The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

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CapnZapp
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The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by CapnZapp »

Okay so unlike every other check in the game, the Luck Check features a unique mechanism: rolling a d20 under the actual Score. You want to roll low. If somehow the die size is affected by the dice chain smaller dice is suddenly good instead of bad, and the Luck modifier is not involved at all.

All of that might be strange but ultimately acceptable, but the probabilities skew extraordinarily in the favor of high Luck scores.

Normally when you are asked to make a DC 10 Check, your d20 roll is always within ten points (discounting modifiers) of the result. Meaning that burning 10 points of Luck should be sufficient to survive a "save or die" type of situation.

But with the rulebook Luck check mechanism this is no longer true. If you roll 18 and have only 3 Luck points left, you must sacrifice 15 points to pass the test (assuming burning Luck is even effective on Luck Checks!). And of course, you only have three.

This means that going low on Luck is much much worse than it would if Luck Checks utilized the standard conflict resolution mechanism. A character with high Luck is nearly immune to even a long series of otherwise-fatal Luck Checks (he can expect to pass them all with minimal need to burn Luck), while a character with low or average Luck will quickly find that he runs out of luck (literally).

Having 10 Luck is better than having 3 Luck, but only marginally so. Having 15 Luck is vastly better than having 10 Luck, and having 18 Luck is even better still (again by a large margin).

What are your thoughts about this? To me, it appears as if nostalgia for bygone dice rolling conventions have blinded us to basic mathematics.

Should Luck Checks be converted to the standard mechanic, that is, making a DC 10 Luck Check, the extreme weakness of low Luck and the near-invincibility of high Luck is normalized to regular standards. But before I do this, I want to hear the opinions of veteran DCC gamers and judges.
Last edited by CapnZapp on Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by CapnZapp »

I searched the forums to see if this had been discussed previously. It sort of had, but not to the degree I brought up above. Here are my comments to two quotes:
Doug Kovacs wrote: Sat May 31, 2014 8:57 am
LotharTheFellhanded wrote:So whenever it just says Luck Check, without a specified DC, it's equal or under your own luck? Even for a Roll Over check?
rolling the body is a straight (roll under) luck check . Yes. It's helpful to keep your luck high in case of near death experiences.
"Helpful" is a much too vague or weak adjective to correctly convey the utility of having a high Luck.
reverenddak wrote: Mon May 14, 2012 10:32 am It's a common "old-school" house rule to roll a d20, and roll your ability score or less. It makes for a really quick and dirty ability check. Joseph uses this himself. It works really well when you're "testing" straight ability scores, and you don't want to factor "skills" (i.e. Class and Occupation.)

It's a system that lots of people discovered, or created, on their own before d20 D&D came around. When d20 became an "official system", it changed everything to d20 + MOD, high always better thing, most D&D players are familiar. DCC RPG detracts from that standard a bit.
But I must raise the possibility of these gamers not being fully cognizant of the extreme statistics this leads to.

Or rather, I understand that extremes are what some folks are actively looking for in their games, so let me rephrase: now that we have invented the uniform d20 roll, what would be the purpose of making one ability score (Luck) that much more important than the others?
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by CapnZapp »

To clarify a point that maybe got buried above:

Do you think a character should be able to burn Luck points on checks involving the Luck ability score? I kind of took this for granted, until I realized the full implications of the special rule used by the DCC Luck Check.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by Raven_Crowking »

The die can be modified by the dice chain. In this case, reducing the die is good, and increasing it is better.
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Cathbad the Meek (herbalist Wizard 1): AC 9; 4 hp; S 7, A 7, St 10, P 17, I 13, L 8; Neutral; Club, herbs, 50' rope, 50 cp; -1 to melee attack rolls. Hideous scar.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

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Raven_Crowking wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:33 am The die can be modified by the dice chain. In this case, reducing the die is good, and increasing it is better.
Apologies, but I don't understand this answer.

I mean, I do get that if some random and obscure effect tells you to roll a smaller die than d20 you do just that. And in this case it's a good thing instead of a bad thing.

