Chatty’s Review: Silvervine, Basic Challenge Mechanics

This post is part of a series that tackles the reading review of a yet unpublished RPG called Silvervine. Please note that this game is still in development, my review is part of the pre-playtest feedback. Last time I tackled Character Generation, now it’s time for the 1st (of 3) posts on the game’s Crunchy bits: Basic Challenge resolution.

This post is massive (more than 2000 words), impatient readers are invited to skip to the conclusion at the bottom….

Basic Mechanics:

All right, Silvervine’s crunch rests mostly on one key mechanic: the rolls for success/failure that applies to all kinds of challenge.

I’ll quote directly from the text:

• The character’s relevant and supporting attribute determine the number of d10 to roll.
• Any dice rolled at 8 or above is considered a success.
• Any relevant skill the character has lowers the number that has to be rolled on the dice. A skill of 1 in a relevant field will make a 7 or above a success.
  
• If you get the required number of successes, as set by the Game Master or situation, then the action is successful.

The attributes are Strength, Reflexes, Perception, Knowledge, Spirit, Toughness and Appeal.

An attribute score of 2 is average and 7 is considered supreme.

Instead of going into details of the mechanic, I’ll create an example not in the book and walk through it, adding my thoughts in italics.

So if a Beefy (STR 4), Very Tough (TGH 6) character wants to break down a door by tackling it real hard, I start by adding the main ability score (STR) that comes into play + the most appropriate supporting attribute (TGH). This gives the player the number of dice to be rolled.

The book says breaking a door is STR+REF but I disagree and decide to rule otherwise… that’s what GMing is all about no?

Let’s say the door is one of those Iron-reinforced fantasy Dungeon door…

The system asks the GM to set difficulty of the roll: The target number to roll and the number of successes needed to succeed. The game suggests setting the target number to 8 and play with the number of successes to determine difficulty.

So the target number is set to 8 and the number of successes to break down a study iron-reinforced locked door should be…

The required number of success chart found in the book is not all that useful because it doesn’t define what’s the true difference between Complex, Difficult, Hard and Incredibly Hard. There is a humorous one liner about people’s reaction if you succeed (Hard= 6 successes = “Hercules is impressed. He might need a Sidekick”).

This type of fluffy crunch tends to annoy me because as a GM, I expect clear examples of feats that represents the difficulty.

Another thing that confuses me is that while the rules doesn’t encourage doing it, a GM is allowed to play with either the target number or the number of successes needed to set a challenges difficulty. This makes setting difficulty more of an art than a science if you aren’t a Math major.

(Continued from before the italics) …Complex, which means 4 successes.

So the character now has ten d10s and needs to roll8 or more on at least 4 rolls.

Now I tell the player this info. The player then checks his character sheet for relevant skills, powers (called focuses) and story element that could help him succeeding.

A relevant skill lowers the target number to 7, 6 or 5 depending if the character has 1,2 or 3 levels invested in the skill. If he has a higher skill, he gets an extra dice per point above three.

So the player tells me he has a 1 level in Architecture, I agree to lower the target number to 7. He also reminds me that he was raised by Dwarves and has spent countless time around such doors. I give him a circumstance bonus in the form of another dice (for a total of 11).

Note to John: I may have misunderstood the extra die thing. Do you need to have purchased a focus that comes into play to get an extra die or are pre-established story elements sufficient to get the bonus?

So now the player rolls eleven d10s and needs to get 7 or more at least 4 times.

I’m not a math-head so I really don’t get how difficult such a roll is because this is more complex than the 3d6 or 2d10 bell curves of Gurps and BESM respectively.

Let’s say that the player rolls 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 5 so that’s the exact 4 successes needed.

At that point I ask the player to describe to me how he went about bashing the door and how it turned out knowing he succeeded, the player is encouraged to make this as cinematic and entertaining as possible.

End of example

This challenge mechanic can be applied against a set difficulty (Player vs environment) . In opposed challenges 2 characters roll against one another against a set target number and the one with the most successes wins.

It can also be used in extended challenges (multiple rolls to hit a much larger number of required successes) or in group rolls (multiple players role against a larger set of required successes).

The game also has 2 options for Extraordinary successes (The always-appreciated Critical!).

If all dice come up as successes you get to reroll all dice and add the additional number of successes to your pool (which affects some challenge metrics like damage and such).

Alternatively, a player who rolled enough successes can try to ‘push his luck’ and roll one more dice. If he succeeds, he gets to a new series of rolls as above, if he fails he loses 1/2 of his successes.

This is quite an interesting critical success mechanic! The gambling choice is very juicy indeed. This his my favorite part of the game’s crunchy bits so far.

Basic Mechanics Conclusion:

While I find the mechanic original, the thought of adjudicating target numbers, number of successes and then having players point this skill and that helping factor is giving me a virtual headache. As a somewhat lazy DM, I’m much more comfortable with D&D’s/Gurps/BESM’s target number +/- circumstances bonuses.

But I’m sure some people will appreciate this system more than I. I’m also a bit leery of having to do such calculations for all rolls especially for NPCs. I feel that players must trust me when I tell them that a NPC has a circumstance bonus that gives him an extra dice.

Robin Laws aside: I believe that Silvervine sits on the ‘More control for the GM’ side of the game-style scale where the mechanics, while based on very detailed options, are vague enough that a large ammount of GM fiat is needed. Compare this to D&D 3.X where the focus and tightness of the rules favor player control of the game’s mechanics.

However, I can see myself enjoying this as a player as I know I would enjoy digging my character’s sheet and backstory to get all kinds of juicy bonuses. And the resolution is very ‘Axis and Allies’ like where it’s fun to throw a bunch of dice in a box!

Combine this to the funky critical success rules, and I can envision myself having a blast rolling a ton of d10s

Halftime Conclusions
All right I’m about halfway through my review, I plan to tackle the non-combat specific mechanics, then combat and a lastly write about setting. Still, I’ve already have a good idea on my general stance on this game.

I would totally be a player of this game. As I have discovered recently, I’m a story-telling, psycho-dramatist player. From a player’s standpoint, Silvervine would be perfect for me. I create the exact character that I want.

Then the GM tells me what happens, and handles all the game’s metrics. When a challenge arises and once I know what I have to roll, I can shop for cool bonuses based on my character design. I can even fast talk the GM for some freebies! I get to roll a ton of dice (which I like to do) and the GM gives me the spotlight to describe what happened as I see it.

That I dig totally… As a player.

However, as a GM, I don’t think I’d want to have anything to do with that game. The challenge mechanics is too complex for a guy like me who likes eyeball difficulty rapidly. I also find Char Gen too developed to allow me to create mooks on the fly (a bit like Gurps did for me… by the book, balanced Adventure prep was arduous).

I must say that it’s the 1st time I ever came to this conclusion (Yay as player, Nay as GM) with a Role Playing game. I’m curious to see if the rest of the game will reinforce my stance or convince me otherwise.

Thanks for reading.

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