The previous article talked about setting up and testing a basic Monte Carlo model of FATE combat. This one tackles the task of introducing FATE points to the model. Most of the article covers testing and optimizing the model. Readers not interested in finicky details of model building are really encouraged to skip to the Results section at the end. Seriously, it’s ten pages of details, just look for the picture of fudge dice.

FATE point mechanics

While different versions of the mechanics change things up a bit most FATE systems use FATE points. FATE points are a limited pool of points that can be spent for a number of different bonuses. However, in order to spend a FATE point the character not only needs a FATE point but needs an appropriate Aspect.

Aspects are character abilities that are usually a phrase or description like “Veteran of Normandy” or “World’s Greatest Mechanic”. In order to use a FATE point in a situation the character has to have an Aspect appropriate to the circumstance. So a “Veteran of Normandy” could spend points on combat rolls or getting along with other veterans while the “World’s Greatest Mechanic” could spend points repairing things or to have a special gadget rigged up in their car.

Any number of FATE points can be spent on a roll within two limits. First, the character has to have the points. Second, only one point can be spent per Aspect on a given roll. So a character with “Crack Shot” and “Veteran of Normandy” could spend two points on a roll to shoot someone but without a third applicable Aspect couldn’t spend three.

Several different bonuses can be purchased with FATE points. Most iterations allow some world editing like declaring that one of the character’s war buddies is in the bar in the middle of nowhere. In terms of dice rolls players can usually choose between rolling the dice again or simply adding +2 to the roll. Obviously, which of these is preferable depends on the original roll. Adding 2 to a roll of -4 only gives a total of -2 while rerolling will give -1 or better over 4/5 of the time. In contrast, adding 2 to a +3 roll gives a total of +5, more than any roll can ever yield. Table 1 shows how a reroll compares to just adding 2 for different original rolls.

Table 1. Comparing Rerolling the Dice to Adding 2

For very low rolls, -4 or -3, rerolling will generally give better results. For moderate rolls, -1 or better, adding 2 is generally the best plan. At -2 the average results are the same and the choice would depend on how much randomness a player wanted.

Model Assumptions

The huge number of variables shows why I’ve been trying to avoid FATE points. How many points does the character have, do they have the right Aspects, reroll versus add 2, spending multiple points on the same roll, etc. In order to put this in a program some pretty restrictive assumptions needed to be made and so the results will at best be an approximation of the effects of FATE points.

For ease of handling, the model assumed that the characters had appropriate Aspects but would never spend more than one point on a single roll.

Then there was the question of which rolls to spend the points on. The model could easily separate out attack and defense rolls so was able to take a look at only spending for attack, only spending for defense, or both attack and defense.

However, it also needed a criterion for when to spend points on these rolls. For attacks, missing by 1 is just as much of a miss as missing by 3. Because of this it seemed likely that only increasing rolls that were already pretty good would yield better results. So the model used a cutoff for spending on attacks. Only rolls making the cutoff or higher caused a FATE point to be spent. For attacks this was always adding 2 to the roll, since rolls of -4 or -3 wouldn’t really meet the criterion for pretty good roll. The opposite is true for defense rolls. Once damage is 0 increasing the defense roll is meaningless. Ok, for aficionados, some versions of FATE have a special bonus for beating an attack roll by 3 or more but I didn’t worry about that. So the model used a cutoff for spending on defense. Only rolls making the cutoff or lower caused a FATE point to be spent.

Timing can be very important for spending FATE points. Spending the character’s only point to reroll a -1 defense roll may seem a poor choice if the next round they roll a -4. However, it’s a program and so the choices needed to be hard coded. It was set up as a first come, first serve model so points were spent whenever they were available and a roll made the cutoff for FATE point use. Since the program made attack rolls before defense rolls this also meant that attack rolls took precedence over defense rolls in a given combat round.

Testing and Fine Tuning

Attack!

Because the attack algorithm of always adding 2 was so simple, I started testing with attacks. The first test was to see whether adding in FATE points for attacks was symmetrical. If both opponents were given a FATE point they should have equal chances of winning the fight. Figure 1 shows the results for 1 FATE point each with an attack cutoff of 0 or better and, as expected, there was no bias between the opponents.

Figure 1. Equals Attacking with 1 FATE Point

Like increasing attack values over defense, using FATE points to increase the attacks should shorten combats. 1 FATE should produce a shorter fight than no FATE points though not as much as setting attack skills 2 points higher than defense, which would be like using a FATE point for every attack. This is confirmed in Figure 2 which shows that using FATE points to increase attacks shortens the fights.

Figure 2. Attacking with FATE Shortens Fights

The next question was where to put the cutoff for attacks. Changing this should have little effect when both opponents had FATE points so the test was run with Pain having 1 FATE point for attacks and Suffering 0. Table 2 shows that the optimal choice for opponents of equal skill is 0, though the differences are generally very small. Flipping the number of FATE points flipped which opponent had the advantage, but the advantage was unchanged indicating no bias in the model.

Table 2. Attack Cutoff for Equal Opponents

Defense

With attacks working as expected the next step was to test using FATE points for defense. I started with a system that used rerolls for any roll of -4 or -3 that made the defense cutoff and +2 for any roll -2 or higher that made the cutoff. Once again symmetry between the combatants was tested. Each opponent was set to equal skill and 1 FATE point to be spent only on defense with a 0 or lower cutoff. As seen in Figure 3 there was no bias between the opponents.

