be the idea that you can just decide whether an NPC succeeds or fails. We're so used to thinking about probabilities!

 

[AsenRG]

The hardest thing for GMs who are used to non-player-facing mechanics (call them what, symmetrical systems?) to get a handle on seems to be the idea that you can just decide whether an NPC succeeds or fails. We're so used to thinking about probabilities!

True, but then you can't be prevented from rolling, either.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about the chances of the NPC climbing the wall at all. Well, perhaps not at all, but maybe only insofar as it impacts the chances of the PC noticing said climb. If we're talking about a ninja I'd set the difficulty to notice higher than if were a randy teenager who's climbing a wall to see his girl. Player facing games, IMO, come in two basic flavors as far as this sort of thing is concerned. On the one hand you have the system in question, and others like it, that use some variety of a binary pass/fail die rolling mechanic. I find these sorts still put a fair amount of onus back on the GM as regards decision making. On the other hand you have player facing games that have a limited success die rolling mechanic, like Blades in the Dark or any flavor of PbtA. In these cases the narrative is spun more directly out of failed and limited success rolls by the characters and the game in question usually has some very well defined scheme by which those failures and complications get folded into the fiction. Both sorts of games are doing broadly the same thing, at least in terms of placing mechanical agency into the players hands, but it can require a significant shift in perspective from the GM.

In a player facing game, the way that actions are framed is key. So, in this case, rather than framing the action as an in-the-minute perception roll, which is more like the D&D answer, I'd probably frame it as a guard roll for the duration of the guarding. So the player states I am on guard duty tonight and want to prevent anyone getting into the fort, to which the GM says ok, great, make a perception roll to see how awake and aware you are over your guard shift. The benefit of the second framing is that is escapes any notion of the roll being a reaction to a 'secret' NPC action, and also serves to place the agency squarely back on the PC. A player who rolls well will notice the climber (should there be one) or anything else that goes on. This also helps obviate the somewhat awkward moment when a GM asks for a perception roll and then, on a fail, says you don't notice anything when there was plainly something to notice.

If you want to build that simple action declaration into something with more narrative weight just start spinning consequences off the roll right away. So, perhaps if the player rolls badly, then something else goes wrong, or another situation arises that needs their attention. A PC who's dealing with a bunch of drunks trying to set the stables on fire is going to miss the stealthy climber just as surely as the one who just failed a perception roll.

 

[Fenris-77]

OK, now I've read the game and I can offer some more specific mechanical advice. So the game suggests that mooks are mostly Diff 5 simple tasks in terms of 'opposed' rolls, while significant NPCs are complex tasks. Taking that as a base, just decide who's climbing, assign difficulty, and let the dice fall where they may. You do have something akin to limited success in this system as you can compare total successes to the difficulty number. So if the PC misses the roll by one, maybe they notice, but just a little too late, or they are too far away to catch the climber, but if they miss by three or four they might pass the night in blissful ignorance.

I'd probably still frame the task something like I describe in my post above as it makes it far easier, and often more interesting, to work through some failure states and to snowball consequences.

 

[PolarBlues]

True, but then you can't be prevented from rolling, either.

I think that is an important point. Should the GM decide to very occasionally roll for an NPC in instances where it is expedient to do so, that doesn't suddenly undo all the benefits from using a player-facing system. It might offend purist, but that's the purist's own problem.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. It seems that, on the whole, the system provides no support or mechanisms for deciding if n.p.c.s succeed or fail at tasks where p.c.s are not directly involved. As various people have pointed out, the g.m. can just create such a system on the fly, or simply rule as to the success or failure of the n.p.c.

Neither of those is a very attractive option from my point of view. If I'm going to have to be creating systems to adjudge n.p.c. success, then I feel that the rules are not doing the job. I can of course simply decide n.p.c. successes by fiat, but IME that approach is actually more destructive of player agency than rolling would be, because it emphasizes the idea that the game-world simply dances to the g.m.'s tune.

