Dice pools!

[Comte]

I like dice pools, and I like lots of different types of dice. I don't know what it is I just do. So when I set out to kick out the mechanics of my game a dice pool just seemed to fall into place.

Now as a human being I have weaknesses, mechanics are one of them. I'm not good at remembering them and I doubt I'm good at writing them, still that's no reason for me not to try. So following is my first attempt at game mechanics. Please tell me what's wrong with them.

Where the dice come from:
For all you skills you get a skill bonus, and for all your stats you get a stat bonus. The skill bonus is the amount of points you have in the skill divided by 2. The stat bonus is the stat divided by 3.

Why?: Well the reasoning behind this is that the skills range in numbers from 1-15. In some situations that could lead to a lot of dice flying around. Also the stats can range from 1-30. Normal humans won't ever have a stat beyond 15, the rest is for things that they will only deal with if they screw up. So I figured by breaking it down in this way I could keep the flexibility of the dice pool mechanic while keeping the number of dice under control. There will be rules in place for passive skill use so that players won't feel that they are wasting points hopefully.

What Type of Dice: For skill bonuses 1d10 for stat bonuses 1d20.

Why: Well I decided that your skills should be the main thing that gets you by. It is going to be a very skill based game as one of its major themes is traveling the road from innocents to experience, from book knowledge to real knowledge. Raw natural talent should play a part, just one that is roughly half as effective. Also something with massive stats may not be as effective as someone who is highly skilled. That is an important bit.

Simple non Contested Action Resolution: Difficulty numbers are based on a 1-10 scale, ten being the easiest and one being the most difficult. To help speed up game play it is encouraged to just tell the players what the difficulty number is.

Why: Personal preference really I find it easier to take modifiers into account went I can just start at 1 and work my way up the scale of difficulty.

How Successful is Success: 1 Success...just barely made it, 4 successes plain vanilla success, more than 4 successes things just keep getting better.

Note: There will be extensive examples of the types of failure and successes that are possible.

Combat: Haven't quite gotten that far yet. I wanted to see how well the simpler mechanics worked before I start building a combat system out of them. Currently what I am considering is using some sort of derived stat that is based on a combination of stats and skills for the difficulty number. So there would be a derived offensive and defensive stat that can be used as a difficulty number. However, like I said before I would like some feedback on the base mechanics before I get to much into it.

Damage: Damage won't use dice. There are already enough random things going on. To screw the players out of damage just because of a bad roll is to much for this old soul to bare.

Extra Stuff: People will be able to help each other out by adding dice to the dice pool. For example if someone is trying to set a trap the rest of the group will be able to contribute dice to the dice pool.

Karma Dice: I plan on at least 3 ways to reward the players for good role-playing, experience, karma, status. Karma dice can be used at any time to assist in any roll. Currently I am thinking they will be a 1d4.

Alright. Now here is what I am trying to get the game to do. You basically play normal people who are being thrust into extraordinary situations. So while the characters are starting up they will have lots and lots of default skills going on. So the first time they try to build a time bomb, they may make it work...but things should go horribly wrong. It will be up to the players to improvise their way out of any sticky situations that arise. Most of the players should have a goodly amount of fast talk skill.

[ethan_greer]

Brain dump:

I've inferred it, but you'll want to specify that this is a roll-under system to prevent confusion.  Also, why not just have skills be ranged from 1-8 and stats be ranged from 1-10?  Why divide them?  Is there some other purpose for the 1-15 and 1-30 ranges?

If everyone needs to have fast-talk, you should make it a stat rather than a skill.  Just a thought.

All in all, I like the concept of having the differing die types in the dice pool.  Interesting.  Have you done some test rolls to see how it plays?

Karma dice being d4 makes them pretty darn powerful - 25% chance of getting a success on a difficulty 1.

[Comte]

Tis a bit more refined than a brain dump, but more or less you hit the nail on the head.

I've inferred it, but you'll want to specify that this is a roll-under system to prevent confusion. Also, why not just have skills be ranged from 1-8 and stats be ranged from 1-10? Why divide them? Is there some other purpose for the 1-15 and 1-30 ranges?

Roll-undersystem.  I spent almost 15 minuts trying to come up with that word and it just didn't happen for me.  

The 1-30 ranges for the stats are mostly a result of the setting.  I knew I was forgetting something.  A stat of 10 is the effective max for an unaugmented human.  As variouse things happen this can change.  If someone tries to go above a stat of 30 thier bodys break down and they die.  

