Task Resolution Systems

[Steve]

Hi. I'm new to the Forge and I wanted to know what are the basic dice task resolution system?

[Valamir]

Hi Steve.

Can you be more specific? There are about a bazillion different task resolution systems out there.  And that's before you get to conflict resolution, and scene resolution systems on top of that.

Please narrow your querry down a bit.

[Valamir]

[dupe post]

[Steve]

What I mean is althought many game use Dice Pool systems of verious types they are all Dice Pool Systems. In the Pace 24 hour game it mentioned Die Pool, Additive, Roll under, and Fudge.  Are these the main types or are there others.

[Valamir]

Well, lets see.  Broad dice mechanics you've got...

Roll a pool and sum:  WEG d6
Roll a pool and count successes:  WoD
Roll a pool and only use the highest roll:
Roll and keep (a variant on roll and sum where you only sum some): L5R
Roll opposed pools and compare best dice: Sorcerer
--Then repeat all of the above for pools using different size dice instead of all the same size...some which are consistant within a roll but different for different rolls (like Deadlands) and others that are mixxed within a roll (like Iron Claw).

Plus you have dice pools where you try to match numbers: Godlike
Dice pools that you interpret Yahtzee or Poker Dice style.
and no doubt others I'm missing.

All of which have very different probability curves and interactions with modifiers and handling times.  So no...I wouldn't say "They are all Dice Pool Systems".

That's not even touching on the single die systems or the multiple dice (non pool) systems, or .....


So, given that this is the Indie Design forum, is there a specific game design approach you were wondering about...or was this more of a general survey of possibilities out of curiousity?

[Steve]

Sorry about that. I guess my question was far too broad. I was just wondering about the different task resolutions. Thanks for the help and examples.

[Jasper]

I'm not sure, by your last post, if you're still interested in this, but I do have a web-page up about the probabilities involved in different rolling methods.  I've classified the mechanics into about five groups, for simplicity's sake. I won't list them since they're close to what Ralph already posted (with one or two exceptions).  If you're interested in the probabiltiies though, check it out here:

http://www.people.umass.edu/jasperm/rolling/

[John Kim]

Hi. I'm new to the Forge and I wanted to know what are the basic dice task resolution system?

I have a set of essays about various dice mechanics along with some discussion of probabilities, pros, and cons.  You can find them on my http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/systemdesign/">RPG System Design page.

[M. J. Young]

It suddenly occurs to me that Steve might not be asking exactly what he's asking. Let me broaden the topic a bit, to see if this enlightens him any. There are a few different mechanical approaches to resolving the dream; these seem to be the main ones, although I'm not sure they're entirely mutually exclusive:

[*]Task resolution: the character attempts to do something, and must use the mechanics to determine whether he has successfully done it. Anything that opposes his success is generally contained within the single die roll, e.g., fewer dice in the pool, more difficult target number, more successes required. D&D, Multiverser, and I think Storyteller all use task resolution.[*]Conflict resolution: the character can automatically do anything that is unopposed; all significant tasks are opposed by someone or something. The mechanic pits the success/ability of one side against the success/ability of the other side, to see which side wins. Sometimes inanimates must be anthropomorphized, e.g., so that the lock can roll against the lock picker. Alyria and Sorcerer are good examples of this (I think).[*]Outcome resolution: the mechanic is unconcerned with how the character succeeds or fails, but rather with what the result of a situation will be. As a general example, in an outcome resolution situation when a tense situation that might result in physical combat appears, the die is rolled, and then the situation is described with detail from the characters' abilities. Such description might leave you mortally wounded, captured, injured but escaped, unscathed, victorious--we're not concerned with "I swing my sword" but with "I won the confrontation". Again, Alyria and Sorcerer do this significantly, but it's also used in Multiverser (the General Effects rolls) and other games that have primarily task resolution mechanics.[/list:u]
Did I miss something? Is this more what you're thinking?

--M. J. Young