So, the one roll engine. Anyone have any experience? How is reign? I've heard good things...

So, the one roll engine. Anyone have any experience? How is reign? I've heard good things, but I'd like to get bitched at on the internet.

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I'm not sure, user. I've heard good things, and also heard that it's a shitty system by a stupid hipster who doesn't know how to design good games.
But the folks who liked it seemed to know what they the system really well, whereas the guy who shit on it could give no specifics, so take that as you will.

All I know right now is some interesting mechanics involves with the matching of dice and the like. Haven't seen how it plays though.

Given the art, and what I've seen on the free supplementary things, I can also see the the latter. A lot of odd different for difference sake thing. Maybe? Dunno that's why I'm asking.

The dice seems neat, but it's just never discussed.

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Metahuman Renaissance Quest

This quest in addition to being pretty cool is run using a slightly modified version of the ORE and Wild Talents in particular and a few anons questions about the system where answered in the various threads
I would check it out if you're interested in the system

Is this that game with men riding sidesaddle and stronk knight wimmenz?

Looking into it, it seems interesting.

My initial impression though is that it would offer too much variation, and not enough information.

I kind of like Star Wars FFG dice for a one roll type of system.

Yup it is. One of the races in the default setting got it into their heads that riding a horse normally makes a man sterile, so they ride side saddle to save their junk and have female knights because riding side saddle makes for a shitty knight.

Gross.

Look, fuck the setting (it already sounds like what we would classify as tumblr shite). Are the dice good? does it feel wingle wangle?

Rolled 1, 9, 3, 8 = 21 (4d10)

more familiar with Wild Talents but both use ORE

points buy (limit up to DM)
stat+skill=dice pool
one roll to do it all, hence the name
you want matches

more matches like five 3s mean you do it faster
higher matches like two 10's mean you do it better


get the ORE tool kit. its free and it explains the rules for the system and tips and such for making your own game

Here it is, keep in mind this is meant to be a toolbox so it's a little less focused than the actual games that use the system.

Okay, I looked into it some more, and here are some glaring problems that jump out at me. Sometimes different actions that would be resolved in one roll would logically use different skill/stat combinations, unless you flatten a diverse stat board into very wide open things like "combat-stat" and "combat skill"

You couldn't for example do a ORS type DND unless you combined strength and dexterity.

Well shit, thank you.

Interesting. Though to be fair, I've seen a bit of that in other systems as well. But I'll look out for that while flipping through.

>Sometimes different actions that would be resolved in one roll would logically use different skill/stat combinations

Wait, how is that a problem? I don't understand what you mean.

He means (I think) that because it uses dynamic initiative you can't easily convert D&D into ORE, because a lot of things that dex does is taken up by the dice rolls themselves.

Okay? I don't see how that's a shortcoming of the system.

You could use the Sense stat for initiative. In fact, the rules state that characters with higher Sense scores get to say what they do after everyone else, thus representing how they are able to notice and react to what's happening. Whether or not they actually manage that is up to what they roll, though.

Oh for the love of shit.

It's a superstition held within the setting. It isn't true. Your male knight can ride however he wants. Jesus, just fucking read the blurb.

It isn't tumblr shite, considering there are at least two cultures within the setting where rape is A-OK. People overreact and spread lies and misinformation. The setting is good and the game is good. The dice wingle wangle well, and there's a surprising amount of tactical depth possible with such a simple system.

But user! Most of the cultures are black! I need to demonize this thing I don't like by associating it with a group of people I don't like!

>Black
Olive-skinned. Most of the cultures are Greek/Mediterranean. There's like one black culture and two European ones.

I think he means "most of the cultures are black" in the same way that "strong womyn make u ride sidesaddle 'cause it's tumblr shit" is a fact about the whole setting. IE, it's stupid and wrong.

I thought that most of the cultures on Heluso were black and most of the cultures on Milonda were more olive/tanned.

And that the only "white" cultures are the wolf barbarians near the sunless plains and the Oblobs.

Whatever. Fuck this tumblr/tumblr whining shit.

Roll a character time. Give me 11d10.

It's left deliberately ambiguous in the book, because holy shit why the fuck are we still talking about this?

