Dice Mechanics

I enjoy the d100 the most.
I like how it's easily quantifiable with regards to percentages.
"You have a 20% chance of success", etc.

by the way would you happen to know what game OP's pic is from? I found a dice exactly like it and I don't know where it's from. I got it from one of those assorted dice bowls in an LGS.

I like d20's because favoritism. I can't give a rationally built reason why.

When DM'ing is i give players specific dice for their weapons, and i have noticed that makes people far more attached/engaged to their dice, and when they get new equipment they get excited for new dice.

>>52613553
I like d100 too.

>by the way would you happen to know what game OP's pic is from?
Looks a lot like Arkham Horror dice to me, anon.

I need some D6 that are basically illegible through their patterns.

d100 is objectively the best cause you can basically make distributions of any function you'd ever need, but it's fun to use the d6s and d20.

I saw someone recommend 3d20m (roll 3 d20, use the median roll, ignore the other two)
It's results are an interesting medium between 3d6 and 1d20

>>52613515
I like dicepools with underrolls because I like how it sounds.

Roll and Keep from L5R is probably my favourite.

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>>52614460
Can you explain it some more for me? Crab Bro's story thread has been getting me interested in the setting and I'd like to hear more of the system.

Dicepools Collect Successes hands down. Rolling a handful of dice and sorting certain numbers out is just fun by itself, it has a visceral and intrinsically motivating thing about it that no other resolution mechanic has.
The system needs to be well designed though. It has to hit a sweetspot for the number of dice and the mechanics have to be intuitive. If the increase in the likelyhood of success feels right when you get +1 or +2, you really don't need to know the exact percentages.

Least favourite are Dicepools that are shittily designed and d100.
Shitty Dicepools are unintuitive and don't work right. LotW is a good example: Even the shittiest possible character has always at least a >90% chance to roll doubles, but bump that difficulty up by one and it goes down by 70 to 75%. And it that doesn't significantly change for better characters either. So not only does even a slight increase in difficulty fuck up the numbers, rolls produce mostly the same outcomes to a point where you don't really need to roll at all most of the time. Sure, there's the dimension of additional pairs, but it's the same here. There's very little variance to the system.

D100 just don't feel fun to roll for me. Sure, it gives me the greates amount of "control" as DM, but you don't really need that amount of granularity most of the time anyway. The D20 does exactly the same job while being at least a bit more satisfying to roll.

>>52614485
You have a Stat and a Skill. That's the amount of dice you roll.
You pick as many dice from that roll as your Stat and add them together. That's your result.

I love either d10 dice pools with target numbers or D100 roll under

>>52613636
Can confirm have a set. Arkham Horror dice

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>>52613515
I refuse to play any systems that require nerd dice.

>>52613515
I dislike the d100.

It's pointlessly granular (seriously, which GM is going to be messing around with 1% difference on DCs?), and leads to the same result as just rolling a single d10 90% of the time.

Some systems make it work, by using the second digit as hit location for example, but then you are really just rolling twice in a d10 system for hit and location.

>>52613515
D20
using d100s ends up using multiples of 5 anyway, and rolling just one die is a lot more convenient

1 die instead of 2 seems like a trivial thing, but over a long period of time, tiny things like those can be quite significant

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>>52613515
I have a guilty pleasure for dicepools like FF Star Wars.

I'm a bit of a dice junkie and rolling giant handfuls of dice at once is the greatest feeling ever.

I like dice pools. I think the biggest reasons is that they allow more refined control over effort, and that they're usually associated with more robust wound systems.

When it comes fights against mooks, lieutenants and then the big bad, it feels like the narrative meshes better with the mechanics of the combat.

>>52613922
that is the dark eye (DSA) dice mechanics

>>52614755
>rolling just one die is a lot more convenient
a lot more? seriously? so GURPS' 3d6 is even more inconvenient?

>>52613515
D100
simple and to the point

>>52613553
at a guess something cthulhu esque.
looks like the elder sign.
maybe arkham horror

I prefer 2d10 percentage dice, or d100.

I like dice pools rolling vs target numbers, especially d10/12/20 dice pools. I like the mechanics, it feels nice to roll a chunk of dice and it speaks to the die collector in me.

Either 3D6 or Target Number systems, like Savage Worlds.

>>52615083
what's the appeal of 3d6?

>>52613877
>I need some D6 that are basically illegible through their patterns.
You want Q-Workshop. Very pretty, great for gits and such, but most are terrible to play with because of too much ornamentation.

>>52615100
Smart distribution of randomness. Hitting 10 is exactly 50% and the distribution is more of a bell curve rather than D20's flat distribution.

>>52614572

As someone who loves LotW, I think you're missing the point of what it's trying to do. Then again, the system does an awful job of explaining itself, so I can't exactly blame you.

The dice pool in LotW is relatively reliable and static, but dice increases still does give you a lot better chances. Looking at the chance of getting one big set is missing the point- Multiple small sets can be just as effective.

