GaC (Gears and Cogs: dice pool questions)

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  Hello folks as some know I am currently (slowly) scraping together a mini supplement for sorcerer but I also have my own system I am working on, and have a few questions. Right now I am waking on deciding weather I would like to work with conflict resolution, task resolution, or a combination of both.
  At the moment players roll a number of 6 sided dice equal to Attribute + skill +/- modifiers vs conflicting pool of dice. To determine success the person rolling uses a quick rock vs paper vs scissor style of rolling. The steps to determine your number of success would be to make three lines of dice 6's and 5's then below it 4's and 3's, and below that 2's and 1's. You would remove a number of 4's and 3's equal to the number of 2's and 1's, and from the 6's and 5's take away a number of dice remaining equal to the remaining 4's and 3's. You would compare your number of remaining 6's and 5's to the remaining opposed pool with the higher winning. No pool can be greater than 20 dice and if it would be for each die over 20 count it as a 1's or 2's.

  While it seems complicated at first actually rolling the dice is pretty quick I see normal pools ranging from 10-15 dice. The benefits I see would be as follows:
- With the rock paper scissor method you can have two tiers of "bonuses" 1's and 2's and 5's and 6's.
- The games rolling mechanics would have a bit of a novelty factor.
- Lighter amounts of addition because rows above and below one another of dice can simply be slid away instead of even counting them.

  My questions are:
- Does this method of dice rolling sound pealing, or feasible as a solid method?
- What resolution method do you think better fits the dice rolling method?
- Any other opinions I might not have asked for but you have?
Regards, Seth

[Vulpinoid]

Hypothetically...

(I'm just writing this for clarification)

A player has 9 dice for a certain type of action and over the course of their adventure they use this pool three times.

First attempt: 1,1,2,3,4,4,5,6,6
[5's-6's]: 3 dice
[3's-4's]: 3 dice
[1's-2's]: 3 dice

The first thing you do is remove an equal number of [3's-4's] as you have [1's-2's], 3 dice remove 3 dice. Only the [5's-6's] remain, and there are no more dice left in the pool to remove them. Presumably this counts as 3 successes.

Second attempt: 1,2,3,3,4,4,5,6,6
[5's-6's]: 3 dice
[3's-4's]: 4 dice
[1's-2's]: 2 dice

The first thing you do is remove an equal number of [3's-4's] as you have [1's-2's], 2 dice remove 2 dice. Leaving 2 dice in the range of [3's-4's]. These are then used to eliminate dice in the [5's-6's] range, once again 2 dice remove 2 dice, leaving only a single die in the top tier once all removals are taken into account. Presumably this counts as 1 success.

Third attempt: 1,1,2,2,3,4,5,6,6
[5's-6's]: 3 dice
[3's-4's]: 2 dice
[1's-2's]: 4 dice

The first thing you do is remove an equal number of [3's-4's] as you have [1's-2's], 4 dice remove 4 dice. But there are only 2 in the 3-4 range band...what happens to the other dice? Does this mean that the [5's-6's] still remain, counting as three successes? Do the excess of [1's-2's] start taking away from the highest tier of dice, in which case there would only be a single success remaining?

I'm just trying to expose what I'm seeing as confusions or even flaws in the system and asking for some clarification.

At the moment it seems like it's better to roll an even distribution of die results. And depending on how the third attempt plays out, it might even be better to roll extremes (lots of 1-2s and lots of 5-6s, but no 3-4s). This may have been the intention; but if so, what are you trying to tell your players through the system?

V

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  You are correct in how the dice would be rolled. I chose a method that would favor both extremes with the higher being better than the lower not as good so I could play around with bonuses more. While this portion of the process does not directly reflect it the focus of the game is the continued cause and effect.
  One of the elements of the resolution mechanic will be a momentum system much like in sorcerer where the success of a similar previous action can add bonus to the next action. This will hopefully streamline play and keep it moving in a focused direction, but my main concern is making sure my initial roll method is playable.
Regards, Seth

[Seth M. Drebitko]

 Hmm, another thing has occurred to me while fine tuning things. While I like the dice rolling mechanics allot it is definitely not a main stream resolution method. Do you think that due to the non standard dice rolling I would be turning people off to the game? I guess my question is; if you could choose a system where you rolled with the above, or simply rolled d100% +/- mods trying to get less than your attribute + skill, which would you choose?

My concern is that I want the game to be quirky and interesting but I don't want to shut out my potential consumers.
Regards, Seth

[Vulpinoid]

Does it matter if your die rolling mechanism isn't mainstream?

I think that if you can reflect the game in the mechanism (and vice versa) then players won't see the quirky method of using dice as an anomaly, instead they'll see it as a sensible and integral part of your game, helping to immerse them in the experience that you are trying to show them.

Make the game about extremes, and show through the text that people get ahead in the world by exploring the best and the worst in situations.

Or at least make this a prominent background theme.

Just some ideas...

V

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Does it matter if your die rolling mechanism isn't mainstream?

  While I don't really expect my game to successfully penetrate the market in any fiscally meaningful way I want to at least leave that option open. My major worry is creating to involved of a game, I think my best bet might be to draft more up for people to review this way I can get an opinion on the entire thing working together.
Ultimately I am trying to leave people with a cause and effect process feeling with the mechanics. I will try to write some sample characters and mock up some examples of interaction and post them up. In the meantime any opinions on the way things are is still welcome.
Regards, Seth

[JoyWriter]

I think it's definitely a weird system, but that can be a good thing is while using it people are reminded via it's weirdness of thematic things in your game. I would get rid of any idea that this is a quick method; if you compare it to rolling one dice and seeing high or low, or many others, then setting out rows and doing intermediate counting, no that's not quick. I wouldn't make the system this way if your only interested in a variety of bonuses; every complexity you add to the resolution system is a hook you can hang a bonus on, but I suspect it's better to make it modular:

Say you added re-rolling. So that people could pick certain numbers of dice from each category and reroll them. Now this could be something that only one person could do, because he picked it as a bonus. Now he will be happy to do it, and everyone else will not be bothered with it. I think setting this kind of thing up, where the system only gets more complex if it benefits you, is a good way to go. Now how to apply it to your system is tricky, as taking out the 1-2 thing and leaving the rest leaves a hole there that doesn't make anything easier. So one way to make this easier is to say "1's remove successes, 5s and 6s increase them" and then add something about 3-4 gobbling the 1s if you have some special ability.

This shifts the numbers, obviously, but I think the "basic rule" I made up may match the probabilities you put quite closely: The risk adjusted level of success is the same for both when dealing with two dice, I've no idea after that!