An example might make this clearer. Imagine that some p.c.s and an n.p.c. adversary are both riding on a ferry over a cold, deep lake. The boat sinks and crew and passengers have to swim to shore. The p.c.s have their hands full simply with making the swim and staying alive--they have no time or attention to spare for the n.p.c. If the g.m. simply decides that the n.p.c. swims to shore, without some sort of roll or other non-random system (compare X with Y, etc.) then--IME--players feel that they are being manipulated. Their characters face a hazard and they must surmount it; the n.p.c. is protected by plot-armor.

Now, you can quite reasonably argue that player agency in this, or other, situations is simply an illusion. After all, it is the g.m. who decided that the boat was going to sink in the first place. Still, IME that illusion is an important one, and players get upset when n.p.c.s do not face the same mechanical hazards that their characters do. YMMV, etc.

 

[robertsconley]

It’s an example of a ‘player-facing’ game in which the g.m. does not roll dice. That’s not a type of system I’m very familiar with, so I’d appreciate any help with understanding how it is supposed to work.

It is my understanding you do the following with these type of systems.
You don't roll for specific actions but to resolve specific situation. So say for a round a combat, (or even the combat encounter in general) the players makes a roll, applies anything that modifies the rolls, and then the result is either good (damage to the NPC), neutral (damage to both), or bad (damage to the PC).

The specifics vary but that is the general gist from what I understand.

For instance, imagine the situation in which someone is trying to scale a fortification’s wall at night without being spotted. If it is p.c. doing this, it’s pretty clear in general terms at least how to handle it mechanically. The player would probably have to make a roll using his or her Stealth to avoid detection and Agility for the climb. All the g.m. has to do is set the difficulty for these.

But, what if the p.c. is the person on watch and it is an n.p.c. attempting the climb? To determine whether he or she evades detection, you can just have the player roll using his/her Perception. But whether the n.p.c. can make the climb successfully doesn’t really depend on any quality of the p.c. watchman. So how does the g.m. determine if the n.p.c. makes the climb successfully or not?

These system tend to run towards the abstract and the rolls deal with a situation. So where you have a situation where the PC is on watch and the NPC is climbing. The roll isn't a perception roll. It is a roll to figure what happen as a result. Like the combat example above, the PC makes a rolls, the roll is modified, and the result is read to produce an outcome.

Personally, I don't care for these kinds of shortcuts. I like systems whether they are detailed or lite that allow me to figure out what to need to roll as a result of a specific character doing a specific thing.

 

[Bill White]

The GM using player-facing mechanics who's all of a sudden in the situation where, "The boat is sinking, NPCs are trying to make it to shore, PCs clearly have to roll to succeed to get there, how do I figure out what happened to the NPCs?" has a number of options.

A GM who put dramatic logic first would be, well, obviously, if the NPC is a problem for the PCs, he makes it, and if the NPC is an innocent or an ally, they don't make it--unless a PC saves them. I only care about NPCs insofar as they matter to the PCs. If the PCs don't care about the NPCs, then they don't know what happened. "You lose track of the others as you struggle for your own safety." Does one of them make it and now they have a grudge against the so-called "heroes" who couldn't be bothered to help them? This emphasizes player agency by making them the protagonists of the story. Their choices matter, and they don't get to "win" against a rival by dumb luck.

A GM who put in-game cause-and-effect foremost might say, well, this is a tough situation and even my PCs, who are badasses, are having a tough time. So only the NPCs who are badasses make it. Everyone else drowns, unless a PC takes action to save them. This emphasizes in-game logic or continuity, and provides space for player agency by giving them a choice--save yourself easily or save someone else with you at a higher risk to yourself?

In either instance, the GM is assigning probabilities--of either 100% or 0%--to each NPC's chance of survival. If you're a player-facing "purist," that's your toolbox. If you're not a purist, you might introduce some randomness in either case: "It would be sad if this friend of yours drowned, but maybe your character needs something to be sad about, so I'll roll a d6 and on a 6 he makes it on his own," or "This guy is a badass, so he only drowns on a 1."

From my perspective, that's actually not that different than what you do as the GM in any other game. Doesn't everything boil down to probabilities, in the end? And by assigning stats and abilities to NPCs, aren't you just assigning probabilities at one remove? It doesn't strip anybody's agency from them to describe a situation where the boat is sinking, everyone has abandoned ship, there are swimming sailors heading for shore and people in the water crying for help. You say, "What do you do?" and you listen for what comes next. That's where player agency comes in.