If you want to be a white Truil or a white Dindavaran, just be one. It's an RPG not a job application.

One Roll Engine is my favorite system, and REIGN is my favorite fantasy setting.

It's funny that you single out the sidesaddle thing when there's way crazier stuff all over it.

>Dindavaran Death Forging, a form of magic involving plunging a newly forged sword into a person to seal their soul into it to gain their skills

>Ironbone Magic, another form of magic that lets you do stuff like adding cutting edges to any object and ultimately turning your actual bones into iron (or some a heavier, weaker metal like gold or lead if you screw up the spell)

>Actually balanced martial vs magician systems. The worst fear of a mighty sorcerer is a dude in platemail with a shield and a lot of dice in Counterspell.

>The continents of the world themselves are in the shape of two humanoids embracing each other. The arm of one reaches over an ocean, and boats sailing under it can look up hundreds of miles and see the light of the cities built in the lightless shadow beneath.

It's such a good setting and a great system, it's criminally underappreciated.

It's also worth noting that REIGN was written well before Tumblr started spewing its crap, so it's in no way a direct product of that mindset. Greg Stolze just likes extremely different settings from most game designers.

Oh and Wild Talents is the best superhero game I've ever played, and I play it weekly.

Rolled 9, 3, 8, 8, 6, 10, 8, 10, 3, 1, 4 = 70 (11d10)

3x8, 2x10, 2x3, 9, 6, 1, 4

Professions:
Officer, Noble Byblow, Street Entertainer

Life Experiences:
Exiled, Racer, Gladiator, Religious Experience

You were a noble officer who, after being exiled, pursued a life of hedonistic pleasure. You experienced some sort of life-changing revelation during your debauched pastimes. Perhaps you've reformed, or perhaps you realized you weren't nearly debauched enough.

Rolled 3, 5, 6, 4, 3, 6, 1, 9, 3, 7, 9 = 56 (11d10)

Ok let's make another character and have them fight.

Significantly, he's a low-ranking noble, probably the bastard of some actual respected aristocrat.

3x3, 2x6, 2x9, 1, 7, 5

Professions:
Traveling Bard, Street Entertainer, Foot Soldier, Sorcerer's Apprentice

Life Experiences:
Mistaken Identity Shenanigans, Press Ganged, Magnificent Garden

You had...an odd life. A street performer and travelling bard, you found yourself torn from your magnificent herb garden to serve as a foot soldier aboard some ungodly vessel, only to be abandoned on an island where there so happened to be a wizard residing. A new life? Or just another tour of duty? You miss your garden.

Good catch! I had to look up byblow - it's an archaic reference to a bastard child. So let's have our first guy be a dude, we'll call him Draven. Stats in pic.

...

And our herbally-inclined, roughshod wizard, Sara. Stats in pic.

Note the Craving flaw. Should be good for what's next.

Thanks whoever you are.

So One Roll Engine truly attempts to live up to its name. Everything should be resolved in one roll, like it says on the tin. Combat, social interactions, troop movements, whatever. It all operates under the same framework. Two things you need to know:

Width: This is the NUMBER OF MATCHING DICE. So if you roll five dice and get 2,2,3,6,7, you've rolled a set of 2s, meaning for that check you have a Width of 2.

Height: The VALUE OF THE MATCHED SETS. In the above example, your matching dice were both 2s, so your check has a Height of 2. In the game's vernacular, you rolled a set of 2x2, with the first number denoting the Width and the second number denoting the Height.

Width tells you how quickly an action is resolved, Height tells you how well an action is performed. The higher the number the better in both cases. So a 3x2 would be resolved before a 2x10, even though the latter set is of a higher quality. Sometimes speed matters more. That's really the whole system in a nutshell. Combat incoming.

It's a character, anomaly, and artifact creator for a Roadside Picnic-based ORE adaptation. Still needs some work, and then all the lore and stuff added.

Making One Roll Engine one roll

arcdream.com/home/2011/05/one-for-width/

And i still want to learn how to make Powers in Wild Talents...

It sounds harder than it actually is. What are your hangups with Wild Talents powers? Foregoing the combat to answer questions.