Figure 3. Equals Defending with One FATE Point

Just as FATE points for attacks shortened fights, FATE points for defense should lengthen them. Figure 4 shows a comparison between no FATE points, 1 point spent for defense, and setting attack skill 2 lower than defense skill. As can be seen spending for defense increased the length of the fight.

Figure 4. Defending with FATE Lengthens Fights

Next came the question of cutoffs for the defensive roll. Also, how the dynamic system of rerolling or adding 2 depending on the original roll fared against always rerolling or always adding 2. As with attacks, Pain was given 1 FATE point and Suffering 0 and the simulation run for different cutoffs. Table 3 shows that the optimal defense cutoff for equal skilled opponents is -2. As expected this is a lower cutoff than for attacks. However, comparing Table 2 and Table 3 shows that spending on defense seems to win more fights.

Table 3. Defensive Cutoff for Equal Opponents

I also compared the algorithm of rerolling for -4 or -3 and adding 2 for higher rolls with always rerolling or always adding 2. As expected, the algorithm performed better than the other strategies.

Both Attack and Defense

The next test was to run fights with the option of attacking and defending with fate points. Both combatants were set to equal skill and 1 FATE point using an attack cutoff of 0 and a defense cutoff of -2. The results confirming symmetry are shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. Equals Attacking and Defending with FATE

It should be noted here that the model used in this and the previous article is the second version of the model. The first version failed this test. That model calculated one set of attack and defense rolls and then the other set. The result was that Pain would decide on whether to use FATE points for attacks then defense while Suffering would decide on defense and then attacks. Given the limited pool of FATE points the timing of the choice mattered and the results were not symmetrical. The new version decides for attack and then defense for both combatants.

This shows the importance of running tests on the model. Also, it shows how subtle an error can be. When no FATE points were used or they were used only for attack or only for defense the original model worked just fine. The timing error only showed up when testing both attack and defense.
Given the availability of both attack and defense bonuses it was unclear what affect the FATE point would have on combat length. Figure 6 compares spending for both attack and defense to no FATE points as well as FATE only for attack or only for defense.

Figure 6. How Attacking and Defending Changes Combat Length

The results mostly resembled that for attack only use of FATE points. The reason became clear when I tried to determine the optimum cutoffs for the combined attack and defense. Running through all the possible combinations from -4 to +4 for both variables would have been too time consuming so I looked at permutations around the previously determined cutoffs. Defense cutoffs of -1, -2, and -3 for different attack cutoffs were tried as well as different defense cutoffs for an attack cutoff of 0. Table 4 shows the results with the best results for any given attack cutoff shown in red.

Table 4. Combined Attack and Defense Cutoffs for Equal Opponents

The first thing to note is that the best value for defense only, 55.6% for a -2 cutoff (Table 3), is higher than the highest value, 55.4 for a 4 attack and -2 defense cutoff, in this table. A mix of using a single FATE point for both attack or defense is not as good as using it solely for defense. Consistent with the defense only cutoff calculations, the best values were obtained for a defense cutoff of -2 or lower.

One odd result was that at a defense cutoff of -2 there were two maximums for the attack cutoff. This is probably easiest to see as a plot.

Figure 7. Mixed FATE Use at Defense Cutoff -2

This appeared to be the result of the superposition of two effects. One is the optimal attack cutoff of 0. The other is that using the point for defense gave better results. Thus when the attack cutoff became strict enough that the point was more likely to be spent on defense than attack, a cutoff of 3 or higher, the percentage wins started to rise again. An attack cutoff of 5 or higher, which could never be rolled, would be the equivalent of spending only for defense. Note that this also explains why in Figure 6 the attack and the attack and defense curves are very similar. With a defense cutoff of -2 and an attack cutoff of 0 the program was much more likely to spend the single FATE point on attack than defense and so the curve was very similar to the attack only curve.

Results

After that overly long preamble, here are the results. Keeping in mind that these results are an approximation, Table 5 shows the percentage chance of winning a fight against an equal skilled opponent with different numbers of available FATE points. The table shows results for using FATE points only for defense, only for attack, or for both, though at most one point on any roll. The results are shown graphically in Figure 8.

Table 5. Effectiveness of FATE Points in an Even Fight

Figure 8. Effectiveness of FATE Points in an Even Fight

As expected, spending FATE points to increase attack or defense rolls increases the likelihood of winning combats. Having more FATE points to spend increases the benefit. However, at a certain point the increase levels off as the character has more FATE points than they will be spending for the fight.

Overall, spending points on both attack and defense rolls as applicable gave the best result. However, the defense results have some interesting quirks. The effectiveness of defense only spending falls off quite dramatically. This is likely the result of how the model was constructed. FATE points were only spent to increase defense rolls of -2 or lower, approximately a 1 in 5 chance on any roll. Even in fights with high numbers of FATE points available the vast majority lasted fewer than 18 rounds. 18 rounds would require 18 defensive rolls, on average fewer than 4 rolls of -2 or lower. This would explain the very minimal gains in having more than 4 FATE points.

However, the only time the mixed attack and defense expenditures were exceeded was for pure defense spending with only 1 FATE point, all be it not by much, 0.7%. My best guess is that it comes from rerolling really poor defense rolls. Rolls of -4 or -3 are reasonably rare at about 1 in 17. Thus it is unlikely that two such rolls would happen in any combat but one very well might. If the worst thing that could happen in a fight was a terrible defense roll then saving and using the character’s 1 point for that roll might be the best use of a single point.

