Actions in Numenera
Here’s how you play Numenera.
The player tells the GM what she wants to do. The GM determines if that action is routine (and thus just works) or if there’s a chance of failure.
So far, I’ve just described pretty much every tabletop rpg, ever (almost).
In Numenera, specifically, what happens next is that the GM determines how hard the task will be, on a scale from 1 to 10. This part isn’t dependent upon the character. It’s just a range from really easy to basically impossible. The game will offer a lot of guidelines on how to figure this out, because this is the core mechanic of the game. It’s basically the only mechanical task the GM has in the whole game. (Remember, I said Numenera was easy to GM–more on that in a minute.) So I’ll defininately make it clear and easy to judge these things. Remember, I am a believer in the “teach a man to fish” style of good GMing.
(If you have no idea what that means, it comes from the old adage, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” The idea here is not to just give GMs a ton of rules to memorize, or lots of rules in books to reference, but to teach them how to make their own, logical judgement calls.)
Of course, most of the time, it’s not a matter of exact precision. If you say it’s a 3 and it “should” have been a 4, the world’s not over.
Anyway, each difficulty level (1-10) has a target number associated. It’s basically 3 times the level. That’s the number you need to roll on a d20 (or higher) to succeed. Because there are not a lot of modifiers to the roll, that means two things:
1. Target numbers like 3 or 6, which would be boring in most games that use the d20, are not boring. If you need a 6, for example, you still have a 1 in 4 chance to fail.
2. The upper levels of difficulty, 7, 8, 9, or 10, are all but impossible, since the target numbers would be 21 or higher. But (you knew there was a “but” coming, right?)…
It’s quite common for players to modify the difficulty of a task. I wrote about this earlier. Using training, assets, working together, or–perhaps most importantly–effort, difficulty levels can be moved down multiple steps to make them easier. In other words, rather than adding to the die roll, the number you need is reduced. This is mathematically very similar, but it has three advantages:
1. Players doing arithmetic using a range of all possible numbers every action is slower that the GM making measured adjustments in large, uniform steps. Playtesting has already shown this to be true.
2. Calculation is done once, no matter how many times you attempt the action. If you establish the that target number is 12, it’s 12 every time you try that action. You only have to do that calculation once. If you’re adding numbers to your die roll, you have to do it every time you make the attempt. Consider this fact in light of combat. Once you know that you need to roll a 12 or higher to hit your foe, combat moves very, very quickly.
3. If you can reduce the difficulty of an action down to zero, no roll is needed at all. This means that the Olympic gymnast doesn’t roll dice to walk across the balance beam, but the average person does. The task is initially rated the same for both, but is reduced for the gymnast. So there’s no chance she’ll roll a 1.
This is how everything in the game works, whether its climbing a wall, sweet talking the guard, or fighting some bio-engineered horror. (Sweet talking the guard has some special considerations, but I’ll get to that in a later column.)
The thing to remember–and this is the kind of thing that makes people’s heads kind of explode when they first hear it, so hang on–is that this is the way everything works. The players are always making the rolls, and the GM is moderating the task levels. So in combat, when the character attacks, the player rolls for the attack. When the NPC attacks the character, the player rolls for her character to dodge.
I know. It’s weird. But it’s an idea I first saw put in play in 1992 by game designer Blake Mobley. It’s one of those things that seems really alien at first, but once you get used to it, it engages the players even more and frees up a lot of work from the GM. Again, in playtest people were a little leery at first but eventually they loved it. It gives GMs the freedom to concern themselves entirely with the flow of the game. The GM doesn’t use dice to determine what happens (unless he wants to), the players do. For things that don’t directly affect the PCs, the GM uses narrative intrusion to determine if and when something happens. For example, if the PCs are fighting an automaton guardian, and another guardian needs to batter down a door to join the fray, the GM doesn’t need to roll dice to determine when the new automaton manages this (unless he wants to). He just decides when would be best for the story–probably when it would be worst for the PCs.
Obviously, there’s still a lot of playtesting to do. No plan survives the enemy, so to speak. Target numbers could change. Concepts could change. But this is the way we’ve been playing the game for a while now, and it’s been a blast.
