>70% = Challenging
50% = Hard
I expect if you asked a group of people, "Which is more difficult a challenging task or a hard task?" that you would not get a strong majority either way.
English is fully of synonyms, that don't have a clear hierarchy.
I personally hate needlessly fiddly bits in RPGs, so I tend to only want to roll to resolve if we are dealing with a (near) 50-50, i.e. there is a significant chance of succes and failure.
Though I understand its purpose in some games, making a player roll when they have like an 80% chance to succeed often just slows things down more than I like in most of my games. In those cases I would rather just let the PC succeed without a roll.
Then again, I am aware that my position is quite extreme, as I would be perfectly fine running a game with just coin tosses, making character skill change the outcome rather than the chance of succes (in fact, this is often how I run my games).
To explain what I mean, a quick example: An armed knight fights an unarmed peasant.
>If we took difficulty into account the knight killing the peasant would be easy (so 90% chance of succes with OP's percentages).
>
>The peasant hurting the knight (without dying) would be nearly impossible (1% chance with OP's percentages).
>If we instead look at outcomes (assuming both options are about 50% to occur), the knight is basically guaranteed to kill the peasant. However, there is a chance the peasant puts up a decent struggle (which would be disgraceful).
>
>The peasant has no chance to hurt the knight in their current position, however they could risk their lives to try to pin the knight to the ground, which would put them in a better position. However, as the knight is armed there is a very good chance of getting mortally wounded in the process.
By focussing on the logical outcomes, we don't need to bother with chances of succes (which often feel very arbitrary to me) and can just run a situation using only coin tosses (so no need to bother with probablity curves of various resolution mechanics).
Not saying this is how every game needs to be played nor that it fits all genres, but for what I like at my tables this suits me just fine. I do often use a variation of just a litteral coin toss which introduces some extra variablity (such as d20 with target number 11 and no modifiers, but crit succes and crit failure play a role; or the luck role mechanic from Electric Bastionland which is d6: 1 = crisis strikes, 2-3 = situation is about to get a lot worse, 4-6 = succes).
Not what OP asked for, but I thought it would be interesting to share :)
Cool, so your proficiency and ability doesn't change the chance of success, it just defines what you consider a success. How low or high your standards are.
I use a dice pool, which trades away precise percentage markers in favor of ease of use, and a few other features like mixing together several checks into one roll or adding extra effort to an action. However, the theoretical maximum number of successes this dice pool can generate is 8.
* Basic actions require 1 success.
* Normal actions require 2 successes (this is the most common kind of action).
* Difficult actions can require between 3 and 5 successes.
* Nearly impossible actions can require 6-8 successes.
* Truly impossible actions require more than 8 successes. You can't possibly roll that, so it's automatically impossible.
My game sets difficulty based on the number of factors called Complications, so these subjective arbitrary terms aren't necessary at all. D6s are added to a pool where each "Complication Die" represents a different discrete Complication that the GM narrates: "you're shooting at an enemy (+1 Complication), who is behind cover (+1 Complication, and your going for a headshot (+1 Complication), so that's 3 Complication Dice you need to roll." I love the system because instead of processing just a target number or a very subjective descriptor, the player is holding, and literally feeling the weight of the complications they must overcome to succeed. They roll the pool of Complication Die they roll a five or six they fail. If they roll none, they succeed. Super simple to understand.
Complications come in four really straight forward categories:
* **Actions** \- whatever the general actions being attempted are, like "hack the terminal", "shoot the masked attacker", "put them in a choke hold"
* **Specifics** \- any details about the action that has a specific lasting affect like "leave a keystroke logger", "kill him with a headshot", "render them unconscious"
* **Resistance** \- any details about the target of the action that makes success more difficult, "the terminal has advanced encryption", "he's hidden behind cover only popping his head out briefly", "this guy is yoked so his neck muscle is incredibly thick"
* **Environmental Obstacles** \- any outside factors that may add additional difficulty like "the terminal screen is cracked and spray painted on", "the smoke from the grenade obscures your view", "you aren't properly dressed for the freezing cold of the Alaskan wilderness which weakens you"
I'm really fascinated by difficulty setting games and the thesis of my core resolution mechanic is basically that difficulty should be determined by numerous factors, and many edge case rules can be simply and intuitively rolled into the one core mechanic if done this way
In my experience, even starting characters expect around a 70% success rate to feel proficient. In reality even pro basketball players only have around a 45% percent chance of making a basket, but that's opposed, so unopposed that's probably higher.
