Dice Chucker- A new system begging for criticism

[oversoul01]

I think I am going to cut heavily back on the humor and sorta reserve it mostly for side bars and examples.  IO am also hoping to organize a REAL playtest this weekend or early next week.
I am also starting up a free site dedicated to it hopefully with regular updates, news and stuff for dicechucker.  Its not ready yet but the address is dicechucker.0catch.com
Bobby

[Christopher Weeks]

Hi Bobby,

I'm not going to nit-pick on specific typos but I do want to indicate how important I think it is for you to go over this document with a fine-toothed comb.  The general unclarity of the writing made reading a painfully slow task and there were a few lines that I simply never did figure out the meaning of.  I'd be surprised if you didn't lose more than a few readers because of this.

Now, I want to agree that the power dice is really the core novelty of the game.  But you need more and you need more interesting ways for them to interact: cancelling opponent's dice, changing your own or others, combinations, multipliers, conditionals, etc.  I think you could do more of those kinds of things by making all rolls opposed, but that would obviously require some rethinking of stuff.

When presenting the third commandment, you should immediately point out that through advancement there is a mechanism that would otherwise allow you to surpass your CP.  Or better yet, just get rid of the commandment.  Who cares if some bone-head player wants to waste his development that way?  You can obviously never keep more dice than you roll, so what's it matter?

You have a bunch of things that are customizations of your game that will be unique to each group.  I suggest your read Donjon by Clinton R. Nixon and adopt the "dials" from the way he laid his rules out.  They're a great way to highlight the features that need to be customized.

An inept roll means you keep the lowest half of the dice you roll, right?  For characters with a CP of 5, that's likely to be better than having an attribute of level 1.  Is that how you really want it?

I'm put off by the fact that the damage table starts at 6+ instead of 7+.

Advancement seems broken.  If I'm getting it, the better (higher CP) you are, the faster you get better.  Is that what you're looking for?  Also, I think you'll find through play that every player makes an advancement roll after every session -- because it would be dumb not to.

Also, I may have missed it, but I don't remember seeing a link to your game in these notes.  You might want to provide one.

And you need whitespace between the border (or the center divider) and the text.  If whatever software you're using won't do that, ditch the border -- it's not doing anything for you.

Finally, I think that as an overall strategy, you would gain granularity by expanding the scale of CP and target numbers.  If the average Joe had a CP of 10 and supers a 30 (and you adjusted the 1+,7+,13+... progression to be wider) then you'd have more fine-tuning to play with.  I haven't given this change the careful scrutiny that it would need, but I hope that you'll do so.

Chris

[oversoul01]

The draft that I placed on rpghoard.com is a rough playtest, I put it up to see if there was first any intrest in continuing workign on it, and secondly it was also to help motivate me to continue working on it.  I tend to get sidetracked easily as new ideas bombard my brain.  I am working with an editor and the next version will be much easier to read and hopeful with more clarity.

Now, I want to agree that the power dice is really the core novelty of the game. But you need more and you need more interesting ways for them to interact: cancelling opponent's dice, changing your own or others, combinations, multipliers, conditionals, etc. I think you could do more of those kinds of things by making all rolls opposed, but that would obviously require some rethinking of stuff.

I am now toying with this idea as well, I however do not want to overwhelm players with too much, I want the PDs to enhance the whole game not bog it down.  I also want the dice to be quickly and easily recognized on the table("Purple with red horizontal strips and yellow flecks now that is......hmmm")

When presenting the third commandment, you should immediately point out that through advancement there is a mechanism that would otherwise allow you to surpass your CP. Or better yet, just get rid of the commandment. Who cares if some bone-head player wants to waste his development that way? You can obviously never keep more dice than you roll, so what's it matter?

True enough..

You have a bunch of things that are customizations of your game that will be unique to each group. I suggest your read Donjon by Clinton R. Nixon and adopt the "dials" from the way he laid his rules out. They're a great way to highlight the features that need to be customized.

I have it and he is a big influence, I intend on moving most of that sort of thing to sidebars through out the work. At this stage I didn't want to take the extra time to do it but wanted to get it the idea out there

An inept roll means you keep the lowest half of the dice you roll, right? For characters with a CP of 5, that's likely to be better than having an attribute of level 1. Is that how you really want it?

This was another issue I wrestled with.  Originally it was roll the CP and keep the lowest 3.  This idea never set right with me, I think that no matter how inept you are you always should stand the chance of grwt success.  I mean you could roll all 6s.  Using the original roll that puts a cap on that and the highest you could get ineptly is 18.  At the same time I did not want to come up with some overly comlex rules for it.  So I chose this manner, its not the best but its simple, easy to remember and does not steal hope from the player.