 

[Lofgeornost]

It is my understanding you do the following with these type of systems.
You don't roll for specific actions but to resolve specific situation. So say for a round a combat, (or even the combat encounter in general) the players makes a roll, applies anything that modifies the rolls, and then the result is either good (damage to the NPC), neutral (damage to both), or bad (damage to the PC).

I think that's true of many of these systems--I don't have much experience with them. CC&G may be a little unusual in that seems to focus more on adjudging specific actions. I suspect that's why it calls them 'tasks,' which harkens back to the Forge 'task vs. conflict resolution' idea. If I understand things correctly, what you are describing is closer to 'conflict' resolution.

So, for instance, in CC&G, a round of combat between a player and an n.p.c. is likely to involve two rolls. One of these will be the player's attack, using one of his Melee skills and specializations (that will determine how many D10s there are in the die pool and what the target number is). The g.m. will set the difficulty (the number of successes needed) and the duration (here, effectively, the n.p.c.'s hit points). If the player succeeds, the duration will be reduced by his highest successful die roll (possibly with bonuses for weapon type). If the player fails, then the n.p.c. takes no damage, and other consequences may ensue based on the g.m.'s decision. But, the player will also roll to avoid the n.p.c.'s attack, using some defensive skills and specialties. Again, the g.m. will set the difficulty number (though no duration). If the player's roll succeeds, he takes no damage; if he fails, he is injured. The system has rules to determine if the injury takes him out of the fight or he can continue.

 

[Lofgeornost]

In either instance, the GM is assigning probabilities--of either 100% or 0%--to each NPC's chance of survival. If you're a player-facing "purist," that's your toolbox. If you're not a purist, you might introduce some randomness in either case: "It would be sad if this friend of yours drowned, but maybe your character needs something to be sad about, so I'll roll a d6 and on a 6 he makes it on his own," or "This guy is a badass, so he only drowns on a 1."

From my perspective, that's actually not that different than what you do as the GM in any other game. Doesn't everything boil down to probabilities, in the end? And by assigning stats and abilities to NPCs, aren't you just assigning probabilities at one remove? It doesn't strip anybody's agency from them to describe a situation where the boat is sinking, everyone has abandoned ship, there are swimming sailors heading for shore and people in the water crying for help. You say, "What do you do?" and you listen for what comes next. That's where player agency comes in.

I guess it's just a difference in perspective, but the g.m. choosing fail or succeed does not seem the same to me as assigning a probability and then letting the chips fall where they may, though as you point out you can describe it as a 0 or 100% probability.

Now, it is true that in any given session of most games, the g.m. is likely going to be making many decisions about what happens, to n.p.c.s or more generally, simply based on logic, or the narrative flow of the game, without any probabilistic element or mechanics as a guide.

In some situations, though, I personally as a g.m. want those rolls or rules, largely for reasons of perceived fairness of the game, from the player's point of view. If one of the p.c.s has chased a villain out onto a slippery ledge and is fighting him there, facing the possibility of falling and injury, then I'd prefer a system that puts the villain at risk of falling and being injured as well, and permits me to determine his fate according to those rules, not just by fiat. Without such rules, my players would, I think, complain that 'the game is rigged.' And I would understand their complaint.

What this probably means is that I'm going to be happier with what you called above 'symmetrical' systems than something like CC&G. Which is fine; there are a number of alternatives for a 30 Years' War game, and I can't complain that I spent a lot of time or money on this system.

 

[Bill White]

In some situations, though, I personally as a g.m. want those rolls or rules, largely for reasons of perceived fairness of the game, from the player's point of view. If one of the p.c.s has chased a villain out onto a slippery ledge and is fighting him there, facing the possibility of falling and injury, then I'd prefer a system that puts the villain at risk of falling and being injured as well, and permits me to determine his fate according to those rules, not just by fiat. Without such rules, my players would, I think, complain that 'the game is rigged.' And I would understand their complaint.