As for the dividing, well I wanted to keep the number of dice under control.  I mean I may like dice pools but sorting through 60 dice kinda sucks.  So I looked at the max's that the players would have to deal with, under normal circumstances.  I forgot to include that you round down for dice pool stuff.  So lets say that uber bob has a dex of 10 and a pistol of 15, the max for a normal human.  In dice terms that's 3 stats dice and 7 skill dice.  For a maxed out PC 10 dice isn't so bad and if they chose to get some physical augmentation they would end up going through a fairly decent story arch, and the extra dice shouldn't be to much of a burden.  The reason I have the stats divided by three is I didn't want you to be rolling more stats dice than skills dice under normal circumstances.  Making them a d20 would be silly if you just rolled twice as many dice.  This way they provide just enough of a boost to make a diffrence but not enough so that you could get by without skills.    

As for the skills...I placed them at one to 15 because 10 if the normal maximum and 15 is the augmented max.  Much like the stats, again this is a setting thing I forgot to include.

If everyone needs to have fast-talk, you should make it a stat rather than a skill. Just a thought.

I was thinking that too actualy.  It is a very good suggestion and it still is up for implementation.  The problem I have with this is that if I did use it as a stat it would have to be derrived.  I don't like having something that is a combonation of charisma and intellegence be a skill in its own right.  Also fast talk was just an example.  What I should of said is everyone should have some sort of fast talk type skill.  I don't know there is enough other stuff that can affect people to the point where I think it is better served as a stat.  It depends on how certain aspects of the game pan out really.

All in all, I like the concept of having the differing die types in the dice pool. Interesting. Have you done some test rolls to see how it plays?

The varying dice pool thing has generated positve results.  I find that I am able to sort though the dice quickly and so have the random people I bribed.  I actualy paticuarly like the d20 thing, it usualy helps out just enough for people to squeak by.  I've also become fairly profecient at modifying the situation based on the number of results.  So it works fairly well on both ends of the table.  About the only thing that is becomeing problematice is the number of sucesses needed for a plain vanilla sucess.  4 seems good and it happens fairly often but more and more I consider bumping it up to a 5.  

Karma dice being d4 makes them pretty darn powerful - 25% chance of getting a success on a difficulty 1.

I was thinking about makeing the karma dice something like a d6 but then I realized that they should be powerful.  There are lots of times I want to reward my players but I don't want to make them more powerful over all.  As a result giving them the free odd sucess here or there is a decent reward.  After all I don't want to reward them with something that has a good chance of not working that would be kinda lame of me.  I would maybe hand out one karma dice a game session.  

Well I think I answered all of your questions.  Knowing me I forgot one or two so if I did please let me know.  Your questions were helpful in getting me to think about what needs to be done still and how to go about it so thankyou.  As always more questions and whatnot are welcome.

[RobMuadib]

Comte

Hey, thought I'd offer my comments.

Allright. The division to get the number of dice seems kind of shaky to me, mostly because it is inelegant. Do the actual stat numbers have any useful & meaning purpose in the game, preferably for every stat. Even more so for Skills.

Now you mention 4 Success for a solid success? I'd reccomend setting the number of success for a solid success equal to 1/2 the number of dice you expect in an average character's dice pool. Maybe add 1 if you expect major advantages to extra success above a solid success. Also, if you are doing Contested actions (my success versus other guys success) then your characters will seldom achieve more than a marginal success against each other. So you might want to leave it at like 3 successes.

Lastly, I'd second the brain-dump comment, your stuff is sketchy enough that this post is tantamount to noodling, at least in your description of the actual game focus. It's about sucky dudes trying to do stuff. :) You will find the feedback you get stronger and more useful the more pointed and cogent your questions are. What you have here is only the merest hint of being about a game you are designing, the raison d'etre of indie-games. For simple discussion of isolated mechanics or general design brainstorming, RPG theory is better place. What have you presented is so bereft of context as to nearly be indistinguishable from discussing pure dice rolling mechanics. Which would, again, be better suited for RPG Theory.

So anyway, tell us more about the idea behind your game, what do the PC's do, what kind of setting etc.

Best

[Comte]

So anyway, tell us more about the idea behind your game, what do the PC's do, what kind of setting etc.

I wasn't sure if I should laden it all down with a buntch of background information.  That with the combonation of mechanics would of created an epic post.  I keep forgetting that people actualy read what you write here and make useful comments on it.  Thankyou for your comments by the way they have given me quite a bit to think about.  I think I'll take the mechanics back to the drawing board for awhile and come back begging for an armour/damage system.  But that is for latter.  So thank you for your help, while it was little better than noodling it got me going in what I feel is the right direction.  So I'm gonna kick stuff around for a bit and then come back.  Untill then I felt like posting some of the bakcground information just to give you an idea where some of the stuff came from.  Just a vauge run down which I'll go back and fill in as I need specific questions about certain things answered thankyou again for your help everyone who particpated/particpates.

