Recommend me a p&p RPG

[Xenophon13]

Dragonstar takes 3rd edition DnD into space. It has such high lethality its ridiculous. Most battles are done in the first two rounds, both land and space. The advantages are that the space battles can be realsiticish (100-150 mile max ranges, possibility of newtonianishness) The setting and premise are not bad, and there is something fun about an orc character in powered armor dual wielding laser rifles against an elf in a scout walker.

[Jade Falcon]

That's Twilight 2300AD. It has no relation to Traveller's setting, but it may or may not use similar mechanics although it was made by GamesDesign Workshop (the same guys that made Traveller). There was also Twilight 2320AD, which was a T20 tie-in product.

I like Twilight. The setting was a lot better.

We're both right. If you look at that page, you'll see that confusingly the very first edition had the Traveller name despite not being in the Traveller universe. Strange that.

http://www.waynesbooks.com/2300ad.html

[Dendrobius]

For a comedy option, would F.A.T.A.L. be a possible candidate here?

[SilverWingedSeraph]

For a comedy option, would F.A.T.A.L. be a possible candidate here?

You are a horrible, horrible person for suggesting this.

My group almost lynched me when I suggested that we try a game of F.A.T.A.L. once the Exalted campaign I'm running is over.

[CSJM]

Roll to Dodge: I need more than a name. Also, no reviews on RPG.net. Is there any reason I would want to play it?

Link in my sig. Generally, it's a D6-based barebones system where stats, skills, and equipment can be (and usually are) made up on the fly. Able to run anything you can throw at it, with a good GM.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

2300ad is peculiar; the system works more or less, d10 based roll under target number, but as I recall from the internal fluff it was actually based on a continuation of the plotline in Twilight:2000, played forward by the development team at GDW for another three hundred years.

The histories of T:2000 and Traveller are incompatible and the technology is wildly diverse- stutterwarp electron tunneling drive versus single- digit gravitic and technomumble hyperspace; 2300AD is so far out of print the only way to get it is PDF or third or fourth- hand, and it slid towards a military campaign very quickly.

It suffers from the same problems as early Traveller in that it has it's roots in at the latest the early eighties, so it doesn't really have a wired society at all, so all kinds of espionage plots go out of the window. Lot of good background detail, and it does more or less work, but the Kafer thing basically ate the development schedule and left the GM improvising any adventure that was human-on-human.


SLA, I used to play with the Hobbit's Armpit who were one of the playtest groups for it, and according to them, if you're trying to do it gritty and realistic, you're doing it wrong. It's basically a parody, and it's intended to run like some sort of mutant crossbreed between Jack Bauer, The Fast and the Furious and WWE. Hollywood it up, add extra cheese and corn, and distil.


I bought the core rulebook for Rifts and stopped there; actually as a result of looking at the weapon ranges and effects and thinking 'what a load of unfeasible bollocks'-the world was superficially cool but the precise details of who was what and what did which to whom just blended together into a kind of sludge in my head. TORG from West End (recently reissued by somebody else?) has the same kind of genre- jamming, reality-breaking metaplot, but it's a lot cleaner and better integrated with less chafflike detail to remember.


MegaTraveller mainly changed vehicle and starship combat, character on character was pretty much the same mechanic; TNE went to a d20, roll under skill+attribute, but it used something like the damage system from Twilight:2000, in which PC's were vastly more resilient than NPCs- mooks die like flies from 5mm pistol rounds, high stat PCs take 120mm APFSDSDU to the chest and live (no, I am not kidding about this)- and it was also seriously broken in the environmental modifiers, + or -1DM being a factor of two.

Depending on which way the breaks went, you could get to "automatic success" or "nah, you're fucked" very easily, the actual skill hardly mattered. Starship combat was even worse- if anyone tries to get you to play a game of Brilliant Lances ever, institutionalise them. I mean it. Extremely low hit probability weapons, doing very little damage, from ships that didn't have the delta-V for manoeuvring fights, space combat in TNE was insanely dull.

I still maintain that the best roleplaying game supplement ever was Survival Margin, the blow-by-blow news accounts of the death of the Third Imperium and the start of the New Era. TNE with MT mechanics is what we ended up doing, though.