It also needs to be realised that unlike most dicepool systems, increasing your dicepool is not the primary means of progression in LotW. Your static modifiers that you add to your sets are the 'real' power increase between ranks, the dicepool is just a nice, general indicator of your current strength that also gives you more chances for better options.

LotW is a weird as fuck system but when you get it working and understand what their intentions were (after a long and arduous process), the dicepool system works wonderfully.

>>52615184
I know, I was fascinated by it and spend a good three weeks fucking around with math and concepts because I wanted to understand the inner workings of the game. I don't doubt that it works well for what it wants to be, a Wushu Protagonist is either incredibly skilled at what he does (hence having a >90% chance to achieve a 3-Normal if you have +10 in a skill and a 100% chance to achieve a 2-Easy), but in the end the numbers boil down to very little variance. They tried to alleviate that a bit by using the face of your set too, which helps in combat. But at that point you are pretty much hitting each other with 50% most of the time.

I ran a campaign with it, because I really wanted to like the system. I just don't feel it's intuitive in the slightest and doesn't work out all that great at the table, even though it has a bunch of ideas that sound brilliant on paper.

>>52615119
so? why is a bell curve better than "flat distribution"?

>>52615240
>what's the appeal?
>why it's better?
Nice goalpost changing.

>>52615240
It's a meme, mostly. People approach them as if 3D6 is some kind of weighted D20, when they actually work completely differently. In reality it doesn't matter if you are rolling a 3D6 or a D20 if the DM wants you to have a 50% chance to succeed. The 3D6 is just "obscured" compared to the D20, which gives people a smug sense of superiority because they don't actually know how it works but it's definitely better than a D20.

>>52614948
it seems insignificant, but it really helps speeds things up and keeps the mood flowing at my table

i love d10 with another D10 kept beside you in case you need to go D100.

>>52615267
Retard detected. Games like GURPS fix the success rate to you, not your opponent.

I don't understand why people like D100, It's literally the exact same as rolling a D20.

>>52613553
That's definitely Arkham Horror's dice

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>>52613553
>lots of numbers that rarely ever get used
>no bell curve and the mechanics generally don't reflect one
>unironically wanting to roll d20s

>>52613557
>swingy as fuck
>modifiers don't matter, especially in the shitty new edition with its "bounded accuracy"
>crit fail autism ("lmao u kill urself")
>nat20 autism (see: the critical roll roastie screeching at an event that has a 5% chance of happening)
>being associated with crusty grognards, autistic munchkins, cancerous furries/ weebs, and skyrim addicts

>>52613922
>d100 is objectively the best cause you can basically make distributions of any function you'd ever need,

Yeah but basically no game actually does that without autistic math so it's essentially a giant d20. d100 is not "objectively" the best, you autistic fuck, just because you watch lindybeige jacking off over runequest doesn't mean you know shit about shit. 3d6 is just as good if not superior.

>>52614579
>>52614485
It's basically a pointlessly complicated dice mechanic John Wick made up so he could point at it and say "Look! Look! I had an original idea! now play my seven seas setting that is as boring and cliche as the old Sid Meier's Pirates game with some additional bullshit, and ignore that the mechanics fall apart everywhere behind my single vaguely-clever idea!"

>>52615845
>m-muh bell curve!

70% are 70%, no matter what dice you roll. All it does is heavily change the worth of modifiers, depending on the base number.

>>52615845
>just because you watch lindybeige jacking off over runequest doesn't mean you know shit about shit
I never understood why lindybeige likes RQ so much, everybody I knew thought several design decisions made it borderline unplayable.

>>52615845
>as boring and cliche as the old Sid Meier's Pirates
While i might actually agree with some of your bait post, this triggers me. For starters, it's Pirates! not Pirates.

>>52615974
such as?

>>52613515

I consider d100 and d20 the same mechanic. It's just a flat distribution. They pretty much need some manner of strong-but-sharply-diminishing returns baked in, otherwise you get the expert who is actually not much better than some random guy (5e) or the actual expert who is such an expert that he throws +56 per die eventually (pathfinder).

I like 2d6 systems myself. The dice are small enough that only the most significant modifiers are added, which forces systems to focus on the big things and not get nitpicky. The diminishing returns and bell curve probabilities are baked in. Results of 2 and 12 are rare enough (~3%) that you can still use them for critical results if you care to.

I thought oWoD (haven't played new world of darkness) had a very intuitive setup. Stat+Skill = this is how many dice you roll. Difficulty = what you need to roll to keep a dice. How many dice you keep = degree of success. It was a bit cumbersome in actual play because you were rolling a lot and counting a lot, compared to d20, but on a platform like roll20 it would be easy to deal with.

>>52616016
You can get completely fucked over by rolling poorly on your advancement checks several times in a row, it can permanently halt your characters progress if the DM doesn't intervene.

d100 and d20 make you feel heroic while
dice pools make you feel like a genius. 2d6 gives you a feeling of being a squishy mortal fuck whose about to get murdered horribly.