The number of available FATE points is going to vary dramatically with the exact rules set and the campaign’s style. It seems unlikely that more than 3 or 4 points would be spent on an even combat. Fortunately, those are the most effective points in terms of increased wins per point spent, a little less than 8% per point.

Once again the article has gone on far too long. The next will cover the results of FATE points for uneven fights.

Writing For Games: Creating Your Own Scenario

Date: October 18

Game scenario writing is more than a game; it can also be a great career. The next STC Puget Sound meeting will help turn your interest in gaming into a career writing game scenarios. Local game scenario writers Mark Schuldt, John Sutherland and Hal Milton will explain how to create narratives, game mechanics and scenarios. They will also discuss how to make the mental switch from technical writing to game writing and the state of the video game industry.
To register, http://stcoct2011.eventbrite.com/

This article describes building and testing a Monte Carlo model of an entire fight between two combatants, not just a single roll of the dice, using the Dresden Files FATE combat system. I have used these types of models frequently and the goal here is to take a detailed look at what I’m doing when I put one of these models together. Those uninterested in the model and wanting to cut to the chase should just skip to Table 1. Once I have a functioning basic model I then intend to incorporate FATE points. The actual results of incorporating FATE points will be in the next article.

The Basic Model

Mechanics

The model was based on the FATE combat system in the Dresden Files, Diaspora, and to a great extent Starblazer Adventures. Starblazer Adventures uses d6 – d6 the others use fudge dice.

Mechanically characters have a certain number of Stress boxes representing how much damage they can take. This can vary depending of the type of conflict involved, physical combat can use physical Stress while social conflict can use mental Stress and these numbers can be different for the same character.

When a character is attacked in a conflict the attacker rolls four fudge dice, dice with an equal chance of rolling -1, 0, or +1, and adds the results generating a number between -4 and +4 highly skewed towards 0 (see FATE Minus d6 and Counting). The roll is added to their attack skill. The attack roll is then compared to the defender’s defense roll, also four fudge dice plus their defense skill. If the attack total is equal to or higher than the defense total the defender suffers Stress equal to the difference between the attack and defense totals. Yes, that can be 0. That’s because these games also use equipment/ powers that may do bonus damage or provide protection that reduces damage. These will increase or decrease the Stress by the appropriate amount. For example, an attack with a gun that does +2 damage would increase the Stress by 2 while armor that protects against 4 points of damage would reduce the Stress by 4, to a minimum of 0. Note that the modifications for equipment/ powers happen after the roll to hit so that an attack with +9 damage would do nothing if the attacker’s roll was lower than the defender’s, even by a point.

Characters add Stress as it is taken and if the total ever exceeds their number of Stress boxes of that type of Stress then they are Taken Out. In other words, they lose the conflict and bad things happen to them. Stress can be avoided by taking Consequences instead. These are bad things that happen to the character depending on the type of conflict. So Consequences in a fight are basically wounds, “twisted ankle” or “broken arm”. Consequences run from mild to severe with correspondingly longer recovery times and more difficulty dealing with the consequence. Starblazer Adventures also has an extreme consequence level.

Barring certain abilities characters can only take 3 Consequences and none of them can be of the same level. So most of the time a character can take 1 mild, 1 moderate, and 1 severe Consequence. Taking a Consequence reduces the Stress that the character just took, to a minimum of 0, by a certain amount, 2 for mild, 4 for major, and 6 for severe. As a result a character with 5 physical Stress could take at most 17 Stress and still be in the fight, 5 for the Stress with 12 points absorbed by taking Consequences.

Assumptions

Bonuses to damage and armor are really a subject for a different post and I didn’t incorporate them into the model. I also assumed that a character would stay in the fight as long as possible so that they would use Consequences to eliminate Stress. The heuristic I used was employing the largest Consequence that would reduce the Stress to 0 or more first. In other words, if a character took 4 or 5 Stress they would take a major Consequence reducing the damage to 0 or 1. If they had taken 6 or more Stress they would take a severe Consequence reducing the damage by 6 instead.

Then if the Stress would still result in being Taken Out I used the smallest available Consequences until either the character was still in play or ran out of Consequences. For example, if a character took 3 Stress the model would normally reduce that to 1 by having them take a mild Consequence. However, if that character had already taken a mild Consequence they would not take a major Consequence, -4 Stress damage, unless that 3 Stress would result in them being Taken Out.

Overall the goal was to “waste” as little of the Stress reduction from the Consequences as possible. Once again, I ignored initiative thus enabling fights to end in ties if both characters were Taken Out in the same round.

Testing the model

The first thing to do was test the model to make sure there were no programming/ logic errors and that it generally behaved as expected. The simplest test is to use two equal skilled opponents and see if they have equal chances of winning. As shown in Figure 1, two opponents both with 5 Stress boxes and combat skills at 2 had equal chances of winning the fight. Combats also most commonly lasted 10-12 rounds.

Figure 1. Combat Between Equal Opponents

Since the combat rolls are all opposed rolls as long as the attack and defense skills are equal the results should remain unchanged. Setting the combat skills to 0 or 4 or setting one opponent to Attack 2, Defense 0 and the other to Attack 0, Defense 2 all yielded results indistinguishable from Figure 1, just as expected.

Even if the attack skills were higher or lower than the defense skills, as long as the difference was the same for both combatants they should have even chances of winning. However, if the attack skills were higher, damage would be expected to be higher and thus combats shorter, and vice versa for lower attack skills. Figure 2 shows the effects of changing the attack skills from 2 lower to 2 higher than the defense skills. Only one curve is shown for each attack value since, as expected, the two combatants had indistinguishable results for each value. As can be seen, changing the relative attack value radically changes the duration of the fights, from typically 5 or 6 rounds at two better than defense to typically 32 to 40 rounds at two lower.

