Thoughts on a core mechanic

[wintermute]

I need help with a challenge resolution mechanic and attribute/skill rankings.

Resolving a challenge in our system is attribute dice + skill dice versus a target number.

Which of these do you think works better (if at all)?

Attributes and skills go up as follows
+2
D6
D6+2
2D6
2D6+2
etc, etc.

So a character with a D6 intelligence and a 2D6 history skill would roll 3D6 dice when making a history skill test. Further, when adding a +2 and a +2 you don't get +4, you'd get another D6. So a D6+2 and a 2d6+2 would be 4D6. These attributes and skills could then have numeric scores.
0.5 = +2
1.0 = D6
1.5 = D6+2
2.0 = 2D6

Further, positive and negative modifiers to tests could be calculated using these numeric scores. For example, a character with D6+2 (1.5)intelligence and 2D6 (2.0) First aid is attempting to patch up another character. The target number is 10. He has a medical kit which adds +1.0. People are shooting at him and it's pouring rain so that's a -1.5.  That's 3.0, so he'd roll 3D6 .

Alright, the fraction thing seems a bit inelegant. The original thinking was to rank negative/positive modifiers and skills where 1 = +2, 2 = D6, 3 = D6+2.  It looks prettier, but doesn't seem as mechanically sound as using fractions.

Thoughts on that part?

Using all of these dice, critical success, critical failure, etc:
I'm looking at a couple of different ways to handle this. First, just add the results of all the dice together as they come up. That's pretty simple. If you roll a six, roll another die and add to the total. Critical successes are succeeding the target number by 10. Critical failures are failing by 10.

Or,
Only count a 4,5, or 6. Critical failure happens when you don't get a single die roll of 4, 5, or 6. If you roll a six, roll another die and add to the total. Critical successes are succeeding the target number by 10.

Or,
Only count a 4,5 or 6. Critical failure happens when you don't get a single die roll of a 4,5, or 6. If you get a 1,2,3, 4, you get to roll 4 more dice. 1,2,3,4,5 means 5 more dice. 1,2,3,4,5,6 means 6 more dice. Critical successes are succeeding the target number by 10.

[Adam Dray]

It's hard to know what's "best" without knowing more about what you're gonna use this for.

Also -- not that there's a problem here -- but this is similar to the dice system in the old West End Games Star Wars RPG. You might want to look at what they did for ideas. It essentially ranked attributes like you did, with a slightly different progression: d6, d6+1, d6+2, 2d6, 2d6+1, 2d6+2, 3d6, etc. It didn't use a combined attribute + skill check, but rather listed skills under each attribute. The skills under an attribute were by default at the level of that attribute, and then skills increased from there. So if you had a Dexterity 3d6+2, then all your Dexterity skills were 3d6+2 by default but you could increase your Dodge (a Dexterity skill) one level to 4d6, or two levels to 4d6+1. All rolls were unopposed, total of the dice vs. a difficulty target, like 15. The GM could raise the difficulty for the situation.

Whatever you do, don't make it any more complicated than it has to be. What is the purpose of each of your little add-on mechanics? Which ones go well together?

For example, if you're only counting 4,5,6 results, then where do you add +2 to a die? If you're adding d6+2 plus 2d6+2, why not just make it 3d6+4 and keep it simple? What does making it a 4d6 roll really add? (Also, the statistics change! 4d6 => 4-24, average 7. 3d6+4 => 7-28, average 7.5. Is that your intent?)

I see a number of gimmicks in your listing: d6 dice pools, skill+attribute, bonus +2, two +2's = +1d6, exploding 6es, margin of success (miss or make by 10). It's a lot!

Also don't overestimate the handling time of adding a big pile of d6es up. It used to frustrate me even in my Star Wars games, when players were rolling 6d6, maybe even 10d6. Counting is always faster than adding. If you want to roll big handfuls of d6es ("Let's see, I have 4 dice from my Intelligence and 6 dice from my First Aid skill, plus 2d6 for my medkit, so that's 12d6"), then consider something like "count the 6es." You can make 1 six a standard success, and 2+ sixes a critical success. Don't play with the number of successes required to monkey the difficulty; instead, penalize them dice (GM: "It's a critical wound,  though, so you lose 3d6...").

Tell me more about your project!

[wintermute]

Thanks for the reply!

The original progression we were going to use was d6, d6+1, d6+2, d6+3, 2d6, etc. But, I thought we were going to simplify it by simply going d6, d6+2, 2d6, and then using the same mechanic for positive and negative modifiers to the dice (the whole 0.5, 1.0 thing). This was also why a +2 added to a +2 would equal another die, because this is a half point added to a half point.

I'm not trying to put gimmicks in there for the sake of gimmicks, but instead to try and streamline, honestly, while still offering some "fun" with the system. But this is exactly the sort of input I'm looking for.

That 4,5,6 thing was just one option we were looking at that would still allow us to use a target number system, while cutting down on the counting, somewhat. And it would work with the +2s by simply adding the +2 to the total if the dice. If you had a 2d6+2 and a D6, you'd roll 3d6. If you rolled a 2,4,5, you'd have a total of 11. This might be too complicated though.

It's a modern supernatural horror setting. It's supposed to be crunchy. Not a whole lot of opposed rolls, instead your dice pools get cut down. It's in early, early stages. I'm planning to hire most of the writing out to freelancers, I'm just poking around and trying to hammer out some mechanics before exploring professional help.

[Ron Edwards]

Hiya,

I'm a little bit confused about something.

Is this a game that you're writing, in development? If so, then I should move this thread to Playtesting.

Or is it a game that you're playing with a published system and are tweaking a little bit? If so, then I should move it to Actual Play, and you can let us know which game you're using too.

Either one is good, but as far as I can tell, this thread shouldn't be here in First Thoughts. It may not seem like a big deal, but ... well, it is, so please let me know.

Best, Ron

[wintermute]

I'm just trying to develop some mechanics from scratch for a system I'm considering developing. Sorry for putting this in the wrong place if this was supposed to go in Playtesting.