Had the realization that I only know one “fortune at the beginning” game which is a system my brother came up with…
Had the realization that I only know one “fortune at the beginning” game which is a system my brother came up with for PbP games after he noticed that people were reluctant to post interesting descriptions of their actions because the dice might turn out badly.
So what he came up with was a system where the GM would set a description out with difficulties and enemy stats public and then the players would roll their dice before deciding what they do.
2 – you fail. You can try any number of actions but they all fail. Trying to do too much at once might be why you fail.
3 – you have a terrible showing. You get one action with a -2 to relevant totals. You might succeed at the action but you do it in an embarrassing manner as compared to your normal performance at this task.
4-5 – you do poorly. You get two actions at -1 to your relevant totals.
6-8 you put forth an average showing. 3 actions at +0
9-10 you put forth a good showing. Four actions at +1.
11 – you put forth an excellent effort. Five actions at +2 one or all your actions might still fail, especially if trying something outside your expertise, but you quite clearly surpassed your normal limits.
12 – you succeed. Six actions. They all succeed.
In case of tied numbers the better narrative/description wins giving advantage to the player because the GM describes first always. In PvP the aggressor describes first, I believe.
Descriptions need to represent your roll. So if someone with excellent fighting skills rolls low they might still hit a weak opponent but because of frustration, bad luck or something it is not a pretty success and most people watching can easily see that they should have done better. Meanwhile if someone with low skills rolls high they might still fail but everybody is going to be impressed.
Also note that a good description of failing might cause you to get some benefit from the GM.
I ran it face to face in 30 min to 1 hour segments at a convention once. Worked pretty well.
Are there any similar games out there?