But what's that got to do with surviving dangerous Luck checks? Are you saying there's a rule that allows characters to burn luck to reduce the die rolled for Luck Checks? :?:

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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by Raven_Crowking »

CapnZapp wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:37 am
Raven_Crowking wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 4:33 am The die can be modified by the dice chain. In this case, reducing the die is good, and increasing it is better.
Apologies, but I don't understand this answer.
"The die is never affected by the dice chain"
SoBH pbp:

Cathbad the Meek (herbalist Wizard 1): AC 9; 4 hp; S 7, A 7, St 10, P 17, I 13, L 8; Neutral; Club, herbs, 50' rope, 50 cp; -1 to melee attack rolls. Hideous scar.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by CapnZapp »

Raven_Crowking wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 8:53 am "The die is never affected by the dice chain"
I have fixed the error. Thanks. Do you have any comment regarding the greater issue?
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by Raven_Crowking »

CapnZapp wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:42 am
Raven_Crowking wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 8:53 am "The die is never affected by the dice chain"
I have fixed the error. Thanks. Do you have any comment regarding the greater issue?
Yes: I do not see this issue as a problem.

Characters with more luck are luckier. Thieves and halflings, in particular, are tempted to use their Luck, which means that sooner or later their luck will run out. I have no problem with this, at all. If you want better Luck, quest for it!
SoBH pbp:

Cathbad the Meek (herbalist Wizard 1): AC 9; 4 hp; S 7, A 7, St 10, P 17, I 13, L 8; Neutral; Club, herbs, 50' rope, 50 cp; -1 to melee attack rolls. Hideous scar.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by Raven_Crowking »

I think that you and I are really looking at this game from very different perspectives.

Where you see bugs, I see features, and vice versa.

That said, Quest For It applies to judges as well as players. You are not only entitled to make it the game you want, you should do so! Why settle for anything that doesn't meet your needs, if you can find a way to have those needs met?
SoBH pbp:

Cathbad the Meek (herbalist Wizard 1): AC 9; 4 hp; S 7, A 7, St 10, P 17, I 13, L 8; Neutral; Club, herbs, 50' rope, 50 cp; -1 to melee attack rolls. Hideous scar.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by Father Goose »

Raven_Crowking wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:55 pm I think that you and I are really looking at this game from very different perspectives.

Where you see bugs, I see features, and vice versa.

That said, Quest For It applies to judges as well as players. You are not only entitled to make it the game you want, you should do so! Why settle for anything that doesn't meet your needs, if you can find a way to have those needs met?
All of this!
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by CapnZapp »

You know, having a rules discussion forum really is pointless if nothing is wrong and nothing ever needs improvement...and if the solution to every problem is "just fix it yourself", that means there's nothing left to discuss. :?

That approach discourages discussions leading to each new printing getting better than the last. That approach leads to stagnation.

Maybe I need to realize active vibrant discussion of the DCC rules is over, at least at this venue.

---

Now then, if someone else is reading this in the reasonably near future, a comment like "Characters with more luck are luckier" is non-constructively stating the obvious. It completely fails to address the question, being that why should Luck function so differently from other stats?

I mean, so far nobody has even attempted to answer any specific questions. Questions like this one:

Why should the difference between having 18 Luck and having 9 Luck be a whopping 50% increase in success rate (90% vs 45%) while the difference between 18 Strength (or Personality etc) and 9 Strength is a mere 15% increase (+3 vs +0 modifier; 65% vs 50% given a DC 10 Check)?

This makes no sense to me, especially when you take into account how the non-standard Luck Check mechanic leads to:
- you can't use Luck points on Luck Checks (since the rules state they add +1 to the roll, which you don't want when you need to roll low)
- inexplicably, detrimental effects that lower your die size actually makes you more lucky? Mind. Blown. How is this explained?
- even if you do allow Luck points on Luck Checks (making them give a -1 instead I guess) the difference between a low or even average Luck score and a high one remains mindbogglingly vast:
* With Luck 10 you have a 25% risk of having to spend half your total amount of Luck to pass any given Check (the actual math is more complicated than that, but if you roll a 15 on the d20 you need to burn 5 Luck to make the test, leaving you with only Luck 5).
* With Luck 5 you have a 50% risk of not being able to burn enough Luck to make the Check at all (again math is complex, but if you roll 10 you need to spend all of your Luck to make the roll, leaving you unable to do any task)
* On the other hand, if you have Luck 18 you pass 90% of Checks without having to burn any Luck at all.

