- Location
- Russia
So, basically, add a quest-chain option that would guarantee getting at least a single linker core as a finale, probably with the character liked the most who is involved in that quest getting it? That could be an interesting option.You seemed to have come across your answer to @Racoras's questions: The low probability decreases interest in the mechanic's use. Five percent versus zero percent is not much of a difference mathematically, much less how it gets viewed by a player in a time-management quest. On paper, there's roughly two* ways to fix low-probability rolls 'fairer' and more appealing. One, make it easier to do a bunch of rolls at once. Making, just as an example, six rolls of a d100 where you need to get a 95 or above on one of them is a way that makes the difficulty feel easier. It's still at the whims of the dice, rather than true reliability, but the saying about throwing shit at a wall is something people take stock in. Two, up the odds. There's just no getting around that, again as an example, fifty percent is better than five percent. It's direct, it's simple, and it usually simplifies the problem down to the proper balance of the variable.
But in the context of the quest, they both have issues: Making a bunch of scan rolls could clash with the timeslot system. Running around and scanning a bunch of people would be a major undertaking competing with ongoing quests and major events, to say nothing of the narrative consequences. Meanwhile, making it more likley someone has a Linker Core wouldn't be faithful to Nanoha, and by itself invents a problem of 'cheesing' a bunch of mages via mass-scaning.
So long-winded explanations out of the way, here's my proposal of an actual solution: Take door number three and drop the mechanic. Rather than a roll, tie the gathering of magical potentiates into how much time the players put into it, an ongoing quest line. Getting 'rarer' and more specific characters can be tied to their own quest chain/Social Link of varying length. Which would mean you'd have to decide whether or not even more people have a Linker Core. Things like how strong the Linker Core is, whether or not they're a parahuman, any Rare Skills, etc. that's all stuff that's fine being put to the dice. It's just that there is a reason even Loot Boxes usually give you something on a bad roll: Something is usually better than nothing.
EDIT: I say two, there technically is the third option. The classic 'make the rare RNG-dropped item super-worth more'. But given the further rolls to things like Linker Core strength and things like device-less vs device-with magic, I don't really see a way to make that mechanic fit the quest. It'd mean every success gets super-powerful mages, which is wierd.
And as for how to measure the strength of the core - look at how well the players did the quest, how quickly they finished it, stuff like that. We're not in real life, we can afford to go into meta-gaming that doesn't make sense in-universe for a bit.
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