>>52616086

While oversimplified, you have a good point.

Dice mechanics aren't really able to be evaluated in a vacuum. They have strengths and weaknesses, but often something that might be a weakness in one context is a strength in another. It all depends on finding a dice mechanic suitable to the tone you're trying to establish for your system.

Then again, there are raw garbage dice mechanics, like Cthulhutechs nonsensical fucking poker dice.

Dice pools. There's nothing more satisfying than rolling 40 dice all at once, sorting out the success, then roll all those again.

>>52615883
You're a retard. Unless you adjust the modifiers or skill increases to match a bell curve, you are not getting a bell curve. You are just getting d20 with more granularity.

>70% are 70%, no matter what dice you roll.

Not everything has a 70% chance of happening. Not all of that is reconciable with linear modifiers.

>>52616584
>There's nothing more satisfying than rolling 40 dice all at once, sorting out the success, then roll all those again.

Yeah except when you have to pick them all up afterwards. Or when the rest of your group kicks you out for being a twat who takes 50 minutes to take his turn.

>>52613515
I like the bell curve of 3d6.

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>>52613515
I don't have any particular favorite, but I like when the basic mechanic does something interesting. Such as
>ORE's sets of quality and speed
>UA's percentiles with flip-flops and normal-matched-crit granularity
>MAJYCK ROONS LAHD

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>>52613877
The official Shadowrun dice. Near impossible to read under normal lighting conditions.

>>52616122
>Then again, there are raw garbage dice mechanics, like Cthulhutechs nonsensical fucking poker dice.

I like it a lot in theory, but in practise it's so complicated. Two methods of checking successes is fine, three is too many.

>>52614485
The nice thing about the roll and keep system is that it offers two tracks for advancement, which works well to keep powergaming in check.

A guy who has 6k5 is still able to compete with the guy who has 12k5; the latter does better on average, but especially when it comes to combat he's not going to onepunch his way through everything.

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>>52613515
I love the Edge of the Empire dice system.

I love non-binary results. Success/failure with advantage/disadvantage works really well narratively and makes things really interesting, imo.

>>52615845
the irony is rich

I think the rest of the game is a half-assed piece of shit, but I really like the dice mechanic from the Dragon Age RPG.

You roll 3d6 -- two of the d6's are the same color, the third is a different color. You add the results of the 3d6 to your bonus in whatever you're doing and you succeed if you equal or exceed the target number.

If the roll generates doubles on any two of the three dice, you get "stunt points" equal to the number on the odd-colored die. You can spend stunt points to get different bonuses. On an attack, for instance, you could move yourself or the target of the attack; knock the target prone, disarm the target, deal extra damage, ignore some of their damage reduction, make another immediate attack, etc.

I like 3d6 for the bell curve, and I like stunt points as an alternative to D&D-style critical hits. If it was attached to a better overall game, I would love it. And if I ever create my own RPG, I'd probably use that basic system.

>>52613515
D10/D100 are the best combo to use, Lets you scale combat much more than a D20 alone

>>52617565
>well well 3d6 doesn't tell you the EXACT percentage therefore I like my game where you always improve 1% chance at a time and there is no bellcurve at all.

>>52613515
D7 or D13..

god i love my primes

>>52617526

How is it to DM? From what I read it looks like it requires a lot of improv from the DM to make things all fine and dandy. That said, it is interesting cause it makes it cinematic like the films.

>>52615240
>>52615267
On a D20, you have an equal probability to roll any number. This is swingy as fuck, and means that masterswordsmen are just as likely to get fuck themselves as an amateur is to crit as joe bumblefuck is to do average

In 3d6, average results are much more common. Furtger, how successful you are is directly tied to your skill in a subject

>>52618413

This is why it's different, yes. But for some games, swingier dice make more sense than reliable bell curves. It depends on what you want from the system.

>>52618253
Once players start collecting different Talents and equipment from their careers, they have more and more mechanical uses for the surplus advantage/threat that comes up with the dice. There really isn't a whole lot of need to "divine" the dice results when you're the GM compared to other narrative-focused systems. It's honestly one of my more favorite games to play for a balance of rules-lite gameplay while still having a decent amount of character options.

I'd say the most difficult on-the-fly improv thing you have to do is deal with the Motivations or Obligations that might come up at the beginning of the session, since you have to find a way to work them into whatever the PCs are currently doing plot-wise.

>>52618413
You confuse the crit mechanic (which is pretty shitty imo), with the "swingyness" of a d20.

If your badass warrior needs to roll a 5 to hit a peasant you WILL hit 80% of the time on a d20. There's nothing swingy about that.

>>52618253
My DMing style is very improvisational and open to player input, it works perfect for me.

The system comes with a ton of examples on how to spend advantage and disadvantage in a huge variety of scenarios. You can spend it narratively or spend it according to the rules.

Like, 3 disadvantage can cause a gun to jam when it's fired.