This means that if an adventure subjects you to five Luck Checks, the probabilities of you making them all are astronomically different for the low and medium Luck hero on one hand and the high Luck hero on the other. I'm not going to do the math here, so just trust me when I say the Luck 18 hero will likely survive while the average Luck hero will most definitely die. (Actually the Luck 18 guy has a 59% chance of not having to spend a single Luck point, while the Luck 10 guy is exceedingly likely to fail at least one Check)

The rule leads to a consequence I can't understand how you can like: The best strategy is to never burn any Luck points at all, full stop. Even if you start with 18 Luck, starting to spend them just causes a snowballing effect where you will quickly find you need to spend more and more points more and more often. What this means is; if you are faced with the choice between certain death and burning Luck, then sure go ahead and burn those points. In every other case, even if the outcome is very painful or embarrassing or warping, do not burn Luck. Doing so means failure to comprehend basic statistics.

And behind all of this there's the basic understanding of why ability modifiers were added to D&D in the first place. The fact 18 Strength is only a few points better than 10 Strength is supposed to be a good thing. (It's three points in DCC, four points in d20 and in AD&D it's basically two points for attacks and three to five points for damage)

---

Now contrast these extreme consequences of the RAW Luck Check with how things would work if Luck worked like every other stat:
- Burning Luck works just fine
- changes in die size works as you would expect
- Burning a point or two of Luck isn't the end of the world. For instance if you have Luck 12 you can burn three points and still have a +0 modifier
- the difference between characters with low and high scores is the same as for any other stat.

So again I'm asking. What made the game developer make Luck the uber "god stat" of DCC? What was it about the regular resolution mechanic that didn't appeal to Goodman Games?

If all you can say is "because we like it" or "its for nostalgic reasons" I guess I have my answer.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by GnomeBoy »

CapnZapp wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:11 am ...why should Luck function so differently from other stats?
It's conceptually different. Other stats are tied to... what should we call it? genetics? training? experience? ...it's all within the character, so to speak.

Luck however is your position within the whims of the universe, your up to the moment place in the cosmic flow of Law and Chaos. A character can test their strength and understand how strong they are... but Luck is trickier to test. Was that skin of the teeth survival a coincidence, or was it luck? You can never be sure.

Luck is fundamentally a different thing.


FWIW, I do allow the burning of Luck on roll-under Luck checks. The 'target number' is set before the roll, and if you burn Luck to improve the roll after the roll has been made, that's fine. We don't change the AC if someone burns Luck to improve a to-hit roll, we likewise shouldn't move the goal post if someone burns Luck on a Luck check. YMMV

If I faced an effect that worsened someone's chances on a roll under check, they'd then go up the Dice Chain. Common sense, it seems to me. The general case is "worse chances" equals lower on the Chain, but that must be adapted for the situation, just like a positive Luck Mod lowers your result on the Fumble Table. Start thinking in worse/better terms and it's easy to see.

Capn, I don't know what your DCC sessions have been like, but five Luck checks within one adventure sounds really extreme. Is that hypothetical, or have you experienced that?

CapnZapp wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:11 am So again I'm asking. What made the game developer make Luck the uber "god stat" of DCC? What was it about the regular resolution mechanic that didn't appeal to Goodman Games?
I think it's extremely relevant to point out that the game went though a great deal of playtesting before it was released, and that it has been in play at 1000's of tables in the last decade. IME, Luck can add a lot of fun to the game, to the point that myself and others feel it's absence when playing other games, but I'd never call it the 'uber god stat' -- it's one of many levers that can be pulled in the course of play to create changes to the course of events.

Beyond the theoretical, what have your sessions been like with regards to Luck?
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by Raven_Crowking »

CapnZapp wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:11 am You know, having a rules discussion forum really is pointless if nothing is wrong and nothing ever needs improvement...and if the solution to every problem is "just fix it yourself", that means there's nothing left to discuss. :?
Yeah, but if your living room is exactly the way you want it, and your neighbor starts proposing "fixes" for things you specifically like, you aren't likely to have much of a discussion about those proposed changes. You can explain why you want your couch where it is, but if someone else really prefers a pair of chairs, what kind of discussion are you really going to have?

I have proposed several house rules for DCC over the years, and I have proposed using the dice chain rather than trying to remember combat modifiers more than once. I like (and use) fleeting Luck. I would call those improvements, because they build on what I perceive as the fundamental design choices of the game.

Things that change those fundamental design choices I am less interested in, or things that view those design choices themselves as problems. There is, simply put, a fundamental disconnect between that kind of thought process and the way I view the game. That doesn't make you wrong by any means. Like I said, you should make the game work for you if you are going to play it, even if that means kludging two or three systems together. But I will do what I can to counter requests that Goodman Games shifts the core away from something I want to play.