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As a GM, this sounds a lot more fun and a bit more easy to run a game, because control is given to the players (so to speak). As a PC this sounds a lot more fun, because I get to roll the dice more often during combat.
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Hey Monte, I just finished watching a you tube file of your GenCon Q&A’s and to then have this new entry pop in was like magic. You have really grabbed my attention with this concept. Simple but complete game play leaving the GM time to reveal the world around the players is brilliant. I can not wait until there is some version available to playtest at home. Gamma World had been a very big part of my RPG life right behind DnD since 1977, so this hits home for me. You are bringing back the concept of a game world that a GM creates together with the players for all to enjoy and not be bogged down. I also love that you are keeping in mind the fact that there are those who want to detail a character out, as well as those who simply roll up and play. I really hope this catches on throughout the gaming world to bring back the fun in playing for all. Thank you very much sir.
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You’re absolutely right – it did blow my mind reading that the npcs didn’t make attack rolls, rather the players rolled defensive rolls… in a good way. For years, we’ve added a ‘once per round’ active defense routine to our games, so it should be a very easy crossover for us. I really hope this aspect ‘survives the enemy.’ Thanks for yet another taste of Numenera!
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Thanks for the update, Monte. I am really enthusiastic about everything I’ve so far about Numenera. I like the fact that NPCs don’t make attack roles because it sounds as though it keeps the narrative flowing. I am running a sword & sorcery game right now using the old Elric! rules, and I am discovering that I often forgo a lot of the rules in order to keep the story moving forward. I too hope this aspect survives the enemy.
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What about actions where the player should not know whether failure means failure or failure means is not there? For example, listening at a door or searching for a secret door. Failure could mean that nothing is there, but it could also mean that the character just didn’t find it. Or is the design to be that such hidden hazards independent of the players are never present?
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I don’t know how Monte plans to handle this question but for years now I’ve let PCs make those rolls…I just don’t let them know the DC. In most cases my players will tell me what they are trying to do:
–”I’m searching for traps (secret doors, etc)”
– “I want to listen at this door and see if I can hear what’s on the other side.”In these cases I have them roll give me their results and I give them information or not…not doesn’t mean they failed it could mean there was nothing to find. The players aren’t 100% sure.
Other times I’ll call for unsolicited rolls to perceive something. Often it’s because I feel they might hear arguing orcs in a nearby room or sense a monster slinking up behind them but many times its just to ratchet up the tension and there isn’t anything significant to hear.
I don’t see why this system couldn’t be run in a similar fashion.
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That’s would be OK, but since a core aspect of the rules is spending ‘effort’ to make tasks easier it seems a little unfair to make people choose without knowing the target numbers they are starting at.
Hopefully Monty has some super-cool way of bridging this gap.
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Agreed. As I said I don’t know how Monte is going to handle this I’m just trying to point out that it doesn’t seem to be that radical a departure from how the game is played at some tables.
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Andrew, your system still “leaks information” to the players. If they roll very high (natural 20, in D&D) and you say “you hear nothing” then they KNOW there’s nothing to hear. In addition, unless you request many misleading rolls, the players know they missed something if you ask them to roll and they got a low result, so they might be inclined to try again and again, especially players who find it difficult separating player knowledge from character knowledge.
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Yes there are times when my players have an Order of the Stick moment and say, “Wait I think I failed a Perception check!”
So sure it does leak some sure but not as much as you may think. In d20 a natural 20 is only an automatic success on attack rolls not skill checks. And some of that leakage is good after all asking for the roll in the first place can create help tension.
Character’s creeping through a dungeon are probably straining to see into the darkness beyond their torchlight and to hear approaching danger. Calling for a roll can help players feel the same uncertainty their characters are feeling.
It also bears mentioning that I don’t like to just say “you hear nothing.” I tend to describe something even on a failed roll because “the quiet echo of lightly splashing water from somewhere up ahead” is more evocative and leaves the players unsure of whether they heard what you intended or not. Even “you hear only the cave noises all else is ominously silent.” is better than you failed for creating a mood.
It is a technique best used sparingly (like most GM tricks) and it might not work at every table but it works very well for me.
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Just as easy to forgo the initial perception checks and just give the player(s) xp as you spring a trap, wandering monster, or confounding situation on them. Given that Monte’s system has the players roll to avoid attacks then they might be able to use perception to notice the trap or ambush during the first round or something similar.