I have more problems with Defensive Powers. I read, and read, and read i don't understand how they work.

And i really shit at making my own powers...

Ok, what problem specifically do you have with Defensive powers?

To review: All powers have either the Attacks, Defends, or Useful Qualities, or some combination thereof. An Attack power can only be used to Attack. A Defend power can only be used to Defend. A Useful power can do anything but Attack or Defend. What's your hangup?

Bump for superpowers and possible combat between foppish rogue and herb bard.

I kinda get lost trying to understand how defensive power affects damage. I know, its fucking stupid problem.

How Hd and Wd works for it. Hell, i still don't entire sure if Hyper Brawn after it or not.

Oh! Ok, that's understandable. The core book isn't written as well as some of Stolze's other products.

So, Defends powers act like Gobble dice from any other ORE product. You use defensive powers to ruin enemy sets.

Example:
Fuckwit McBadguy tosses a fireball at you. Fuckwit rolls 2x5 on his attack, not too bad.

You roll 2x6 on your "Fuck Fireballs" Defensive power. Each of your 6s cancels out one of Fuckwit's 5s, meaning his only set is ruined in his attack fails.

Gobble Dice only work if they have a Width and Height equal to or greater than your opponent's roll. So again, if an attacker rolls 2x5 and you roll 2x5, and your power has the Defends quality, you win the contest because your set is equal to or greater than the attacker's set. Do you understand?

Make more sense now.

While I like the idea behind ORE and think it has some great potential, there are several aspects to it,that i find somewhat dubious. But potentially possible to fix.

For example, multiple actions attempted simultaneously use the lowest dicepool between them (minus dice for a number of actions), But imagine, let's say, a world-class stunt driver (Drive 5 + MD), who has to shoot a gun (Firearms 1, because he was on a range a couple of times) during a maneuver. He can probably drive by planting his ass on a wheel and wiggling vigorously, while piss-drunk - as long as that's the only thing he does. If he tries to do anything else at the same moment, even something he doesn't expect to succeed (aforementioned shooting a gun), he'll drive no farther that the nearest tree - it is as if he completely lost his mastery of a skill.

Also, the way that parry and hit locations works, if I'm not missing anything, makes head (hit location 10) the most likely location to be hit. Since the probability for an attacker to get matches of 10s is the same as any other, but the defender has to exceed the "height" of the attacker - 10s are more difficult to defend against, than 5s.
One can just drop the "must exceed the height" for the defender, though.
Still, not entirely sure I'm satisfied with the current combat and damage systems.

And I think system by default underutilizes different things one can do with your dice to determine result - such as waste dice and "squishing". Most of the rules for those are optional and situational.

I found something interesting.

Ok this has raised a question. If I understand how called shots or expert/master dice work, wouldn't head shots become even more common?

Generally, yes.
There are other factors, though. First, helmets, which are justifiably has always been the most ubiquitous form of armor throughout human history. Those could be a deterrent against head strikes. Second, shields - in ORE, they can passively protect certain locations, typically hand and one other - head, for example - providing damage reduction.

Still, my original point stands.

What option for Power ORE have, beyond the one in Wild Talents?

Oh my I like this. I've always been all over the idea of scaring and wearing down characters without critical hit charts, and this is fucking perfect.

That's my understanding of it. Western Heluso is white (Truil Territories), the rest of Heluso is largely black (with the black Not!Japanese Dindavarans and the black Not!English Empire). The Seven Cities in the Milondese Desert are Middle-Eastern (both in look and theme), and Northern Milonda is Asian/Chinese (at least the Maemeck region is, based on the one image we get of one). The Oceans are ruled by the white merchant-prince Ob-Lobs with their crazy ass complex language and love of piracy.

It doesn't make much geographic sense, but then again the entire world doesn't make any geographic sense--what with gravity being relative to the surface you're standing on and the two continents being shaped like massive human figures in profile. And the whole sun-that-remains-motionless-and-dims-and-brightens-rather-than-rising-and-setting thing. The people themselves mostly claim to have been put there by their respective gods, and although the setting doesn't take a hard-line stance as to which (if any) of them are right, it's not outside the realm of possibility.

