I am unsure if this fits RPG.se well enough, so I am asking it on meta to check before I do post it. If this is not quite a good fit, that's fine. Does this belong on RPG.se? Why? What changes are needed?
The initial question is as follows:
Background
I am making an RPG that uses poker/Yahtzee like hands from die rolls instead of the normal "dice+mods vs target number" paradigm for determining effects of character actions.
The Problem
Hitting a particular hand can have vanishingly small chances. The solution I am toying with implements partial successes to modify the target hand. Said another way: what other RPGS use modifiers for, this one would temporarily downgrade a defense. What normally requires a full house would require a straight, triple, or even 2 doubles, depending on the strength of the effect.
The issue is that this should also apply to the players. For example, they need to track (for their character) that a straight is now their upper limit instead of a full house, and the lower limit is now doubles instead of two doubles.
The Question
Are there any RPGs (or mechanics) out there that have a simple method for tracking a frequently-changing ranges of numbers or values?
The ideal solution:
- has a low mental burden: these bounds may shift over a few combat exchanges!
- should be "nice" to a character sheet: it shouldn't involve anything significantly larger than a 8"x11.5" or A4 sheet of paper and be storable in a notebook or file folder.
- allows for multiple shifts in the range to track.
Some Research
The best solution I am considering right now is side-of-sheet trackers and paperclips. The paperclips would mark the boundaries and it would be up to the players to move them up/down. Players would need to know what intervals to cover (like... "the distance between lower and upper bounds is three spaces.")
Another solution would be to simply have common alternate states stored on character sheet, much like AC, Flat-footed AC, and Touch AC from D&D 3.5! That forces some design choices, like limiting the number of alternate states.
Another is to simply not modify the range on paper at all, but include something like "act as if your resulting hand is actually of the next-most-unlikely (or next-most-likely) hand."