GURPS- the problem isn't where to start, the problem is where to stop. Most GURPS afficionados have collections of sourcebooks than can be measured in cubic feet; there's a book for everything, many, many settings. The core mechanics are pretty good- start with the free GURPS Lite- but there's a gargantuan penumbra of other things that can be included, and subsystems, and alternative rules, and gadgets, and gadget design systems, and world-lines, and alternate systems of tech level, and genre- specific rules that are just cool, and, and, and...

Other thing, character power levels vary drastically- you can do supers, you can do downtrodden peasant, name the character PV and take it away. The way skills default off attributes and can be bought up means that at higher power levels PvE becomes trivial; and it's only three six-sided dice, what do you do when characters' skills start reaching the forties? The mechanic gets a lot less elegant around then.

Basically, think of GURPS as the Unix of pen and paper RPGs and you might be about right.

[The Dark]

Heavy Gear. It's another sci-fi one, which I'd consider Jell-O science. It's not fluff, but it's not hard hard, and it kind of jiggles if you poke it too much. It uses only six-sided dice, and from 1 to 5 dice per skill check. It's lethal enough that my group's first action in any combat was to dive for cover. No classes, although there are "archetypes," which show what a typical pilot or journalist or chef would have as their skills, which players can customize to fit their view.



On another note, I actually just got a copy of 2300 AD (the 1988 version) from a book sale, along with the Equipment Guide and the Ground Vehicle Guide. It's a D10 system, as stated above. A routine task requires a 6+ on a D10. Simple tasks require a 2+. The hardest task, impossible, requires an 18+ on a D10, so you'd need good stat bonuses and skill bonuses to succeed.

[Ritterin Sophia]

One of the 40k rpgs: Other than the setting, is there anything to really recommend it over the others listed here?

Extremely hilarious crits in the case of Dark Heresy, I believe there's a lasgun crit that causes you to immolate and run in a random direction possibly killing your friends and one of the bolter crits has you rolling to not step in the viscera of the target or to clear it off your weapon sights. It also has some major consequences for deciding to play with the warp.

[Tasoth]

Ando suggested Burning Wheel, and that is literally the basis for what Burning Empires uses.

As for the game, it's sorta of competitive. One side picks the humans (typically players) and the other is Vaylen, which is a nematode parasite that takes over a hosts and works 'em like puppets. When you craft the world, your choices earn points for the three phases: Infiltration, Usurpation and Invasion. Each phase has certain skills that are more valuable to it (I.E. detective skills for infiltration, command and battle skills for invasion). All characters are linked in their background, either directly or through a major NPC, who both sides fight to gain a hold of during a phase. Prior victories in a phase lead to bonuses in the next phase. Also, different options chosen during world generation affect your lifepath option (I.E. a democratic world would feature more volunteer services while having nobility gets you Iron and Hammer options). There's a simple chapter for burning non-sentient aliens that Vaylen can take control of and most equipment doesn't have to drafted up until it moves from color to actual effect on mechanics. It is also usable in conjunction with the Monster Burner and other supplements since the only real difference is there is no shade for dice (which numbers count for success). And this is probably a rather spartan description of the system.

Plus it's full of Chris Moeller's paintings from the series.

[Artemas]

For a comedy option, would F.A.T.A.L. be a possible candidate here?

Being a healthy adult, whom has actually felt the touch of a woman, I must decline.

On all of the others I haven't gotten around to:

Rifts: No. The rules are pretty weak, and also pretty unbalanced.

Dragonstar: I think I am going to avoid elves and orcs in space for now. This also applies to Shadowrun, unless it is super fantastic and comes with hookers.

Burning Wheel is by the same guys that did Burning Empires, right? Any fun hijinks? Interesting shit?

OIMCS sounds like oinks, and thus is to be avoided.

Roll to Dodge: Sounds like it would work best as a sort of paranoia-esque game. Maybe.

Eleventh Century Remnant, Stofsk, thanks for the excellent overview of the travellers. Front runners seem to be Mongoose Traveller and MegaTraveller. Fight to the death? Or arbitrary decision? You decide!

I think I'll steer clear of GURPS, we are sometimes prone to supplement creep.

Heavy Gear and others: Maybe, will need to find out more. Also guys, I don't really care about how hard the hardest hardcore hard-scifi guy with hard abs is. Generally, that sort of thing is pretty convertible, so long as the rules are good. Also, how come there have been so few fantasy suggestions?

