d10 Die Pool system

[tj333]

Here is what I have for a dice system for the game I am working on. The only really original part I think is the complications and advantages based around rolling 1s and 10s.

My main reasons for making this system is to lower the number of dice being rolled and to have an quicker multi-action calculations then White Wolf's d10 system.  Both goals are needed for the game I am working on to speed up combat.

Attributes are Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Perception, Intelligence, Manipulation, and Charisma, Reason. Skills can be nearly anything but are kept fairly extensive. (Melee, Intimidation, and drive for example.)
Skills and Attributes are rated 1-6.

All actions are performed a number of 10 sided dice are rolled against a target number of 7. Every 10 sided die that comes up 7 or higher is counted as a success.

It is a fortune in the middle style of game play. You decide the action, roll the dice, then describe the outcome if you succeed. On a failure the GM describes the outcome of the action.

Your Skills and Action Pools determining the number of dice rolled.
If half of all the dice rolled comes up 1s the GM can introduce a complication around that action. The action may still have succeeded
If half or 3 dice, whichever is less, of the dice rolled comes up 10s the player can introduce a complication from that action on the target of the action or an advantage for himself.
Complications and advantages can be held until the end of the scene at which point they expire.

A complication or advantage does not directly add dice to an action pool. A complication can be such things as you manage to take an item from your opponent while breaking a hold or you are left holding the weapon after disarming the opponent. It is added narrative power for the PCs.

Successes on one roll can be split into multiple actions within reason. Making 2 jumps to jump onto a garden wall then onto the roof from there could be done with splitting successes if there are enough successes on the one roll. Splitting successes like this counts as only one action.

Attributes are used to derive the action pools. Every action that is undertaken must be done using at least one die from an action pool but can use any number of dice from the action pool. To use dice from both the Physical and Mental action pools in one round it costs 1 die from each die pool. Dice spent in this fashion are not rolled with the actions made.
If one action pool has no dice left in it the character has used all of his actions possible for that round.
Dex+Sta+Perception/2 is used to calculate the Physical Action pool.
Intlegence+Reason+Preception/2 is used to calculate the Mental Action pool.

A skill cannot be rolled on its own. A skill is rolled with dice from one of the action pools.

Player then go in order of intiative performing actions util they are out of useable action pool dice.

[eef]

Let me see if I understand how this works.

Let's say I want to lift an iron gate with everything I have.  I need that gate open!.

If I have a strength of 6 (max strength), then I would roll 6d10 and count the number 7 or above.  If the rolls are 2,3,5,7,8,10 then I get 3 successes.  Unless it's an insanely heavy gate that should be enough to get it up.

If my rolls were 2,3,5,10,10,10 then I'd get an extra complication to work with, in addition to the success.

Is that how things work?

I'm intentionally being a little dense here.  I just want to make sure I understand the system before commenting.

[tj333]

Yeah. That is how it works.

Complications are not tied to the success or failure of the action.

With three successes the gate would be lifted. When the three 10s are rolled the player could have the gate stick up or save the complication for a later time in that scene as well as having lifted the gate.

If on that roll you had rolled 1,1,1,7,8,10 you would still succeed but gain a complication to be used against you by the GM.

Edit: I am curently working on typing some more of my notes on how this sytem works but I am having trouble making it understandable so its not posted yet.

[eef]

I haven't crunched the numbers yet, but I think you'l have some odd probabilities in terms of getting complications.  

With a two dice pool, the chance of getting a complication (GM or Player) is 36% -- you only need 1 dice to get a complication.  With a four-dice pool it suddenly becomes much harder.  My quick guess is 12% -- I'll need to look up my stats books to make sure.  With a 6-dice pool, it's going to be pretty small.

This could lead to interesting play -- say taking a 10-die pool 2 at a time to generate complications.

[tj333]

Yeah, I would by lying if I said that I knew before hand how odd the probabilities on complications would be.

And for ease of reference I am now going to call complications that the person who rolled the dice controls advantages and complications that the GM controls complications.

Chance for Advantages (Fractions rounded down):
10% at 1d
19% at 2d
27% at 3d Half rounded up: 2.8%
5.2% at 4d
8.1% at 5d Half rounded up: .9%
1.6% at 6d
2.7% at 7d

Chance for complication (Fractions rounded down):
10% at 1d
19% at 2d
27% at 3d Half rounded up: 2.8%
5.2% at 4d
8.1% at 5d Half rounded up: .9%
.5% at 6d
.8% at 7d Half rounded up: .3%
.2% at 8d

I think we need a new way to calculate when you get advantages and disadvantages with probabilities like those. The huge sweet spots at either 2d or 3 d depending on how you round will encourage players who figure out the probability to have at least one skill that they can use at those numbers.