Figure 2. Effect of Relative Attack Skill

Similar behavior would be expected from raising or lowering the number of Stress boxes. Figure 3 shows what happens if the characters have 3, 5, or 7 Stress boxes. As expected changing the amount of Stress, i.e. damage, the combatants can take changes the length of the combat. However, the effects were nowhere as pronounced as changing relative attack skill.

Figure 3. Effect of Stress Levels

Establishing a Baseline

The controls indicated that the model was working as expected. Next a baseline needed to be established. Table 1 shows the chances for Pain or Suffering winning a fight depending on relative skill.

Table 1. Effects of Relative Skill on Combat

The results are symmetrical indicating no errors biasing the results between combatants. As with other FATE combat models even small skill differences have a huge effect on the results.

Next up, adding FATE points to the model.

Sparky, teenage electrical controller, flew ahead riding on a cushion of lightning. Forcespike had used her disco themed invisibility ray to turn him invisible, though the lightning would probably give his position away. He was followed by Turbo Smash and Forcespike in the “Minivan of Justice” while Luminon flew above them on a column of light.

The source of the trouble soon became obvious, a 30 story tall, cone shaped monster with three tentacles ending in giant suction cups and three giant eyes evenly spaced around its body. Sliding along the fields it was suctioning up the corn harvest and crushing everything in its path. To the West Sparky could see the National Guard moving in. 

The team quickly found that their attacks were basically useless against the gigantic creature. They also found that it was surrounded by a mist of alcohol. When confronted by the National Guard it had even sprayed them with an alcohol cloud rendering most of the guardsmen drunk. Just as Turbo Smash sent Sparky to tell the guardsmen to use their gas masks and some incendiary rounds, the commissioner called.

Midwestville was under attack! He couldn’t say what it was but windows were shattering, people were passing out or getting ill. There was panic in the streets. Midwestville needed the Knights. They were irritated to be recalled before dealing with the Maize Monster, but the commissioner was the boss. So the Knights sped North towards Midwestville.

Flying ahead, Sparky found the city in chaos. The streets were clogged with fleeing citizens and a zone of destruction swept across the metropolis. Everywhere it went, windows shattered, people screamed, a wake of panic and devastation. He saw one woman plummet from a 40th story window and managed to save her in time. She looked ill and disoriented. Deciding to find out what was in the zone first hand, Sparky flew into the chaos and promptly plummeted from the sky dizzy and ill. He barely managed to land and then collapsed.

Meanwhile the rest of the team decided not to fight the minivan into the city through the traffic and so Luminon transported his teammates in on columns of light. It was then that they spotted someone sitting on a rooftop surrounded by armed men. Turbo Smash tried to use his telepathy helmet to read their mind, but their will was too strong. Forcespike was dropped off across the street and used her invisibility ray to turn the top floor invisible. In case a fight broke out the men wouldn’t know where the edge of the building was.

Turbo Smash and Luminon flew in. Sitting amongst agents of the nefarious organization Gargoyle was a pretty woman wearing a kimono. They recognized her as Silk, a powerful enforcer for Gargoyle. When asked what she was doing she told them she was here to watch the giant monster destroy Midwestville.

“Sad really. Destroying a city with giant monsters is just so.. impersonal. But Emperor Guillotine does love his giant monsters.”

Realizing that courtesy was the key to circumventing Silk’s mental defenses, Turbo Smash used telepathy and polite conversation to find out what she was really up to. She actually had been ordered not to attack the city but to report on the monsters’ performance. Yes monsters! Using the super food research from Professor Macdonald, evil agronomist,* the emperor could now grow many giant monsters and had sent two to destroy Midwestville.

*The Knights of Midwestville Issue #1: Old Macdonald had a super fight

The team headed out to try to stop the monster presently in the city. Forcespike went to their somewhat damaged headquarters and with the help of Q^2 the team’s butler and equipment specialist she modified her invisibility ray into a visibility ray. Meanwhile, Luminon carried Turbo Smash out to where the monster was and decided to try to hypnotize the monster with a giant light show. Whether the monster was hypnotized or not Turbo Smash was. However, the monster did follow Luminon out over Lake Michigan. When it got over the lake it blasted water into the air creating a giant shower and wall of water, but at least it wasn’t in the city.

Forcespike arrived but couldn’t use any of the capsized boats to get out over the water. Fortunately, Sparky showed up and was able to carry her out to the action. Unfortunately, Sparky was also hypnotized by the light show. Forcespike hit the monster with her now visibility ray, but hidden behind the wall of water she couldn’t tell whether it had worked.

After Sparky flew headlong into Luminon bouncing humorously off of the light shield, Luminon dropped his light show and flew into the maelstrom with Turbo Smash. They couldn’t see anything until Luminon vaporized the water around them. In the few moments before the tide returned Turbo Smash noticed a strange rippling in the air. The creature was just barely visible thanks to Forcespike’s ray, but it was all around them! It was made of pure energy. A monster made of sound!

Sparky headed to the Midwestville Stadium where concerts are often held. Only one technician had stayed through the chaos. Sparky had him open the dome part way while the teenage electronics expert set up a giant sound sampling system/ speaker system. Meanwhile, Turbo Smash had festooned his armor with expensive crystal art causing him to give off a number of harmonics. Luminon them used Turbo Smash as living bait for the monster. He led it right into the stadium. The creature’s powerful sonic force left Turbo Smash stunned as all the expensive crystal shattered. Sparky was overwhelmed and the technician was heaving.

