First off, hope everyone is doing well and taking care! Wish all the best to all.
The last couple of sessions in our group we came up with a different mechanic for action rolls, resistance and stress. We like the suspense of how much stress it takes to resist depending on the dice result, so we’ve decided to do as follows:
Use [Stress] on a 1:1 ratio to modify the dice result of the rolls. So, if your best dice is [4], you could spend [2] Stress and modify it to a [6]. Or even, modify a 1-3 to a 4-5 depending on how much Stress they have left. This is a kind of [Push] and, also, if the player wants, they can modify another dice do an extra 6 do get the [1+ Effect].
Of course, they end up taking less Harm, but only initially. If they’re not careful, they burn through their Stress track fairly quick. We’re enjoying this approach on resource management…
We ran five sessions like this and nothing has broken, so far …
By no means I claim to be an expert on the system, so I really want to hear from you!
I would say that unfortunately, this is not equivalent to a Push, in terms of result and probabilities.
With a Push for dice, you spend 2 stress but you still always have a chance of failure (1-3).
With your system, you spend the same amount of stress, but you can eliminate completely the chance of failure.
So your procedure is much more potent.
Also, you say you “like the suspense of how much stress it takes to resist” ; this suspense is due to the randomness of the dice result. But your system eliminates a lot of the randomness of the amount of stress you will have to spend in total.
So I fear it could be quite detrimental to the “gritty” atmosphere that the game is supposed to have.
Of course each table and each GM can choose how gritty they want their game to be, so if you enjoy this way to play, it’s good. But it makes it quite another game.
This is certainly a way to play and, as you noted, nothing will break. It makes action rolls similar to downtime rolls, in that you can spend in-game currency to achieve the results you want. So a die roll is no longer to see what happens, but to see how expensive success will be. That makes the game more like Fate, in which points can be spent after a roll to improve it (but in that game, the GM also has points that can be used to bid up the cost).
I don’t think I would play this way using the Forged in the Dark system. I like setting all of the stakes before the roll and then letting the dice decide what happens.
Yeah, I agree; It kinda looks like a “”“more structured”"" version of Fate.
To be honest, one of the things that lead me to try this houserule was in cases were a consequence is avoid when resisted (like the disarming example on page 32). Of course, it always depends on the fiction, but we’ve come across, more than one time, situations where a player rolls a 4-5, resist a consequence and, with all things accounted for in the end, it was “as if” they spent Stress for a six. (hm… could I make myself clear …?).
Again, it’s not always and for harms and clocks and whatnots we tend to reduce the consequence. But I mean, in some cases, fiction wise, it’s very difficult do “reduce” a consequence (again, the disarming example). That’s why I wanted to experiment a little.
That’s what I love about FitD; It’s a living thing in my brain! Putting the fiction first and having “rules for the conversation” makes everything so much smoother.
in some cases, fiction wise, it’s very difficult do “reduce” a consequence
“They stab you a lot” is easy to make “they stab you some” but sometimes it’s more complicated.
Sometimes I’ve changed the consequence when this happens. “They see you” becomes “you manage to hang outside the window so they miss you, but now you’re hanging outside the building”, for example. Effectively you figure out a new consequence that’s less severe, and fits the fiction you’ve built.
There are some alternate rules for resistance in the Tweaking What’s There chapter: Hardcore Resistance means you roll as usual but take stress equal to the lowest die, so you can’t get a free resistance roll. Uncertain Resistance means you roll as usual, but you take a stress according to the severity of the consequence, and it’s not always successful. This one is ironically more hard core than the rule above.
