Hello you all.. I´ve been working on a dice mechanic and i would like to have a feedback from anyone interested in helping me improve it. The idea i to first define the mechanics for a world where players will suceed often if they have a good stat or skill for that matter. However theres always the dreadfulls 1,2,3and4 (read bellow) to make them fail and to stop them from being too careless.

Initially the stats will be freeform defined by the players (yes, just like fudge)
Also, please excuse my english writing mistakes, its not my first language.

I dont have much time right now so i will just lay an outline.
The system would work like this:

1 - The stats would range from 1 to 10.
2 - The normal average stat value for humans is 5

You assign dices to the stats. (for what i have read some systems already do that right?)

So, this is the stats graphic:

d4  /  d6  /  d8  [5]  d10  /  d12  /  d20

d4 bad---------------------------0%
d6 mediocre-------------------33%
d8 poor--------------------------50%
5 average----------------------- automatic sucess on easy tasks
d10 fair---------------------------60%
d12 great------------------------66,6%
d20 excellent------------------80*
2d20 legendary (rare)-------98,5%

i.e: all humans have 5 at all stats (usually) and thats why they will always suceed in easy tasks. Cause easy tasks have a dc of 5. 
ROLLS:
You always have to roll equal or over 5. So, you always fail when you roll 1,2,3 or 4. Rolling higher is better because it improves damage. (I will explain this later...)
And as you can see having a bad stat would make impossible to do even a simple task. Unless the gm gives you a +1 because you came out with a good idea or something else. This also aply to the legendary, that has 98,50% chance of suceeding, and in my opnion thats how a legendary character should be.

I have played RPGS for a very, very long time and i read ALLthe posts from here and rpgnet, and YES i know i havent said how stats and skills will work or given a setting idea yet.. Ii will come later.

YES THERE ARE LOTS OF INFO STILL MISSING...be patient grasshopper...

Go easy on me guys. first post ever ok?

The long term math should work fine.

The short term math will be prone to whiffing in the mid to low range. 

What you may want to consider is to make a bit more of a bell curve out of it:  roll 3 dice and keep the middle value to compare to the DC of 5

Valamir wrote:
The long term math should work fine.

The short term math will be prone to whiffing in the mid to low range. 

What you may want to consider is to make a bit more of a bell curve out of it:  roll 3 dice and keep the middle value to compare to the DC of 5

just for a baseline, what die type is considered average?

whiffing means missing.

I like the idea and it has gotten me thinking on it along the lines of my post on dice mechanics.

I am also interested on what the average stat (5) would roll?

JW

Mcrow wrote:
whiffing means missing.

I'd be careful about making that a concern here though - playing an easy piece of music? Players should be playing a hard piece of music! They should be running into conflict - playing an easy piece of music isn't a great dramatic action to whiff anyway.

Rather than making it easier to consistantly pass easy tasks, perhaps ensuring the tough stuff just keeps happening?

Some people like the phrase 'Say yes or roll'. Pump it up a notch 'Say yes or make a damn hard roll! No in between!'. heh.

Oh my... Thanks all four of you for giving me a feedback on this mechanics.
Hell, maybe i can turn it into something usefull...That said let me answer to your questions...

Mcrow wrote:
just for a baseline, what die type is considered average?

Hereward wrote:
I like the idea and it has gotten me thinking on it along the lines of my post on dice mechanics.

I am also interested on what the average stat (5) would roll?

Valamir wrote:

Mcrow wrote:
whiffing means missing.

More precisely it means missing / failing when you'd expect to succeed.

So someone is "great" at something and an "easy" task is a 5.  Well if I'm a great piano player and I'm playing an easy piece I'm going to expect to play it well.  But there's still a 1 in 3 chance that I'm going fail in your system.  That's a pretty high rate of failure for a "great" person to fail at something "easy".  So when the reality of the math doesn't match the expectation of the description failures become discouraging rather than dramatically interesting...we call that situation a "whiff"*

Bell curves are one way to reduce this by making you less likely to roll an extreme number and more likely to do as well as you'd expect.  On a d12 you'd expect to roll a 6 or a 7.  That's good enough to succeed on an easy task.  So increasing the likelyhood of getting the result you'd expect is a way (one way) to mitigate whiffing.