Ultimately, though, this is all really just me recognizing that I am not the right person to try to answer your questions. And explaining why I am stepping away from trying to do so.
SoBH pbp:

Cathbad the Meek (herbalist Wizard 1): AC 9; 4 hp; S 7, A 7, St 10, P 17, I 13, L 8; Neutral; Club, herbs, 50' rope, 50 cp; -1 to melee attack rolls. Hideous scar.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by Father Goose »

In my experience, games that try to provide a rule for every situation and attempt to create uniformity in said rules inevitably create a fertile breeding ground for Rules Lawyers and arguments at the table.
DCC, on the other hand, leaves so much to the discretion of the Judge that it is virtually impossible to Rules Lawyer. So while I find discussion between players to be valuable, I also find the kind of answers that are so frustrating to you (like fix it yourself) to be not only sufficient, but also welcome. I see it as encouragement from both creator and community for me to run my game my way, rather than the dismissal of discussion that you have labeled it to be.
As for the difference between Luck's "roll under" mechanic and the more standard "roll + modifier vs DC," I see that as an exciting dynamic. Also, your examples completely discount the very real benefits of burning luck, as well as the reality that luck can improve over time. Those two elements keep the luck system in constant dynamic flux throughout the game for players and Judges who are willing to fully embrace what this game is, rather than lamenting what it is not.
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by CapnZapp »

GnomeBoy wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 9:05 am It's conceptually different. Other stats are tied to... what should we call it? genetics? training? experience? ...it's all within the character, so to speak.

Luck however is your position within the whims of the universe, your up to the moment place in the cosmic flow of Law and Chaos. A character can test their strength and understand how strong they are... but Luck is trickier to test. Was that skin of the teeth survival a coincidence, or was it luck? You can never be sure.

Luck is fundamentally a different thing.
Thank you. The rulebook sure could discuss Luck and the Luck Check more. Your comments would be very worthwhile to include.
FWIW, I do allow the burning of Luck on roll-under Luck checks. The 'target number' is set before the roll, and if you burn Luck to improve the roll after the roll has been made, that's fine. We don't change the AC if someone burns Luck to improve a to-hit roll, we likewise shouldn't move the goal post if someone burns Luck on a Luck check. YMMV
(Can I just comment I have never suggested to move any goal posts. Are you perhaps thinking of a statement posted by someone else? Going to skip that bit.)

If I understand you correctly, you're saying you allow players to lower their rolls by burning Luck?

Then I really wish the rulebook phrased it more generally useful (i.e. vague). In my 8th Printing page 19 states:

"Any character can permanently burn Luck
to give a one-time bonus to a roll. For example, you
could burn 6 points of Luck to get a +6 modifier on a
roll, but your Luck score is now 6 points lower."

This clearly does not provide for using Luck on Luck Checks. A bonus is unequivocally a positive integer (as opposed to a negative one). Imagine if the text instead said:

"Any character can permanently burn Luck to improve a roll. The improvement is one-time only. For example, you could burn 6 points of Luck to get a +6 modifier on an attack roll or a -6 modifier on a Luck Check, but your Luck score is now 6 points lower."

See?
If I faced an effect that worsened someone's chances on a roll under check, they'd then go up the Dice Chain. Common sense, it seems to me. The general case is "worse chances" equals lower on the Chain, but that must be adapted for the situation, just like a positive Luck Mod lowers your result on the Fumble Table. Start thinking in worse/better terms and it's easy to see.
Now you suddenly bring the dice chain into Luck burns. That's maybe obvious to you, but not to someone that have just read the rulebook. (By the rulebook burning Luck gives modifiers, not die size changes.)
Capn, I don't know what your DCC sessions have been like, but five Luck checks within one adventure sounds really extreme. Is that hypothetical, or have you experienced that?
Don't worry. I fully realize any given adventure will only force one really significant Luck Check upon a character, or maybe two. More than that and the character needs to take actions that means they deserve what's coming to them! :)

However. The reasoning still stands. If you play five adventures (and maybe reach level 3, doesn't matter), the mathematical probabilities still hold. Which brings us to Luck rewards during or after completing quests and meeting your goals.