Dark Heresy: As an exception to the above rule of no elves and goblins in space, i am now tempted. Not just with hilarious crits, but also for the possible Call of Cthulu type gameplay re the warp.

[CSJM]

Roll to Dodge: Sounds like it would work best as a sort of paranoia-esque game. Maybe.

Paranoia, paranoia... hm, maybe. It's more fun for uncontrollable mass skirmishes, but it can really be used to run in place of any system, just replace any skill or ability checks with one D6 roll, and a dodge roll on top of that it it threatens someone. Since the system is so basic, it relies on the GM's judgement of what is appropriate for a given roll result, but it also gives the system its flexbility. You could run a Battletech skirmish without the copious amounts of die rolls required for hit and damage calculations, instead providing colorful descriptions of what happens based on a single result and your own idea of what exactly it represents.

[Coalition]

Legend of the Five Rings - Play a samurai among medieval Japan, fight the Shadow zone, and deal with lots of politics between the different clans. You can be a courtier (to survive the politics), samurai (using weapons) or shugenja (magic user). Different Clans have different Houses within that give different bonuses, and different schools to provide different bonuses.

Macho Women with Guns - Not serious. Has a Fantasy, modern-day disaster, and space setting. Figure all the stereotypes about women put into effect, and you are playing those women. In the fantasy women, you have female PCs who attack the temple, loot everything, carry off the foppish prince, and after spending all the money, they do it all again next adventure.

[DPDarkPrimus]

One of the 40k rpgs: Other than the setting, is there anything to really recommend it over the others listed here?

Extremely hilarious crits in the case of Dark Heresy, I believe there's a lasgun crit that causes you to immolate and run in a random direction possibly killing your friends and one of the bolter crits has you rolling to not step in the viscera of the target or to clear it off your weapon sights. It also has some major consequences for deciding to play with the warp.

Rogue Trader uses the same critical charts as Dark Heresy, and Death Watch probably will as well, but why try and mess with perfection, right?

[Feil]

Dark Heresy and its sister systems benefit from a pretty deep and engaging system in most respects (including combat). It suffers in the area of combat from extreme and unnecessary complexity and lack of clarity. Non-combat mechanics are more streamlined.

For example, when rolling to hit:

YOU
Throw 1d100
Compare to:
SUM(relevant attack stat + aim modifier + weapon modifier + distance modifier + attack mode modifier + any other modifiers)
If equal or lower, count the number of tens by which it is equal or lower.

OPPONENT
Throw 1d100
Compare to
SUM(relevant parry or dodge stat + relevant parry or dodge modifiers)
If equal or lower, count the number of tens by which it is equal or lower.

RESOLVE HITS
Add one hit if attack roll was lower
Add one additional hit per two tens lower on the attack roll if you used semi automatic fire
Add one additional hit per one ten lower on the attack roll if you used full automatic fire
Subtract one hit if dodge roll was lower
Subtract additional hit per one ten lower on the dodge roll if attacker used semi or full automatic fire

RESOLVE DAMAGE
Consult your original to-hit roll
Reverse the order of the dice, so 48 becomes 84. Consult a table to determine which of six body parts you hit.
Consult your weapon's damage characteristic
Roll this value once per hit left after resolving hits and hit locations
Consult your weapon's penetration characteristic and your opponent's armor characteristic over the body party that is hit
Subtract penetration from armor
If remaining armor value is positive, subtract value from the rolled damage
Consult opponent's Toughness Bonus
Subtract Toughness Bonus from the rolled damage
If remaining damage value is positive, subtract value from opponent's Wounds
If this would result in a negative number, consult eight pages of critical hit tables depending on the damage type of the weapon and the body part hit, adjusted for any special abilities you have that increase critical damage and any special abilities your opponent has which reduce it.
Apply the correct mechanical effect from the critical table, which may involve rolling a couple more dice.


OKAY GUYS NEXT TURN
WAIT
WHY ARE YOU ALL SLEEPING?

Can a good DM do it quickly and keep things moving along fast, even with a group of new players? Sure. When I run Dark Heresy, we punch through a (individual player) turn about every 30 seconds from start to finish - although I abstract the hell out of damage effects for NPCs and ignore critical charts except as a half-memorized general guide. Is it a gigantic mess with a propensity to drag out into 20-minute turns if the players and the DM aren't on the ball? YES.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Yeah, the downside to Dark Heresy is that there is a lot of situational modifiers that need to be applied, and the DM has to be able to process it all pretty quickly to keep the pacing going. As a d% system though, it's pretty fast to pick up, and depending on the level of transparency you play with, your players can do some of the crunch-work for you, too.

