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First, I have to mention that designers of Fading Suns Bill Bridges and Andrew Greenberg have been involved in World of Darkness (hit me if I am wrong, but Mage: the Ascension and Werewolf: the Apocalypse) and I can see that in Fading Suns.
Long before I knew this background of those developers, I had always that picture, that somehow Fading Suns was similar to WoD. Well, now it is explained to me and is quite clear why so.
Fading Suns and old World of Darkness are different game system, and ofcourse different, but there is some similarities I point out now.
Attribute + Skill
Basic mechnics to resolve what characters ability to success is quite the same. In both games you add your attribute rating to your skill rating. So, if you shoot, in Vampire: the Masquerade you add your Dexterity to your Firarms. In Fading Suns you add Dexterity to your Shoot.
Difference is, that in Vampire (oWoD) usually Attributes and skills range from 1 to 5, when in Fading Suns range is 1 - 10. So, in Vampire Skill + Attribute varies from two to ten, when in Fading suns it varies from two to twenty.
But still, (usually) both work with Attribute + Skill.
Dice
In World of Darkness you use D10, but in Fading Suns you use D20. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense and the basics is still very close. As in WoD Skill + Attribute range from 1 - 10 and in Fading suns from 2 - 20, it is not hard to see the dice. WoD highest score is 10 so the used die is D10. In Fading Suns highest score is 20 so you use D20. Makes perfect logic this far, doesn't it?
Dice pool versus Victory chart
Here comes the tricky part, but you can see, it is basically the same whether you throw bunch of dice or just one die. See, in WoD amount of dice you roll is equal to your Skill + Attribute. And (usually in normal tasks) every D10 result over 6 is one success. So, if you're Dexterity + Shoot is 7, you roll total of 7 D10's and every D10 what results 6+ is a success. So, you roll for example:
3, 6, 7, 3, 2, 9 what equals to 3 successes. Not bad!
In Fading Suns, you roll only one D20. But, you have a Victory Chart to refer. You try to get below your Attribute + Skill score to success. The nearer you get to your Att + Skl the more you gain Victory points equals successes. So, with one die roll referring to Victory Chart, you can see how many successes your character got.
Basically those are similar, even if die is different and other uses chart to reference successes and other dices.
Multiple Successes
In Dicepool system you easily see how many successes you got. Some of dice you threw are successes, some of them aren't. In Fading Suns you first check did you success (score below than your Attribute + Skill) and then refer to Victory chart with the score you got. You see how many successes your character got.
In both game number of successes tells you how well your character did. Only one success means you made it just and just, but 5 successes tells you did a great job.
Autofail and Botch
When you just don't fail, but really screw things up it's different in both games. In oWoD system if you score 1's more than you success, you fail no matter what. But if you get even one 1 but no successess at all, you botch. Something terrible happens when you fail.
In Fading Suns when you score 20 with a die, you botch. It has nothing to do with character's abilities. So, it doesn't matter are you a peasant with little battle training or lord of the lazer swords, you fail every 20th time. And in Fading Suns result 19 is always autofail.
That is the biggest difference between World of Darkness' Storytelling rules and Fading Suns 1th edition. But I think you all can see the similarities in both. Even if one uses tons of dice for a resolution and other uses one die and a chart, I think their function is basically the same.
And did I tell you how you throw damage on both of the games? Well, here is similarities more than before:
Damage
In Storytelling system you throw D10 equal to your damage rating (successes + weapons damage). Every die result over 6 is one point of damage. In Fading suns you throw D20 equal to your damage rating (victory successes + weapons damage). Every die result over 13 is one point of damage.
See, that's like 1-on-1.
Long before I knew this background of those developers, I had always that picture, that somehow Fading Suns was similar to WoD. Well, now it is explained to me and is quite clear why so.
Fading Suns and old World of Darkness are different game system, and ofcourse different, but there is some similarities I point out now.
Attribute + Skill
Basic mechnics to resolve what characters ability to success is quite the same. In both games you add your attribute rating to your skill rating. So, if you shoot, in Vampire: the Masquerade you add your Dexterity to your Firarms. In Fading Suns you add Dexterity to your Shoot.
Difference is, that in Vampire (oWoD) usually Attributes and skills range from 1 to 5, when in Fading Suns range is 1 - 10. So, in Vampire Skill + Attribute varies from two to ten, when in Fading suns it varies from two to twenty.
But still, (usually) both work with Attribute + Skill.
Dice
In World of Darkness you use D10, but in Fading Suns you use D20. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense and the basics is still very close. As in WoD Skill + Attribute range from 1 - 10 and in Fading suns from 2 - 20, it is not hard to see the dice. WoD highest score is 10 so the used die is D10. In Fading Suns highest score is 20 so you use D20. Makes perfect logic this far, doesn't it?
Dice pool versus Victory chart
Here comes the tricky part, but you can see, it is basically the same whether you throw bunch of dice or just one die. See, in WoD amount of dice you roll is equal to your Skill + Attribute. And (usually in normal tasks) every D10 result over 6 is one success. So, if you're Dexterity + Shoot is 7, you roll total of 7 D10's and every D10 what results 6+ is a success. So, you roll for example:
3, 6, 7, 3, 2, 9 what equals to 3 successes. Not bad!
In Fading Suns, you roll only one D20. But, you have a Victory Chart to refer. You try to get below your Attribute + Skill score to success. The nearer you get to your Att + Skl the more you gain Victory points equals successes. So, with one die roll referring to Victory Chart, you can see how many successes your character got.
Basically those are similar, even if die is different and other uses chart to reference successes and other dices.
Multiple Successes
In Dicepool system you easily see how many successes you got. Some of dice you threw are successes, some of them aren't. In Fading Suns you first check did you success (score below than your Attribute + Skill) and then refer to Victory chart with the score you got. You see how many successes your character got.
In both game number of successes tells you how well your character did. Only one success means you made it just and just, but 5 successes tells you did a great job.
Autofail and Botch
When you just don't fail, but really screw things up it's different in both games. In oWoD system if you score 1's more than you success, you fail no matter what. But if you get even one 1 but no successess at all, you botch. Something terrible happens when you fail.
In Fading Suns when you score 20 with a die, you botch. It has nothing to do with character's abilities. So, it doesn't matter are you a peasant with little battle training or lord of the lazer swords, you fail every 20th time. And in Fading Suns result 19 is always autofail.
That is the biggest difference between World of Darkness' Storytelling rules and Fading Suns 1th edition. But I think you all can see the similarities in both. Even if one uses tons of dice for a resolution and other uses one die and a chart, I think their function is basically the same.
And did I tell you how you throw damage on both of the games? Well, here is similarities more than before:
Damage
In Storytelling system you throw D10 equal to your damage rating (successes + weapons damage). Every die result over 6 is one point of damage. In Fading suns you throw D20 equal to your damage rating (victory successes + weapons damage). Every die result over 13 is one point of damage.
See, that's like 1-on-1.
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