One Roll Engine on Bundle of Holding

General/Looking For Group
1

A while ago, I mentioned my newest acquisition in Super hero RPG; using the one roll engine (and I will DM it one day, I promise).

Well, there is now a bundle of holding carrying this game here.

In fact, the bundle also carries a version of the Kerberos Club I DMed recently (I DMed the Savage Worlds version I got for cheap at Harry and I was considering buying the ORE version, funny how it turns out… :slight_smile: )

Neil mentioned another bundle of holding a while ago. Basically, it is a bunch of pdf sold for dirt cheap with the profits going to various charities…

So, yeah, it’s a nice opportunity if anybody is interested.

God, I will never get to the bottom of my “to DM” list, will I?

2

I’d like to actually play ORE some time. I read Reign (which is based on it), and liked the idea of the mechanics. Hard to grok though whether they’re actually any good in practice without playing them I think. (The whole “looking for sets in your d10 dicepool results” thingy)

3

Yep, I am the same way.

It seems simple and very elegant, but I have yet to play it… Soon.

4

Do give the system a look; it’s interesting enough. I’m not so sure about the simple part, though. Dice pools can become pretty large, and when you add things like expert dice, gobble dice, and so on, it can become fairly involved.

Oh yes: And I’d love to play that super-hero game!

5

I don’t know;

They don’t seem to get that high, after a while, you just buy master die and the like.
And the fact that you are just matching set should quicken things. Most sets will be two or three dies, so you can quickly eyeball these…

6

Sorry, I didn’t really phrase that very well. You’re right, of course, that even with larger pools you’ll find all the sets and keep track of which ones remain relevant pretty quickly. What I meant to say was that given the dice you’ll usually be rolling, the system creates a number of odd artifacts that you’ll need to take into account, which makes things more convoluted than they could be.

For instance, there’s an example in Reign - hang on, just going to run off and find it - in which a character being shot at by archers dives behind a rock (rolling a pair of 9s) and covers his head and torso. The book goes on to say, however, that “really smart” players, with that roll, would have left the head exposed (since initiative and hit location are both determined by the same aspect of the roll) …

Now, ignoring for the moment that that makes no sense whatsoever, if that’s the sort of thing you have to account for, the system doesn’t really seem all that simple to me. Then again, maybe I’m just too simple for the system. :slight_smile:

7

Why would one expose his head to archers? I don’t really fancy a feathered hat…

8

I guess in this case its because since he rolled a “set of 9s” for his dodging action, this is his initiative roll at the same time, and that would mean he just scored a high Ini, meaning he’ll go first next round… in which case, no need to conceal the head - probably better to keep your head up and be able to look around and check things out so you can decide on your action in a better informed way…

Or something?

Although I’m not an expert on the system and it has been some time since I read it… but I remember this thing about the dicepool rolls, where “everything is supposed to be handled by one single roll” (hence the name One Roll Engine :wink: )

So, when you look for “sets” in your results of, say, 8d10 you just rolled, you may find stuff like three 4s, or two 8s. These sets are the interesting dice, all others can bcan just as well be discarded right then and there.

Now, the “width” of your set (=how many same-faced dice you have) determine the “power” of your attack (or maneuver or seduction or whatever you just did) - while the “height” (=how high the numbers of your set are) determine the “finesse or accuracy” of your action.

in combat this “height” doubles as hit locations: for example, 2x10 means you hit the head (very accurate blow). 3x10 or 4x10 signify even better (stronger, more forceful) hits to the head… while 4x2 is a really strong blow to the legs, and 2x7 might be a light hit on the torso…

This all seems rock solid (albeit sorta whack perhaps^^), but then there is this business with Initiative being rolled up into the same roll as well… So if I rolled 2x10 and you rolled 4x7, your hit would be stronger (and hit my torso [i presume]), but my hit would be faster, albeit not so strong (and it would hit your head).
My result gets resolved first in this case, and through various shennanigans (i.e. I can get to remove dice from your set(s)!) your hit may or may not happen after mine is resolved.

(armor however is a then flat modifier that gets subtracted from the damage whichs is determined by the diceroll iirc)

It really needs to be seen in practice I reckon… :mrgreen:

9

Sounds interesting - if one of you wants to run this at some point, stack me in.

10

I definitively want too… Soon…

11

Generally, speed of actions is determined by width. 4x resolves before 2x. However, you’re going to get a lot of rolls with the same width, so you’ll generally need a tiebreaker, which is height.

In the concrete example, the character with two nines has time to protect two of his hit locations in the round he dives behind the rock. The next round, he can automatically cover himself entirely. In the example, he decides to protect his head (location 10) and part of his torso (8). Seems like a sensible thing to do, right?

But the ORE system cheats a bit, and uses the same part of its roll for unconnected things, which then wind up being unintentionally connected. Height doesn’t only determine speed for sets of the same width, but hit location as well.