I'm working on a game right now that uses a modified version of this dice system and the playtests have been incredible.

>>52618586
>You confuse the crit mechanic (which is pretty shitty imo)
crit mechanics are standardfare in RPGs. usually, only deendeetards blame any absurd stories revolving around them on the mechanic instead of shitty GMs

>>52618586
also: the swinginess is due to modifiers. with bell curves, stacking modifiers will roll out smoothly. with linear dice mechanics, you might end up with >100% or <0% chances to succeed

>>52618920
>>52618879
>crit mechanics are standardfare in RPGs

Yes, and when they are put there for reasons, not just because "RPGs are supposed to have crits", they are usually put there to reintroduce some swingyness into combat, for example if

>with linear dice mechanics, you might end up with >100% or <0% chances to succeed

were to happen, crits modify that to 95% and 5%.

Either way, I just massively prefer degrees of success and tight, controlled math to crits..

>>52613515
d% roll under like this:

1-n=1
2-Roll a d0-9
3-If its less than the N digit you pass, if its more than N digit, you fail, if equal to N digit go to 4
4-N = N+1
5-Go to 2
So percentages can be as specific as you want and the chance of rolling two X times is just 1 in 10^X

The fact it uses linear percentage makes easier to convert your ideas to rpg stuff

>>52614755
>1 die instead of 2 seems like a trivial thing,
You only 2 or more dices in a d100 1/10 of the time

>>52618439
Sure.

>>52618586
I did't confuse shit, I'm using it to illustrate one of D20's issues you tard. If you're just as likely to crit as you are to miss as you are to hit normally then that's a legitimate difference from a bell curve system.

>>52618995

> rolling one dice at a time

Why... would you ever do this. Why would you want percentages more specific than 1%? Who would ever keep rolling one dice at a time then checking the result to see if they should keep rolling or not?

>>52619122
>Who would ever keep rolling one dice at a time then checking the result to see if they should keep rolling or not?
Rolling alot of dices is usually considered a bad thing by people

>>52619099
>If you're just as likely to crit as you are to miss as you are to hit normally then that's a legitimate difference from a bell curve system.

Are you legitimately retarded?

If you have the warrior in my example, he has 5% of a crit, 20% of a miss, and 75% of a normal hit.

How the fuck are his chances all the same?

Any single number has the same chance to come up, but that really doesn't matter when you are dealing with DCs.

>>52617670
What's wrong with the rest of the game? I breezed through the book once because I heard the dice mechanic was good, and it didn't look terrible. Not a ton of content, but I only did the first book.

>>52619142
>dices
Also, your idea is as retarded as it is the first time I saw it. Even 100 unique results is excessive in most games that provide them, why would you ever need 1000, or 10000? What does this granularity provide?

>>52614460
I've actually been using L5R's roll/keep system for a Monster Hunter RPG. I've been batting back and forth with using TN vs Success, but still keeping the exploding dice.

>>52616760
>needing 50 minutes to count dice
how?

>>52619142
>Rolling alot of dices is usually considered a bad thing by people
for u

3d10 FATAL bellcurve or bust

>>52620022
>why would you ever need 1000, or 10000? What does this granularity provide?
converting ideas without having to think twice about it.
think about some problablility based at some idea X, and you do exactly as it came into your mind or exactly how it was at the place you got it from. no need to mess with it.

d12 best die. I wanna make a d12 system just to give it some love

>>52613515
a mixture of d12's and d4's, in a cup, Smashed down *hard*.

>>52616122
>Dice mechanics aren't really able to be evaluated in a vacuum
Game design isn't really able to be evaluated in a vacuum but that doesn't stop the existence of generic systems.

>>52620926

A generic system is still a context you can use to evaluate the game design used to achieve its goals.

>>52613515
I think the d20 would work better if it was 5d4 instead.

>>52613515
I've always had some frustration with people at the table to are a little slower at the math stuff for some systems, so for the homebrew I've been working on, I decided make that a non-issue. The general idea is: roll 1d12. If the result is equal to or lower than your stat (which range from 3 to 12), tell the GM the number. Otherwise you fail. The GM then compares it to the difficulty: if the number is equal to or lower than the difficulty, you fail. Otherwise you succeed.

Basically, your range for success is (difficulty +1) to (your stat). So the chances of success are overall the same as a roll-under with modifiers to the stat, but the only math the player has to do for a check is a direct comparison of two numbers, while all the modifiers are handled GM-side. To determine difficulty, basically just start at 0, and add 1 for each thing you think would make the task more difficult. As an example, climbing a steep (+1) cliff with few handholds (+1) that's still damp due to a recent rain (+1) would have a difficulty of 3. If your stat was 9, you'd have to roll less than 9, but greater than 3 (4-9, or a 50% chance of success).

I don't know if it's my favorite yet, since I haven't gotten a chance to do a real-world playtest yet, but I really like the idea of cutting out a lot of the math player-side to speed things up.