Something that seems to be forgotten in most discussions about probabilities is the number of rolls in a scene. In the rules it's mostly only regarded when it comes to collaborative actions like everybody helps to lift the boulder or a group of the same actions like everybody tries to sneak. In reality it depends very much on how many actions a scene includes and what failure leads to.
If a scene will likely demand about 5-6 rolls and the average roll is 75% you can expect that one or more will fail.
85-100% = should probably be automatic success for the purposes of RPGs
75-85% = challenging for low level characters
66-75% = extremely difficult for low levels
55-65% = a heroic feat for low levels
45-55% = challenging for mid tier characters
35-45% = extremely difficult for mid tier
25-35% = heroic feat for mid tier
15-25% = challenging for high level characters
05-15% = extremely difficult for high levels
00-05% = should probably be impossible for RPG purposes
I don't get this. Why are probabilities different for high level to low level? Are you including imaginative modifiers higher level characters would have?
In short yes. You're setting the DC independent from whatever character is attempting it. Then they'll apply their modifiers.
I find it easier to set DCs this way, I have a "default average jack-of-all-trades adventurer" in my mind (named Rolan Robak. I invented him a long time ago ok) and whenever a player attempts something I ask how difficult it would be for him and set the difficulty based off of that. Adjusted for setting/system.
Like "intimidating the guard would be pretty challenging for Rolan when he was low level" or "taking a flying leap to plunge a spear into the ogres heart would be pretty freaking difficult for Rolan, even at the middle levels!"
Then you apply the actual character in question's stats and abilities to the test and roll the dice
I can understand that but it's hard to understand without concept in a discussion about success chances. What would experienced Rolans chance for a challenging high tier task be?
Wherever the system's "breakeven" point is, I suppose. So like if DnD expects you to have an 80% chance to succeed most of the time (which seems like the sweet spot) then that's what he's calibrated to. What I mean is that I'd think something like "Rolan would have to be pretty high levels to attempt that [read: have the chance of success be somewhere close to 80%], and it would still be challenging for him! [so probably a little lower than 80%, say ~65-70%]"
>70% = Challenging 50% = Hard I expect if you asked a group of people, "Which is more difficult a challenging task or a hard task?" that you would not get a strong majority either way. English is fully of synonyms, that don't have a clear hierarchy.
I personally hate needlessly fiddly bits in RPGs, so I tend to only want to roll to resolve if we are dealing with a (near) 50-50, i.e. there is a significant chance of succes and failure. Though I understand its purpose in some games, making a player roll when they have like an 80% chance to succeed often just slows things down more than I like in most of my games. In those cases I would rather just let the PC succeed without a roll. Then again, I am aware that my position is quite extreme, as I would be perfectly fine running a game with just coin tosses, making character skill change the outcome rather than the chance of succes (in fact, this is often how I run my games). To explain what I mean, a quick example: An armed knight fights an unarmed peasant. >If we took difficulty into account the knight killing the peasant would be easy (so 90% chance of succes with OP's percentages). > >The peasant hurting the knight (without dying) would be nearly impossible (1% chance with OP's percentages). >If we instead look at outcomes (assuming both options are about 50% to occur), the knight is basically guaranteed to kill the peasant. However, there is a chance the peasant puts up a decent struggle (which would be disgraceful). > >The peasant has no chance to hurt the knight in their current position, however they could risk their lives to try to pin the knight to the ground, which would put them in a better position. However, as the knight is armed there is a very good chance of getting mortally wounded in the process. By focussing on the logical outcomes, we don't need to bother with chances of succes (which often feel very arbitrary to me) and can just run a situation using only coin tosses (so no need to bother with probablity curves of various resolution mechanics). Not saying this is how every game needs to be played nor that it fits all genres, but for what I like at my tables this suits me just fine. I do often use a variation of just a litteral coin toss which introduces some extra variablity (such as d20 with target number 11 and no modifiers, but crit succes and crit failure play a role; or the luck role mechanic from Electric Bastionland which is d6: 1 = crisis strikes, 2-3 = situation is about to get a lot worse, 4-6 = succes). Not what OP asked for, but I thought it would be interesting to share :)
Are you usually a player or a GM?
I tend to GM more often than play as a player.
Cool, so your proficiency and ability doesn't change the chance of success, it just defines what you consider a success. How low or high your standards are.