“You alright?” asked Luminon.
Heave, “Yeah, no worse than the after concert parties.”
“Then activate the sound system!”
Heave, “Ok, yeah.”

Sparky’s contraption sampled the sonic wave that was the beast, primed up a counter wave, and blasted it throughout the stadium. A squeal of feedback and blown circuits was followed by silence. The monster was no more!

As they headed back to the minivan the Knights noticed Silk leaving with the Gargoyle agents. They decided that the Maize Monster was more important at the moment and let her go, though not before Turbo Smash and Silk exchanged cards in case she ever returned to Midwestville or he made it to Tokyo.

Once again our heroes headed South. On the way they met the National Guard fleeing North. The incendiary rounds had just lit the monster on fire, as well as the alcohol soaked guardsman. Now it was burning its way across the state. The Knights could see the fires in the distance.

Turbo Smash came up with a desperate plan. His suit had an internal air system. So, he would get swallowed by the monster and attack from the inside. Being sucked up was easy, getting through the boulders in the giant gizzard was more challenging. He made it to the digestive track where tons of corn was being fermented into alcohol. In pitch darkness, waste deep in boiling corn mush he would have died painfully if not for his air supply and heat resistant suit. He couldn’t really understand the inhuman thoughts rolling through the creature’s mind, but he could use his telepathy to guide himself to its brain.

Ripping into its mind from the inside Turbo Smash proceeded to destroy its brain. Outside the monster went wild spewing fire and destruction. The rest of the Knights scrambled to rescue the civilians caught before the oncoming tide of flame. After what seemed like an eternity the monster finally stopped, breathing its last.

Turbo Smash shoved aside one of the gigantic eyeballs. Standing in the socket, covered in brain and digested corn, the flames from its still enormous supply of alcohol raging along the 30 story corpse, he surveyed the scorched Earth for miles around.

“So, did we win?”

Mechanics

Rolls in Diaspora use a typical FATE set up, roll four fudge dice, each numbering from -1 to 1, yielding a roll from -4 to +4 and adding a skill. If a target number or better is rolled, the roll succeeds with possible bonuses for how much the roll exceeds the target. If the roll is lower than the target, the roll fails and may result in penalties for how much the roll is short of the target.

Damage is applied under certain circumstances, like being hit in combat. Damage is scored on a Stress Track, a number of boxes that get filled up as more stress is accumulated. If a character takes too much Stress they are Taken Out. Something bad happens to them depending on how they were Taken Out. Someone Taken Out in a ordinary combat may be killed while someone Taken Out by financial insolvency may be reduced to working in a soup kitchen for the rest of their life or being on the run from the mob. A certain amount of Stress can be avoided by taking Consequences, basically temporary penalties. Only so many Consequences can be taken, however, and if enough damage is done a character will eventually go down.
As implied by the above, Diaspora has a Stress Track for wealth to show the state of a character’s financial situation. Whenever they try to buy something they roll wealth against a target number. On a success they purchase the item, on a failure they purchase the item but take Stress equal to the amount they failed the roll. Selling items can remove Stress damage from the track but can never increase the number of boxes on the track.
Running a merchant vessel has its own extra set of rules. Every so often a roll has to be made for maintenance of the vessel. This uses the Trade skill and is subject a number of modifiers, most of them penalties. If the roll is failed the vessel takes a consequence, which will hamper the vessel and make further trade rolls more difficult, and the owner takes wealth Stress. If the roll succeeds the amount of extra success can be used to heal wealth Stress. This whole situation can be avoided by making a wealth roll against the amount the trade roll failed by, but if the wealth roll fails that character takes wealth Stress.

The length of the wealth Stress Track as well as the bonus to wealth rolls is determined by the character’s Assets skill. This is treated like any other skill and can be raised or lowered by swapping it for a different skill, i.e. a character with +4 gunnery and +3 assets could switch and get +3 gunnery and +4 assets. It can also be raised with experience like any other skill.

The Boundary Problem

The problem occurs because spending and losing wealth is handled by an entirely different mechanic than gaining wealth. Unless a character is spending experience or reducing other skills their Assets skill will never increase. Even if it does increase, that is entirely a matter of experience and skill swaps and can be done even if their mercantile activities are a flop. Buying, selling, and running a merchant vessel uses an entirely separate mechanic that can never increase the Assets skill. Thus the Assets skill forms an upper boundary that buying and selling cannot change. It doesn’t matter how much salvage a character sells or how successful their trading career, that doesn’t affect the Assets skill.

However, while there is an upper boundary, there is no lower boundary. Because wealth can take Stress and result in Consequences or even being Taken Out, with some poor play and/ or horrible luck a character can end up completely bankrupt. Since the system involves lots of rolling and can only go in one direction it is really only a matter of time before any merchant vessel is bankrupt. Now, this may take longer than the campaign and so not occur during play, but it is just a matter of time. Thanks to that boundary, the character could have a hundred highly successful trade missions and they would still be no better off than when they started, but a few poor rolls and they can be in trouble.