The best that I can think of for replacing the above system is saying to need to get 3 10s.

N/A @ 1d (Would be 10%)
N/A @ 2d (Would be 1.0%)
0.1% @ 3d
0.4% @ 4d
0.9% @ 5d
1.6% @ 6d
2.6% @ 7d

That gives use a nice increase in probability of an advantage as more dice are used, though maybe too small of a chance. Going to needing only 2 successes is about 9 times as likely as needing three successes. Looks like that s going to need some play testing to see how big of a thing it is.

I can't see a good solution for complications within the probabilities. Leaving it as is seems the best but still not something I am as enthusiastic about as before.

Edit: Looking back on your "might make interesting play" comment makes me think what if the players wanted to try balancing the chances of gaining advantages to the chance of successes. Maybe fixing as above is not overly needed but just some tweaking. Ahhhh, more stuff to think about.

[eef]

From a pure gamist standpoint, I _really_ like the idea of being able to balance the chance of successes vs the chance of advantages.

On the other hand, I don't think the probabilites from 3 10's are too low.  They seem right to me.

[eyebeams]

Hi there,

As a White Wolf freelancer I've worked with this sort of system quite a bit. What you posted looks sound, but one problem you're going to run into is splitting your pool between actions that use traits with different values. Your choices are going to be:

1) Use the lower of the pools

or

2) Institute some kind of die penalty instead.

I prefer that latter because it still gives value to the higher pool. In my own house system, I impose a -2 penalty for every split action, cumulative, including the first. It's worked pretty well, though nowadays, I've moddded it a bit more for the SF game I'm running.

One of the issues with straight 7s is that there's always at least a 40% chance of success, which can cause resolution for low trait levels to be a problem. If this doesn't bother you, don't worry. Otherwise, you may wish to use opposed rolls more extensively.

One thing you could do is impose "bad dice" "wierd dice" and "nice dice" for circumstances that may allow for extra complication:

1) Bad dice count their 1s toward a "bad" complication, but don't add successes.

2)Wierd dice 1s and 10s count for complications, but not for successes.

3) Nice dice count 10s for "good" complications, but don't add successes.

You can use this to customize what may happen at low pools, high pools or in chatoic situations without having to mess with too many dice or dealing with the rather optimistic results of 1 die when things should be tougher.

[tj333]

eyebeams: I am having trouble seeing what some of the problems you have brought up are.

For the multiple action penalty I don't see how the see how you would be stuck using the lower of the pools. You would make both actions that you want to use at the value of the skill plus how every many dice you take from the action pool for each action.
The closest thing to a penalty involved here is you have less dice to put toward any single action.
Could you explain your reasoning on this some more?

As for the base difficulty of 7 I have yet to have any problem notice anything with it, though most of my test players don't roll small number of dice often.
As for the opposed rolls I hadn't thought of using them any more or less extensively then in WW's games.
Just to double check are saying that at 7 difficulty low dice pools are going to be succeeding too often or too little?

Now for the "bad dice" "weird dice" and "nice dice". I really like the idea of those. Those are likely to replace the rather weak drama system that I was working on.
Ohh, brainstorm!!! Sine I am looking for some kind of mechanic to let the players push themselves to in the game, perhaps allow them to gain extra dice at the expense of the GM gaining more "bad" or "weird" dice to use against them. Okay, that was more brainfart then brainstorm. This would tie in with eff's like of balancing chance of success to complication gaining. Also be able to sacrifice ice to remove bad/weird dice or gain more nice dice.

More on the bad/weird/nice dice later but I have to start prepping for my Shadowrun game tonight.

[eyebeams]

Oops -- missed the part about the action pools. Just keep in mind that you're going to have higher numbers of successes this way (pool will always equal at least skill+1 action die, right?), so non-opposed rolls will have to require more successes.

As for diff 7, the problem is that nobody can really suck. At one die, you still succeed 40% of the time. "Bad dice" are a way of making coimplications more likely (making 1 die less useful) without changing the difficulty number; "nice dice" allow better results desite the fact that the curve on the dice pool starts to make the difference between pools of  8+dice less important. Plus, you can adjust effective scores high or low without having 0 dice or being bored.

Alternately, instaed of "nice die" you can just lower the threshold for a player-drected "good complication."