[fnord]

I know it's not quite what you asked for, but bugger it, I'll chuck Spycraft 2.0 into the ring.

Although it's d20 and class based, combat can be quite lethal. Building on Spycraft 1.0 and 1.5 (the system used in the licensed SG-1 RPG),it extends the idea of critical failures and critical successes from attack checks to skill rolls, and can get quite detailed in the gear.

Somewhat like GURPS (although not to that level of detail), it's a toolkit - the same core rules have powered, in some of the games I've played in/run:
Warhammer 40k (Dark Heresy?) (fucking rogue trader that had shit luck with longarms but was hell on wheels with pistols - until he loaded up on triggerman)
Modern day espionage (too many to count - specific examples include "Inspired by Floor 13", "US Gov outsources espionage to private company", "Blatant ripoff of Bond movie X...", "Cinematic last X-day..." and PCs having to break into the US Embassy in various countries, including China. Had at least two total party kills in separate games due to suicide bombers - one was a PC)
Early Sixth-world Shadowrun
Post-apocalyptic (Fallout, my adaptation of GURPS: Reign of Steel, to name two)
Wild/weird west
Call of Cthulhu (that was nasty)
Paranoia

Classes have been, IMO, well done. For example, the soldier isn't just a ported fighter - in addition to his Bucket Load O'Combat Feats every odd level, he gets a decent fort and a strong will save, and some real snazzy class abilities - discounts on and bonuses with wearing armour every 4 levels, at 10th level he provides some level of cover to himself + allies within 10 feet, level 14 he can treat one attack roll as a natural 20 each session (irreverently nicknamed 'boom! headshot' in my group), etc. Some are awful specialised (the hacker comes to mind) which may cramp your style. The concept of advanced or "prestige" classes has been reworked with expert and master classes, which have hard level requirements (5th and 10th, respectively) in addition to other mechanical and possibly in-story requirements.

Threats (successes that also are a natural roll in the threat range for that roll) aren't rolled to activate - the GC (or PC) spends from a limited number of action dice, but this can be tweaked with campaign qualities. Eg one _automatically_ activates critical hits against PCs (Bloodbath, IIRC). Like other d20 systems with vitality and wounds, crit hits go straight to wounds.

In addition to good ol' lethal damage, we also have subdual damage and stress damage. Subdual damage knocks you out eventually, but stress damage is psychological, the tension piling on until you crack. Massive damage is possible for both lethal and stress damage - the much-used Table of Ouch and Table of Sproing, respectively (on which it is quite possible to scare someone to death - pity we wanted to interrogate the bastard...).

Extended/dramatic conflicts (for example, the players infiltrating an opposing organisation, chicken-coop busting car chases, seductions, manhunts, cracking into an actively defended system) are also handled from both sides, which has given rise to a "Nice to mole you" moment before we jumped her.

In keeping with its d20 roots, SC has (and has run with) feats, grouping them into various classes (basic combat, ranged combat, basic skill, gear, chase, covert, etc). Again off top of head, defensive driving halves the penalties you take to your skill rolls when you're being chased in a chase dramatic conflict, while offensive driving halves them for the pursuer.

The main downside I've found is there's so much bloody gear that either gear bundles (ie, this is your base gear for the mission) or standard gear loadouts for each character, etc are all but required.

Fantasycraft does much the above, specialised for fantasy environments (high and low).

[Edi]

If you can get your hands on it, Star Frontiers for science fiction (TSR, early 1980s) is a fairly good one, quick and easy to play and fun. Obviously you can change aspects of it with house rules and by introducing new equipment. The original game was pretty low tech compared to something like SW, but that can easily be hadnwaved away. The Knight Hawks expansion that introduced space combat and ships is much less playable than the main game, but it was fairly easy to change some aspects to it to allow for fast-paced, lethal, action with both fighters and capital ships. We got 15 years of fun out of that.