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Techincally that’s wrong, there’s no auto fail or pass in D20 for skill checks. You can roll 20 and still fail. You can roll 1 and still pass. Players making assumptions on pass/fail based on what they roll are just making assumptions.
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Brendan beat me to it. Maybe I’m still thinking “pre-calculus” (old school), but here’s the essential bit I’m curious about: in the core mechanic–not “unless he wants to”–does the GM ever keep the target number secret for a roll?
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Sure.
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I’ve been GMing a lot Of Apocalypse World hacks lately (Dungeon World, Monster of the week and tremulus), so I’m used to not rolling dice! Look forward to trying this one…
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This is awesome Monte. Can you tell us what types of dice are used besides d20? Is it the standard D&D spread?
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So, is the ability to reduce the difficulty to zero an order of magnitude? Any gymnast walking a balance beam, no matter how many times they have done it, still may have a very small chance of slipping. Reducing a value to a 1 may be very difficult, but getting it to 0 seems like it might be almost as hard as rolling a 21 on the other end of the spectrum.
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We’ve been doing this (players roll all the dice) for years with D&D 3.5 and the option in Unearthed Arcana. It was a game saver.
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I like this “Players roll to dodge” idea. As a GM I have so much to keep track of behind the screen that the dice are just one more busy mechanic to deal with; if the system can take that off my hands in most cases, I am fine with that.
My only issue is thus: I don’t like static numbers because once a player knows what he needs to Hit the monster, or to Dodge it, a lot of the tension falls out of the encounter. Therefore I appreciate systems which allow those numbers to change a bit based on whether the characters (and monsters) put more effort into attack or defense.
For example: say the Monster has a Base Attack of 10 and Base Defense of 5, then a Combat Pool of 4. During battle he can choose to split those 4 points up by adding them all to attack, (making his attack 14) all to defense, (making his defense 9) or some to attack and defense. This keeps the numbers in play always shifting and uncertain during the combat … which in turn keeps the combat always shifting and uncertain.
The numbers for variation don’t have to be huge, just large enough to leave the player wondering each time he rolls that die.
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I suppose this could be easily remedied by effort on the target’s part, I suppose. In example, on any given turn the GM could perhaps secretly subtract some of the monster’s speed (effort) and increase the difficulty for the players to hit him. A physical description might even read “The monster seems to suddenly blur where he stands like a mirage on a sandstorm.” The players will easily know this means he’s harder to hit to re-add that suspsense when needed.
I always look at it like an in-character meta learning curve. I never tell my players the target numbers to hit a creature, but they -always- work hard to figure it out through misses, hits (and we use glancing hits, which really gives it away). When they know this number, they never lose suspense, but suddenly have a goal – it often trades mystery for intensity, but equally good, at least from my experiences.
I suppose this would be a perfect place for some variations on a theme; options for all styles of play. That being said, I really like your variating point array concept, but maybe built into the effort system itself can be something similar. Cheers!
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Could you talk a bit more about the classes, I mean types, in Numenera?
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Oh, an Numenera keeps looking more and more awesome.
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The v.3.5 version of Unearthed Arcana first introduced me to the Players Roll All The Dice rule. I proposed this to my Dungeon Master, to which she replied, “I love to roll dice and there is no way I’m letting you take away my fun”.
Unearthed Arcana:
http://www.amazon.com/Unearthed-Dungeons-Dragons-Fantasy-Roleplaying/dp/0786931310/ -
I love this idea of ‘only the players roll’ as long as it all works… but I’m curious as to what you think about an RPG system that uses no rolls at all but still has opposed check mechanics.
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How do you resolve situations with unknown difficulty or results?
The best example situation is “I check for traps”. If a player rolls high enough, they will be SURE there are no traps (unless they’re beyond their level to detect, which would make the roll irrelevant anyway). If they roll incredibly low, they will tend to assume that they failed and will act accordingly. Is there a system in place for when you don’t want the player to be certain of their level of success, or is Numenera intended to avoid those sorts of situations?
I hope for a follow-up post to this mechanical element in the future; this is a simple mechanic with far-reaching implications for actual gameplay at the table.