It isn’t surprising that the merchant system has an upper boundary as it is modeled on the combat system. Almost all damage systems have a boundary effect. Characters don’t get healthier by not taking damage in a fight but they can be killed in one. For something like physical damage, such a system makes sense. People can’t just get healthier and healthier without limit eventually getting to a point where they can fall 500 feet or get hit by a missile and live. Ok, there are systems where that sort of thing happens, but you know what I’m saying. However, wealth isn’t one of those limited things. Someone can just get wealthier and wealthier.

The rules stress that the Assets skill is a part of the character and intended to be character and story driven. That is perfectly reasonable. But if the upside of wealth is character and story driven why not make the downside also character and story driven? FATE already has the perfect system for this, a way for the GM to introduce problems based on descriptions of the characters. So if the characters have a ship described as a merchant vessel the GM could use this to cause dramatic, story driven problems. For example, if a GM wanted to force the players to scrounge around on a planet for money, and probably adventure, they could have the food shipment spoil in transit so the characters can’t sell it, leaving them with too little money for berthing fees and refueling.

The corollary is if they really wanted a system to capture that Traveler merchant trader feel with money really mattering they could have just gone with a full monetary system. It could be quite abstract even using Stress Tracks rather than a specific currency. But the system shouldn’t limit a merchant to either treading water or failing, they should also be able to succeed.

Conclusion

To make rules more consistent and easier to understand most modern games try to use the same systems for as many parts of game play as possible. This is certainly a worthy goal. However, they often forget that the mathematical models behind a system might not model everything equally well. Tacking an inappropriate mechanic onto part of the system ends up not making the game easier, just more annoying. Also, if game designers want a dramatic rather than “real world” mechanic they should use a drama based mechanic. If they want “real world” they should use a “real world” mechanic. Not that they can’t be mixed but, having entirely different goals, they usually don’t mix well.

I’m not going to repeat his ideas here, I’d rather you read it from him, but I also want to point quickly to some thoughts I jotted down here some time ago on running a con game, including writing game blurbs.

Having recently prepared the convention for Dragonflight for the fourth year in a row, I can tell you that most GMs don’t put enough effort into their game pitch.  It’s often unclear, too long and verbose, or merely grabbed from an online review (like those from RPG Geek and Board Game Geek).  When you scroll through the list of games, it doesn’t make your eye and brain stop on the description.

Despite what Ryan describes, I get most of my convention players from people who liked the game description friends, of course.)  I always make sure my game blurb doesn’t look like “second verse, same as the first!”

Mechanics

For non-conflict rolls in PDQ players roll 2d6 and add the result to the character’s skill, which will be divisible by 2 i.e. 0, +2, +4 etc. If the total equal or exceeds the target number set by the game master the roll succeeds. Conflicts are slightly more complicated. In The Zantabulous Zorcerer of Zo and Truth and Justice rolls in conflicts are basically the same as normal but instead of rolling against a target number the attacker rolls 2d6 and adds their attack skill while the defender rolls 2d6 and adds their defensive skill. For every point that the attacker’s total is higher than the defenders the defender takes a point of damage. In Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies players get to divide 3 dice between attack and defense rolls, so an attack will be 0 to 3 d6 plus the attacker’s skill against 0 to 3 d6 plus the defender’s skill. The point of this article is to compare the teamwork rules, not the huge change in the basic combat mechanic. So for this article it will be assumed that all rolls are made on 2d6.

The teamwork rules from Swashbucklers of the 7 Skies use added dice. For a group working together to accomplish a task, say lifting a large stone or trying to kill an opponent, the character with the best skill rolls the dice and adds their skill. However, for each character aiding them they roll an additional die, but only get to keep the normal number of dice. For example, if three characters tried to lift a rock and the highest skill was Strong +4 that character’s player would roll 4d6, the 2 original plus 1 per helper, keep only the 2 highest die and add 4. If the roll was 6, 3, 5, and 2 they would keep the 6 and 5 and add 4 form the skill for a total of 15. The same applies to combat. However, as an attacker can use 0 to 3 dice normally they would decide on how many dice and then add extra dice for their helpers and keep the original number of dice. For example, if three characters attack someone and the best skill is Fighter +4 they could choose to roll 1 die for their attack. The would then roll 3 dice, the original 1 plus 1 per helper, and keep one the best single die, as they decided to only use 1 die for their attack, and add 4. Again, in this article it will be assumed that they are using 2d6 and so it will be identical to non-conflict rolls.

The teamwork rules from Truth and Justice simply add the skills together. So three characters with Strong +4, Huge +4, and Athletics +2 respectively trying to lift a rock would choose one player to roll 2d6 and then add all of the skills together, for 2d6 +10. The same applies for conflicts.

Effects of Teamwork

Obviously, adding skills together just increases the final total. 2d6 +6 will roll 4 higher than the same 2d6 +2.

Adding dice is not as straight forward. Because only the best dice are kept, the maximum roll does not increase. 2d6 +6 has a maximum of 18 while 6d6 keep 2d6 +6 also has a maximum of 18. However, as seen in figure 1, the extra dice shift the roll towards the higher end of the curve.

The result is very different probability curves for the different teamwork mechanics. Figure 2 shows the chance of making specific skill rolls or better for a single character with skill +4 to the above mentioned group with +4, +4, and +2 using either the adding dice or adding skills rules.

As can be seen, the skill adding rule is quite powerful compared to the die adding rule.

