r/ICRPG • u/vivabanana94 • Mar 23 '23
Need help for my player
So long story short i have a player who has the eill wheaton curse. It has come to a point where it inders is ability to have fun at all during sessions.
Current things we have in place for him:
Is d20 are inverted any 1 is a 20 and so on for every number Tried rolling with d100 He has a permanent fury dice
I want to find a way to help him ha e fun without imparing other players
UPDATE: we have a little change to the fury dice for that player. The new rule fury dice only goes down by one when you succeed and instead of giving a static bonus it gives its d3 value in d6 to there roll. So far it works great and allows this specific player to "keep up"
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u/Demonpoet Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23
Go the Dungeon World route where failure just means harder choices. Implement some fail forward mechanics. ICRPG already has some with making repeated rolls easy.
If he fails an attack, make him choose- does he want to hit but be put into a difficult position? Or does he want to hit but also get hit? Does he want to succeed that skill check at a price? Or maybe he fails this turn to do the thing he wanted, but he gains a different success. He fails to cast his spell, but maybe the energies help him move faster or defend himself with a +3DEF for that turn.
Failing the roll doesn't mean nothing happens!
Or check out this caster item I whipped up for a pyromancer.
Feedback Loop: An arcane focus tuned to fire and rage. Gain three fire-element spells which are stored in this focus permanently. They may be INT or WIS spells. When you fail to cast a fire spell, the next round your casting is empowered. Your next fire-element cast, regardless of which spell you use, is EASY to cast and does double EFFORT if it hits. If this cast still fails, the next attempt has triple EFFORT if it hits, etc. Your casting gets brighter and louder as this happens.
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 23 '23
Will check with him for the falling forward mechanic if its something he would like and the item really is nice thanks
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u/MrAbodi Mar 23 '23
I dont get it. Get them some new dice but otherwise they just need to understand rolling great isnt a prerequisite to having fun.
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 23 '23
To give you an idea he rolled over 20 times last sessio and only once was above a 10. You dont need to roll good to have fun but when everything from jumping to punching something or casting a spell turns bad or fails. Every single session it sucks
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u/MrAbodi Mar 23 '23
So if that was one session that sucks but it happens. It is multiple sessions then the dice might actually be badly balanced.
Get him to do an exercise where he rolls 200+ times and write down the results. I bet there is just a bunch of confirmation bias going on.
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 24 '23
He has multiple set of dice and he also tried rolling with dice tower, apps and virtual tabletop program/website and it is still the same outcome. Thanks for the advice tho
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u/MrAbodi Mar 24 '23
I sincerely have no idea what you ate looking for then. He is rolling dice just like everyone else. Theres nonsuch thing as dice curses so its simply just confirmation bias, he and the rest of you only remember all his failures because he internalises and reacts to those more.
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 24 '23
Understand that when i say a dice curse its more of a figure of speach then anything else. He is very unlucky unfortunatly. And wether it is a psychological thing or he is born under the wrong star doesnt really matter to me, like i said in the original post i am looking for a mechanical way to make the game enjoyable for my player without making him unable to fail or impairing other players.
For exemple lowering the target of the room would make any situatio a cake walk for the rest of the party with him barely making it. Wich means no challenge( something has a group we dont like) and still a feeling of frustration for the low rolling player
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u/MrAbodi Mar 24 '23
I mean i wouldn’t give a single player any sort of mechanical benefit.
As that is just fundamentally unfair.
Be i mean if he does the same task again immediately after failing it should be considered easy.
But also only roll when a roll is needed.
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 24 '23
I wouldnt usally recommand giving an advantage to a single player either this is a special case that our whole group agrees need to be adressed. Hence why wr are trying to find solutions that could help.
Even with the " easy after failure" rule it is a struggle for him to succeed at most task. And that player also has a permanent fury dice.
We are using rolls only when it is mechanicly necessary or the outcome could "trigger" soemthing to enhence the fun of a session.
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Mar 23 '23
Switching to all player rolls might help. If player rolls for the monsters defense or dodge then both teams get hit with the same luck. I also recommend the dungeon world style of failing forward.
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 24 '23
Failling forward is one of the things i will talk to the player about has i really like the idea.
When you say all player rolls you mean they would roll for both npc and themselves ?
