An idea for a die machanic

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

Teyrnon

Legendary Pubber
Joined
Aug 18, 2017
Messages
581
Reaction score
997
I’ve had an idea for a dice mechanic that I’d like some feedback about. I like the idea of FFG's narrative dice but am looking for ways to get similar results with special dice. Here goes:
Let’s say we have a system in which characters are ranked in attributes from 1 to 5 and skills are 1 to 10.
The basic roll would be a number of 10-sided dice equal to the attribute. To establish success or failure the highest die is added to the skill rank and compared against a target number. Say 11 is a target for an average task. Any 1’s rolled are interpreted as added complications that hinder the character in some way, to the task and 10s are interpreted as boons that improve the circumstances that necessitated the roll. If all 10s are rolled are it’s a critical success and if all 1s are rolled it’s either a spectacular failure if the roll is a failure or in the case of the roll being a success with a 1 then the roll is a still successful but bad things may still happen.
 
Hm. I think the odds of success are a little skewed for your averages there.

Anydice shows them like this.

Also, if you have a higher attribute, your odds of getting a critical success go down dramatically; like a character with a 5 attribute has a .001% chance of a critical success, regardless of skill.

Maybe have the skill reduce the cap threshold for a boon? So someone who rolls multiple dice gains boons more often?
 
Anydice shows them like this.

I'm not sure what you're showing me here. The chance of rolling over 6 on each 1d10 through 5d10?

Also, if you have a higher attribute, your odds of getting a critical success go down dramatically; like a character with a 5 attribute has a .001% chance of a critical success, regardless of skill.

I hadn't thought about that but you make a good point. The higher attribute lowers the chance of a critical success. I need to rethink that. Maybe a single 10 should be a critical success instead with additional 10s adding boons on top of the crit?

Maybe have the skill reduce the cap threshold for a boon? So someone who rolls multiple dice gains boons more often?

Well, not sure this is a problem. The chance of rolling at least one 10 goes up with each added die so you do get an increased chance of a boon with higher attributes. Hmm...Skill level should have an impact on this other than the success/fail binary but I'm not sure how yet.
 
I'm not sure what you're showing me here. The chance of rolling over 6 on each 1d10 through 5d10?

That's the chance of success for a 5 skill at each level of attribute. Pretty much, with Att 1 you have a 40% chance, and it goes up from there. It makes more sense if you look at it in graph instead of the default view.

I hadn't thought about that but you make a good point. The higher attribute lowers the chance of a critical success. I need to rethink that. Maybe a single 10 should be a critical success instead with additional 10s adding boons on top of the crit?

Idk, that's a feel call.
 
That's the chance of success for a 5 skill at each level of attribute. Pretty much, with Att 1 you have a 40% chance, and it goes up from there. It makes more sense if you look at it in graph instead of the default view.

Ah, I see. Ouch...The rise in the success probability with higher attributes is a bit more rapid than I anticipated. Back to the drawing board.
 
I agree with Panzerkraken, but there's another factor with this.
The way it works with punishing 1s with complications means that higher your Attribute, the higher the chance you'll get complications. The smarter you become, the more stupid mistakes you'll make. Sure; spectacular failure becomes incredibly less likely with a high attribute, but you're still going to ramp up more complications than someone with a low attribute.

I like the idea of what is essentially a dynamic attribute score; your attribute is determined by your highest roll, rather than added to it. It's a fun idea. But maybe take critical failure/success out of it, or set a critical failure/success target range (X above target number is critical success, X below target number is critical failure).
 
Okay, thinking about it further how about this version?

Attributes are rated 1 to 5 with the normal range being 1-3. 4 and 5 are reserved for superhuman levels of ability. Skills are ranked from 0 to 10.

When a roll is called for a number of d10s equal to the attribute. Success or failure is determined by adding the highest die to the skill rank and compared against a target number. Target numbers may range from 3 to 18. An 18 would be a nigh impossible task. I'm still going with 11 as the average difficult.

Beyond the success/failure binary there are other factors to consider. If a 10 comes up on the die roll there's a chance for critical success which is determined by rolling the dice again. If the second roll would be a success when compared against the target number then that's a critical success.

Any 9s or additional 10s beyond the one that triggered a critical indicate some additional beneficial factors affecting the situation that necessitated the roll.

If all 1s are rolled the roll indicates a spectacular failure. Any 1s that turned up on a successful roll indicate complicating factors that arise as a result of the character performing the task.
 
Seems pretty solid, but be aware that with such a dice-pool, you're going to lean very heavily towards success; the more dice you throw, the better the chance of having one die be vastly above average... It's like the heavy skew to results given by 5e's advantage mechanic, only much, much more so as soon as you break that second die threshold. If that is your intended result, if you intend, for example, a superhero-level theme in terms of power, then that's great. If not, however... It might not be so good.
If that fits with your design philosophy, then that's great. But it's important to be aware of it.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top