V1 to V2

To all who have interest in this project,

Version 2 is out! While I stand by my ideas and philosophies of Version 1, I'm also excited about evolving this system.

Dice Rolls

Old Version

In V1, there was only support for dice. Furthermore, dice would always result in either Success or Failure. I decided this was a bit misleading, at least for me while designing V2.

New Version

In V2, the wording of 'dice rolls' has been slightly adjusted so as to exclude dice with an uneven amount of sides (staring at you D3) and to include card decks. There are a ton of cards out there without clear even/odd results, but I toss that ball to your court. More importantly, Even results changed to EFFORT and Odd results changed to LUCK. I do acknowledge this isn't extremely intuitive, and it's a bit contrived. However, I like the concept at play. If a player is skilled at something versus weak at it, they require less luck to succeed. Hopefully it won't take too long to remember which is which.

Difficulty

Old Version

In V1, we didn't get any guidance on difficulty increases or decreases. This was actually intentional, with the thinking that GMs and game makers would come up with their own way of handling difficulty. 

New Version

While I liked the open ended method of difficulty in V1, I had to incorporate some sort of difficulty system in V2 in order to make the change to attribute modifiers discussed below. At first I tried to name the tiers (such as Easy, Hard, etc.), but I decided it might require less memory to simply use numbers. This still allows GMs and game makers easy flexibility to rename/reflavor the difficulty tiers however they like.

Attribute Modifiers

Old Version

In V1, I included dice roll modifications that weren't clearly defined (Disadvantage, Straight, and Advantage). While this was fairly easy to interpret due familiar terms used in other games, it was also a bit elusive. I actually liked that the terms were open to interpretation, given this system was inspired by FKR thinking. Of special note was the Disadvantage roll which could see its chance of success alter quite a bit based on interpretation. What I didn't like, was that it was not very unique. If I'm going to be vague, I'd like to at least do that using something more original. 

The other problem with V1 attribute modifiers was that they did not have a lot of depth or numerical variance. While this was more elegant than V2, it was seriously lacking for gamers who enjoy a wider array of probability or chance? Maybe there was nothing wrong with it hehehe. In either case, you can see below what those numbers looked like: 

New Version

V2 has a vastly different dice roll interpretation and chance of success. As mentioned already, emphasis has been placed on this tug-of-war between Luck and Effort. 

To succeed at a task with an attribute they're Weak with, a player must present a number of Luck (odd - think luck #7) results equal to the difficulty of the task. 

To succeed at a task with an attribute they're Average with, a player exactly 1 Luck (odd) meaning the rest of the success or failure is due to Effort (even), or the lack thereof. 

To succeed at a task with an attribute they're Skilled with, a player must present no more than 1 Luck (odd), this makes easier tasks practically guaranteed, while  chance of success slowly drops off as the difficulty increases. You can compare all this math with the previous version by looking at the table below:

Cosmetic Changes

I made a few grammatical and other minor changes throughout that don't require a lot of attention. Something to point out is that an earlier version of V1 had included a weird world building table at the bottom that should not have been included in a core system. I removed it some time ago but did not make any notes about it. Another thing to mention is that I made the Meta Currency section a little more thought provoking, or at least I tried to. 

Final Notes

While V1 was more elegant and was quicker when interpreting dice rolls, it was also a bit flat and vague. While V2 may require a cheat sheet at first to remember how to interpret results, it also has more depth and character which, hopefully, will allow more games to easily build upon the system. I've included cards along with dice in V2, hopefully this opens the door to infinite other things that could be used. Coin tosses? Spinners? Rock, Paper, Go (not rock, paper, scissors)? So long as it's fun and it fits within the Bernoulli process, feel free to use it.