Teamwork in Combat

Because of their very different effects on the rolls the choice of teamwork mechanic can greatly influence the utility of teamwork, especially in combat. The easiest way to see the difference between acting individually and the two types of teaming is with an example. Suppose that a group of characters like we’ve been discussing (+4, +4, and +2 skill) is attacking a target. They can always roll individually, each rolling 2d6 and then adding their appropriate skill. The target would roll defense rolls against each attack and take whatever damage came through. They could also team up on the target making one attack roll using whatever teamwork system the game uses. Table 1 shows the average damage per round that the team would do to an opponent of different skills rolling either individually or using the add dice or add skill teamwork rules. Results that are better than attacking individually are shown in red.

Using the add dice rule teams work better than attacking individually only when the target’s skill is pretty high compared to the attackers, +8 or +10 compared to the attacker’s best of +4. Using the add skill rule is better for all but the most incompetent opponents, anyone better than 0.

Table 1 Average Damage per Turn Attacking Alone or Teams

One interesting upshot of the add dice rule is that the bonus is dependent on the number of helpers, not their skill. For both attacking individually and adding skills if the helping teammates skills are lowered, to say +4, +2 and +2, the average damage will go down, but not for the add dice team. This means that the utility of teamwork using the add dice rule should change depending on the level of the helpers skills. If they are very skilled it should favor them acting on their own, if not so skilled it should favor them aiding a more skilled teammate. Table 1 also lists average damage for a team consisting of equally skilled fighters, +4, +4, and +4, and a main fighter with lesser skilled teammates, +4, +2, and +2. As expected, using the add dice mechanic the higher skill team is better off teaming only against a very skilled foe. For the lower skilled team teamwork is called for against most opponents. The add skill rule continues to be better against all but the weakest targets.

Good Combat Option?

Looking at the two teamwork rules in terms of good combat options how do they stack up?

Sometimes better than a regular attack: Yes, both teamwork rules are sometimes better.

Sometimes worse than a regular attack: This is actually very important for teamwork rules as they have an inherent downside. When teaming one player is doing the rolling and everyone else is helping them out, so it is not quite as enjoyable for the players as everyone getting their own actions.
Yes, the add dice rule meets this requirement often being worse than individual attacks.
No, the add skill rules really doesn’t. In all the examples teamwork is better against everyone but non-combatants. So teamwork would be the optimal choice for pretty much every combat the characters undertook.

It should do what it is described as doing: Yes, teamwork is expected to give generally better results than one character trying to act alone and so to be used for dealing with difficult tasks, like hitting an incredibly skilled opponent.

Conclusion

The add dice teamwork rule meets the criteria for a good combat option, the add skill rule doesn’t as it is just too effective. I highly recommend the add dice rule for teamwork in PDQ.

Using the option should be a meaningful choice: If choosing the option, or not, is effectively irrelevant then there is no point to its existence. In general any option meeting the next two principles will pretty much meet this one but it is an important consideration.

Sometimes better than a regular attack: This is a fairly common problem. Seriously, if the option is always, or almost always, going to give worse results than a regular attack why would anyone bother writing or learning the rules for it? Only people that don’t know it isn’t any good will ever use it.

It should be noted that this doesn’t mean that an option can’t always be mechanically worse than a regular attack. The option would just have to provide a way to do something desirable that a regular attack can’t. The classic example would be knocking an opponent out rather than killing them. Even if doing so was always more difficult than just killing them there can be important game reasons why the characters need the target alive. Under these circumstances the result is superior to that of a normal attack.

Sometimes worse than a regular attack: Another incredibly common problem. If the option is always, or almost always, better than a regular attack then everyone who can use it will. The inclusion of such an option begs the question, why isn’t the option the normal attack?

This can also be a measure of personal preference. An attack that gives more damage but a lower chance to hit might not be mathematically better or worse than the regular attack but would provide a player a choice for how much randomness they want in their results. It’s better or worse based on player esthetics rather than mechanically.

It should do what it is described as doing: Whatever the option is described as doing should be what the mechanics actually do. If throwing sand in someone’s eyes is supposed to be an option for a sneaky fighter to gain an advantage, it should actually be a way that a sneaky fighter can gain an advantage. If called shots are supposed to help deal with tough, armored opponents, then they should be good against tough, armored opponents. The players shouldn’t have to run all the numbers to be able to tell what the option actually does.

Violating this can cause frustration and annoyance. Since the option doesn’t do what it is supposed to, those using it for that purpose are likely to become very frustrated. After all, it doesn’t actually do what they are trying to do. On the other hand, power gamers who have figured out an effective use for the option will be at an advantage and that can annoy other players.

Conclusion

When designing combat options game developers should keep these principles in mind. Make sure that the option provides a real choice for the players. Expand their options in combat rather than have rules that everyone will ignore or use all the time. Make sure that the option truly works the way it supposed to work. Finally, accurately describe to the players what the option does so that people beyond power gamers can use it effectively.

Mechanics

In order to damage an opponent in combat a character rolls 2d6 and adds their attack ability, which will be divisible by 2 so 0, 2, 4, etc. The defender rolls 2d6 and adds their defensive ability, also done by 2’s. If the attacker’s total exceeds the defender’s the defender takes one point of damage for every point that it is higher. So if the attacker rolls a 10 and the defender a 7, the defender takes 3 damage. The damage comes off of a character’s abilities. Once a character runs out of abilities to damage they are defeated.

One wrinkle is that there are several editions of the rules. In some if there is a tie then both characters take a point of damage and they roll again until one has a better roll than the other. This analysis will be slightly off for anyone using that rule. Some editions have attackers take damage for every point that they miss by. So if the attacker rolled a 7 and the defender a 10, the attacker wouldn’t just miss, they would take 3 damage. In PDQ sharp characters get 3 dice for combat and can use 0 – 3 of them for their attack and the rest for defense. Either of these rules significantly alter combat and this analysis just can’t apply to games using one of those rules.