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This looks very promising. I know that “only players roll” method works because I use it in my own home brewed system. It is actually pretty logical extension to how we have played for years. “I sneak around the sentry” – “Roll for Stealth”, “I want to spot anyone coming this way.” – “Roll for Notice”.
Anyway, I am all for games that are easy to run. I’m looking forward to next column
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I appreciate the simplicity of this. I’m curious, though: Why make the GM multiply everything by 3 to get the target number instead of just saying that target numbers are out of 30? Admittedly, “one to thirty” sounds like a weird scale compared to “one to ten,” but then again, the former does lend itself to thinking about it in terms of sensible “one to three” difficulty ranges (1-10 being “pretty easy,” 11-20 being “getting tough,” and 21-30 being “close to impossible”).
I imagine it would be pretty easy for players to just house rule this if they want to avoid the extra step in mental arithmetic, but I’m curious whether you already tried this in playtesting and realized a flaw in this approach that I’m missing.
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Moving things in large (effectively 15%) steps makes things much simpler for gameplay. Smaller steps are too fiddly. The difference between needing to get a 15 and a 16 isn’t enough to make it worth the effort to make the distinction. Each step has a number firmly attached to it–there’s no need to do the multiplication.
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Gotcha; thanks for the response. I suppose “set target numbers in multiples of three on a scale of 30″ isn’t really any less confusing than “multiply target numbers on a scale of 10 by three,” now that you put it that way.
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Interesting – I hadn’t thought of that immediately, but you have effectively turned a d20 into a d6 (where each increment is 16.66%). Why not go the whole-hog and switch dice?
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There’s still a few more things to tell you guys about. And also, because I just love d20s. http://www.montecookgames.com/i-like-my-20-sider/
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If I might speculate for just a moment, there will also be critical successes and failures. I would place crit success at a roll of 14 + difficulty level, and crit failure at difficulty level – 2, or maybe a roll of a 1 for difficulty level 1 and 2, a roll of 2 or less for level 3 or 4, and a roll of 3 or less for level 5 and 6, etc… This could not be done with just a d6. It also adds an interesting variety into the mix, and hey, who doesn’t like to roll a crit, and what GM doesn’t delight in making the PC’s lives more interesting when the players roll that one.
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Nice, this is a basic dynamic that would happily satisfy me. Coupled with the previous XP management, it seems like this system can easily be one of my favorite ones.
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Mike Nystul did the “only players roll” thing with “The Whispering Vault.” It’s a great mechanic for a GM. I’m looking forward to this game.
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Hi Monte…
you wrote ” But it’s an idea I first saw put in play in 1992 by game designer Blake Mobley.” – can you please tell us in which game/supplement this concept appeared first?
Thanks!
Paolo
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It was in a home game, but eventually he published it as a game called Metascape.
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Been running a ton of games for years and come to this conclusion. The fewer rules you have the more fun the game is. Currently I am totally in love with the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd ED from fantasy flight games. Its core mechanic is very much an organic experience with a lot of customization available to each and every die roll. Numenera looks to follow suit. ONE DIE rules them all is truly a next step in the organic sense of things. And making the players roll all the dice sounds great too.
ANYTHING that is not d20 systems IE 3rd or 4th ed D&D is a step in the right direction to me. Nothing steals away the flavor of a game like a HOMOGENIZED system. Anyone actually play GURPS?
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It sounds like there are opposed checks, can’t wait to hear about them and: Damage, Healing and Resting!
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I ran a year-long campaign using Blake Mobley’s Metascape rules back in college. It was such and easy and fun system to run. Character generation was a bit of work, but once you had it on paper that game just blazed! For the GM it became all about storytelling and world building. It makes me very happy that some elements of that forgotten game were not quite forgotten. By Monte Cook no less!
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One of the tension builders in games, I’ve often thought, was the option/ability for NPC’s to critically hit or fumble. Having the NPC’s roll to hit or dodge or whatever gives them that opportunity, thereby giving the players either a massive hurt or an opening to exploit. I’m interested to see it in action still, but I worry this might make the NPC’s a little “static”.
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A PC rolling a 1 on a dodge is the same as an NPC rolling a 20 on an attack.