>>52613553
I like a combo d%/d10 thing, something I was working on a while ago. The idea is that you roll d% for your checks, but you also use the ones place as a d10 for any secondary things, like damage or how effective the result is. I've really been trying to figure out a good way to do "one roll for attack and damage" type things to speed up combat, and this was one of my favorite versions.

>>52621480
I mentioned it earlier in the thread, and it does something along those lines: Unknown Armies. It's d% roll under, any success is a hit. If it's unarmed, you add the pair of dice to get the damage, with melee weapons adding to it. If you hit with a gun, you deal the amount you rolled. There's also special effects that happen on matched successes (melee weapons deal damage like a firearm, for example), and 01 (outright killing someone, usually). The same sort of granularity goes in reverse for failures, matched failures, and 00.

You'd probably want to muck with the effects of each, based on how lethal you want the system to be. Also, adding in new effects based on what the ones place is would be interesting.

Been working on a homebrew game. Stats go from 2 to 4. Roll 3d6 - dice that roll under your stat are successes, dice that roll over are fails. 0 successes is "No, and...", 1 success is "No, but...", 2 successes is "Yes, but..." and 3 successes is "Yes, and..."

Don't know if it'll be good though.

>>52613515
3d6 because bell curve. 1d100 and 1d20 are flat curve trash. I need THICC distributions.

>>52615101
Seconding this, Q's dice are fucking unreadable.
Some of their work includes >>52616986 and >>52613515

>>52617526
Care to explain? Not the first time I've heard good things about the system.

>>52620012
DnD retards have trouble processing more than one die at time. Yet prefer to autistically calculate xp for every slayed goblin instead of just giving off levels as plot progresses

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>>52620478

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>>52621480
Go read Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd edition, sounds like it's got a lot in common with your ideal that you can pilfer.

How do you predict the difficulty of tweaking things in a roll-and-keep system?

I feel like a bonus dice or penalties like rerolling your best die are hard enough to predict, let alone with variable target numbers?

>>52627636
math that shit up on anydice and put probability tables in your shitty homebrew

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>>52627636
Like so

>>52627721
Thank you

>>52627717
At least it's not a D20 heartbreaker

>>52627542
>requiring special die just to choose your character's zodiac
I bet this system was actually made by Jews.

>>52613515
3d6 is best as it has a beautiful bell curve and uses standard dice.
1d100 is good as it's straight percentages, but it is annoying how you either have to have 2 different color dice or roll them separately.
d20 can go straight in the trash, 5% or more crit fail/success chance, no thanks.

>>52625567
underrated post

I WISH ALL YOU GODDAMN D20FAGTARDS WOULD JUST FUCKOFF AND DIE! I MEAN, HAS ANY OF YOU SHITEATING RETARDS EVER TRIED SLICING BREAD? IF LIFE WAS D20, ONCE EVERY 20 TRIES YOU'D CUT OFF YOUR FINGERS. AND ONCE EVERY 20 TRIES YOU'D SLICE THE WHOLE LOAF WITH ONE CUT. HOW FUCKING OFTEN DOES THAT REALLY HAPPEN, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS? IT'S LIKE YOU DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND BASIC STATISTICS! IF YOU KNOW HOW TO DO SOMETHING, THEN YOU CAN DO IT RIGHT 99% OF THE TIME, IF YOU FAILED LIKE HALF THE TIME LIKE YOU DO IN D20, THEN YOU DON'T FUCKING KNOW HOW TO DO IT AND YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN BE ROLLING THE FUCKING DIEC. YOU ONLY FAIL IF YOU HAVE LIKE REALLY BAD LUCK AND THAT'S WHY BELL CURVE IS BEST!

>>52630158
Well, you just rolled a nat 1 on baiting.

Or maybe it's just your modifier that's negative.

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>>52613515
I like a lot of the dice.

My favorite system right now is Infinity, because I like the Face to Face rolls.

I need to get a bunch of dice that are styled like the elements of the Platonic solids...

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Descent dice. Yeah yeah, evil custom dice, but I like that you've got range (which doubles as to-hit), damage, special bonuses, and a crit fail option not only on the same roll, but on the same die faces. Quite effective.

>>52625567
wew lad

>>52622746
You have different types of die that share six different types of result. Three are good and three are bad.
You have Success and Failure to start with, they're the most important results, you succeed in your roll or you fail . Next you have Advantage and Disadvantage. These are the game-makers, and they allow for beneficial and negative side effects. You also have Triumph and Despair (the rarest results), which count as both a success and an advantage, or a failure and disadvantage respectively. They can also activate special abilities or affects.

The die are split into Proficiency die, Ability die and Boost die. Proficiency is a d12 and is loaded with success and advantage results as well as a single triumph face. This is a rarer die and its opposite is a Challenge die, whic his loaded with failures, disadvantages and a single despair face. You'll typically be rolling at most 2 of these die (under exceptional circumstances it might be more). Then you have Ability die, which is the average die, d8 and a mixed bag of success and advantage results, countered by the Difficulty die which has disadvantage and failures. Lastly you have Boost die, which is largely advantage with a few successes, this is countered by the Setback die which is mostly disadvantage with a few failures. Each die has a single blank face which counts as nothing.