For fantasy, DragonQuest is great, but it has a fairly high learning curve at the beginning and at high spellcasting ranks the magic system starts to break down. It was originally published by SPI, which was then acquired by TSR. TSR ran the game to the ground with the 3rd Edition, which is mostly shit compared to the 2nd, but PDFs of the 2nd Edition and the various supplements can be found online.

The places to go and join are:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Dragonquestfiles/
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dqn-list/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dq-rules/

You can get a lot of stuff from there, including the core rules from the first group, and a lot of other stuff from the two others.

[Jade Falcon]

Another FATE powered game is Legends of Anglerre which is just out. Review here for more info

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPYSPYgVYC0

[Modax]

I've been playing GURPS 4th edition with my friends for five years now, and we haven't seriously thought about switching to any other system. Before GURPS there were the bad-old-days of D&D 3E and Mutant Chronicles.

The mention of RIFTS made me crack a smile. This is due to one time about a year ago when someone was describing the finer points of the system and the setting to me, and I was in hysterics in short order. Literally I was laughing so hard it hurt.

GURPS- the problem isn't where to start, the problem is where to stop. Most GURPS afficionados have collections of sourcebooks than can be measured in cubic feet; there's a book for everything, many, many settings. The core mechanics are pretty good- start with the free GURPS Lite- but there's a gargantuan penumbra of other things that can be included.

Basically, think of GURPS as the Unix of pen and paper RPGs and you might be about right.

That's a fairly good description and not a bad analogy for GURPS but I would add that the average GURPS group are more like average Ubuntu users than Slackware power-users. My group like a fair bit of crunchy detail (i.e. writing up the game statistics for the party's pirate starship The Handsome Amanda*) but we're not rules lawyers or supplement addicts. The only non-core books we use are the Martial Arts and Powers rulebooks, the Spaceships supplement, and to a much lesser extent the Ultra Tech book.

Personally, I've roleplayed many memorable GURPS characters over the years. I once played a schizophrenic android that thought it was the reincarnation of Bruce Lee (in a near future SF martial arts campaign.) Then there was the time I had a bipolar, sledgehammer-wielding barbarian who received a Mighty-Hulk-like strength boost whenever he saw a child in danger, but suffered hours of agony afterwards as his muscles went into auto-repair mode. The setting for that was a surreal Fallout-like fantasy homebrew. I also had a pistol-slinging noble elf from the planet Vanador, in a far-future transhuman campaign with extenstive genetic engineering tech. The most mundane was the captain of the high school basketball team in a scooby-doo sort of horror campaign.

Other thing, character power levels vary drastically- you can do supers, you can do downtrodden peasant, name the character PV and take it away. The way skills default off attributes and can be bought up means that at higher power levels PvE becomes trivial; and it's only three six-sided dice, what do you do when characters' skills start reaching the forties? The mechanic gets a lot less elegant around then.

That's only partially true. What we normally do in low PV games is agree to cap player skills at 15 or 20 by to prevent excessive min-maxing. In high PV games, player skills over 20 aren't really a problem, partly because there are diminishing returns above that level and the points are more profitably spent elsewhere, but mostly because it simply isn't an issue with proper GMing. Super-high skills in ranged weapons are not much good against foes who lob molotov cocktails from behind cover. Someone with Automobile Driving 25 is still going to fail on a critical roll of 17 or 18 (low rolls are good in GURPS) and difficulty modifiers are going to lower their effective skill in adverse conditions. And there are easy rationalizations; someone with musical composition 20 is a contemporary master like Dani Elfman who can earn fame and fortune with the skill. Someone crazy enough to spend the points for musical composition 40 is an artistic demi-god, like a reborn J.S Bach-- lot of good that will do them in gameplay! There are also mechanics specifically designed to deal with high skill levels like feints, quick contests, margin of success, etc.

Again, as others have stressed all of this is strictly optional in GURPS. Honestly, the system can be simpler than D&D if all you want to do is kick down the door and kill orcs

*it's a long and somewhat weird story

[Artemas]

So, I at first brushed off RuneQuest, but after looking into it a bit more, it seems rather more intriguing. Anyone care to elaborate a bit? Mongoose edition seems most likely.

[Highlord Laan]

Yeah, Rifts has tons of troubles. I just keep coming back to it for some reason.

I'll toss in Cthulhutech into the discussion as well. Framewerk is a pretty quick and simple system, and the setting is can be fun.*

*Old GM played the "HAHA PUNY MORTAL card way too many times..in D&D. So now we kick deific ass in CTech and Exalted both because it's fun, and annoys the shit out of him.