I don't understand the hate for the horse thing. It's literally a paragraph of setting info.

Like, to swing a sword, you need to be big and strong, so soldiers are mostly men. Just like in real life. There are two real exceptions to this; one of them practical, and one of them purely cultural.

The first is magic. You don't need to be big and strong to dance the flame dance and start shooting fire out of your hands. As a result, there are a lot of female spellcasters in the military.

The second is the horse thing. It's a completely arbitrary superstition, but riding a horse is considered the absolutely girliest thing you can do. The prevailing understanding is that riding them makes you impotent. It's described as, and I'm quoting: "Beyond the pale, socially--about as bad as a man wearing lipstick and a bra and nothing else running down the street in our modern world."

See, it's not that men can't ride horses, it's that riding horses gets you called a cake-boy. Keep in mind this is a setting where the concept of "left" and "right" shoes is just starting to catch on, and mechanical locks have only recently been invented. This is a setting where Iron (not steel) is the standard when it comes to armaments, with wooden armor still being extremely common. Compared to most fantasy, Reign's setting is fucking *primitive*. They're superstitious, and this is one of those superstitions.

Anyway, the result? Women and eunuchs. Pretty much every cavalry unit is either women or eunuchs. That's their niche.

And that's it. That's the whole thing. I brought it up to my RL buddies when I ran Reign for them, and the only comment one of them made on the subject is "Man, I can tell the author's ridden a horse. That shit hurts." But Veeky Forums flips it shit over the horse thing every time Reign gets mentioned.

>One of the races in the default setting got it into their heads that riding a horse normally makes a man sterile, so they ride side saddle to save their junk and have female knights because riding side saddle makes for a shitty knight.

Oh... That actually sounds like something people could believe in Ye Olden Times... A knight must protect his lineage after all.

The only thing I don't really like about ORE is how height functionally never really matters, and indeed can't matter, because it's a 100% random thing that character builds don't really interact with at all aside from whatever the equivalent of Advantages were called, where, like, if you were Beautiful say, you'd have a +3 Height to any roll made to seduce someone or something like that. So what you end up with is an aspect of the dice rolling system that doesn't actually interact with anything at all aside from comparisons to other dice rolls, so if two guys get the same Width, but one guy has better Height, the guy with the better Height just got the success due to purest of pure dumb luck.

It just bugs me how the dice system tries to get a lot of stuff resolved with one dice roll, but doesn't really satisfactorily make use of the concept of Height at all. It's just "you randomly did better this time," when we're using a fucking bell curve designed to *lessen* dumb luck.

user, "you randomly did better this time" is a part of every game that uses dice at all. That's a feature, not a bug.

And for the record, most (all?) ORE games have mechanics for allowing you to control the height of your sets. Squishing dice, Master and Expert dice, etc.

What.

Your odds of getting a higher role is still depending on the number of dice you have in your pool. It's not like everyone has a 5% chance to critical. Which is commonplace anyway.

>user, "you randomly did better this time" is a part of every game that uses dice at all. That's a feature, not

No, fuck off, there's a difference between "I rolled the dice, and the character skills and abilities I have improved my chances at success, so I reliably succeed" and "I did the dice rolling equivalent of flipping a coin and I won you lost ha ha ha."

Nevermind how Height functionally does not matter compared to Width. More Width is always far and away better unless you are specifically trying to get tricky in combat with hit locations. In almost all of the ORE games I've been in, any regular, out of combat, Skill resolution rolls made scarcely understood how to make use of Height to begin with. "Oh, uh, you Fast Talked really... fast, but not particularly well, because you got 3x2."

What?

Having better stats mean you have to more dice to roll, which in turn means getting bigger and higher sets.

If you have a problem with the probability curve i'm all ears to talk crunch but it's not 'flip a coin' as you put it.

>you'd have a +3 Height to any roll
Besides what others have pointed out already there is another problem here.
ORE pretty much never gives +number to height, it instead sets minimum heights. Like with the basic beauty advantage where you could roll 5x1 and it counts as a 5x3, or the top tier beauty where that 5x1 is 5x10. So it is then made all about width which you can control.

>"Oh, uh, you Fast Talked really... fast, but not particularly well, because you got 3x2."