Lets put this into practice:

Your adjusted dice pool would be/So what you roll is
-3/1 die and 3 "bad dice."
-2/2 die and 2 "bad dice."
-1/1 die and 1 "bad die."
1-10/roll your pool as standard
11/10 dice and "good complications" come up on a 9
12/10 dice and "good complications" come up on an 8

Actually, what I'd really do is this:
-1/1 die and 3 "bad dice."
0/2 die and 2 "bad dice."
1/1 die and 1 "bad die."
2-8/roll your pool as standard
9/8 dice and "good complications" come up on a 9
10/8 dice and "good complications" come up on an 8

That way you never have to roll more than 8 dice. It also encourages players to blow more dice on an action to get it to guarantee success.

GMs can apply "weird dice" at any time to liven things up. Maybe players can, too.

[tj333]

Let me see if I have this right.
When the die pool gets above 8, you only roll the 8 dice but drop the number needed for an advantage by one.

Now for the negatives is it when the die pool goes below 0 you roll dice equal to the negative amount but an equal number of "bad dice".

I like the look of that.
To make is worth how much this would affect the dice pool size I think that advantages and complications will have to be more powerful but that can likely be done with no problems.

Thanks for the help so far eyebeams and eef.

[eyebeams]

You've got it. Just remember that at the top limit, once you hit rank 11 (in the second, tighter scheme), *every* success contributes to a potential exceptional result, so any 3 successes will be exceptional.

Over in my neck of the woods, we're using a system like this for a game that's inspired by 18th century supernatural French flicks. The exceptional results are being used for supernatural powers.

[tj333]

Updates to the System
It is a fortune in the middle style of game play. You decide the action, roll the dice, then describe the outcome if you succeed. On a failure the GM describes the outcome of the action. Complications or advantages must be taken into account for the description of the action.

Basic Skill Rolls
      Your Skills and Action Pools determining the number of dice rolled. The number of dice rolled is called the die pool and only for that action.
If half of all the dice rolled comes up 1s the GM can introduce a complication for the player that made that roll.
      If half or 3 dice, whichever is less, of the dice rolled comes up 10s the player can introduce an advantage from that action.
For halving the die pool round to calculate the number of dice needed for complications or advantages round the number of dice down.
      A maximum of 2 advantages can be applied to one action, a stored advantage from earlier in the scene and the advantage created by that action. Complications have the same limit, 1 stored and 1 created per action.
      Complications and advantages can be held until the end of the scene at which point they expire. Advantages and complications are not connected to the success or failure of the action. Players, GM, NPCs, and PCs can acquire complication and advantages. Players can hold complications against NPCs.

Action Modifiers
      In difficult or advantageous situations the GM can apply a modifier to the action. for the, modifier the GM rolls a number of "Good", "Bad", or "Weird" dice in addition to what the player rolls. These dice only affect whether or not a complication or advantage occurs, their outcome does not affect the results of the action or the number of dice needed to cause an advantage or complication.
      Bad dice count towards complications, Good dice towards advantages, and Weird dice for either one.
      Bad dice can be added for fighting multiple opponents, wound penalties, or adverse weather conditions.
      Not too sure how to describe when good dice can be added. When the players has a bonus to the situation or has some kind perceived advantage.
      Weird dice can be rolled in situations such as when the character are fighting on a narrow ledge, ice, or other times when at a disadvantage yet haveing a chance to turn it into n advantage.

Player
      A player can turn dice in his die pool into good dice. To do this the player separates the number of good dice he wants from the die pool and then rolls the die pool and good dice separately. The number of 10s needed to gain an advantage is calculated from the reduced die pool.
      A player an also add dice to his die pool by increase the probability of a complication by one number per die added. For example adding one die to his die pool the player will then count 1s and 2s towards complications.
      No more then 3 dice can be added or removed in the above manners.

Die pool cap
      The when the characters die pool exceeds 10 dice the following rule comes into effect.
      Only 10 dice are rolled. For each die that is not rolled increase the range of number that cause advantages by 1. Having a die pool of 12 would allow for advantages on 10, 9 and 8 and leave the player rolling 10 dice.

      Only one advantage can be created per action. Only one complication can be created per action. Both a complication and an advantage can be created by the same action.

      A single complication or advantage can add up to 2 dice to an action pool for one round, deal up to 2 damage, prevent up to 2 damage, or provide some other kind of effect that the player and GM consider to be of similar magnitude. After the player determines the effect a description should be given that matches the effect.