A Quick Roll and Keep die mechanic

[Claymore]

I was curious if I might get some comments on a resolution system I've been working on for the last few days. It's for a cinematic game I'm a workin on, and the mechanic draws from Over the Edge, d6 classic, and L5R.

The Basics

The game has Attributes and Skills, each being rated from 1-6.



Making an attribute test is easy, roll a number of dice equal to your appropriate attribute, + a Destiny die, and add them together. If you beat the TN assigned by the GM, you succeed, if not, you fail. If you roll a 6 on the Destiny die, it explodes, and you roll and add another die. If you roll a 1 and fail, you fail critically. Otherwise, treat it exactly like any other die.

When making a skill test, you roll dice equal to the higher of your attribute or skill (as well as adding the Destiny die), and keep a number of dice equal to the lower of the two +1 (you are not required to keep the Destiny die, but still suffer a critical failure if you fail and got a 1 on the die).

Therefore a character with a 6 Reflexes and a 3 dancing would roll a total of 7 dice (6 for the attribute + the Destiny die) and keep 4.

My main reason for employing such a mechanic is that I personally like pools, but I'm not crazy about the counting success probabilities (look for 4+ or 5+ on each d6), you find in game like Vampire or shadowrun, and I don't want to run into situations where I'm rolling and adding 12 dice.

Under the current rules the max a character would roll and add together is 7d6, which would be rare. Is that still too much math? (I suppose this depends more on one's personal preference). Any other suggestions?

Comments? Questions? Rotten Fruit? Send em over!


Claymore

[haunted]

Claymore,

If you roll a 6 on the Destiny die, it explodes, and you roll and add another die. If you roll a 1 and fail, you fail critically. Otherwise, treat it exactly like any other die.

Did you mean for the probability for rolling a critical failure to be 1 in 6? Those odds seem pretty harsh. You could have players just re-roll 6's. If they roll another 6, they suffer a critical failure, otherwise, they get to add the die to their total.

My main reason for employing such a mechanic is that I personally like pools, but I'm not crazy about the counting success probabilities (look for 4+ or 5+ on each d6), you find in game like Vampire or shadowrun, and I don't want to run into situations where I'm rolling and adding 12 dice.

Just out of curiosity, why do you find it easier to add dice together than to determine whether any of those dice exceed a particular number? To me, it's faster and easier to determine whether your dice have beat a difficulty than it is to add dice together.

In case you haven't seen it, John Kim has an interesting breakdown of different dice mechanics.

-Rick

[Claymore]

Did you mean for the probability for rolling a critical failure to be 1 in 6? Those odds seem pretty harsh. You could have players just re-roll 6's. If they roll another 6, they suffer a critical failure, otherwise, they get to add the die to their total.

Yes, but only if you fail the task, rolling a 1 on the destiny die has no ill effect otherwise. Re-rolling all 6's will skew my probabilities out of whack.  

Just out of curiosity, why do you find it easier to add dice together than to determine whether any of those dice exceed a particular number? To me, it's faster and easier to determine whether your dice have beat a difficulty than it is to add dice together.

I don't disagree that it's easier, it's just choppy in terms of % chance to succeed after 3 successes.  

Claymore

[haunted]

Yes, but only if you fail the task, rolling a 1 on the destiny die has no ill effect otherwise. Re-rolling all 6's will skew my probabilities out of whack.

I didn't mean to re-roll all 6's. :-) Just 6's on the Destiny Die.

I don't disagree that it's easier, it's just choppy in terms of % chance to succeed after 3 successes

Interesting. I never knew that and don't quite understand it. Rather than high-jack this thread, could you PM me with an explanation?

Thanks,
Rick

[Claymore]

Yes, but only if you fail the task, rolling a 1 on the destiny die has no ill effect otherwise. Re-rolling all 6's will skew my probabilities out of whack.

I didn't mean to re-roll all 6's. :-) Just 6's on the Destiny Die.

That's pretty much the way it works now, with the additional if you roll a 1 and fail you suffer a extraordinary failure of some sort. You only have a 16% chance of extraordinary failure if you fail in the first place, so I'm not too worried about it.

I don't disagree that it's easier, it's just choppy in terms of % chance to succeed after 3 successes

Interesting. I never knew that and don't quite understand it. Rather than high-jack this thread, could you PM me with an explanation?

Thanks,
Rick

To explain it quickly, a fixed TN is more choppy than when you roll and add the dice, because you can only succeed, or fail. For example, if you roll a 3 on a die and the TN to get a success is 4+, you fail, period (all or nothing). If you are rolling and adding dice the 3 is added along with the other numbers, and still has value.  One system allows for more detail, the other is quicker but a bit choppier. Both are fine mechanics, I am just thinking for my own needs a roll and add system might work better, but I'm just trying to keep the dice down. If you have any other questions send me a PM and I'll try to help the best I can.

Claymore