Chance Mechanics

>>53340005
cards
wheels of fortune

oh, and player decisions. you'd think they'd follow reason but no... they seem to be pure random.

> Smartphone dice roller / RNG app
Avoid using these if you can. Players having their phones out at the table is just asking for them to try and split their attention between the game and something on their phone. People can't split their attention as well as they think they can, and will end up focusing on their phone.

Better to just get people to keep their phones in their pocket while the game is running. If it rings, I'll let them deal with the call. I won't even ask them to justify why they think the call is more important than the game. But the game will be paused until the phone goes back into the pocket or the person steps out of the room.

> Jenga Tower
Sure, it's a niche use. But I haven't seen any other mechanics build and release tension as well as Dread does with Jenga.

>>53340005
Russian roulette

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posting on 4chan

>>53340005
Arbitrary RNGs are possible with electronics, but >>53340995 is correct. Additionally, there are variations on the basics - XdY, XkY, etc for dice for example. Things get wackier when you mingle them, like if you roll dice to see how many cards to draw.

>>53340301
>cards
>wheels of fortune
Teetotum

>>53340005
> Are there any other chance mechanics?
Electronic noise. Radiation.

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Has anyone everused a probablity mechanic of only a coin? Basically every chance is 50/50 but that youmust get x amount of heads flipped in y amount of flips. Where the DC is heads/flips instead of range/dice sides? Could it work? do we have the technology?

>>53345008
flipping a coin 2 times has the same probability spread as a d4, 3 times has the same spread as a d8. I can't think of a scenario where using coin flips would be a better method than just rolling dice. Flipping a coin 4 or more times can let you simulate shit that would be hard to do with dice like d16s and d32s but what advantages would doing that offer over rolling a d20 or some d10s?

>>53345008
It takes forever to do what effectively amounts to a straight d% roll

>>53345008
That just sounds like a dice pool system.
Burning Wheel uses d6s with 4/5/6 as a success, so, 50/50 per die.

Then you have a certain amount of "flips" (dice, a pool created from your skills and stuff) to get a certain number of "heads" (successes) to succeed on a task.

I mean if you wanted to make tasks both decide your pool *and* your successes needed, at that point you really are just at an overly complicated d100 roll (with harder to read probabilities), as other anon said. More-so than most systems are, because then it's not even caring about the character's abilities.

>>53345248
You can simulate a d16 by throwing 2d4 (1/2)4=(1/4)2=1/16 and a d32 by throwing 1d4 and then 1d8 (1/4)*(1/8)=1/32

>>53340005
There's always Rock, Paper, Scissors. You beat the other guy and you win. You tie and the person with the higher score wins (otherwise you throw again, with a second tie possibly going to the active character). You lose and you lose. You could, of course, make it more complicated than that. If your score is high enough above somebody else's then a loss for you counts instead as a tie, necessitating a re-throw. You could also have rock, paper and scissors each have a different special effect if you win with them, maybe indicating power, passive?, and finesse. So throwing a rock in combat might mean you knock somebody down or stun them. Throwing scissors in combat might mean you find the chink in their armor or disable their leg. Throwing paper could represent a feint (setting you up for a devastating follow-up strike), disarming your opponent, tripping him, or anything that doesn't deal normal, direct damage. The trick to all of this is that whoever you were throwing against would be anticipating the results if you threw a certain sign, and might plan what to throw against you on that basis. But, of course, you'd be anticipating that. And they'd be anticipating that you'd be anticipating that. And you'd be anticipating that they'd be anticipating that you'd be anticipating that.

>>53345426
can someone give me the honest story on why dice pools are good? They get the job done but they feel like cancer whenever I have to play with them.

Drawing from a hat/bag

>>53346638
I'm not really the person to defend dice pools. None of the games that were around when I was young used 'em, so it's possible I'm just xenophobic, but I absolutely hate rolling handfuls of dice. It seems clumsy and takes too long, and I'm not sure that I care for the probability curves they have, when tend to be too steep for my taste. But one thing they're excellent at is giving you varying degrees of success, something that single-die systems tend to do awkwardly, if at all. And I could see somebody thinking that most single-die systems are trash for this reason, if they cut their teeth on dice pool games.

>>53340005
Try the "Cat" method.
Assign values to various parts of the room, wherever the cat ends up is the score used.
For optimal effect, allow each player a number of cat treats to attempt to influence the result!

>>53346638
It's fun to roll a lot of dice.
They have interesting design space, like ORE's height×width.
Using # of dice to represent aptitude feels very natural and tangible.

>>53340995

Use *your* phone for the dice app. Keep it in the center of the table and pass it around when people need to roll. No one's going to try and open up your email app, log you out, log themselves in, and start checking mails.

I really like the idea of shuffling a deck of cards. There's cool stuff you can do like drawing a hand getting to pick and choose and have effects like discarding and re-drawing etc.

>>53353381
I'm super into this and want to design a resolution system that does this with trick taking. Does anyone know of any other RPG's that use a regular deck of cards other than Deadlands?

>>53353620
Sine Requie, italian post-apocalyptic occult undead setting and system with lots of mortality, russian hive cities, italian inquisition and eugenetic german scientists.
Also adds tarots for special interpretative rolls

>>53353666
thanks anon that's exactly what I'm looking for

>>53353666
That's a great idea for something with a fantasy/magic element. Have a 'tarot' deck set up that can be called on during important rolls. Have it drawn at the start of the day or the period of action and let it act as a parallel storytelling element.

Anon, consider this idea stolen.

>>53353666
>666
>Recommends tarot

The Devil lurks among you, anons.

>>53345248
>flipping a coin 2 times has the same probability spread as a d4
This is only true if HT is a different result than TH.

>>53353330
>No one's going to try and open up your email app, log you out, log themselves in, and start checking mails.

Oh, anon. Poor, naive anon. What makes you think it's safe to hand over your phone while you're still logged into things?

Finding a group on roll 20?

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>>53340005
Jabbing a pen/stylus/whatever onto a sheet without looking.
You can get a similar effects with Where's Wally? books for randomly generating NPCs/loot/etc.

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>>53340005
Draw chits from a tin or hat.

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>>53340005

>>53340005
asking her out

>>53359583
>her