Author Topic: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?  (Read 28296 times)

Offline Bard

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What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« on: November 06, 2011, 09:44:29 PM »
Let's get this board started! (Not that it ever was really alive even before, but I'll try)

They're the core of all RPGs, and there's hundreds of them around, ranging from the simple "d100 must be lower than skill" of BASIC systems, increasing in complexity from a still somewhat simple and common "dX+skill+stat modifier+bonuses" used among MANY others by D20, True20 and Cyberpunk 2020, to multiple dice ones like WoD, to multiple dice of different types (Savage Worlds) to "toss a bunch of dices and pray the old gods for explanations" of Cthulhutech.

But what's your favorite ones?
And why? What advantages and disadvantages do you feel each one have?
Does it depends on the type of game you're running or it's universal?
Anything you can think of that could be interesting on this topic, I'd like to hear!
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Offline savagehominid

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2011, 10:20:24 PM »
For me, it isn't so much the dice mechanic themselves but how they dice are "used".

Burning Wheel is a D6 based dice pool, roll and count successes. HOWEVER, the rules always have explicit outcomes for success and failure. Whether it s discussed by Intent/Task, or a hard rule like the maneuvers in Fight. You always know what outcomes lie on either side, it avoids the "murk".

Sorcerer uses an interesting success (called victories) system. You simply count how many dice you have, that are HIGHER than your opponents. Then those victories carry over to your next roll, if it builds directly off your success. This leads to a forward moving, intense feel when the dice hit the table. Also during conflict, everyone can do ONE thing and these are discussed openly. If you want to command your demon, and dodge out of the way of a bullet...guess what, you have to make a choice.

Apocalypse World's is simply, roll 2d6+stat. 7-9 is a success with complications, 10+ is a full success. A bit like Burning Wheel in the fact that each time the dice hit the table, you have explicit outcomes for success and failure. However, each time you roll the dice this is built into a move. There is simply no "stat check" but fictional beats with set consequences.

Now each of these systems do different things, I think that is key.

Personally, when I use dice in a traditional game (like Runequest or D&D), I adopt techniques I've learned from the above games. It cuts through the murk, or the whole meaningless die rolling that happens on occasion.
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Offline tsuyoshikentsu

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2011, 10:52:58 PM »
Honestly, nWoD's. (This also counts Shadowrun, though to a lesser extent there.) It's very easy for me to both explain to new players and adjudicate on the fly.

Offline Nachofan99

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2011, 11:54:05 PM »
I like Shadowrun d6's with "joy of 4" modified system.  Target number is roughly 4 for everything - take dice roll them.  Net the Opposed successes, stage up or down for every 2 successes exceeded. EZ PZ and super fast resolution.  Instead of using Target Number increases or decreases, you instead require more or less base successes.

Offline Bozwevial

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #4 on: November 07, 2011, 12:18:09 AM »
Dicepools are something I may have to try with my fledgling group, although I'll give them time to adapt to the d20 system first. Those would make things a whole lot more consistent.

Fudge dice of FATE/DFRPG fame are pretty nifty too, though.
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Offline brainpiercing

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2011, 08:05:05 AM »
I would like a system where you rolled blocks of bell-curve distributed dice - i.e. a dice pool system with a pool of blocks of 3d6s. That's very complicated to physically roll, but nowadays it's easy to use a laptop at the table.

Then you can have a stat+skill mechanic with variable TNs from 3 to 18, with clear-cut rules for what modifiers affect DP and what affect TN. That way you have great flexibility, while retaining a nice distribution of probabilities - or vice versa. And you could bring back SR3s Attack Power and Damage ratings for combat, which is, to date, my favourite damage mechanic.

I'm actually in the (very lengthy) process of writing a sandbox system using these rules.

Offline veekie

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2011, 08:52:30 AM »
Personally, of the dice mechanics I know of, FATE is probably my favorite, followed by d20.