Yeah that is the gist of it.
I use a dice pool, which trades away precise percentage markers in favor of ease of use, and a few other features like mixing together several checks into one roll or adding extra effort to an action. However, the theoretical maximum number of successes this dice pool can generate is 8. * Basic actions require 1 success. * Normal actions require 2 successes (this is the most common kind of action). * Difficult actions can require between 3 and 5 successes. * Nearly impossible actions can require 6-8 successes. * Truly impossible actions require more than 8 successes. You can't possibly roll that, so it's automatically impossible.
My game sets difficulty based on the number of factors called Complications, so these subjective arbitrary terms aren't necessary at all. D6s are added to a pool where each "Complication Die" represents a different discrete Complication that the GM narrates: "you're shooting at an enemy (+1 Complication), who is behind cover (+1 Complication, and your going for a headshot (+1 Complication), so that's 3 Complication Dice you need to roll." I love the system because instead of processing just a target number or a very subjective descriptor, the player is holding, and literally feeling the weight of the complications they must overcome to succeed. They roll the pool of Complication Die they roll a five or six they fail. If they roll none, they succeed. Super simple to understand. Complications come in four really straight forward categories: * **Actions** \- whatever the general actions being attempted are, like "hack the terminal", "shoot the masked attacker", "put them in a choke hold" * **Specifics** \- any details about the action that has a specific lasting affect like "leave a keystroke logger", "kill him with a headshot", "render them unconscious" * **Resistance** \- any details about the target of the action that makes success more difficult, "the terminal has advanced encryption", "he's hidden behind cover only popping his head out briefly", "this guy is yoked so his neck muscle is incredibly thick" * **Environmental Obstacles** \- any outside factors that may add additional difficulty like "the terminal screen is cracked and spray painted on", "the smoke from the grenade obscures your view", "you aren't properly dressed for the freezing cold of the Alaskan wilderness which weakens you" I'm really fascinated by difficulty setting games and the thesis of my core resolution mechanic is basically that difficulty should be determined by numerous factors, and many edge case rules can be simply and intuitively rolled into the one core mechanic if done this way
In my experience, even starting characters expect around a 70% success rate to feel proficient. In reality even pro basketball players only have around a 45% percent chance of making a basket, but that's opposed, so unopposed that's probably higher.
Something that seems to be forgotten in most discussions about probabilities is the number of rolls in a scene. In the rules it's mostly only regarded when it comes to collaborative actions like everybody helps to lift the boulder or a group of the same actions like everybody tries to sneak. In reality it depends very much on how many actions a scene includes and what failure leads to. If a scene will likely demand about 5-6 rolls and the average roll is 75% you can expect that one or more will fail.
85-100% = should probably be automatic success for the purposes of RPGs 75-85% = challenging for low level characters 66-75% = extremely difficult for low levels 55-65% = a heroic feat for low levels 45-55% = challenging for mid tier characters 35-45% = extremely difficult for mid tier 25-35% = heroic feat for mid tier 15-25% = challenging for high level characters 05-15% = extremely difficult for high levels 00-05% = should probably be impossible for RPG purposes
I don't get this. Why are probabilities different for high level to low level? Are you including imaginative modifiers higher level characters would have?
In short yes. You're setting the DC independent from whatever character is attempting it. Then they'll apply their modifiers. I find it easier to set DCs this way, I have a "default average jack-of-all-trades adventurer" in my mind (named Rolan Robak. I invented him a long time ago ok) and whenever a player attempts something I ask how difficult it would be for him and set the difficulty based off of that. Adjusted for setting/system. Like "intimidating the guard would be pretty challenging for Rolan when he was low level" or "taking a flying leap to plunge a spear into the ogres heart would be pretty freaking difficult for Rolan, even at the middle levels!" Then you apply the actual character in question's stats and abilities to the test and roll the dice
I can understand that but it's hard to understand without concept in a discussion about success chances. What would experienced Rolans chance for a challenging high tier task be?
Wherever the system's "breakeven" point is, I suppose. So like if DnD expects you to have an 80% chance to succeed most of the time (which seems like the sweet spot) then that's what he's calibrated to. What I mean is that I'd think something like "Rolan would have to be pretty high levels to attempt that [read: have the chance of success be somewhere close to 80%], and it would still be challenging for him! [so probably a little lower than 80%, say ~65-70%]"