This is really interesting, because I can see using it as a tool in an otherwise player-facing system to signal something important to players. "When I use the same rules for NPCs as for PCs, all bets are off. I can't fudge to save my guy, and I won't fudge to save yours." Things just got real. So you give this one NPC villain that's out on the ledge the skill numbers he needs so you can figure out whether he falls off or stays on--maybe he's better than the PC, maybe he's worse--and every time the PC rolls, you roll for the villain (or however you decide it works; maybe you only have to roll if you take damage). Maybe they both stay on until one of them loses the fight by the normal rules, maybe the villain falls and the PC just needs to crawl back to safety, or maybe the PC falls and the villain cackles delightedly. High stakes action, good fun, the player who wins will be crowing and the one who loses will hate that villain forever. I like it.

But I'm thinking about my own GM practice; as you say, there are other games that may be a better fit for how you and your players want to play.

 

[AsenRG]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. It seems that, on the whole, the system provides no support or mechanisms for deciding if n.p.c.s succeed or fail at tasks where p.c.s are not directly involved. As various people have pointed out, the g.m. can just create such a system on the fly, or simply rule as to the success or failure of the n.p.c.

Neither of those is a very attractive option from my point of view. If I'm going to have to be creating systems to adjudge n.p.c. success, then I feel that the rules are not doing the job. I can of course simply decide n.p.c. successes by fiat, but IME that approach is actually more destructive of player agency than rolling would be, because it emphasizes the idea that the game-world simply dances to the g.m.'s tune.

I can understand the logic. Not only that, I used to be an exponent of that same logic for...decades. I mean, literally, I've been applying it since before I played an RPG (I was applying it to gamebooks).
Today, I feel a bit different. Why?
See, all that rolling does in the end is giving you an X% chance to succeed (from 0 to 100). Let's take a system like Cepheus where you roll 2d6+DM (dice modifiers from skill, equipment, situation, whatever) vs 8+Modifiers (from the situation, opposition's skill, equipment, whatever...)
See how similar they are on both sides? I literally listed the same four elements: skill, equipment, situation, and the catch-all "whatever".
So in the end, assuming equal opposition, it's a roll of 2d6 vs 8... that's 41,66% odds of success IIRC. Of course, the game is about stacking the odds on your sides, but assuming both did that to the same extent, we're back to square one.
We could use Talislanta's Omni instead without any actual changes, except in the default odds.
But the bottom line is, if - in a situation where his level of success didn't matter - you allowed the Cepheus PC to roll 1d10000 with 4166 and below being a success, he couldn't really complain. Even though Cepheus doesn't use a d10000...OK, maybe he could complain about not having the required dice, but that's easy to mend!
And all your examples are of things where the level of success won't really matter. Can the NPC pull to the beach? Y/N. Can he climb the wall? Again, Y/N. You seldom need more for NPCs, so that's not you, it's the nature of the game.
So my example was meant to just say "estimate what the NPCs odds are roughly, then roll something that approximates them".

As I'm getting older, I'm finding more and more that this works fine for me. Who says people can't change, huh?
If it doesn't (yet) work for you, I could understand. But that's the logic here, and in Frei Kriegspiel games.

An example might make this clearer. Imagine that some p.c.s and an n.p.c. adversary are both riding on a ferry over a cold, deep lake. The boat sinks and crew and passengers have to swim to shore. The p.c.s have their hands full simply with making the swim and staying alive--they have no time or attention to spare for the n.p.c. If the g.m. simply decides that the n.p.c. swims to shore, without some sort of roll or other non-random system (compare X with Y, etc.) then--IME--players feel that they are being manipulated. Their characters face a hazard and they must surmount it; the n.p.c. is protected by plot-armor.

Sure, if you just decide "those suckers pull off automatically, you have to roll", that would be BS (unless they have special water-related powers that the PCs lack, of course).
But I'd just look at their stats and compare them to a relevant number. The more dangerous the capsizing, the higher the number. Those below it get a chance of rolling, say, 5 or 6 on 1d6...and if no, they drown, period.
Oh, and if you're in armour and below the number, no roll for you. Or maybe making it means you lose the armour. Depends on how easy armours are to remove in the setting.

