Do we have any fans of the ORE System on this site?

If you like the ORE, what do you like about it?

If you don't like the ORE, what turns you off of it?

Not for me, and I almost never dislike a well built system, which it is. Something about it turns me right off.

-clash

Do you dislike dice pool games in general?

Not at all. I tend to like pools. Some of the resolution systems for my games are pools of various types.

-clash

I read Reign a long time ago and played a one-shot of it at a con a year ago.

In general , I like the system well enough and a rules-medium system with hit locations hits my sweet spot for fantasy. The thing is I'm already very familiar with such a system (RuneQuest) and I can't find anything about Reign that would make me want to adopt it over RQ.

Furthermore, I find the conceit of the 'one roll' to be slightly dishonest. It's true that you can determine multiple things through one roll in this system, but you can do the same thing with a single roll in other systems, too (for example, just roll your damage, hit location, and to hit rolls all together - one roll). The 'one roll' mechanic is also no quicker than other mechanics. True, you only need to roll once, but you spend most time analyzing the roll than in most other systems I've played. Thus there is no need for a 'one roll' mechanic that I can figure out - it just isn't the selling feature that it's made out to be.

My only other comment is that it supposedly has a high whiff factor, however I didn't experience this personally in my one session - I actually rolled so well it didn't seem to be a challenge. Apparently this is not normal, though.

Yeah! That's a good part of my antipathy, I think. It feels gimmicky. Un-necessary. You can roll twice or even three times in the time it takes you to analyze a roll in ORE. I wish I liked it because one of my favorite designers, Benjamin Baugh, writes a lot for ORE. That just sucks!

-clash

I can see a potential "whiff factor" with the system. I'm no math expert but it must be difficult to get two ten-sided dice to come up with the same number when a fairly typical pool is only four or five dice being rolled. I'd need to see it in actual play of course....

Not a fan. In fact I've been called names for not liking it. I've played it and run it---and yes it was the whiff factor that cause my issues with it.

Just curious....

What versions have you played and run?

Godlike, Wild Talents. Other versions may fix the issue, I don't know, but being told "our math makes it so" when I sit at a table and see that math not work out in play, is annoying. I love the idea of ORE, seriously, it sounds awesome. I just don't like the implementation.

One of the problems is that the whole 4 dice=50/50 (or whatever X Dice= 50/50) only works on what you might call torrent level, only in great numbers to the average show themselves repeatedly enough to be useful. The problem with dice matching is that the the die you are rolling RIGHT now, the lonely 1d10, has every a 9 out of 10 chance of NOT getting a match to the one before it. More dice mean that is reduced, but even then it comes down to the 1d10, not the other 3d10, because nothing in those 3d10's results impact the 1d10 you are rolling now. I've been told they got the mat right. It sounds great.

Yet when I sat down and PLAYED the game, I watched it fail, over and over again.

In one game (Godlike) my character turned to mist. I snuck up on a German Machinegun nest, and tried to shoot the Machinegunner. Unfortunately, even when modifiers for surprise and taking aim, my starting character points based stats/skills had me miss, at pretty much point blank range.

The only soldier who was routinely hit in the entire adventure was called "Sniper" and her character was built to be the deadliest shot ever. With Wiggle/Hard Dice in her shooting skill.

Lots of people love the game. Lots of people don't. There was a discussion about the game by William Stoddard his "Ghazi" campaign, set in superpowered Arabic areas in a different time, and his not liking the system on Pyramid. (Sadly can't access that anymore.) The problem for him was you had two issues. You whiffed all the time, until you built a character that couldn't miss, and the line between the two was very very narrow.