Another important wrinkle is that in PDQ almost any ability can be used in an attack like fashion. Opponents can be brow beaten into submission with persuasiveness or intimidation etc. For the D&D port this is less common as many opponents are relatively immune to alternative attacks, persuasion isn’t going to work on a wolf pack, even in PDQ. However, these calculations are based on the idea that the characters have a main skill that they use for most of their combat rolls. If the players constantly switch which abilities they are using for their attacks these results will be less useful. In addition, an unexpected use of a rarely used ability might make a fight easier than the calculations indicate. I don’t see that as a problem, rather a reward for thinking outside the box.

Chance to hit

Table 1 shows the chance to hit an opponent at a given difference between attack and defense abilities.

Table 1 Chance to Hit and Average Damage

This has some implications for how high an opponent’s defensive abilities should be. I’ve learned through painful personal experience that players really, really hate missing. Given a choice between defeating an opponent by hitting them five times or missing four times and taking out a foe with the fifth attack, players will much prefer hitting five times, even though the final results are identical. They defeat the opponent in five attacks. This means that the GM should avoid using an opponent with a defensive ability 6 higher than the player’s best attack ability. Unless the goal is to force them to use an unusual ability to combat the opponent it will do nothing but frustrate them. Actually, it will probably frustrate them regardless. Even 4 higher is likely to be bad unless they have hero points or other ways of increasing their chance of hitting. So in general a ‘hard to hit’ opponent should have a defense 2 higher than the character’s attack ability.

Rule of Thumb: Don’t have opponents with defense more than 2 above the player’s best attack, for most opponents it should be lower than the best attack.

Time to failure

For the most part, opponents in PDQ are made in a similar manner to PC’s. However, this generally doesn’t work if the GM wants to have one powerful opponent fight an entire group of PC’s, like a huge Purple Worm attacking a group of adventurers. Either their defensive skill is so high that it drives the players crazy or the opponent takes so much damage so quickly that it really isn’t much of a fight.

Table 1 also shows the average damage done per attack depending on skill differences. This can be used to give a rough estimate of how many attacks it will take to defeat an opponent. For example, an equal skill attacker will take around 11 attacks to inflict 15 damage (15/ 1.4 = 10.7). Now, there are several caveats to this calculation.

No hero points: The calculation doesn’t take into account resources like hero points, which can be used to increase rolls or damage. If used by the attacker it will decrease the number of attacks needed, if by the defender it will increase them.

Only works for larger numbers: Because it is based on the average for a pretty variable roll the calculation really only works if the result is a reasonable number of attacks. For an opponent that is going to be defeated by only 1 or 2 hits the base chance to hit is a better measure of how long a fight will take.

Doesn’t include the death spiral: Damage in PDQ is applied to abilities. Once a target takes damage on the ability it is using to defend itself the chance of hitting and average damage increase considerably. If their defensive abilities are used as part of the total damage that a target can take the calculations will over estimate the number of needed attacks.

Assumes that attacker is basically unharmed: This is how long it is expected to take if the attacker wins and doesn’t have their attack skill damaged in the fight.

Because of the variability of the dice rolls, it is just a rough guess: Figure 1 shows the distribution of how many attacks it takes to inflict 15 or more damage on an equal skilled target. The most likely numbers are 10 or 11 attacks, just as predicted. However, it can easily take more or fewer. The range 8 to 14 just covers over half of the results.

Keeping the caveats in mind, this table can be used to get an idea of how tough an opponent should be. A group of four players with attack skills of +4, +4, +4, and +6, respectively, would be expected to inflict a total of 3.2 damage a round (3 x 0.6 +1.4 = 3.2) against a +6 defense target. So what if a GM wanted to have a Purple Worm with +6 Combat ability attack them and last around 5 combat rounds? Assume that damage to the worm’s combat ability would result in a quick death spiral so figure that the 5th round takes care of the combat ability. So the worm would need to be able to take 4 rounds of their average damage or basically 13 damage (4 x 3.2 = 12.8) to non-combat abilities.

If opponents need to be generated quickly, the average damage a group inflicts on differently skilled opponents could be calculated ahead of time. For example, the group mentioned above does 3.2 damage/ round versus a +6 defense opponent. Against an opponent with +4 defense they would do 6.8 (3 x 1.4 +2.6 = 6.8). So a table would look like Table 2.

Table 2. Example Group’s Average Damage Per Round

Rule of thumb: It’s a very rough guide, but Table 1 gives at least some idea of how long an opponent will last. Average damage per round can even be pre-calculated for the whole team when facing different skills.

Seattle’s Chinatown has been sealed off from the rest of the world by a mysterious force – with you in it! Face off against Triad gangsters, sexy ghosts, hopping vampires, ancient demons and more as you struggle to find a way home. Pregenerated characters will include a wide variety of people who might be in the ID on the 4th of July weekend, such as a cosplaying anime fan, a Hong Kong detective on the trail of a crime boss, a member of the local fighting tong, a Taoist sorcerer, or Ichiro Suzuki. Spend power points to receive lucky red envelopes containing facts and rumors, surprising secrets about your character, or new twists to the story! octaNe is a rules-light game for those who love improvisational roleplaying.

We’re still looking for more games.  Come on – you know you want to run something!  Drop me a line at tlucretius@gmail.com and sign up to run something.  Help support the game community in Seattle!