Simplifying and unifying dice mechanics for Ygg

[Christoffer Lernö]

I'm currently in the process of writing down Ygg. I'm taking all the ideas I worked out and write them out and putting them together.

It's maybe not surprising that some problems turn up. One problem which isn't super important, but still manages to slow down the progess is that of the die rolling mechanics.

The problem is that I come to rules I have to make up quickly as fillers, but am unable to tackle them fast because I can't really make up my mind about what mechanic to use. My dice stuff is too incoherent.

What I currently have is:

1) 1D12+skill to beat "7+defender's skill" or "distance difficulty" with a skill ranging from 1 to 12 approximately. Modifiers up and down are done by adding dice and picking the highest or the lowest depending on if it's an advantage or disadvantage

2) Damage # of D12 is rolled - dicepool style - where the target number is on of the defender's stats (3-7 for heroes). The number of successes equal wound points. (12 is gives extra dice to reroll)

3) Compare Stat with Target # if above -> success, below -> failure. If equal, roll 1D6 (win on 4-6, lose on 1-3)

... and probably some more.

I recently posted about having problems using 3) in the combat system. And the (good) advice I got was to resolve it like 2) instead.

That leaves us with 3) only for the skill system, which feels unnecessary. It's a little inelegant in the way it handles modifiers and concessions as well, although it is extremely well behaved.

The behaviour of the systems are different:

1) produces results which varies at the same order of magnitude as the underlying basic modifier (skill)

2) produces values (successes) which slowly migrates higher and higher while at the same time being less and less focused on a single value as the # dice increases.

3) produces extremely narrow results on the order of magnitude of 1/4 or less of the range of modifier.

The problem is, it's not that I don't like the results produced by 3). Definately not, it's just that it has to be handled so differently. Which in itself would not be a problem if skills were important, but they aren't.

I mostly want to handle them like karma.

Is there any way of neatly using 1 or 2 in some way to fairly adequately reproduce a similar behaviour as that of 3?

I'm trying to figure out a way but I haven't had all that much luck yet.