When you build your die pool, you'll mix all of these die in one hand and throw it. Since there's a single blank face in each die, the odds of absolutely nothing happening are astronomically low. You combine your stats and skill rankings to determine how many Proficiency and Ability die you put in the pool, negative Die are then added due to the difficulty of the task or opposing forces. Then circumstantial die are added which are Boost and Setback die, this could be a scope helping you land a shot or a heavy storm helping you pass Stormtroopers unnoticed.

>>52633969
Since you're throwing all these die about, you're guaranteed to get a mixed bag of results. Successes and Failures cancel oneanother out, same with Advantage and Threat (I said Disadvantage in the previous post, it's been a while) and Triumph and Despair. Whichever results tally out ontop count towards your final roll. This can mean you pass a test with threat, or fail a test but have a lot of Advantage. You might miss your shot on the strormtrooper, but you use all that Advantage to instead hit the door-panel and lock them out for a few turns. Or you might manage to gain access to an Imperial Shuttle but accidently turn the intercom on and flight-control can hear you. There's a lot of versatility in the system, it can seem a bit overwhelming to start with and it's very narrative focussed. I personally love it, but if you don't like narrative systems you won't be a fan. It took me a few sessions to get used to interpreting Advantage/Threat as anything but "You can spend 2 advantage for +1 damage", but once me and my group got over that hump it was a blast. A great mix-up from binary success or failure stories where inconvenience and drama was entirely up to the GM and outside the rules.

>>52615845

Yep. Looks like Dungeons and Dragons has finally cemented its place as a containment RPG.

It's not like this wasn't already a thing. Ever since third edition came out the trend was already starting. Fourth edition came with the popularity surge of The Big Bang Theory which resulted in a spike in sales, which was not enough to save 4e's badly-written mechanics.

Fifth edition was specifically watered down to be palatable both to grognards (who do not rely on the active D&D community nor do they need a new ruleset, thus this pandering was stupid) and to normies, who flocked to the game in great masses thanks to the game's appearance on two terrible TV shows (Stranger Things and Big Bang Theory). Also, the prevalence of Critical Role podcast created quite a lot of love for D&D, which found itself inundated by waves of new players. Wizards of the Coast saw sales skyrocketing, giving them the false message that dumbing down the game represented an improvement in game design (though they did streamline many of the mechanics, which *was* a good thing). As a result, Wizards is very happy with this diluting of the Dungeons and Dragons fanbase. /tg/ has also deluded itself into thinking this influx of players is a good thing. This lack of foresight is to be expected.

D&D is now the containment RPG. It keeps the dumb-ass Skyrim addicts and the brain-dead hipster roasties who can't even figure out which die to roll, out of the good RPGs. Which is sad, because D&D, despite being shit in many small ways, was overall a very fun and enjoyable roleplaying game. It was structured that way. However, the fanbase it is now attracting is making it intolerable, and the way said fanbase is guiding the mechanics is a direction that would make a game like Dungeon World seem sophisticated.

So, in short, D&D is dead, but thank god for its existence.

>>52634188
Great lord neckbeard, what roleplaying system for fantasy-like D&D gameplay do you recommend?

And don't say Pathfinder.

>>52634188
>4e
>badly written mechanics

Lemme guess, you're a Pathfinder guy

>>52613515
Dice are a handicap for roleplayers who need statistics to create a good story.

>>52634305
fate, savage worlds, dungeon fantasy, fantasycraft, just fucking
look around you
jesus christ man

>>52633463

Take a look at the Imperial Assault dice. Same principle but they shifted the auto-miss to the defending die. It is a small shift that has a better psychological impact. It isn't your fault you didn't hit the guy, they just dodged well. It also means you get the joy of a dodge while defending (instead of the enemy whiffing you).

>>52634188

This pasta arrived late.

>>52630158
Crit effects shouldn't be so extreme.

I like d100. Yeah yeah, it's basically just an excessively granular d20, but D100 roll-under allows for percentile probability, which I think is really elegant. Otherwise, I love the sexy, sexy bell curve of 3d6.

>>52638360
I know, it's the worst change imo and exactly for the reasons you described. I want an adversarial dungeon crawler, not a safe space where whatever happens to you isn't your fault.

What about a system that, at the base, works like a dice pool system that lets the number of dice grow out of control
but
There is a way of "compressing" the dice pool into a smaller number of rolls. The way I imagine this is that there are constraints on how many die you're allowed to roll unless you pay some kind of cost, so you use this compression to reduce your dice pool. The compression works in such a way that the chance of success goes down slightly with each pass, but you can spend some cost to let you roll more dice for an action, giving you a better chance.

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D12

I like I can divide it easily.

>>52630206
>Or maybe it's just your modifier that's negative.
Bluff is Charisma-based, after all...

