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Reposted by Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

Good morning! I have had a couple of people tell me Ex Ten shouldn't use 2d10 because it breaks the PBTA probability curve. They could not be more wrong and I am going explain why, because it's the end of my campaign and I need something to keep me sane, ok?

Strap in.
⤵️

a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a wall with papers on it .

Alt: a man in a suit and tie is standing gesticulating in front of a wall with paper and red thread on it

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 8h

Final 24 hours (ish!) for Ex Tenebris 😱

Help us finish strong!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bla...

Ex Tenebris: A star-spanning gothic investigation TTRPG

Unravel mysteries, battle horrors, protect the stars

www.kickstarter.com

5 6

Reposted by Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter

Not that other guy, that's for sure @neogliberal.bsky.social · 6h

And yet people have strong opinions about both dice, and car colour.

The issue is people care about die for the *wrong reasons*. No-one is developing a probability heuristic based on the dice system (which is what designers are doing).

They just like certain clicky-clacks. Red car go fast.

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

By the way, my real hot take is, die choice doesn't really matter. It's a tiny, unimportant part of game design that gets massively overfocused on. Calling a game "2d6 based" or whatever is like saying a car is "red paint job based".

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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

By the way, my real hot take is, die choice doesn't really matter. It's a tiny, unimportant part of game design that gets massively overfocused on. Calling a game "2d6 based" or whatever is like saying a car is "red paint job based".

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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

Anyway, the answer to your question is "there's nothing wrong with using 1d20". I actually think the significance of die choice is massively overplayed. My whole rantthread was really a response to someone saying my dice mechanic was borked, but TBH I don't think the choice is that significant.

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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

I think what that adds up to is, in a d20 system you tend to be trying to stack lots of modifiers, because a single +1 isn't worth very much. In 2d10 (or whatever 2dx) a single +1 can be worth a lot.

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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

It also means each +1 makes a big difference to the chance of an outright fail - at the extreme end, a +1 bonus can cut the chance of failure by 2/3.

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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

There's no right answer, but I like the way that (as you can kind of see in the thread) you get big changes around the middle. A +1 bonus on a target number of 11 is worth 9%, a +2 is worth 17%. So small adjustments make a big difference.

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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

If you have enjoyed this lecture in statistical mathematics, please check out the full paper, in which I explore probability curves by designing a gothic space investigation game.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bla...

Ex Tenebris: A star-spanning gothic investigation TTRPG

Unravel mysteries, battle horrors, protect the stars

www.kickstarter.com

3 1 7

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

If you ever read one of my games and think I haven't thought through the probabilities, that is the opposite of the truth. Sadly it is all I can do to stop thinking about probabilities when I'm asleep or dead.
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

By the way, the fun here is that you get to (almost) guarantee success when it really matters, but that Shadow then builds up and spits out cool Shadow advances.

Your best friend gets killed or corrupted.
The villain reveals a new power.
You start down a path of darkness that ends in corruption.
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

That's part of why we use 2d10s. The Shadow modifier means you are virtually guaranteed success. Virtually, but - because it's 2d10 - not quite guaranteed.

Notice there's still around a 40% chance of mixed success, so even with Shadow there may be a fly in your ointment, or grit in your oyster.
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

There's a wrinkle, which is that Ex Ten has Shadow. You can spend Shadow to boost your roll after the dice hit the table. Up to a +3 bonus. That is BIG.

With +2 from stat and +3 from shadow:
* Full success: 55%
* Mixed success: 39%
* Mishap: 6%
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

People who have wasted less of their life playing with probability curves than me might say "how can this be?"

The answer is in the bandings. Ex Ten has wider bands, but they are at the right point in the curve, where the curve is thick enough that the modifiers work essentially the same way.
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

Here's the Ex Ten %s with +0:
* Full success: 15+, 21%
* Mixed success: 10-14, 43%
* Mishap: 9 or less, 36%

With a +1 modifier it becomes 28%/44%/28% (sound familiar?)

With a +0 modifier it becomes 36%/43%/21%.

Even though I changed the dice without changing the state, the %s are very similar.
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

Ex Tenebris uses 2d10.

You have a 1 in 100 chance to roll the best and worst results, incrementing in the same way as 2d6: 1+2, 1+2+3, and so on. Slightly easier to math than 2d6.

It's totally difference dice so you'd want totally different stats, right? WRONG.
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

What's nice about this is, the big changes are at the extremes. The middle stays basically the same whatever your stat.

So you always have a high chance of a mixed success (making for fun chaos).

With that +2, that's as part of an overall high (84%) chance of success.
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

With a +0 modifier to the roll, vanilla PBTA looks like this:
* Strong hit: 10+, 17%
* Weak hit: 7-9, 42%
* Miss: 6 or less, 42%

With a +1 modifier it's 28%/44%/28%

With a +2 modifier it becomes 42%/42%/17% (the reverse of the +0 curve).
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

PBTA uses 2d6.

That means the highest and lowest result both have a probability of 1 in 36, and each step closer to the middle bumps that up to 1+2, 1+2+3, and so on. It's intuitive but still requires some maths to work out the actual percentages.
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Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 7h

Good morning! I have had a couple of people tell me Ex Ten shouldn't use 2d10 because it breaks the PBTA probability curve. They could not be more wrong and I am going explain why, because it's the end of my campaign and I need something to keep me sane, ok?

Strap in.
⤵️

a man in a suit and tie is standing in front of a wall with papers on it .

Alt: a man in a suit and tie is standing gesticulating in front of a wall with paper and red thread on it

media.tenor.com

3 6 19

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 8h

Final 24 hours (ish!) for Ex Tenebris 😱

Help us finish strong!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bla...

Ex Tenebris: A star-spanning gothic investigation TTRPG

Unravel mysteries, battle horrors, protect the stars

www.kickstarter.com

5 6

Reposted by Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 1d

There's 48 hours (ish) left on the Ex Tenebris Kickstarter - if you're on the fence and have questions, now's the time to ask them!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bla...

Ex Tenebris: A star-spanning gothic investigation TTRPG

Unravel mysteries, battle horrors, protect the stars

www.kickstarter.com

1 18 24

Reposted by Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter

Lari Assmuth @lariassmuth.bsky.social · 1d

If the latest run of Black Armada Tales is anything to go by, then Ex Tenebris is gonna be lit! Do yourself a favour and check it out!

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 1d

There's 48 hours (ish) left on the Ex Tenebris Kickstarter - if you're on the fence and have questions, now's the time to ask them!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bla...

Ex Tenebris: A star-spanning gothic investigation TTRPG

Unravel mysteries, battle horrors, protect the stars

www.kickstarter.com

1 2 2

Reposted by Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter

Galen Pejeau @nightjargames.bsky.social · 1d

Last call for rays of hope among dark stars, y'all!

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 1d

There's 48 hours (ish) left on the Ex Tenebris Kickstarter - if you're on the fence and have questions, now's the time to ask them!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/bla...

Ex Tenebris: A star-spanning gothic investigation TTRPG

Unravel mysteries, battle horrors, protect the stars

www.kickstarter.com

3 7

Josh Fox 🔜 Ex Tenebris coming to Kickstarter @armadajosh.bsky.social · 1d

To summarize: I think it will be a gorgeous item, a useful prop and focus for the campaign, it should add value in terms of helping people make sense of how the setting fits together. The game will certainly be playable without it though.

4/4

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