Now, you can quite reasonably argue that player agency in this, or other, situations is simply an illusion. After all, it is the g.m. who decided that the boat was going to sink in the first place. Still, IME that illusion is an important one, and players get upset when n.p.c.s do not face the same mechanical hazards that their characters do. YMMV, etc.

No, I don't believe that player agency is an illusion to begin with. The GM just shouldn't treat NPCs better than PCs... but my example above is, I believe, quite even-handed (since I'd give to PCs who have the required stats the same automatic success).

It might offend purist, but that's the purist's own problem.

This bears repeating!

This is really interesting, because I can see using it as a tool in an otherwise player-facing system to signal something important to players. "When I use the same rules for NPCs as for PCs, all bets are off. I can't fudge to save my guy, and I won't fudge to save yours." Things just got real. So you give this one NPC villain that's out on the ledge the skill numbers he needs so you can figure out whether he falls off or stays on--maybe he's better than the PC, maybe he's worse--and every time the PC rolls, you roll for the villain (or however you decide it works; maybe you only have to roll if you take damage). Maybe they both stay on until one of them loses the fight by the normal rules, maybe the villain falls and the PC just needs to crawl back to safety, or maybe the PC falls and the villain cackles delightedly. High stakes action, good fun, the player who wins will be crowing and the one who loses will hate that villain forever. I like it.

But I'm thinking about my own GM practice; as you say, there are other games that may be a better fit for how you and your players want to play.

Also, I agree that this is a good idea...but I can do the same in a player-facing system. How?
By announcing the TNs in advance and having them roll in the open.

 

[Lofgeornost]

So my example was meant to just say "estimate what the NPCs odds are roughly, then roll something that approximates them".

As I'm getting older, I'm finding more and more that this works fine for me. Who says people can't change, huh?
If it doesn't (yet) work for you, I could understand. But that's the logic here, and in Frei Kriegspiel games.

Well, if it's not working for me after 45+ years of gaming, I'm not holding my breath for it working in the future ...

More seriously, though, I naturally can set rough odds for any particular occurrence and roll the dice. With most systems, one has to do that occasionally. An advantage of 'symmetrical systems' (to borrow Bill White's useful terminology) is that it probably gives more guidance as to what the odds are--in this case, the n.p.c.'s skill in swimming, or athletics, or something similar--and that it works the same way for p.c.s and n.p.c.s, which makes the players feel the game is fair.

That raises a practical problem, though. Since this is a dice-pool system with variable numbers for what counts as success on the dice, and variable numbers of successes needed to count as an overall success, it's not obvious what the actual probability of any roll succeeding is. You can calculate it, of course, either by hand or by something like AnyDice, but it's not clear to me without such calculations what the chance of, say, rolling 3 or more successes on 5D10 with a target number of 4 is. So, as a g.m., you really don't know how likely the players are to succeed at their rolls.

In this particular case, one could just use p.c. rules for the n.p.c.s, but in RAW they do not actually have the same statistics that p.c.s do. You could generate them of course, but at that point one is really turning this into a 'symmetrical' system rather than a player-facing one. At which point my reaction is that I might as well use a symmetrical one to start with.

BTW, in a similar vein, don't make PCs with high stats roll for easy shit. It's pointless, unless you need a breather to figure out what happens next, but don't want to take a formal break!

CC&G actually codifies this. If a player is rolling twice as many dice as the difficulty number (i.e. the number of successes needed) then success at the task is automatic. This is mathematically dodgy in edge cases. For example, with a difficulty number of 1, players get an automatic success if they can muster 2 dice for their pool, even though with a minimum chance of success per die (2/10) they only have a 36% chance of rolling at least one success on 2D10. But I guess it works well enough as a rule of thumb.