As for the setting.  I'm not sure how much to give.  In a nut shell the game is set in america, near future, the world is on the brink of ww3, martial law is declared, pipe/suicude bombings are a daily occurance, newly founded mega corporations are pumping out new weapons as to frightening rate.  At any point in time the world could end.  In short it is pre-apocalypse, horror roleplaying game.  Where dose the horror come from?  Well the corporations are demanded to produce weapons, all ethical restrictions have been lifted.  As a result some exparaments have been happening that would never normaly happen.  Sometimes people disapear and strange things happen on the streets at night.  Of course between the Public Relations of the companies proper and the propganda squads of the government it all gets chaulked up to terrorism.

I planned on a choise for PC's, the average joe, the terrorist, the corporate raider.

The average joe:  Here is a guy who is just trying to get by without getting blown up or eaten.  Unfortunatly, all the PC's have a secret.  It is this secret that makes thier lives dangerouse and thier excistence problematic.  There were ordinary people one day, then something happened, now they aren't so ordinary anymore.  Play is going to be generaly centered on coming to terms with the secret they are harboring and secure a future.  Depending on the secret many diffrent parties could become interested in them, rival corporations, terrorist scientists, and of course the government.

The Terrorist:  The pcs either work for one of the many terrorist organizations currently opperating in the US, or are mercinarys for the highest bidder.  Your goals will be centered around thouse of your group and survival.  You will be playing one of the most hated people in america and no one will know it unless you screw up.  Of course there are all sorts of things to complicate matters, crooked cops, crazy corporate workers, dirty politicians, and inter terrorist group fighting.

The Corportate Raider:  The other two modes of play can be rather depressing, this is more of a black humor type of charecter.  It is also where the coment guys who suck at what they are trying to do comes from.  Basicly it is a group of overworked middle managment pencil pushers, who have made an important realization.  One of the easyest ways to increase profit margins in an area is to remove the competition.  Bob acrost the hall got a raise when he didn't do anything at all, its just that terrorists hit the area hard and our store was the only one left standing.  Maybe if terrorists struck my area...a bomb can't be that hard to make, if a buntch of uneducated filth can do it why can't I.  I can just blame it on terrorists if I get caught, my neighbors are forgien after all.  Of course as this fellow is about to learn, making a bomb isn't that easy.  At any rate this is where all the comments about not being very good at bomb making come in.  The average joe might need it depending on what happens to him, and the terrorist will have the skills nessisary anyway.

[ethan_greer]

Hey wait! :)  Before you go, you missed the answer to my and Rob's primary question:

What do the numbers in stats and skills do other than determine the numbers of dice in the pool?

If the answer to that question is nothing, you should decrease the ranges in order to eliminate the division.

Now, you say that 1-10 for a stat is normal human range.  Are the characters playing normal humans?  It seems not.  Assuming I'm correct so far, it becomes less important to have ten distinct levels of ability to describe normal humans.  You could go with 1-3.  1 is below average, 2 is average to above average, and 3 is exceptional.  4-10 could then replace what is currently 11-30.  As a result of this change, you still get the manageable numbers of d20s for stat dice, and you don't have to divide the stat.  Do you see what I'm getting at?

Anyway, just food for thought.  

By the way, I like the corporate raider concept.  Average joe and terrorist modes of play have been done a lot in many different games, but that corporate raider thing is wicked funny.

[Comte]

Oh hey I knew I was fogetting somehting.  The answer is...kinda what I have been kicking around most recently.  The players will be playing normal humans 90% of the time.  The average joe might be the victem of exparamentation but more often that not thier little secret would be something less inherently dangerouse.  I am using the Dark Secret idea from Kult, if you would like a point of reffrence.  Terrorists are normal humans, while they may have thier own team of scientists think of them more like Dr. Satan from House of 1000 Corpses.  You would have to be sevearly unbalanced to want to visit him.  The corporate raiders do have somewhat normalized acess to the exparaments but many of them are still dangerouse, highly untested, and being caught with them usualy means an execution.
 

In short if you want superhuman stats/skill you have to work for them big time.  I would average it to about 6-8 game sessions.  The reason the scales excist in the way they do is because there are a fair number of things in the game world that excist with stats in the 20-25 range.  Namely the peackeepers.  This is a national government law enforment agency desighned to counter terrorism, and any criminal activities.  They are the extension to the police force and can be seen as who SWAT calls when they are in trouble.

Also corporate exparamentation, as well as biological terrorism have created a new breed of serial killer which roam the land weilding superhuman strength and intelegence. Anyone who survives a meeting with on of these people usualy disapears imeadoiatly afterwards for questioning.  The horror comes from the corps and I got some spiffy things cooked up for them.