I'm put off by the fact that the damage table starts at 6+ instead of 7+.

Probably a typo I will look into it.

Advancement seems broken. If I'm getting it, the better (higher CP) you are, the faster you get better. Is that what you're looking for? Also, I think you'll find through play that every player makes an advancement roll after every session -- because it would be dumb not to.

Another sticky spot  I wanted to eliminate the guarantees from advancement.  X amount of XP get me this.  I wanted to players to be frightened that they might not advance, hence the roll.  However the mechanics of Dice Chucker definately favor "stronger" characters.  But I think I have worked around that and kept the uncertainty.  Instead of the current rule.  This is a whole new rule so tell me what you think.
XP equal special advancement dice, at the end of a session a player may use any number of their XP to roll  and equal number of dice(XPd) and compare to the advancement chart to get the advancement results. The XP still can be used to aid in normal rolls.
This removes the character power factor but still keeps it intresting...I think anyway

And you need whitespace between the border (or the center divider) and the text. If whatever software you're using won't do that, ditch the border -- it's not doing anything for you.

I am using just basic html for the layout.  I do not have any advanced program for layout and do not know of any good free one.  But it isstill in development and I am working on improving it.  I will look over it and see what I can do.

Finally, I think that as an overall strategy, you would gain granularity by expanding the scale of CP and target numbers. If the average Joe had a CP of 10 and supers a 30 (and you adjusted the 1+,7+,13+... progression to be wider) then you'd have more fine-tuning to play with. I haven't given this change the careful scrutiny that it would need, but I hope that you'll do so.

Though Dice Chucker is about rolling dice, I want to avoid rolling tons of them.  To me rolling 30 dice for a character is alot and to adjust Attributes and Target Numbers to account for it brings way to math to the game.  I want to keep it low and keep it quick.  It might be the wargamer in me but bookkeeping bogs a game down and breaks the story/fun of it.  The vagueness or broadness of the rolls I think works well and gives the GM/player more room manuever within a roll.
I thank you for the long and well thought out post and I hope you post again
Bobby

[Christopher Weeks]

I am now toying with this idea as well, I however do not want to overwhelm players with too much, I want the PDs to enhance the whole game not bog it down.  I also want the dice to be quickly and easily recognized on the table("Purple with red horizontal strips and yellow flecks now that is......hmmm")

I get that.  Finding the right balance is going to be a trick.  But honestly, I think that these guys are the only thing you particularly have going for you, to differntiate from any number of other lite games.  (Not that there's anything exactly like this, but to keep it from being recieved with a "ho hum.")  One thing to consider is that you don't have to define colors up front.  Let the players use whatever colors they happen to have and provide a blank legend to the dice that the group can fill out when they play.

Actually, something that is just percolating in my mind is the idea of coming up with a wide array of these special die functions and assuming that they won't all be used.  Invent some mechanic whereby each player will say "this game is being played with this kind of die" which creates interesting dynamics from game to game as the dice interact.  Anyway, it's a thought.

Originally it was roll the CP and keep the lowest 3.  This idea never set right with me, I think that no matter how inept you are you always should stand the chance of grwt success.  I mean you could roll all 6s.  Using the original roll that puts a cap on that and the highest you could get ineptly is 18.

Well, in part this is a matter of aesthetic then.  I happen to think that ineptitude shouldn't have much chance of good success, and you do.  OK.  

This is a whole new rule so tell me what you think.
XP equal special advancement dice, at the end of a session a player may use any number of their XP to roll an equal number of dice(XPd) and compare to the advancement chart to get the advancement results. The XP still can be used to aid in normal rolls.
This removes the character power factor but still keeps it intresting...I think anyway

I think that's much better.  I don't recall the rules about using them in normal rolls though, perhaps I missed it.  What limitations are there on that?

I am using just basic html for the layout.  I do not have any advanced program for layout and do not know of any good free one.  But it isstill in development and I am working on improving it.  I will look over it and see what I can do.

