Some random number generator for tabletop gaming ideas.

I haven't seen many of these as the core mechanic of a game.  If you've seen them used, or even better seen them in use, I'd love to hear about it.  :)

I give a pretty blase input/output choice for these random number generators.

Dice and Pips
Two-dimensional source, one-dimensional result.

Roll X dice, gain success if you roll Y or higher.  Result is the number of successes.

Ie: # of dice is "talent", target number is "training".

+1 die is roughly half as good as +1 pip in a first glance look at the probability distribution.  Extra pips lower variance and increase the expected value.  Diagonal (pips=dice) has most efficient expected value.

Drop Roll-low with Variable Die Size
N-dimensional source, one-dimensional result.

Each dimension contributes a die to your die pool of a specific number of sides.

You discard the K lowest rolls, and add up the rest.  This is the result of the random number generator.

Ie: Three dice.  One is your talent, one is your training, one is your condition.

They go from d4s (best) to d20s (worst).  Roll all 3, drop the lowest, and add them up.

Result is the sum of the two highest dice.

Reversable Percentage:
One input, one output.

You have a target number (input).  Roll two 10 sided dice.  View them as a percentage result in both directions.

If you roll doubles under the target number, you get a level 3 success. (critical)
If you both orders are under the target number, you get a level 2 success. (major)
If one order is under the target number, you get a level 1 success. (minor)
If you roll double-zero, you get a level negative 1 success. (botch)
Otherwise you get a level zero success. (failure)

P(minor) =~ input^2
P(major) =~ 2*input-input^2
P(minor)+P(major) = 2*input
P(crit) =~ input/11
P(botch) = 1%

Ie, your skill and the challenge determines the target.  You roll against the challenge, and get a success level.  Higher success levels are harder to oppose, are faster, or otherwise better.

Alternatively, you can have two sources -- upside and downside.  Upside is your max target, downside is your min target.  This reduces the amount of subtraction required.

Reversable Pseudo-percentage
As reversable percantage, but your die sizes are variable.  Rolls over 10 are treated as 10s.

Three inputs (one for each die, plus target number), one output (level of success).

Ie: your talent determines one die, your trainingl the other.  The difficulty determines the target number.

The result is the "magnitude of the success" of some kind.

Reversable Drop Pseudo-percentage
As Reversable Pseudo-percentages, but roll more than 2 dice.  Take the (best) or (worst) two dice.

Note that this is getting overly complex.  :)

Ie: talent one die, training the other, condition the last die size.  Roll all 3, then take the highest two, and play reversable percentage.  Difficulty is the target number.

Die ladder:
Many-dimensional sources.  Time dependant progressive result.

You start with a pool of dice of various sizes.  Each time you roll under the next lower die size, you get to change that die to a lower die size.

Your goals can be either to get "enough 1s" or "enough pairs" (either of which are aided by having smaller die sizes).  Possibly each reroll is another "round".

This takes far to many dice of far to many sides and a long time to produce a result.  Which may be what you want.  :)

...

Anything look fun?

its like a mathititions yahtzee to me, i know thats crude. but it seams more trouble than its worth. but it may be my deep hatred for all things algebraic

I like them, especially the Die Ladder, which it seems to me may have some interesting applications.  I'm interested in mechanisms which occur over significant periods, like a whole session, rather than deciding an instant decision.  Such systems may address things like wealth and status more elegantly than the tools we have at present.

So I thought of some variations on the die ladder theme, mostly on the basis of changing the colours of the dice rather than their face number.  This opens up some multi-directional results too, resulting in a "layer cake":

Frex you could have 3 colours of dice, green, yellow, red.  Each unit time you role all of 'em.  Yellows can be promoted to reds if they roll a 6.  Reds can be demoted to yellows if they roll a 1, and promoted to greens if they roll a six.  Greens can be demoted to reds if they roll a 1.  This would create an output in which the number of dice of each colour rolled would be different for each test rolled.  And, there is no reason a layer of blue dice could not be introduced to make it more complex, if needed, ad infinitum.

If you changed the probability of promotion or demotion for any one layer it would also have significant effects on the final colour composition too.  It seems to me this could produce quite a lot of complex information without being overly
complicated in use.

On that note, a very simple implementation could be used for something like, say, cattle farming.  Roll xd6 where x is the numbers of cows in your herd.  For each 1 a cow dies, for each 5 or 6 a cow is added.  You should get a slight but unreliable growth in the number of cows.  Raise mortality chance to 2 or 3 and you get a cattle disease.  Thats a heck of a lot simpler than the accounting of acreage ala Harn.