But I write fantasy because I can’t do math!
Went shopping, tried to get quarters, got a hard time for having an expired ID card. I should probably do something about that, but it matters so rarely.
Watched (anime): Kowloon Generic Romance 4-6: Well, now we have Dr Snake’s minion’s theory about what’s going on, but even the characters we thought were in a position of knowledge or power seem pretty confused, and I’m not sure any of this explains what was going on with Blonde Friend. Female Lead seems to be doing better emotionally, so probably it’s all going to come crashing down.
Read (manga): Witch Hat Atelier vol 14 (Kamome Shirahama): And that is why every field needs both young whippersnappers and experienced elders, but no field needs dogmatic zealots.
Written (game design): 209:
Earlier I said there would be three outcomes from a disaster roll:
everything works as intended; partial or conflicted success; disaster.
The middle one is the most effort for the GM, who has to invent a
setback that doesn’t negate the success, so that should come up the
least often for playability, even if outright disaster should be the
least common for plausability. Which do we value most highly? If it’s
playability, then partial success comes up when you make the roll
exactly; if it’s plausibility then a disaster happens on a natural 18 or
something. That’s if we want to keep the Hero 3d6-roll-low. Something
like PbtA 6-/7-9/10+ or FitD’s 1-3/4-5/6 more naturally gives a
three-way outcome, but the range doesn’t feel as large as would match
the 1-12d6 of powersets. They’re completely different rolls, they don’t
have to match directly, but having, for example, skills that only go
from -1 to +4 feels too constrained.
Although, a disaster roll isn’t exactly a skill roll, and definitely
isn’t a to-hit roll. It definitely is more like a PbtA/FitD “how’s that
going for you?” roll, which once again is veering into filthy story game
territory. In the interests of our already-stated goal of not being as
hard on the GM as a full-fledged story game, can we make a list of the
possible results of a disaster roll? Obviously if you make the roll,
then you apply the condition you intended to the target(s) you were
aiming for, or as close as possible, and determine the level of the
condition with an effect roll using powerset dice.
The other obvious two-bit values are right condition wrong target (you
didn’t melt the Despairmech(tm), you melted the bridge truss), wrong
condition right target (you didn’t gently incapacitate the criminal
goon, you crushed them like a bug), and wrong condition wrong target
(you didn’t freeze the villain’s feet in ice, you made the road slippery
under the mayor’s car). There are always infinitely more ways for
something to go wrong than to go right, though, so I’m not sure this is
helping. Even having to pick a point on the scale from No Big to
Complete Disaster is a pain.