[The Dark]

If you can get your hands on it, Star Frontiers for science fiction (TSR, early 1980s) is a fairly good one, quick and easy to play and fun. Obviously you can change aspects of it with house rules and by introducing new equipment. The original game was pretty low tech compared to something like SW, but that can easily be handwaved away. The Knight Hawks expansion that introduced space combat and ships is much less playable than the main game, but it was fairly easy to change some aspects to it to allow for fast-paced, lethal, action with both fighters and capital ships. We got 15 years of fun out of that.

Pretty much everything for Star Frontiers is available here. It's also worth noting that the alien races were recycled for the Spelljammer setting in AD&D.

[TheFeniX]

We got a lot of mileage out of Shadowrun over the years. The tech level is ripped almost completely from Cyberpunk, throwing in fantasy races and magic. Mix in some overt racism (in the setting) and a complex combat system and that's what you're left with. I personally enjoyed the overly complex combat rules because I could always simplify them to keep the action going. I've found this doesn't work well in reverse.

3rd edition was pretty much as good as it was going to get. Adepts (and magic in general) are broken, so you have to keep a wary eye on your players, but there's always ways to work around power gamers.

So, I decided to do some reading up on 4th edition:

The largest change in setting was the addition of a global wireless matrix that allows people to have augmented reality displays: visual overlays on real-world scenes. This encourages hackers and technomancers to join their teammates physically rather than provide matrix backup from a remote location, a change designed to make coordinating and integrating online and real-world actions easier for the GM.

Um.... ok. And this is probably the least of the pain. There's now a set target number? So, shooting in the dark, gravely injured, from cover, shooting at someone in cover, I only need to roll a 5 to hit? I was considering buying the 4th edition books just for some reading material, but no.

[Edi]

If you can get your hands on it, Star Frontiers for science fiction (TSR, early 1980s) is a fairly good one, quick and easy to play and fun. Obviously you can change aspects of it with house rules and by introducing new equipment. The original game was pretty low tech compared to something like SW, but that can easily be handwaved away. The Knight Hawks expansion that introduced space combat and ships is much less playable than the main game, but it was fairly easy to change some aspects to it to allow for fast-paced, lethal, action with both fighters and capital ships. We got 15 years of fun out of that.

Pretty much everything for Star Frontiers is available here. It's also worth noting that the alien races were recycled for the Spelljammer setting in AD&D.

Oi, you there! Let it be known that I officially owe you one for this discovery!

I have all of the original SF stuff as well as a lot of Spelljammer stuff but I never recognized the imports. What modules did they appear in and under what names?

[ShadowDragon8685]

So, I decided to do some reading up on 4th edition:

The largest change in setting was the addition of a global wireless matrix that allows people to have augmented reality displays: visual overlays on real-world scenes. This encourages hackers and technomancers to join their teammates physically rather than provide matrix backup from a remote location, a change designed to make coordinating and integrating online and real-world actions easier for the GM.

Um.... ok. And this is probably the least of the pain. There's now a set target number? So, shooting in the dark, gravely injured, from cover, shooting at someone in cover, I only need to roll a 5 to hit? I was considering buying the 4th edition books just for some reading material, but no.

That's assuming you have any dice left after all those modifiers. Chances are you won't, which means you'll need to spend a point of temporary Edge and roll your Edge attribute instead. That's also assuming that one hit is sufficient to hit him, which it may not be as well - one hit is no longer sufficient for a great many things. It's a success threshold thing, not a "hit this TN and you made it, even if the TN is technically impossible."

There are builds that exploit the Edge thing. Mr Lucky is the famous example with 8 Edge, he's very deliberately pretty bad at everything, so that when the group needs someone to do a ridiculous long-shot, such as picking up an unfamilar weapon, firing off a long burst from the back of a speeding zodiac, at a target who is also on the back of another speeding Zodiac a mile away at the balls-out extreme possible range, where the modifiers are something like -52 dice, Mr. Lucky spends his Edge, rolls his 8 Edge, and pulls off the ridiculous long-shot.

It's kind of like Blackadder telling Baldrick to do something utterly impossible (like building DaVinci's time machine,) and Baldrick succeeding because he's too stupid to know it's impossible.