The version I read was a PDF, not HTML.  If you are starting with HTML that is somehow converted to PDF, add this to the head and see how it converts:

<style type="text/css">
 p { padding:5px; }
</style>

Chris

[oversoul01]

Figured I add a link to my new page for Dice Chucker, it is a freebie page with limited bandwidth but it will do for now
http://dicechucker.0catch.com
I plan to use it to introduce new ideas, rules, and setting for Dice Chucker.
Bobby

[oversoul01]

I had a intresting idea concern power dice and my dilemma of maximizing the fun while not overwhelming the player. Thanks to Mr. Weeks for the inspiration.  The idea of picking and chosing which PDs to use is not new it's actually in the rules.  But I was limiting myself by color to determine which die is which.  
Well with your encouragement I am doing away with that concept and am going with the "name" approach.  Magic Dice, Open Dice, Reroll Dice, etc.  So there will be ton of possabilities.  Mayeb even a page or two worth of them.
I am also going to use the legend idea contributed by Mr. Weeks.  But I am going to expand upon that and say that the players can only select 8 types od PDs(as many colors as I am now using) to us in a game.  Players then assign which dice are represented by which color.  I think this will simplify it and will keeping the types and combinations quite open. What do you think?

[oversoul01]

EDIT TO THE ABOVE POST
OK first I do not think that was very clear.  When I said I was using color to determine which is which, I meant I was only using a finite amount of PDs according to color.  You could choose which PDs to include in your game but  there where only 8 to choose from.  With the new idea there would be nearly infinite choices for PDs(As many as I or the players can come up with)  BUt you can only choose up to 8 to use in a game.
OK next dilemma.  After that initial post I began thinking.  By just leaving it open like that players are going to naturally select only dice that benefit them.  They would not choose say the "black" die to add to the game.  I want PDs to be a chance thing, some good some bad.  So I need some sort of balancing system for Dice Chucker.  So when you choose a beneficial die(or dice) to add to the game, there is a non-beneficial one added too.  
It dies not have to be perfectly balanced, it could be 6 good to 1 bad.  I just want the player to dread getting a bad die, and occassionally actually get one.
Does that make sense?

[kenan]

Hey Bobby,

Here's an idea that you might be able to use to get around the problem of requiring several distinctly colored dice and balancing beneficial with harmful dice. Use a dicemat (a piece of paper, shoe box lid, whatever) with several labled circles. If any part of a die is in one of the circles then that die becomes a power die of the type assigned to the circle. If the dicemat is a piece of paper, treat any die which rolled off the mat as a normal die.

This will also let you easily vary the ratio of the types of power dice/zones from scene to scene. You could also create custom layouts for the mat to reflect different settings. A cyberpunk mat would have a look and feel distinct from a fantasy game.

You could also have inactive zones that some game event would activate with a random or preselected power. You've angered the Old Ones and get a new black zone activated.

-kenan[/b]

[DevolutionaryCyberSpud]

Dear Bobby,

Congratulations on making a unique and working game system. I have only two concerns. The first is that with only quantative measurements of abilities (the dice), you will be unable to have qualitative aspects of characters (quantative being things like skill with a sword, qualitative being things like dyslexsia). My other concern is that a system in which leveled characters are just better at everything, an archmage, for instance, just beginning to learn how to use a sword, would still get all 6s on his rolls with no real justification. I'm sure you will encounter many other issues when playtesting. This is the unfortunate thing with trying a completely unique system; it will invariably be filled with problems. You can try this, but I can only see it ultimately failing. Sorry for my pessimism. If you email me, I can help you improve it.

[oversoul01]

To Kenan:
The mat idea is excellent! I like it a lot, my only concern is control though, having dice set or keyed to certain powers still exercises alot of control from the player.  With a mat all you can do is aim and hope.  I can see its fun by using it to incorporate some really intresting in game stuff though.  I may use this in that way as an additional rule to add "havoc" to a game.  Thanks for the suggestion!

To Devolutionary:
With any game system it is a matter of approach.  No game system accurately reflects reality.   What game designers do is try to simulat as best they can while still keeping it fair and fun.  I have seen two approache to this.  Either heavy rules which really on the rules to dictate reality.  Or lite rules. in this form rules are mostly thown to the wind and it is left to the player to add reality and logic to a game.  What would keep a player with an archmage from making him into the world's greatest swordsman?  The player and the GM.  The players have to govern the reality of the game.  "My character is an archmage, I am going to attack with a sword though, so I think that would require some sort of penalty?"  To the spirit or to the letter,  with these types of rules you cannot always really on the rules to give complete balance.  They are set up to handle many situations but not all.
I understand that my rules will not and cannot function in some circumstances, but they work in many.  I intend on writting a chapter on how these rules should be interpreted and applied.  By doing this the players can use the system as it was intended.  In my mind if you do that the experience is much more fun and can easily be built upon form there.