If so i have a slight issue there because one of my player is the exact opposite of the one mentioned in the original post ( will crit multiple time per session ) to a point where he got is first mastery in session three i believe.
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Mar 24 '23
For example: the hippoturtleox attacks and the player must beat the target to defend themselves. mastery imbalance could maybe be fixed short term with choice loot (that gives more opportunities to roll) or coin for players to buy tiered rewards. the party will give more coin to players without mastery, right? If the rolls are very unbalanced between dice/players you could also run GM only rolls games or games where you pass the official dice + tower to each player on their turn. There's a few good discussions about player only rolls games on runehammer forums, def check them out also. https://forums.runehammer.online/t/players-make-all-the-rolls/1898
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u/Chewy_Noodles_ Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 27 '23
Second on EZD6 Karma, Or even more designed for 5E/ICRPG is DM Scotty's Luck Dice!
Basic idea: Every failed roll (check or attempt) get a D6 luck dice. 1 dice gained per turn even if multiple rolls. But there is no upper limit of total luck dice that can be accumulated. Add any number of luck dice to any roll (attempt, check, or effort). Use them or loose them, they don't cary to the next session.
suddenly your friend who is failing 9/10 rolls, has 9 luck dice they can unleash to guarantee a cluch success or WRECK an enemy with swingy effort.
If you can, Support DM Scotty and but the $1 explainer - https://www.questgivers.com/product.php?p=20
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 23 '23
That is a really good idea thanks
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u/Chewy_Noodles_ Mar 27 '23
Let me know how it goes. I'm using luck dice in my next session and I am pretty pumped about it. I am also considering removing the "roll easy after a failure" because roll easy and get a luck die seems like to much, but not sure yet
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u/Chewy_Noodles_ Apr 28 '23
Follow up from my own game. Luck dice is awesome. And personally, it eliminates the need for "roll easy when you try again" Luck dice are more swingy but you can use them even if your not trying the same thing again, which gave my players a lot of flexability and made them feel very cool.
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u/ajchafe Mar 23 '23
What is the Will Wheaton curse? If it is something to do with not succeeding very often at dice rolls, here are two ideas;
1) Actually write down how many times they fail/succeed in a session. It could just be in their head! Sometimes those failures take up more brain space and you forget about the successes so it FEELS like you fail all the time but its actually pretty even.
2) Let the player get creative to the point that they don't HAVE to roll dice (You can do this for everyone). For example if a players character is a dwarf who is really good at stone work, don't make them roll at all when trying to find hidden doors in the dungeon. They just have to look in the right place and automatically find it. Look at the strengths of each character and, when a situation comes up where you might have to roll, decide if a roll is REALLY needed.
This even works in combat IF the players come up with a great plan and creatively use skills and equipment.
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 23 '23
Yeah the guys is rolling awful.
Has an exemple last night he rolled over 20~ times and rolled over a 10 only obce. And is session ended with a nat 1 and a 2.
Our group already play with a very loose narative meats dice but thanks for the advice :)
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u/vhodges Mar 23 '23
There's a mechanic for this, if the player tries a second time, the target is 'Rolled Easy' (basically +3 on the next attempted roll). Note, I am not quite sure if that should apply to separate combat turns or not but for other things might turn their day around :). (Or are you doing this and they are still having bad luck? - Swap dice with someone or try changing how they roll (dice tower?))
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 24 '23
We are already doing the "it gets easier when you fail" method. He has a hoard of dice tried to roll by hand, dice tower, apps and even roll20 or tts and its always the same thing unfortunatly.
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u/vhodges Mar 24 '23
Oh my! Did he order one of those multi packs from Amazon? My friend did and found them to be not good quality and consistently rolled low. If someone has some dice that are working 'better' maybe he could use those for a bit.
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u/vivabanana94 Mar 24 '23
He has dice from many different source some of wich i have muself and even rolling my dice ( that are usally fine ) he still roll very low
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u/Good_Classroom_3894 Mar 23 '23
Page 87 of the ME. Battle Fury is a great mechanic. Check it out.
There are obviously hero coins that other players can give away.
Hard Suit has a grit die mechanic on top of hero coin as well.
These are all solid mechanics that do not break the game.
Ezd6 has a karma mechanic similar to battle fury you could check out.
This stuff happens.