The Hoard Potato was on a roll.

[athelind]

The Star Wars Saga game run by rikoshi and tealfox has really hit its stride. Tonight -- well, last night, now -- was the third session, and everything just clicked. All our sub-plots are coming together, Rikki and Teal have a developed a terrific synergy, and splitting an eight-person party into two four-person groups for combat lets us accomplish twice as much in half the time.

This is not, however, why I am immortalizing this session in my LiveJournal.

No, I'm making a record of this night's game because, in thirty-one years of gaming, and I have never rolled like I did tonight.

Six natural 20s.

The run started with the first two times my character -- a medical droid whose obligate pacifism is literally hardwired -- ever made an attack roll in combat.

Then they just started popping up.

It was insane.

And worth remembering.

---

Comments

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

I wish I could manufacture good luck in the beginning phases of a game. I've seen good games ruined by bad luck. Even when the GM is doing everything right, a run of bad luck at the onset of a game sorta sucks - it doesn't make the characters feel very heroic if the first thing that happens is the GM has to fudge to pull their bacon outta the fire.

So, I feel you when you say that the game came together but what was remarkable was the good luck. Even better timing! Probably made you feel pretty cool, which is useful in the beginning adventures in a game!

[pyat.livejournal.com]

The run started with the first two times my character -- a medical droid whose obligate pacifism is literally hardwired -- ever made an attack roll in combat.

Then they just started popping up.

*shakes head sadly*

Quicker, easier, more seductive the Dark Side is. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

A lot of the more recent systems have "fudge factors" built in -- which is honestly the only thing that makes the flat bell-curve of a d20 roll tolerable for me. Star Wars Saga, for instance, has "Force Points", which you can spend to add another 1d6 to your 1d20 roll. (I also have GMs who are decent enough to tell us if a miss might be in Force Point Range, or if we shouldn't bother.)

Another "Fudge Factor" is the ability to Take 10 and Take 20 -- if you're not under pressure, for a routine task, you can simply accept a result of 10 instead of rolling. If you take additional time (usually ten times as long), you can treat the result as if you rolled a 20 (though you don't get any of the bonuses of a Critical Success).

Amusingly enough, after that fight, three of the other party members were injured, and on two of them, I used "Take 10" on my Treat Injury roll. The third one was seriously injured, and Taking 10 would only have gotten him up to half his hit points, so he wanted me to roll for it.

Of course, when I actually rolled to do the one thing my character was designed to do the best, I rolled a "1".

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, there's no compelling reason not to play d20 games with 3d6. They have the same average roll. The only thing that needs to be considered is critical hits, but that's pretty superficial. ;)

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

Or 2d10, which has the "bonus" of having the max being 20, though the bell curve if flatter and you'd still have to deal with critical hits.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Y'know, if the opponents had been sentient life-forms instead of big cranky animals, I would have asked the GM to give me a Dark Side point if I'd used my surgical laser and defibrillators offensively. (It's on my list of "Possible Role-Playing Goals for KLDR-4077".)

As it was... well, you know, the health of my patients was jeopardized by hostile organisms. It didn't much matter to my behavioral inhibitors that the hazard wasn't microscopic.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

There are Official Optional Rules for using 3D6, including how to handle criticals.

Someone I know has been refining a d20 variant that uses nothing BUT d6s, and it is, from all playtest reports, working very well.

[palanth.livejournal.com]

"KLDR-4077"

A nod to M.A.S.H. I approve. }:>

[athelind.livejournal.com]

And to Doctor Kildare.

[toob.livejournal.com]

OR you could play with just a coin that you wrote "TEN" on both sides of. That has the same average roll too!

You get a cookie.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Re: You get a cookie.

[toob.livejournal.com]

It's so weird that someone can hand you a cookie and you think, "Now I know the shape of your forks."

[zeeth_kyrah]

Which reminds me that Dark Sun had you roll your stats with 5d4...

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

Very nice. We've been playing one too, and it's started clicking pretty well, especially since I realized that I was playing the Bad Jedi (As in the Good Jedi/Bad Jedi School of Keeping Our Mad Doctor On The Straight And Narrow). Something of a change for me, but fun.

Re: You get a cookie.

[toob.livejournal.com]

It just seems to me that eradicating uncertainty and dramatic chance misses the point of the whole 'game' thing to a degree.

Re: You get a cookie.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

That's one reason why I like Force Points -- yes, you may be able to squeak that failure into a success, but there's an opportunity cost. You're spending a finite resource that you may need somewhere down the road.

I'm more the "improvisational theater" kind of player and less the "game" kind of player, and -- as funny as this will sound, given the circumstances that prompted this post -- usually, the dice HATE me. Having some degree of control over just how MUCH they hate me keeps them from throwing off my Performance (if you heard that in the voice of Jon Lovitz as the Master Thespian, you heard it right).

Star Wars Saga, particularly with this group, manages to take the random ebb and flow of the dice and make it all feel like the natural rhythms of good storytelling, but it's not always that graceful.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Dude. Dude! Duuuuuuuude.