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How Wild are you?
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 5:46 pm    Post subject: How Wild are you? Reply with quote

Or, "How do you adjudicate the wild die, both 6 and 1?"

What do you do when an exploding 6 results in insanely high results? 20, 30 points above the difficulty?

More mundanely, what is your rule of thumb on a 1 on the wild die? How do you decide when it's a complication, a failure, or a mishap?
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cheshire
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 6:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When it's an exploding six that's WELL above the difficulty, I usually throw on some sort of bonus. As in "you succeed AND..." There was one time someone rolled a 30+ for a melee defense roll. As a result, they blocked the shot and they disarmed the other guy.

In terms of what to do with the 1? When is it a failure? For me, only when they also do not meet the difficulty number. Complication and failure are not necessarily the same. I've combed over every itteration of the D6 mechanics I could find (I even wrote an article about it once for the D6 Magazine -- though not my best work). As the years went on they got more and more harsh about how to treat a 1, pretty much punishing people on a 1 in 6 random chance.

Though it's not the way it goes by the RAW, I play it that you can succeed and still have a complication. Once someone hit a SUPER high attack and SUPER high damage. Funny, they rolled a 1 for both attack and damage rolls. So, when they gashed into the carnivorous plant that they were fighting, they had to get out of the way of the digestive enzymes that came gushing out. In fact, I think they even broke off the battle to dive into a pond to wash off the liquids.

There are usually creative applications of complication in most scenarios. But if I can't think of anything, I don't force it. I'll take off the highest and lowest if I can't think of something relevant.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:48 am    Post subject: Re: How Wild are you? Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
Or, "How do you adjudicate the wild die, both 6 and 1?"

What do you do when an exploding 6 results in insanely high results? 20, 30 points above the difficulty?


Cheer for the player rolling it...

MrNexx wrote:

More mundanely, what is your rule of thumb on a 1 on the wild die? How do you decide when it's a complication, a failure, or a mishap?


It depends on what it was.. Most of the time i just do the take the highest and the wild out, but sometimes i pop in a complication..
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Whill
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

6 explodes like normal and I sometimes throw in a bonus effect for really high rolls, but that's for high rolls in general and not just when there was a 6 on the wild die.

For 1, I decide on one of the three RAW options with a minor change:

• Add up the dice normally.
• Total up the skill dice normally to see if the skill roll succeeded, but a "complication" occurs. (Yes a Complication can happen with success or failure.)
• Subtract the highest die (only). The 1 is already a 1 so subtracting the highest die is enough of a penalty.

Of course it is worth noting that the first and third options have the same result in cases where the roll was high enough to succeed even with the highest die being subtracted (success anyway) or low enough to fail with adding the dice up normally (failure anyway).

When choosing between these two options would be the difference between success and failure for close rolls, deciding between these two options is often an equalizing consideration. If I feel the adventure is going too easy for the PCs or the story would be better served with a failure, I may choose the third option. Likewise if the adventure is going too hard on the PCs or the adventure would be better served by a success then I may choose the first option.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My rule of thumb is to always subtract the highest die, then consider the results:

If "minus highest" is still a success, then they get a "Yes, but"... a success but a complication. Luke figuring out how to lock the door, but missing that it will also prevent them from extending the bridge.

If minus highest is a failure, but would've succeeded with that die? Simple failure.

If the full value wouldn't have succeeded anyway, then you get a failure plus a complication... Han trying to hotwire the door on Endor's moon, but accidentally closing the door that's already opened.
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Whill
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like it. That totally works.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 1:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whill wrote:
I like it. That totally works.


Thanks. I try to avoid posting my solutions in the OP, because I want to see if others have good ideas I didn't think of.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 2:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
My rule of thumb is to always subtract the highest die, then consider the results:

If "minus highest" is still a success, then they get a "Yes, but"... a success but a complication. Luke figuring out how to lock the door, but missing that it will also prevent them from extending the bridge.

If minus highest is a failure, but would've succeeded with that die? Simple failure.