In a player facing game, the way that actions are framed is key. So, in this case, rather than framing the action as an in-the-minute perception roll, which is more like the D&D answer, I'd probably frame it as a guard roll for the duration of the guarding. So the player states I am on guard duty tonight and want to prevent anyone getting into the fort, to which the GM says ok, great, make a perception roll to see how awake and aware you are over your guard shift. The benefit of the second framing is that is escapes any notion of the roll being a reaction to a 'secret' NPC action, and also serves to place the agency squarely back on the PC. A player who rolls well will notice the climber (should there be one) or anything else that goes on. This also helps obviate the somewhat awkward moment when a GM asks for a perception roll and then, on a fail, says you don't notice anything when there was plainly something to notice

That's very good advice, I think, even with 'symmetrical' games.

 

[AsenRG]

Well, if it's not working for me after 45+ years of gaming, I'm not holding my breath for it working in the future ...

Well, in a cyberpunk future, you might get your own (non-retro) clone...

More seriously, though, I naturally can set rough odds for any particular occurrence and roll the dice. With most systems, one has to do that occasionally. An advantage of 'symmetrical systems' (to borrow Bill White's useful terminology) is that it probably gives more guidance as to what the odds are--in this case, the n.p.c.'s skill in swimming, or athletics, or something similar--and that it works the same way for p.c.s and n.p.c.s, which makes the players feel the game is fair.

Sure, man, but I'm not defending how asymmetrical/player-facing systems work. I'm just telling you how they work in my experience.

That raises a practical problem, though. Since this is a dice-pool system with variable numbers for what counts as success on the dice, and variable numbers of successes needed to count as an overall success, it's not obvious what the actual probability of any roll succeeding is. You can calculate it, of course, either by hand or by something like AnyDice, but it's not clear to me without such calculations what the chance of, say, rolling 3 or more successes on 5D10 with a target number of 4 is. So, as a g.m., you really don't know how likely the players are to succeed at their rolls.

Well, that's a drawback of success-counting dicepools, I've found, and would be the same way with PCs. I am thinking of something like Cepheus, where the odds are quite clear.
Why am I using Cepheus? Because it was meditating on the advice of "crafting the dice throw" in Classic Traveller, combined with the FKR channel and movement, that finally made me understand the above.

In this particular case, one could just use p.c. rules for the n.p.c.s, but in RAW they do not actually have the same statistics that p.c.s do. You could generate them of course, but at that point one is really turning this into a 'symmetrical' system rather than a player-facing one. At which point my reaction is that I might as well use a symmetrical one to start with.

Don't they have a TN that they represent? In this case, set a TN. If they're of a higher TN, they succeed in making it to the shore. Those that are of a lower TN, drown (as per your boat example).

CC&G actually codifies this. If a player is rolling twice as many dice as the difficulty number (i.e. the number of successes needed) then success at the task is automatic. This is mathematically dodgy in edge cases. For example, with a difficulty number of 1, players get an automatic success if they can muster 2 dice for their pool, even though with a minimum chance of success per die (2/10) they only have a 36% chance of rolling at least one success on 2D10. But I guess it works well enough as a rule of thumb.

I'd change it to "in cases with TN>X, the rule only activates if the players gained bonus dice via roleplaying". This way you reward the guy who found the debris to cling to, and the guy with great stats can still roll".

That's very good advice, I think, even with 'symmetrical' games.

I concur.

 

[Bill White]

I recently saw a designer for whom I have a lot of admiration say something like, "Oh, I very strongly dislike 'GM-sets-a-difficulty' as a technique in play. Let's get rid of it." My reaction was, geez, that's kind of my go-to technique. What's the alternative? I guess maybe something like pbta's 6- fails, 7-9 mixed bag, 10+ success on 2d6. But I get where he was coming from, which I think is similar to what Lofgeornost is saying: let the game do some of the work rather than relying on the GM's arbitrary judgment, which makes it easier to put a thumb on the scales.

 

[AsenRG]

I recently saw a designer for whom I have a lot of admiration say something like, "Oh, I very strongly dislike 'GM-sets-a-difficulty' as a technique in play. Let's get rid of it." My reaction was, geez, that's kind of my go-to technique. What's the alternative? I guess maybe something like pbta's 6- fails, 7-9 mixed bag, 10+ success on 2d6. But I get where he was coming from, which I think is similar to what Lofgeornost is saying: let the game do some of the work rather than relying on the GM's arbitrary judgment, which makes it easier to put a thumb on the scales.