So while the players may have a str of 25, if they pick up a peacekeeper and throw him a city block...they will be in so much trouble it is hardly worth doing.  THere is enough paranoia running rampant throughout the streets that it is pretty easy to get anyone convicted of anything so you want to be careful.  

Now then about the stats and skills thing I forgot to mension that exp points are not the only way that stats and skills go up.  They also can go up through plain vanillia training as well as researching.  So if a charecter declared that for a certain amount of time he would go to the gym every week, his str would go up without him having to spend exp points.  Stats, since they are less important are very easy to raise.  

Skills are a little diffrent.  What I had planned was to have two seperate skill sets, one acedemic and one realistic.  Acedemic skills are what the average joe/corp raider would have.  THey include things like buracracy, fast talk, research, a school degree stuff like that.  They aren't very practicle but the research skill can be used to find out how to make a bomb, how to pick a lock, where to launder money.  Most of these skills is also nessisry to hold down a respectable job and a good income so you can own a car, have a family.   Conversly terrorists have a diffrent set of skills, for them basic skills are restricted because they are both rebuilding the inflitration network and trying to tear down the country from the outside in.  So usualy they are huighly specialized but not very versitle.  Many terrorists are not able to look up on a computer for information on how to do something that they normaly can't because more often than not they are hiding in the sewers or a warehouse.

Exp points are used to buy thouse restricted skills that weren't available at charecter generation, such as demolitions, anti peacekeeper tactics, and lock picking.    Stuff that ordinary people don't know unless they have been spending to much time with that crazy uncle who lives in the woods.  They buy restricted skills while normal things can be raised by spending game time.  Due to the rather intense stress system I have planned the players are going to be needing breaks anyway.  By making advancment relativly easy for certain things it would help offset the pain of the division.  

I forgot to include the proxi skills rule.  Essentialy this is where research comes in.  This is the most important skill for corps/joes.  It will be restricted for terrorists.  Essentialy by spending game time the players can add to a pool that would normaly be zero.  So if I wanted to research how to pick a lock with a credit card I would roll my dice as dictated by my research skill, the gm would detremine how hard it would be for me to figgure out, and then I can use any sucesses to pick a lock.  This might mean I'm only rolling one or two dice, but it is still better than nothing.  Also this is where thouse karma dice come in handy.  So as long as I get one sucess I'm okay and the door is open...granted I might of snapped the card or the door looks chewed all to hell but at least I got in.  Researching can be done during an employee's lunch break and it takes roughly a week.  So a group of charecters could be spending a week gathering the informaiton they need to put thier plan into action.  Of course the GM will have enough tools at thier disposal to disrupt things or at the every least make a few things interesting.  

By breaking it up this way I can still have highly skilled individuals who can be in a building and reduce it to rubble in relativly short order, as well as players who aren't really skilled at anything useful but capable of anything.  

Yeah I know the average joe/terrorist have already been done.  Done to death.  BUt since the corporate raiders might end up working with one of the many terrorist organizations anyway I figgured I might as well make it a viable charecter option.  Also daily life has changed enough so that playing the average joe might be a nice diversion, or at the very least a good way to introduce the game world.  I figgured I would mainly use that as an introductory tool.  Besides it isn't to hard to switch from one role to another and back again.

[M. J. Young]

A lot of good ideas, but a lot of potential problems are here. I'll let you see what I see, and you can try to work out the solutions.

You've got massive break points here. For example, there's no reason to prefer a dex 10 over a dex 9; you don't get another die for your skill use until dex 12, which is apparently extraordinary human and not easy to get. The break points in skills are closer together--you want an even numbered skill value. I note that the skills run to 15, but there's no indication that 15 is better than 14, as both are 7 dice. So why put in the effort for that extra number?

You've got a pretty good distinction between the value of stats and the value of skills, but give it careful study. I don't know how the numbers are established or changed, but assuming you can improve both, you need to ask whether improving stats is better than improving skills. It looks like you've got that covered in the main (fewer dice and considerably lower chance of success with them).

As mentioned, those Karma dice are powerful. Difficulties from one to ten, if evenly distributed and a roll-under system, means that 60% of all karma dice will be automatic successes. Granted, players are less likely to use them in situations in which their chance of success with skill dice is high, I'm still thinking that a d6 would be a better choice, maybe a d8. But I don't know how much you want karma dice to bonus success.

I'm not sure how much I've added, but maybe I've clarified a bit. Also, you said you forgot to mention that experience points aren't the only way to gain skills, but you also forgot to mention (prior to that) that there were any experience points at all, or how people get them.

Personally, I prefer to deal with mechanics in a void; that is, I don't really miss the background info too much. Sometimes it just clutters things. But it looks like an interesting concept all the way around.

--M. J. Young