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The only sadness I have towards this method is that I wont actually get to pull my dice out as a GM. Other than that, I love the concept that “if you’re really good at this, you don’t have to roll.” Or your chance of failure is slim to nil. That’s one of the things I’ve always thought very unrealistic (heh) in most RPGs- Even if you’re an acrobat, you still have a potential for failure to walk across a wet surface. That’s never going to produce any Legolas-like characters that can balance on snow with some regularity.
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Had a GM once that used a variant of Only the Players Roll- he did only the GM rolls. The players loved it. He did their character sheets for them and chose their feats skills erc based on what they did or tried to do, and we only had to worry about being descriptive of our actions – and better descriptions and tactics led to better role play, but also to the GM having an raiser time choosing feats.
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I love Player Facing games (players roll the dice). I bet I’d completely love a completely Player Facing game.
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Hi Monte,
By what you’ve written I guess there is going be some kind of optional rules for GMs that want to roll dice: is that correct?
Cheers
Luigi-
Yes. It’s very easy to do it that way too.
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Too complicated and abstract
if you are around 1-10 you must use a 10 sided dice and that is all -
I’ve had a lot of fun playing ICONS which is a Players Make all the Rolls sort of game. The only thing I’ve found you really need to watch out for is the language. A game can easily make the assumption that Perception rolls are always made by the PCs… then the language in the stealth section starts getting really funky. (As an example)
Also, I’m not entirely sure why you need the extra level of abstration where Difficulty 5 = 15 and Difficulty 7=21. Why not just say the available Target numbers are 3,6,9,12,15,18,21,24,27,30?
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That actually is pretty much the way it works.
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Pingback: Actions in Numenera | The RPG Informer
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Sounds really interesting!
Do you plan to give some ideas as to how the different classes are differentiated before the KS ends? I mean, I get that Glaives are stabby and Nanos are weirdstuff, but what does that *mean*?
Is one, to use D&D parlance, a Fighter and the other a Wizard, with totally different rulesets for how each goes about their actions (feats & attacks vs spells), or is it a more unified system?-
It’s much more unified, simply because the game system is simpler. The distinctions are less dramatic, and more character driven story stuff. That is to say, there are things glaives can do that nanos can’t, and so forth, but those are nearly not as polarizing as a D&D fighter and wizard. (That’s not a judgement on D&D, obviously. It’s just different.)
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More individual Cool Things, then? That sounds awesome.
Will we get a preliminary peek before the KS is over of some of the ideas? We can’t all make conventions, afterall.
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More individual Cool Things, then? That sounds awesome.
Will we get a preliminary peek before the KS is over of some of the ideas? We can’t all make conventions, afterall. -
… oops. Feel free to delete this one, my browser was caching and I didn’t see it go through.
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I loved your Arcana Unearthed game but this seems too rules light for me. Almost seems like I’d be buying a generic campaign setting instead of a full rpg.
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I’ve run several “only players roll” games (ICONS and Marvel with the cards) and often felt left out because I like rolling dice
. But I can appreciate the speed and giving the players more of a sense of control. Willing to give it a try again as the other parts of the game can engage me plenty. -
This is very cool. I have thought of this mechanic before myself. I took it in a slightly different direction. Rather than sliding the difficulty up or down, I had my players modify the number and type of dice they would roll. A DR of 5 is extremely challenging if the player is rolling 1d6, but less so if a skill allows them to roll 2d6 instead.
A DR of 8 would be impossible for a character rolling 1d4, but when a skill allows the character to roll 3d4, their chances improve. And if two characters are working together, one rolling 3d4 and the other 2d6, then suddenly a DR of 8 is chump change.
I think both methods are fantastic, and really speed things up a lot.
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I’m wondering if the players do all the rolling, and the GM simply assigns difficulty, or if there are opposing enemy skill checks?
Perhaps I’ve taken the concept to the extreme in my current project (or maybe we’re on the same page), but I’ve been toying with the idea of having the players do basically all of the rolling versus a predetermined difficult rating.
A combat roll to overcome the enemy’s defense DR, an armor and evasion roll to avoid the enemy’s attack DR. Striking at different parts of a monster might carry a different DR (an 8 for the creatures head, a 4 for its body).
This method definitely has a lot of potential because it’s simple, but also allows for a lot more strategy than even the typical rpg.
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In Numenera the players do all the rolling.
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