Task Mechanics

Outlaws uses quite a simple task resolution system; however, it has, in my opinion, a few bumps in it. I've already talked to Paul Mason about these, and I'll document my proposed tweaks here. Whether these make it into the main rules, or remain only my house rules, I've yet to determine.

• Glossary

On this page, I use a number of abbreviations for brevity's sake. Few of these abbreviations exist in the game proper, so I'll gloss them here for you.

CoS -- Chance of Success
To succeed at a task, you must roll less than, or equal to, this number with your task roll.

DoS -- Degree of Success
The relative worth of your efforts, when you've succeeded at a task.

Outlaws of the Water Margin is © 1998 by Paul Mason, and is published by Panurgic Publishing. The contents of this page are not in any way intended as a challenge to this copyright.

Made with GNU Emacs.

• Why the tweaks?

The mechanics in Outlaws are supposed to be simple and easy to use, and to a great extent, they are. However, there still remain a few rough edges which are, in my opinion, evidence of the genetic drift the game has undergone over the years. The problems I have with the mechanics are few, but this page contains some tweaks that (I think) address the following concerns:

• I think the provision of two extensions to the mechanics for tasks with a CoS of 11 or greater gives too much choice in the game -- there's not, in my opinion, any need for this proliferation.

• It seems odd to have bonus roll bonuses added to the roll itself, as well as the degree of success. Adding the bonus only to the degree of success seems better (although my opinion on this may change).

• I like the 'lucky break' rule (if you roll doubles you add the dice to get your DoS), and it seem simpler to have it active all the time, even if you have a CoS greater than 11. Still, this could produce outrageously high DoS results for players with an 11+ CoS.

• What are the tweaks?

If you have a CoS of 11+, then you have two choices: you can not roll and take a DoS of 4; or, you can take your chances and roll (12 still fails), and hope to boost your DoS. If you roll, you may boost your DoS by (CoS-10)/2; that is, for every two points greater than 11 in your CoS, you may add a point to your DoS.

Notice that, it's still possible to get a lucky break if you have a CoS of 11+. That is, suppose you have a CoS of 14, and you roll double fours. You would then have a DoS of 8 (the double fourst) plus 2 ( (14-10)/2 ) for a DoS of 10.

Halving your CoS excess over 10 lets you still include lucky breaks in your task roll, and keep DoS levels down reasonably.

These tweaks have some rather subtle, wide spread effects, which I'll try and document here.

Combat
In normal Outlaws combat, you use both the task roll itself, and the DoS. You can still do this with the tweaks; however, the range of task rolls becomes compressed if you use my tweaks. Paul's bonus roll structure allowed you to produce task roll results greater than 12, if your CoS was 11+, whereas my tweaks let you add only to the DoS.

This means that supremely talented combatants will be much more evenly matched, and ripostes will likely happen more often (situations where an attacker may "win" an exchange, but produce a smaller DoS than his defending opponent).

Bad Joss
The Bad Joss system provides a means of forcing characters to exchange Bad Joss points for "real-world" problems. My tweaks require you to simplify this system.

When making Bad Joss rolls, the ease still equals your current Bad Joss point total. If you have more than 12 Bad Joss points, then you have a CoS of 12+, but unlike normal tasks, you're forced to make a roll. If you fail the roll, none of your Bad Joss points "manifest themselves"; that is, you don't exchange any points for "real-world" problems.

If you succeed at the roll, then (a) you immediately lose a number of Bad Joss points equal to half the roll's DoS, and (b) you cross index your whole DoS on the Bad Joss charts to see how the points you "lost" manifest themselves in your character's life.

Note: You'll likely need to tweak the numbers in the Bad Joss table entries slightly; I'd also recommend dispensing with the "roll again on other table" entries, since these add a level of complexity that's not really needed.

On the subject of expending Bad Joss in exchange for penalties to rolls, we simplify again. Players can declare that they wish to expend a certain amount of Bad Joss points. Each of these points provides a -2 modifier to the CoS of some task, as the referee sees fit. These rolls are treated otherwise as normal task rolls; if you roll snake-eyes, you still have to make an immediate Bad Joss roll, just like normal.