>>52613515
d20 is cool because like >>52613922 says having one die means you can change the probability distribution how you like, but I don't like how linear it usually ends up being and how you end up with a 20 unit window ranging from 0% chance to 100% chance so that surpassing that window means nothing and falling short of it also means nothing. It's constrictive.

I don't have a whole lot of experience with other dice rolls so I don't know what the alternative is.

>>52643927
And I also don't like how disproportional this window can be at higher DCs, even though it probably rarely matters. If something has a DC of 60 and you have a bonus of 60, that's a 100% chance. If something has a DC of 60 and you have a bonus of 55, that's a 75% chance, despite the fact that 55 is 91% of 60.

>>52643957
>math gets wonky when the DC is three times the dice's normal range
no shit sherlock

>>52620457
Which then ends up as 5 to 10% guesses, so there's no point.

>>52627717
Well either that or crunch the math the old fashioned way. roll and keep is fairly easy all things considered.

(now LotW... that thing was a downright PAIN in the ass to math out properly, nor did anydice have useful commands to make it)

>>52644086
I didn't say it wasn't obvious, only that I don't think it's ideal.

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>>52644324
IIRC the distribution for the highest set in a roll ended up looking something roughly like pic.

(sorry, all that math was done on a different pc and I don't have the files anymore)

I'm a fan of those dice pool because despite the odd bell curves they have a very tactile element to them on the tabletop.

Adding and removing dice has a lot more visual weight to it then the occasional +/-2

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>>52640579

>>52640579
Then proceeds to roll one of the 5 prime numbers within that range.

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>>52646367
>3/2=1.5
Ohhhhhhhhh nooooooo! A decimal!

(he's talking about splitting the range up for DCs)

>>52646473
I realised, I totally did realise that perfectly sensible concept. Uhu, yes I did.

hey guys what dice do you use?
I live in the third world and so far me and my group only used what was around, meaning cheap taiwanese dice, some chessex dice if someone felt like having a set of the same colour.
Now recently I bought a couple of sets of gamescience dice and I'm surprised with how great they are. Got any opinions on those?

>>52613515
I like d20 and the dnd dice the most. Its easy, simple but fun. for beginners really good.
dice pools are somewhat cool but it annoys me throwing like 400dice and count every successes, then edge and roll again.... NOPE! But I got to admit that dicepools allow for more detailed successes/failures, but its much harder to homebrew with it easily

>>52615845
>>52615845
>complain about crusty grognards and autistic munchkins
>act like both in a single post
undiluted ceramics

>>52615240
3d6+0 vs DC 11 is a 50% chance. A single point of bonus gives you +12%, the next bonus also gives you +12%, the next one gives +7%, then it falls off a cliff and you get very diminishing returns.

1d20+0 v DC 11 is a 50% chance. A single point of bonus gives +5%, and that's always true for other bonuses.

So a +1 bonus in 3d6 is about the same as a +2 bonus in 1d20, but when you start stacking them the 3d6 bonuses start mattering less. That keeps people with different bonuses vaguely able to contribute to the same problems longer. This is good if you want that.

>>52614625
Why?

>>52614625
How about Shadowrun?
Guaranteed, only d6
hundreds of them

>>52613515
I've always been a fan of dice pools, so long as they're done right or do something interesting.
Anything with a '1 removes successes' or glitch systems I generally dislike. It creates a situation where higher skilled character have a greater chance of rolling critical fuck ups, which doesn't make sense.

I really like how the One Roll Engine uses dice pools, where you roll the dice and look for repeating digits. The 'height' of the roll what digit is showing on the dice generally tells you how well you do and the 'width' how many dice repeat that digit generally tells you how quick you finish that action.

This means that entire rounds of combat or chase scenes or whatever can have dynamic initiative all with a a single roll over turn. Your attack roll is also your initiative roll. It's great.

Too bad I find most of the games that use it to be lackluster.

>>52650289
>glitch systems
Eh, it depends
In SR you have a glitch whenever half or more of your dice pool is 1s
The more dice you have, the lesser the chance of it

A person that has an Attribute of 3 (human average) and is trained (Skill 3) is throwing around 6 dice without using modifiers, which gives them a half percent chance of glitching
The same person without training is rolling 2 dice, which has a 2.8 percent chance of critically glitching
And if we get into usual player ranges we talk about 12 dice, which means that the chance is at about 0.12 percent

I love dice pools when we are using computers and stuff. Kind of bothersome to check all results in combat irl but you can't really beat the sound of 10 d10s scattering across the table.

>>52650289
ORE behavior is really hard to predict calculate tho

>>52619162

Why does a badass have a 20% chance to miss some retard peasant? 3d6 would lower that chance significantly. Furthermore a level 20 superhuman still has a 5% chance to miss an infant on a d20

>>52651885
>Why does a badass have a 20% chance to miss some retard peasant?

Because he's only level one, so he only has a +5 bonus to his attack.