You mean like how in d20 when someone rolls Bluff and...then what?

Or in literally any system that uses rolls for social interactions? Grasping at straws, user.

>Or in literally any system that uses rolls for social interactions? Grasping at straws, user.

Like hell it is. In a d20 system, if you pass a DC, you've passed the DC. You've gotten your way and conquered the challenge.

I am using an example to illustrate how Height and Width are downright confusing and difficult to use in a number of obvious situations. Width measures how "fast" and how "strong" the thing you do is, but Height measures your "skill"? What does that even mean in a social context?

It's an obvious problem, and your inability to see it makes me think you need to drink less of Stolze's semen.

>Width measures how "fast" and how "strong"
No, Width measures how quickly you complete something. That's it. Height measures quality and "strength".

I think your problem is you have some kind of reading disorder, or you just can't be bothered to read the basic instructions of how to play ORE games in the beginning of every ORE book.

>In a d20 system, if you pass a DC, you've passed the DC
And in ORE, if you roll a set higher than your opponent's, you succeed.

I don't understand why you think this is difficult. I understand less why you're hostile to people defending the game from your misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding RPG rules and getting angry at people who try to correct you is a Veeky Forums tradition, user!

>No, Width measures how quickly you complete something. That's it. Height measures quality and "strength".

>Width usually indicates speed and competence. Wide sets happen before narrow sets—so that 4x1 indicates something done with much greater speed than that 2x10. In a fight (for a common example), Wider sets go first and do more damage when they hit.

>Do more damage when they hit
>Competence

Page 10 of the very rules we're discussing say that you're wrong.

>And in ORE, if you roll a set higher than your opponent's, you succeed.

Which further illustrates that Width is all anyone cares about, and that Height is tacked on and functionally matters little, which was my point to begin with.

>Which further illustrates that Width is all anyone cares about, and that Height is tacked on and functionally matters little, which was my point to begin with.

Different tests require different things. Some tests may require Width, yes, but others may require Height instead. It's all contextual, instead of "It's this way, period." like in DnD.

>Different tests require different things. Some tests may require Width, yes, but others may require Height instead.

Why?

What on *earth* does that possibly add to the game?

Even you, ORE fanboy, could not accurately explain what the real difference between Width and Height is, and had to be corrected by the author's own words. And literally every GM I find for ORE is like this. Nobody has any real clue what Height is or what it's for besides acting as a tie breaker between equally Wide rolls and the decider of hit locations.

Why exactly is this vague and difficult to explain second dimension to the rolling system at all valuable, when all most rolls are trying to get to the bottom of is "Does the Thing happen successfully or not," or as you so wisely put it, "It's this way, period"?

What the FUCK do you actually need Height for, and why do I need to bust out a completely different probability table to figure out what my actual chance of success is if my roll suddenly, wholly at the GM's discretion, "decides" is more relevant to whatever Height is supposed to mean than Width?

As I have pointed out, this is a blatant flaw with the system. It introduces a second element to a dice roll that nobody really understands beyond "tie breaker" and "hit location," and it adds nothing else to a game.

Height beats target numbers and Width determines action order.

In combat, this is roughly equivalent to attack rolls beating the opponents AC and initiative determining action order.

That's literally it you people. God damn.

>Height beats target numbers and Width determines action order.

We've already established that Width is what matters in contested rolls, so trying to summarize it that way is foolish.

But that's wrong. Another user already mentioned that contests can also be determined by Height, and Difficulty is explicitly and exclusively beaten by Height. I'm not sure you're entirely familiar with the system you're complaining about.

The part about combat is true, but also take into account that the height still reflects on the quality of the hit and only in contests with the defender parrying. So while the head may be the most likely location to be hit, it only gets hit on a truly spectacular strike that outspeeds any attack on the defenders side, making the fact it's to the head just a side effect of how great it was. And as I said with the defenders attack part, if instead of parrying they attacked you and hit firs with a 3 width hit you lose the ten pair

Let's say that two characters are in a race. In this case, whoever rolls a greater Width will win, as they were faster and reached the finish line before the other character.

