Natural 10, natural 1, and critical successes and failures

[Ovid]

Another option:

If you roll a 1, reroll.

On a success, it's a critical success.

On a failure, it's a critical failure.

Would that work? It's simple and takes account of skill, but makes criticals more common (much more common, actually).

[Murder-of-Crows]

Sounds interesting.

Another option I am thinking off: After rolling a 1 or a 10, you can add your adjustments from being lucky or unlucky to the subsequent roll. Not much of a modification, but an additional use for the Advantage/Disadvantage.

[tamsyn]

I'm going to try that 1 option on my group see what they think.

[Clovis]

Which one ? The Lucky / Unlucky one?

And looks like JohnK is starting to have some influence! Being one of the first English members of the forum is paying off!

[tamsyn]

Ovid's suggestion. No doubt my players will hate it.

Hmmm, starting Poison tomorrow. Better read it eh?

[JohnK]

Hullo, Murder-of-Crows,

As one who has run the game in twelve sessions with two different gaming groups, I just want to say that the rules for this work really well as they are. If you want to use the system that you proposed instead, all I can say is that it seems more complicated than the existing game rules, and in my opinion that doesn't make the game any easier to play.

Just my 2 Ember Daols.

Hi John,

I was actually hoping to hear your opinion on the topic, as it seems that you have run the game the most at the current point. Thanks for your opinion. I am going to seriously consider that and start playing with the rules as they stand.

To be honest, this is something that I would recommend to anyone coming in to GM/GL a new game. Always run the game for at least one full adventure before deciding to make any changes to the game system or house rule stuff. Sometimes, what seems to be a problem with the rules or unclear when reading the game rulebook actually isn't when one plays and/or runs the game a couple of times.

As for the running of Shadows of Esteren, so it seems. Twelve game sessions is a good chunk of time and effort, and to be honest, having the game experience running the game as often as I have has put some aspects of the game mechanics and rules into perspective for me, if nothing else.

[JohnK]

Hullo, Clovis,

And looks like JohnK is starting to have some influence! Being one of the first English members of the forum is paying off!

Oh, is that what it is?

Besides, Luke Walker was here before I was, and I think that a couple of other English speakers were here before me as well.

As for my influence, sometimes I think that actually running the RPG in question is the best way of getting experience with the game mechanics, rules, and stuff not in the rules, as well as figuring out what stuff you (might) want to change.

Anyway, thanks for the kind words, Clovis. Much appreciated.

[Clovis]

Well, although there certainly are older English-speaking members than you, it remains true that you are among the most active of them!

But we're kinda going off-topic there...

[tamsyn]

Run a whole adventure before making changes? I don't think you have to. I've played enough to know when a rule I not to my liking from first read.

We started using the 1 rule and it s going down well so far....

[Murder-of-Crows]

Run a whole adventure before making changes? I don't think you have to. I've played enough to know when a rule I not to my liking from first read.

While you can do that, I feel John is right. Sometimes the unaltered rules provide a game experience that one hadn't anticipated. So actually, I think it's sound advice to at least run a game once without any rules changes.