Also, because it was an example number.

>3d6 would lower that chance significantly.

No shit sherlock, it's got a bell curve that has an entirely different set of maths. Using it with the same math as with a a flat d20 you'll break all sorts of things. For example, your guy would also have a really low chance hitting a 20 AC target (while mr +5 Attack Bonus here would have a nice little 30%), which can be easily done first level with the right combination of equipment.

>Furthermore a level 20 superhuman still has a 5% chance to miss an infant on a d20

You are only supposed to roll when it makes sense; when it is foregone conclusion that you succeed you don't roll (or that it is impossible for you to succeed, 20 or no). You don't roll for opening a door, and you don't roll for stabbing a baby, and you don't roll for jumping into the sun (unless you are pplaying an epic campaign I guess).

That said, the crit hit/miss on 1 and 20 is still stupid imo.

>>52651885
>Why does a badass have a 20% chance to miss some retard peasant?
>Only hitting 4 of every 5 attacks I take is clearly too few!
>I say this despite not knowing what the exact difference in power level between the two combatants is!

>a level 20 superhuman still has a 5% chance to miss an infant on a d20
>what are helpless targets
>what is coup-de-grace
>what are GMs that aren't retards who need rules for every single possible situation

>>52652076
>>Only hitting 4 of every 5 attacks I take is clearly too few!

If I'm a "badass" and I'm hitting some random peasant, yeah.

>>52652040
>Because he's only level one

then how is he a badass?

>For example, your guy would also have a really low chance hitting a 20 AC target

Sounds like a feature, not a bug.

How would you set up ability/skill modifiers in a d12 system? I'd imagine giving a player more than +4 would be too good.

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>>52613515
The best way is to make the dices interactive. When i go for dice pools i always separate Atributes from one another, and from skills; for example: a strength dice will be red. If you go for agility it will be green.. and now you have something else to work with (colors). Like, 'throw X green dices and get a bonus'. Deadlands uses cards to interact with dices; that's also a way to do it. In Vampire you can 'lose' dices. I think the only wrong way is to treat it as simply a number you need to reach.

>>52653261
Are you describing a system where you can roll multiple attributes and skills for an action, and which ones succeed determines the means by which you succeed at an action?

>>52613515
>using dice
>ever
wew lad

I'm legitimately surprised that nobody's posted this yet.

>>52656282
huh
I was pretty sure that it already came up, something along the lines of "we just flip a coin and freeform it up"
Must have been in another thread

>>52652736
It's a flat dice, every point is worth 8.3% higher success rate. +4 is +33%

If I was running on d12, I'd want to go for a setting where the players are a little bit beyond mortal (like, Hercules or something). The rest of the world is on a d10 system but the players roll d12. I'd set all the modifiers like it's d10 (one point is +10%), and narrate all the 11s and 12s as being something special.

>read the thread expending to see some interesting and unusual mechanics
>it's just another "d20 vs 3d6" shitstorm
Sad.

D20 bcs biggest "fuck or cuck" potential

>>52652357
>then how is he a badass?

Because level 1 characters are already a level above level 0 chumps.

Try to keep up senpai.

>Sounds like a feature, not a bug.

I too think that fights where the hit chances are sub 10% are fun and exciting!

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>>52652736
I tried it once with 2d12 for a one off.

Abilities had a baseline of 6 and ranged from 0-36

Abilities gained a modifier every third level

Skills had levels of 0/1-6

Skills gained a level slot every sixth level in the relevant ability to essentially represent potential in that skill should the player chose to invest his points into it.

A general check was 2d12+modifier with skill checks being 2d12+skill level+modifier with 42 being the highest difficulty.

It worked alright for the purpose.

>>52614485
what in the hell is that green dice orb? how do you determine if its a cocked die or not? what games or systems use it?

>>52663168

It is just a gimmicky d6, anon.

>>52662622

a level above 0 doesn't seem that badass to me

>I too think that fights where the hit chances are sub 10% are fun and exciting!

The point of having high AC is to be hard to hit. If everything in existence is supposed to have a decent chance of hitting you regardless of AC why is that stat even included in the game?

>>52663717
>a level above 0 doesn't seem that badass to me

Calibrate your expectations then. A level 1 fighter is leaps and bounds above level-less commoners.

>The point of having high AC is to be hard to hit. If everything in existence is supposed to have a decent chance of hitting you regardless of AC why is that stat even included in the game?

There's "hard to hit" and then there's "you have less than 10% chance to hit".

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>>52663168
Internally it has 6 small divets and a metal ball. Each of the divets is on a side next to the number and the metal ball settles in a divet after rolling and holds it upright.

>>52613515
I like the d12.

It rolls the best.

I like d20 or 3d20

>>52613515
2d6 is a good base. From there you can add another die for 'take two highest/lowest', and you can even include exploding 6's. Set the standard difficulty at 9 and you've got a system.

D20 isnt granular enough, D100 is too granular, 3D6 is too irregular.