Now let's say that both are in a shooting contest where they are trying to nail targets. In this case, the Width would determine whoever finished first, but the Height would determine who was more accurate and who actually wins.

Or, to put Height completely on its own, lets put the hypothetical two in a cooking contest like Iron Chef. Time doesn't really matter, and only quality needs to be rolled, which is Height. Whoever gets the highest wins.

>What the FUCK do you actually need Height for
Height is how well you perform an action
Width is how fast you perform an action

One roll tells you how fast you did something on top of how well you did it.

Why is this so difficult for you to understand?

>if you roll a set higher
>Width is all anyone cares about
Your example contradicts your talking about width as being the most important. It would have said "if you roll a set wider" for you to make sense

No, they don't, because you're using the rules for combat for social interaction. Which the game tells you not to do.

>Which further illustrates that Width is all anyone cares about

No it doesn't, because Height determines hit location. It doesn't matter if you do a 2K damage attack on a location with heavy armor, it won't do anything. You're deliberately looking for reasons to hate this game because you misread the rules and are now butthurt about being called on it for some reason.

So anyway, let's go back to a combat example. I'll use the randomly generated characters from earlier in the thread.

Draven will have, say, Leather Armor underneath his posh digs (AR 1, protects locations 7-9) and an arming sword. Sara will also have Leather Armor, but also a rapier and a buckler. I think this will cover the basics of combat - attacking, defending, resolving damage. As it progresses we'll do environmentals, maneuvers, Martial Paths, and all that fun stuff.

Combat starts and proceeds at the players' pace. There's no real initiative order, and one is in fact presented as an optional rule. Player characters attack in whichever order seems the most logical.

Draven and Sara, both down on their luck and penniless, find themselves drowning their sorrow's at Old Chestnut's Tavern and Grille. Sara's complication, her desire to beat on soldiers, finds an unfortunate hook when she spies the militarily-appointed Draven staring not-so-inconspicuously at her from across the bar.

Some words are exchanged, some chairs get knocked over, some swords come out. You guys get the idea.

The first stage of combat is the Declare phase. Everyone says what they're going to do. I'll control Sara, who says she's going to stab Draven in the arm. What should Draven do?

Distract her, and knock her rapier our of her hand

Rolled 3, 4, 10, 10, 1 = 28 (5d10)

Cool. That's two actions, using a Fascinate pool and the Fight pool. We pick the lower of the two pools toss one die out, roll, and hope for multiple sets. Draven's Fascinate pool is 5 dice, and his Fight pool is 3. So right off the bat, you can see that if your stats or skills are too low you can't perform multiple actions. For the sake of the example, let's bump Draven's pool to 6. Multiple actions always incur a 1 dice penalty. Roll 5d10. I'll roll for Sara, who is using her Fight pool at 6 dice. Because she's only trying to stab Draven in the arm, she'll set one die aside at 4 (The value of the left arm location) and roll 5 dice hoping for a match. This is a Called Shot.

Rolled 3, 8, 6, 1, 10 = 28 (5d10)

>Called Shot.
Going to nitpick. In Reign a called shot carries a 1 die penalty, unless you have an ED because it is pretty much an eternal free called shot.
So Sara would be rolling 4 dice with one set at 4.

TAKE MY RULES LAWYERING! TAKE IT!

Woops, not a nitpick. Just a dumb mistake on my part. Sara makes her Called shot and stabs Draven in the arm, since Draven has no sets. Sara deals 3 Killing damage to Draven's arm, which is now seriously injured.

Multiple Actions and Called Shots are really only useful if you're Batman-tier competent. At lower levels, like Sara and Draven here, it becomes a crapshoot. It's always best to commit to Attacking, Defending, Parrying, or Moving.

>Just a dumb mistake on my part
There are enough small ORE variations it might have been something from another one that got changed in Reign, like to make it a bit grittier than something like wild talents.

Height is also extremely important for a lot of skills that face some measure of difficulty, like sorcery in Reign, or which are generally contested, like Stealth and Lie.

It's actually a nice thing in ORE that different skills actually work differently from each other. Reign has a really nice section on special rules for skills that makes it so that skill rolls can be as interesting and dynamic as combat.