Things just get harder...

[ffutures]

This is a very tentative idea for skill etc. use in the fanfic game.

Basically, the Diana system makes some skill use very easy. I think I want to add a mechanism so that the first time around easy things are easy, but if you keep on using the same shtick again and again there are penalties. Eg. Clarkson has "Drive really fast" 6, the first time he uses it he just has to roll one success, The second time and subsequent times he uses it he needs at least two successes. But if he had a second relevant skill such as "soup up vehicles" he could use that again without penalty.

I think it may be too complicated for the sort of cinematic games I have in mind - maybe the GM just needs to ask for more successes as the adventure progresses, it might be simpler.

Thoughts?

Comments

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with the Diana system, but one way of balancing things out is to include flaws. So Clarkson has "Overconfident" at -2 and "Boorish" at -3.

If it's dice pools, then he rolls negative dice along with the positive dice. Every successful negative roll cancels a positive roll.

[gfieendish.livejournal.com]

The only snag with the former, is that some power gamers will take as many flaws as possible as mentioned above, in order to gain extra character points to use during initial character generation...


As for the initial dilemma, the 1990's Hard Boiled RPG (Hong Kong Action Movie Genre) overcame this problem, by making the players state precisely in a cinematic style, what they were going to do during their turn.
If they failed to do this, or just merely stated that they were using their skill, then the referee was perfectly entitled to impose a hidden negative modifier to any rolls that said sloppy player made...

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

Good points, but I was thinking of how the Truth and Justice game, using PDQ, handles flaws: You must take one flaw (-2). The flaw must affect you at least a quarter of the time. So you can't take "Hates Paisley" but instead you could take "Overconfident boor". The benefit of taking the flaw is that when the GM applies it to you character, you get a "hero point".

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I think on the whole that I don't want to go overboard on making problems - it's really just a matter of figuring out the number of traits / characteristics / skills / whatever the characters get and putting in some guidelines for the referee on ways to discourage power-gamers. Mostly characters in this game will be successful - that's the nature of the genre - it just needs to be fun!