What about games that use the bell curve for their dice roll? If you look at the most recent editions of GURPS, Hero System, and BESM, they all do the same thing. What differs is the number of dice used, otherwise character construction functions like this: you spend points to buy ability scores that have a flat cost with some increases if a maximum ability score value is exceeded and then you can only do so with the gamemaster’s approval. BESM uses target numbers, which is effectively the opposite of D&D in the approach to simulation (flat vs. bell curve mechanic). So, it doesn’t allow a way to approach the issue of what modifiers are since they work in tandem with the relevant ability score ando/or skill to push the die roll total over the threshold for the target number. For example, the average adult has a rating of 4, the two six-sided dice yield an average of 7. Add ranks from a skill and that puts the average total at 12-17. The difficulty for an average task is 12, meaning success is more often the case. Target numbers adjust up or down by three, or roughly half a die’s average. Situational modifiers further refine the system, but they, too, are strength of position values used for environmental effects where the target number stands in as the measure for how hard something is to accomplish.
GURPS and Hero System take a different approach. They take the concept of the bell curve and use it for an internal system. GURPS gives a list of modifiers for a great many situations, like culture, differences in technological familiarity and the situation. All of them are still strength of position based modifiers. The challenges are within relation to the bell curve and the number or less needed for success. Even the modifiers that denote the difficulty are strength of position based. They range from +10 to -10. As GURPS uses a 3d6 for checks, this means a task’s difficulty is adjustable up to just shy of the curve’s average. A failure or success is virtually guaranteed at such extremes. Interestingly enough, GURPS, doesn’t penalize skill usage in combat the way D&D does. Though not stated, the dice roll represents the unquantifiable elements that could go for or against the character.
HERO System has a bit more variance, but this is limited by how skills and abilities are calculated. Like GURPS, the bell curve governs outcomes, but the values determining ranks in a skill are different so that ability scores are given less weight by dividing their value where GURPS uses a flat subtractor. None of this hides the artifice that modifiers are still rooted in the wargaming concept of strength of position. In fact, the penalties assessed against skills not normally used in combat confirms that the game’s mechanics are, like all the games discussed thus far, iterations of a derivative of wargames with perhaps a step or two between them and their predecessors. The bulk of the HERO System modifiers reside in the numerous augmentations to the basic power descriptions. But these modifiers aren’t used in play. Rather, they determine the total cost in points against a player’s budget. BESM and GURPS also do this, but HERO System raises it to an extreme. In this respect, HERO System is a true simulation tool. Any changes made to powers only define how they are manifested mechanically. There are some descriptive elements in the powers and their modifiers, but these are strength of position effects. If the power is housed in a firearm, for instance, an opponent has the ability to fight for possession if he is close enough to the character to grab hold of the weapon. Distance becomes a form of leverage and how far away a character opponent is from a device affects its overall value as location contains more meaning in the relationship between object and user/target.
Let’s look at a couple of games that try to reduce the emphasis on the strength of position in the application of modifiers: White Wolf’s new World of Darkness and Alternity. The World of Darkness uses a dice pool mechanics where each die is independent of the others. No matter what results turn up on other dice, they do nothing to alter the outcome of this one. Each ten-sided die has a 70% failure rate, however. This value is static. The whole of the system revolves around the number of dice thrown. So, for WoD games, it really is a numbers game when it comes to the mechanics. The adjustments are relative strengths of position on first glance. Unlike the values for other systems discussed so far, the addition or reduction modifiers in the WoD system do not translate into as large of a jump in percentages guaranteeing success that most systems incur as part of their mechanic for initial adjustments. The formula for success in WoD is consistent, but the percentages scale. Without including the math for the “10 again” rule that allows rerolls for 10s, the chance of success is 1-.7x, where “x” is the number of dice rolled. This is not ot say that other systems don’t have varying percentages or that the WoD system doesn’t skew towards larger intervals, but that at the average dice pool size of 4, the loss of a die only affects the chance of success by 10% and adding a die increases it by 7%. Like bell curve systems, the chances along the extremes grow more noticeable.
Each die still retains its rate of failure at 70%. This fact is what changes the system from modifiers that are purely strength of position to ones of relative strength or relative position. It might seem like an argument of semantics, but there is a lot of room between the two ideas as the former is an absolute, giving it a hard edge. Yes, success becomes more likely, but unlike the adjustments for D&D and the bell curve games discussed, this system relies purely on random chance. It is true that the number of dice rolled influences probability towards the player’s favor, but such modifications don’t work to shift the average total. The artifice is still visible, but the dice pool does reduce the visibility. One of the masks is to require a number of successes to be rolled, which affects the probability but brings attention to the number of dice rolled and the adjustments slide towards their wargame roots. Even the permutations on the rolls can’t prevent the slide, but does keep the game from collapsing into the wargame mechanic.
Alternity is a special case in light of everything discussed so far. The game is in many ways the forerunner of the d20/OGL system. All actions are governed by the roll of a d20, but it gets modified by the inclusion of another die. The game is an internal system, quasi-point-buy, and a linear cost for ability scores. There are a few twists, however. Success increases in magnitude if the thresholds reached are half the ability or skill score or half that number again. The d20 serves as a control die and is always used. The bonus or penalty determines what size die, if any, accompanies the d20. There’s no bell curve for average tasks under common conditions. Any inclusion of a bell curve thus represents an unquantifiable but noticeable condition that makes a task easier or more challenging. Plus, it has the added bonus of varying percentages.
Adjustments in Alternity look like those from other games, but this is superficial. The addition of a die or two may create a bell curve, but it varies by circumstances and represents a more nebulous approach as the chief mechanic applies more descriptive terms to situations that represent the linguistic component to a random roll. A +1 or +2 step penalty isn’t a flat adjustment, but changes a d20+d0 to a d20+d4 or d20+d6 respectively. The descriptive term is used to complement the die penalty or bonus. Like internal systems, this game doesn’t make use of varying target numbers. The mechanic is somewhat similar to WoD in that the control die is independent of the situation die. Yes, there combined total matters, but the situation die is a random value and not a flat number that moves the bell curve along the number line. Add to this the same potential to slide into the strength of position by paying attention to the dice rolled and the artifice is revealed once more. Rather than relying on the permutations that WoD has as options, Alternity uses them up front (for example, there’s no equivalent to “10 again” or the like as an Amazing result already addresses that issue and counts as multiple successes). The inclusion of complexity for tasks at the outset is also encoded in descriptive terms. But, because of these compensations and nuanced negotiations, the game shows its artifice all the more and reveals that the situation die is still a form of strength of position modifier, only one with more randomness.
It seems that RPGs are too rooted to their wargame predecessors. No matter the system or method, the vestiges of the strength of position are embedded in the fabric of the game. There are a few glimmers that this won’t always be the case, but the math and its manipulation are barriers. Both Alternity and World of Darkness contain methods of mitigating the problems that adjustments present, but both also reveal that the only meaning ascribed to these values are a character’s relation in respect to proximity. The result is a conflict between potential and probability. If a system can remove the only meaning as one of relative strength by position, then the modifier can take on more nuanced meanings and leave behind physical and theoretical terrain features used in RPGs up to this point. A fully random mechanic seems to point a way toward that end. For now, however, it seems the answer to my question of what a modifier is is a relationship of strength based on positionality in any given frame of reference.
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Anatomy of Game Design: Modifiers, Part 1
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Anatomy of Game Design: A Digital State