Fudge dice(FATE)
Description Effectively 4d3-8, you roll 4 d6s, each of which has three outcomes, +1, 0 and -1. All the dice combined + your roll modifier sets it.
Advantages Strong bell curve that stays between -4 to +4.
Easy to buy. You can just use d6s if you can't find fudge.
Disadvantages Slower than 1 roll systems, you need to add it all up.
Potential swing is larger than most modifiers in the system. This is mitigated by the strong bell curve of the system of course.

d20 rocks on 1 roll, which makes resolution very fast, but its completely linear and thus swingy. Skill contribution varies by level. Mostly valued for speed of resolution and easily estimated probabilities.

WoD d10. Hideously swingy AND slow. You roll a number of d10s equal to your dicepool(two numbers ranging from 1-5, subtract circumstantials from the pool before rolling), d10s that get above a certain value(8, 9 and 10) count as successes. 5+ successes is effectively the critical. So its swingy, biased towards failure, since you can roll 0 successes even with 10 dice(most talent + most skill). Slow too, because of the number of comparisons you have to make per dice(form dice pool, ask for penalties and subtract, roll and roll explosions). And it explodes. Mitigation allows rerolling, but not gaining success.

Exalted d10 is somewhat similar, except you can buy successes, and it explodes by simply doubling successes on a 10. Additionally, the subtraction step is removed, you roll against static target number of successes. This speeds it up, but makes it harder to meet targets consistently without purchasing successes.

System independents:
Opposed rolls -Never liked these in any system, they massively overrate luck's influence on the exchange.
Exploding dice - Much like critical failure tables, these make fun stories once in a while, but they generally do little more than waste time of resolution, and add more swing.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2011, 10:38:31 AM by veekie »
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Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2011, 10:13:41 AM »
Seconding the Exalted d10 system. I'm going to be incorporating dice pools as a mechanic for some of my homebrew classes.

Offline archangel.arcanis

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2011, 10:29:58 AM »
I really like the Arcanis RPG system. It is 2d10+Attribute die+skill modifier. That levels out the bell curve a fair bit, and gives skill and talent (attribute die) roughly the same level at first with skill being more consistent and surpassing talent as you go up.

Offline sirpercival

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2011, 10:34:43 AM »
+1 to the Fate system.  It's actually more like 4d3-8, but whatever.  :)

I think the whole system from the Dresden Files RPG (I'm not sure how much is unique and how much is standard Fate system) is great, with Aspects and Fate Points.  It really encourages role-playing as a mechanism to actually alter the outcomes of the dice rolls.  In D&D you can roleplay something but there are no guidelines for what sorts of modifiers that RPing should apply to your die roll.
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Offline Talore

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #10 on: November 07, 2011, 10:43:42 AM »
I am very partial to the "What I Say Goes" rule in Brikwars, the LEGO-based wargame. Essentially, if players disagree on a ruling or measurement, rather than checking the rules or petitioning an outside observer, they are to roll dice, and whoever rolls higher gets to dictate what happens (with their choice made before the roll!). It isn't exploitable either as the rules explicitly state that if people try to exploit any aspect of the game then they should be drop-kicked.
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Offline Dan2

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #11 on: November 07, 2011, 05:11:01 PM »
I have to tip my hat to the good old d20+modifier roll.  It's fantastic for fast play and reading odds.  Downside: scrounging for that last +1 you have or having to recalculate modifier.
It's great for reliability in high-powered systems because in many (perhaps most?) the modifier can outweigh the roll itself.

Success-counting dice pools (a la Burning Wheel) is better for a grittier style of gameplay.  As the challenge goes up, it goes *way* up.

I've never been a fan of "additive" dice pools for resolution mechanics.  I can understand that you get a nice bell curve out of it, but I have trouble finding a style where I'd rather have it than one of the other two above.

I haven't really played with any others.
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Offline Havok4

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #12 on: November 07, 2011, 05:26:51 PM »
I am personally very fond of fate/fudge dice.

Offline Mixster

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #13 on: November 07, 2011, 05:42:29 PM »
I personally prefer the D100 under your skill that MRQ (Now Legend) has done some exceedingly nice things with. It's simple and fast to roll, yet it gets a lot of tactical depth through different modifiers and time constraints, it's also one of the easiest thing to wing since a character that is a professional at a task would be around 75% chance of succeeding those tests when in a stressed situation.