In other words, if I’m diving for cover with my two nines, I don’t need to protect my head. I already know that miraculously, none of the following arrows are going to hit there!

That’s why, for me at least, the ORE system isn’t so simple.

Besides, it gives Thopthes even more of an advantage in combat than usual. As if hitting all those head shots weren’t enough, now bullets aimed at the head fly faster than others! :mrgreen:

12

Wait, come again… how exactly do I know that?

Because the enemy archers have already rolled as well, and I can see their results are not higher than mine? Or is it simply because I got to act first and therefore can safely assume that my enemies will not have rolled 10s or 9s?

13

Rolls are simultaneous.

However, I think everybody announce their actions before rolling. So, normally, the player would not have known that he was going to get nines when he announced his action…

14

[quote=“Auburney”]Wait, come again… how exactly do I know that?

Because the enemy archers have already rolled as well, and I can see their results are not higher than mine? Or is it simply because I got to act first and therefore can safely assume that my enemies will not have rolled 10s or 9s?[/quote]
Any pair of 10s will resolve before your 9s. All shots to the head are 10s. Therefore, once it’s your turn, you don’t need to worry about getting hit in the noggin any more - any arrows still coming your way will hit something else.

Looking at it more broadly … There are a lot of one roll systems out there. Heck, the H engine, if we were to take it seriously, is a one roll system. The difference is that ORE and others like it try to pack a whole lot of information into a single roll. It’s not just a binary result (“Do I succeed in blowing up the moon?”), but gives you speed and damage and hit locations and all sorts of things. And that’s pretty neat.

The problems start when a system tries to extract more information from that roll than the roll has unique atrributes. This means that some of those attributes have to serve more than one purpose. In this case, speed and hit location are both derived from height … even thought speed and hit location have nothing to do with one another.

As a result, within sets of the same width, all shots to the head are fast. The arrows fly just a little bit faster than, say, those aimed at an arm (which themselves are faster than those headed toward legs). This time, that isn’t even story logic; it’s just an odd artifact of the system.

I like a lot about these games. Some of the ideas in Reign, for example, are really, really neat. But I’ll admit I’m not quite sold on ORE itself. It’s an interesting concept, but is being able to say you’re rolling the dice just once worth introducing issues like this?

15

[quote=“Simon”]Rolls are simultaneous.

However, I think everybody announce their actions before rolling. So, normally, the player would not have known that he was going to get nines when he announced his action…[/quote]
Yes. You’re right, of course. But according to the example, at least, the announced action is simply diving for cover, not specifically which parts of the body should be protected. Those get declared afterwards.

(The alternative, announcing, “I cover my head and right arm if I roll a width of two; head, right arm and part of my torso with a width of three; head, right arm, part of my torso and right leg with four …” is far too sanity-draining to contemplate. :smiley: )

16

Well, then, I think, my decision would simply be: “you are behind cover, the archers can not see you and can only hit you using an arcing shot. It is a tough shot for them, you get a gobble die, congratulation”.

17

That seems a very elegant solution in fact - never lose yourself in more details of a rulesystem than you really have to! :wink:

Alternatively, one could make a simple houserule where hit location gets determined separatedly (for each set, if there are more than one) with a single d10 roll. Speed and Power of the attack would still get determined by width and height of any given set, only then your roll for each set whatever additional info (like hit location) you need… and the odd artefact seems gone.

That would de-ORE-ify the system in one fell swoop however (and therefore render the entire point moot), but it would seem to take care of the “problems” -H- mentions

A clear case of “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” I guess :smiley:

18

Excellent solution!

The basic problem is still there, though, and I think it’s hard to get away from even with such creativity.

Some arrows still fly faster than others. When two archers fire at each other and roll the same width (which happens a lot), an arrow aimed at the opponent’s right arm is faster than one shot at the left (even though the left arm is presumably slightly closer, but never mind), and can even cause the opponent to miss his shot entirely. It’s a pretty fundamental part of the system (and based on the “really smart players” comment, one that you’re probably supposed to keep in mind).

I don’t know. For me, such oddities just seem like a rather high price to pay for … what exactly?

(Note that all this is purely academic and just for fun. Looking under a system’s hood to see what kind of gremlins have set up shop in the engine is fun every once in a while. I’ll still play ORE any day, and hope to have the chance when you get back …)

19

Well, you could keep it at one roll if you dye a die.

(Then again, that would change the impact of expert dice and things like that, so you’d really be mucking with the system. Never mind …)

20

Yep, that was going to be my suggestion.
Add as specially designed die, that’s your hit location die

I don’t know if it change the expert dice as these are not actually physical dice that you roll… You’d need to roll at least one non expert die, but if you only have expert and master die in your set, then this die is rolled but only for location…