Maybe you routinely give out more Luck for surviving adventures than the occasional 1 point reward that I see in published scenarios. Indeed, maybe you take that for granted.

In which case, the rulebook guideline probably should be improved to make it clear what experienced DCC Judges actually end up giving their heroes on average?

A quick guesstimate - if heroes gain 3-4 points of Luck on average between adventures, then yes, the Luck Check makes much more sense, since you can recuperate from "average bad luck" but not from "extremely bad luck". (You'd need twice that or ~8 points/scenario to reliably survive a sustained string of bad luck) That's just a guess based on math though. And it presumes you can burn Luck to lower your Luck Check rolls.
CapnZapp wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 2:11 am So again I'm asking. What made the game developer make Luck the uber "god stat" of DCC? What was it about the regular resolution mechanic that didn't appeal to Goodman Games?
I think it's extremely relevant to point out that the game went though a great deal of playtesting before it was released, and that it has been in play at 1000's of tables in the last decade. IME, Luck can add a lot of fun to the game, to the point that myself and others feel it's absence when playing other games, but I'd never call it the 'uber god stat' -- it's one of many levers that can be pulled in the course of play to create changes to the course of events.
I'm sure. I just found the special mechanic was detailed by the rulebook with zero introduction or context. It's pretty natural to not just accept "thousands of play testers liked it" and actually ask: what about the standard mechanic didn't cut the mustard for the people that actually decided to have Luck operate by its own set of rules? :)
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by dustle »

To address some of your points succinctly (sometimes in ways that have already been addressed by others), Luck is a fundamentally different attribute than the others. Your physical attributes will always be relative to the difficulty of a task (DC). If you have 0 Luck, there's should be no way at all for you to pass the simplest Luck check, hence the old-school roll under rule. Setting the DC at 10 would give your character too much of a chance to pass, in that it would not reflect the fact that your character has NO LCUK AT ALL. As opposed to GnomeBoy, whose opinion I respect greatly in general, I don't allow burning Luck to affect the success of a Luck check. Partially for the reason you note from the rule book (burning Luck is always additive), and partially because I subscribe to the moving goalposts rationale in this instance. If your Luck is at 7, and you roll an 8 to subtract 1 from your roll (not that I would allow subtraction in the first place), your Luck is now 6 and your roll is 7, so it's still a failure. Re: the dice chain, I've never come across an instance where it would apply to the Luck roll, but if I did I would just reverse it: penalty equals one UP the dice chain.

Short advice: before you start worrying about the rationale and start tinkering, play with the Rules As Written for a while. I think you'll find they work well. This isn't D&D and should work the same way, but it's a well though out system that works wonderfully as written but allows plenty of space for house rules (as did pre 3.0 editions of D&D).
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Re: The extremity of the DCC Luck Check

Post by GnomeBoy »

CapnZapp wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 4:21 am (Can I just comment I have never suggested to move any goal posts. Are you perhaps thinking of a statement posted by someone else? Going to skip that bit.)
That's not a chastisement in any form -- I'm just laying out the example.

And the Dice Chain is a major feature of the game -- it can be used with any check being made, since it's a fantastic tool for addressing the circumstances of the moment. It can easily 'simulate' so much.

I bring up playtesting because that's how the game was developed. No one sat in a proverbial ivory tower and built the game. It was developed by trying things by playing it, tinkering, throwing things out, throwing things in, throwing things that had been thrown out back in... They weren't playtesting to check that the theory would work in practice; it was playtesting to develop the working theory (if that metaphor didn't break down too much as I typed it). We are having a discussion here that is on a very 'theoretical' plane. But I think concrete in-game examples might be more constructive, given that that's the beating heart of this game. Which is what lead to me that last question I asked above:


Beyond the theoretical, what have your sessions been like with regards to Luck?

As a convention rep for Goodman Games, one of the things that the job includes is having people approach me about whatever bit of the rules they think is 'broken' or odd. The process for me is to then tease out where that perception is coming from... Clerical Disapproval is one that that's used to come up semi-regularly (leave out one piece or misunderstand how one piece works, and yeah, suddenly the Clerics are dominating the game).

I have many times spoken to people whose perception of the game changed significantly after they had actually played it. I've run games where players clearly sat down with one expectation and left the table with a different understanding altogether, watching the change in attitude happen in real time in front of my face.

So to try to get to the heart of your questioning of Luck, I'm curious what has been your experience with Luck, in play.
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