It's simple and beautiful.
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Offline Bozwevial

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #14 on: November 07, 2011, 05:45:56 PM »
I personally prefer the D100 under your skill that MRQ (Now Legend) has done some exceedingly nice things with. It's simple and fast to roll, yet it gets a lot of tactical depth through different modifiers and time constraints, it's also one of the easiest thing to wing since a character that is a professional at a task would be around 75% chance of succeeding those tests when in a stressed situation.

It's simple and beautiful.
I've seen that used in Unknown Armies before. 100 is a critical failure, 01 is a critical success, matching numbers are "cherries" for martial arts and magic skills, and you can swap the numbers you roll for your obsession skill (75 could become 57). At least, I think that's how it goes.
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Offline Bard

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #15 on: November 07, 2011, 06:00:01 PM »
Took a while to answer, but I wanted to get the time to go to the local RPG club and give a good read at some of the games mentioned up here.

First of all, I haven't found yet something that fully satisfies me (that's part of the reason why I created the topic)
* I do like simple and fast systems dice+relevant bonuses>difficulty, but I don't like the linearity of the chances. Some have even worse issues concerning the "weight" of the stat vs skill vs chance in the roll.
* I do not like most of the "multiple dice, success counting" systems like wod/nwod simply because there are too many dices (Scion is even worse, the only time I played I ended up tossing more than a dozen dice for the damage of one of my attacks with a NEW character). It slows down the game and that's never a good thing, not even for a non-combat one.
* I find Deadlands Classic (and if I recall well Savage Worlds that's based on it) a nice solution and it's possibly my second favourite, but yet not good enough (stat determines type of dice, skill number of dices, get highest value, explode and sum maximum results, compare to difficulty class, degrees of success and failure every 5 point of distance from the target number, you can improve both number and type of dices with experience points. you can "buy" successes). 
* I'm curious about Fudge, I'll have to try it at a first chance, I won't say anything about it till I see it in action.
* I'm still undecided about BASIC system and derivatives (like the ones mentioned by Mixster and Bozwevial)

For now, my favorite system would be sum of 2/3 dices + bonuses vs target number, it's reasonabily fast, less swingy, can be optimized (possibly I'd go with 3d10, since they're common dices and big enough to allow a more precise fine-tuning of the weight of other aspects). But for some reason I can't exactly point out, I'm still not 100% convinced about it.
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Offline sirpercival

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #16 on: November 07, 2011, 06:05:28 PM »
I have a homebrew system I developed with a friend of mine for a zombie apocalypse game.  Basically, you roll d6's, from 1 to 3 depending on how random the result should be.  For complete randomness, it's 1d6 (there are very few situations where this happens).  For situations with moderate central tendency, like weapon attacks, you roll 2d6, and for strong central tendency like skills you roll 3d6.  Any modifiers adjust the target number, not the roll, and degree of success or failure is given by how much you succeed or fail by.
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Offline xaotiq1

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #17 on: November 07, 2011, 08:47:43 PM »
I'm going to second Bard's choice of the Deadlands/Savage Worlds dice system. Keeps it fairly tidy. Fast, furious and fun.
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Offline BG_Josh

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #18 on: November 07, 2011, 09:05:28 PM »
It is something of a misnomer to compare dicepool games.  Comparing Burning Wheel to WoD is like comparing a helicopter to a duck. 

BW is an elegant system that is one of the most flexible.  You can do a lot with it and it empowers the players.
Apocalypse world is similarly elegant.  Less far reaching, but faster.
Other good games: Mouseguard, Lady Blackbird, Misspent youth, or shock.

I would venture if you like fate you will love Apocalypse world.

an interesting system i have not played yet is warhammer fantasy

Offline veekie

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Re: What's your favourite "dice based resolution mechanic"?
« Reply #19 on: November 07, 2011, 09:51:21 PM »
Another element for a lot of dice mechanics is the odd dice. When you want to stock up in a pinch, d6 systems(whether straight, target or pool) have an advantage there.

Especially for bag-o-dice games like WoD. If they used d6s it'd have helped.
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