I don't think that would work that well in play, unless you go for opposed rolls all the time. And then the GM is still setting the difficulty.

Also, "all tasks are equally hard" only works for really narrative games. And of course, in PbtA the GM is very much setting the difficulty...by deciding when to call for a roll and what roll.

 

[Lofgeornost]

Well, that's a drawback of success-counting dicepools, I've found, and would be the same way with PCs. I am thinking of something like Cepheus, where the odds are quite clear.
Why am I using Cepheus? Because it was meditating on the advice of "crafting the dice throw" in Classic Traveller, combined with the FKR channel and movement, that finally made me understand the above.

You're right about success-counting die-pool systems. CC&G tends to turn it up to 11, though, because the target number, the number of dice that the player rolls, and the number of successes needed are all variable, though the g.m. only has to set the last. The only thing that is standard is the die type (always D10).

In some ways I like the fact that the odds are not intuitively obvious, at least for the players, since with rare exceptions that's the way things work in life--one doesn't know actual odds of accomplishing some task successfully, just whether in general it's hard or easy. And, I suspect that with experience one would develop a 'feel' for how likely outcomes are. From the g.m.'s perspective, though, it would be helpful to have some sort of handle on the probabilities to aid in setting the difficulty number (i.e. number of successes needed). I suppose you could generate tables for this, showing the probability of X number of successes for Y number of dice, with a target number of Z. But that would be a lot of work and a lot of table entries.

Don't they have a TN that they represent? In this case, set a TN. If they're of a higher TN, they succeed in making it to the shore. Those that are of a lower TN, drown (as per your boat example).

Well, actually they have assigned difficulty numbers--that is the number of successes a player will need in the pool to have an overall success against them. The target number is set by characteristics of the player. But the same principle could apply.

I recently saw a designer for whom I have a lot of admiration say something like, "Oh, I very strongly dislike 'GM-sets-a-difficulty' as a technique in play. Let's get rid of it." My reaction was, geez, that's kind of my go-to technique. What's the alternative? I guess maybe something like pbta's 6- fails, 7-9 mixed bag, 10+ success on 2d6. But I get where he was coming from, which I think is similar to what Lofgeornost is saying: let the game do some of the work rather than relying on the GM's arbitrary judgment, which makes it easier to put a thumb on the scales.

That's interesting. My own feeling is that I don't mind setting difficulty numbers, or their equivalent (say % modifiers to rolls in a D100 system) if the rules give some support to what those numbers should be.

 

[AsenRG]

You're right about success-counting die-pool systems. CC&G tends to turn it up to 11, though, because the target number, the number of dice that the player rolls, and the number of successes needed are all variable, though the g.m. only has to set the last. The only thing that is standard is the die type (always D10).

Well, yeah, but it's not the only such system by far...

In some ways I like the fact that the odds are not intuitively obvious, at least for the players, since with rare exceptions that's the way things work in life--one doesn't know actual odds of accomplishing some task successfully, just whether in general it's hard or easy. And, I suspect that with experience one would develop a 'feel' for how likely outcomes are. From the g.m.'s perspective, though, it would be helpful to have some sort of handle on the probabilities to aid in setting the difficulty number (i.e. number of successes needed). I suppose you could generate tables for this, showing the probability of X number of successes for Y number of dice, with a target number of Z. But that would be a lot of work and a lot of table entries.

Well, I can't really relate to that, since I don't think that "75%" is much more clear than "rather likely". In the end, if you try it, you're either going to make it, or you're not... and how many PCs try the same thing over and over to come up with probabilities?

Well, actually they have assigned difficulty numbers--that is the number of successes a player will need in the pool to have an overall success against them. The target number is set by characteristics of the player. But the same principle could apply.

It could. Whatever the numbers of the NPCs are, they can be used to gauge competence. Go from there, it works even in supposedly numberless systems (Amber)!

That's interesting. My own feeling is that I don't mind setting difficulty numbers, or their equivalent (say % modifiers to rolls in a D100 system) if the rules give some support to what those numbers should be.

Same here. Or I'd just turn it into an opposed roll!