If the full value wouldn't have succeeded anyway, then you get a failure plus a complication... Han trying to hotwire the door on Endor's moon, but accidentally closing the door that's already opened.


Interesting method.. Might have to give that a whirl next time i DM..
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Zarn
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

On a 6:

Reroll, keep going. Add together.

If you meet the difficulty, you succeed. For each class of success you go over, you get an increasingly larger benefit.


On a 1:

Reroll. If the reroll is a 1, you get a complication. If it isn't, remove the wild die and the highest die from your total. If you still succeed, you succeed but is disadvantaged. If you fail, you fail.


I've also introduced "positive wild dice" (i.e. wild dice that can only explode on 6, and doesn't do anything in particular on a 1), "negative wild dice" (I think it's obvious what this means). Dice bought through character points are positive wild dice. STR checks to resist damage only have positive wild dice.

There's also one particular wrinkle in the way I use wild dice:

Wild dice is for sentients.

Which means that there's no wild dice for (non-player) droids, or for something that is wholly done through a machine (damage from an unmodified blaster pistol, damage from a TIE Interceptor's cannons).

A droid doesn't get wild dice on their resistance roll. A droid doesn't get wild dice on hitting someone with their after-market blaster cannon. And so on and so forth.

Jury Rig dice are always wild dice.
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garhkal
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If droids are non sentient, why only non pc ones get teh no wild die?
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Zarn
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 4:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Because if I have a PC droid (i.e. a player playing a droid as their player character, not having a droid as a line on their equipment list), I like to use the same rules around the table. Well, ish, but that's the sentiment of it.

If I have a player playing an "NPC" droid ("Heck yeah, I'm the protocol droid now!") because of some circumstances, they stop worrying about wild dice for the duration of them temporarily taking the reins of the NPC droid.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 9:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm reminded of SAGA's difference in kinds of processors... all droids are artificially intelligent to one degree or another, but only certain droids (and seldom class five droids) were equipped with adaptive learning brains. PC droids were always considered to have the more advanced and creative brains, which also lead to them being more "eccentric" than droids not so equipped.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 10:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MrNexx wrote:
I'm reminded of SAGA's difference in kinds of processors... all droids are artificially intelligent to one degree or another, but only certain droids (and seldom class five droids) were equipped with adaptive learning brains. PC droids were always considered to have the more advanced and creative brains, which also lead to them being more "eccentric" than droids not so equipped.

There is a scene in the director's cut of Terminator 2 where the T800 had to be manually switched from read-only mode to heuristic mode, and they had to physically remove his CPU and flip a pin-sized switch to do it. That could be a useful dividing line in the SWU between "sentient droids" and animated appliances; the heuristic mode would be available, but deactivated unless the owner chose to activate it. It'd be similar to jail-breaking a cell phone; they don't block you from doing it, but it voids the warranty.
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MrNexx
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2016 12:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
MrNexx wrote:
I'm reminded of SAGA's difference in kinds of processors... all droids are artificially intelligent to one degree or another, but only certain droids (and seldom class five droids) were equipped with adaptive learning brains. PC droids were always considered to have the more advanced and creative brains, which also lead to them being more "eccentric" than droids not so equipped.

There is a scene in the director's cut of Terminator 2 where the T800 had to be manually switched from read-only mode to heuristic mode, and they had to physically remove his CPU and flip a pin-sized switch to do it. That could be a useful dividing line in the SWU between "sentient droids" and animated appliances; the heuristic mode would be available, but deactivated unless the owner chose to activate it. It'd be similar to jail-breaking a cell phone; they don't block you from doing it, but it voids the warranty.


I can see that, though I pictured it more as a feature you would purchase, rather than enable.

"We got this little R2 unit, with one of them heuristic processors. Smart as a whip, but you gotta watch out... they're more likely to get a little squirrely, need regular memory wipes."
"You got anything for longer-term use? Non-heuristic?"
"I got an R3 that should be ready in a day or so. Non-heuristic processor, Won't learn as fast, needs a bit more guidance, but cuts your memory wipes down from monthly to yearly."
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