Another way is to increase the number of rolls you make...to make each roll represent something smaller.  The average result of the series of rolls will then trend towards the expected result over time.  This is actually the approach taken by D&D.  Each individual to-hit roll is highly prone to whiffing.  But since the hitpoint system ensures you'll need to make a ton of to-hit rolls the results average out in the end.  Ultimately this will also get you a bell curve and is the reason why I've claimed that D&D combat is pretty much just a dice pool system where you roll the dice one at a time.

*the term "whiff" derives from sports where you are striking a ball with a bat or club...like baseball, or golf, or cricket.  You gear up for a big swing....and then disappointingly miss the ball entirely...you "whiffed".  Similar feeling in an RPG where you gear up for a great dramatic action...and then fail the roll utterly...you "whiffed".

The dice mechanic you're suggesting is solid, but, as suggested above, it leads to a pretty high rate of failure for average tasks.  That's ok though.  You might want to check out "Savage Worlds" for a similar sort of system.  It sounds like you're going for quite different things though.  In Savage Worlds, character succeed quite often, and they are capable of quite heroic stuff.  You can get the test drive rules for free (the best price of all!)  at this URL: http://www.peginc.com/Games/Savage%20Worlds/Savage%20Worlds.htm

Simon wrote:
The dice mechanic you're suggesting is solid, but, as suggested above, it leads to a pretty high rate of failure for average tasks.  That's ok though.  You might want to check out "Savage Worlds" for a similar sort of system.  It sounds like you're going for quite different things though.  In Savage Worlds, character succeed quite often, and they are capable of quite heroic stuff.  You can get the test drive rules for free (the best price of all!)  at this URL: http://www.peginc.com/Games/Savage%20Worlds/Savage%20Worlds.htm

Simon wrote:
The dice mechanic you're suggesting is solid, but, as suggested above, it leads to a pretty high rate of failure for average tasks.  That's ok though.  You might want to check out "Savage Worlds" for a similar sort of system.  It sounds like you're going for quite different things though.  In Savage Worlds, character succeed quite often, and they are capable of quite heroic stuff.  You can get the test drive rules for free (the best price of all!)  at this URL: http://www.peginc.com/Games/Savage%20Worlds/Savage%20Worlds.htm

mauriciocabaleiro wrote:
d4  /  d6  /  d8  [5]  d10  /  d12  /  d20

d4 bad---------------------------0%
d6 mediocre-------------------33%
d8 poor--------------------------50%
5 average----------------------- automatic sucess on easy tasks
d10 fair---------------------------60%
d12 great------------------------66,6%
d20 excellent------------------80*
2d20 legendary (rare)-------98,5%

i.e: all humans have 5 at all stats (usually) and thats why they will always suceed in easy tasks. Cause easy tasks have a dc of 5. 
ROLLS:
You always have to roll equal or over 5. So, you always fail when you roll 1,2,3 or 4. Rolling higher is better because it improves damage. (I will explain this later...)
And as you can see having a bad stat would make impossible to do even a simple task. Unless the gm gives you a +1 because you came out with a good idea or something else. This also aply to the legendary, that has 98,50% chance of suceeding, and in my opnion thats how a legendary character should be.

Common guys.. Where are you? Post some feedbacks and lets get this mechanic working smoothly...

Im trying to solve the issue about the relation between stats and skills..havent come to a final solution yet. If anyone has some idea drop a line please..

Im also wondering about the setting.. Im thinking in something a bit dark, where the players can be heroes but its a tough world. Maybe a planet slowly freezing to death because of its dying sun, or maybe a huge moon that has a slow orbit finally gets between the planet and the sun. Perhaps it moves so slow that it begins with an eclipse and it will take years for it to end. That way the world slowly gets dark and cold.. The days would be shorter, till the time there would be a total eclipse.

I really dont know yet..this isnt even a half idea.. Feel free to contribute..
bye..

I like the idea of adjusting up and down the dice rolled based on difficulty of task attempted and as I mentioned before has given me food for thought on my system.
I am not great expert of mechanics, so can really give you more input on that side of things right now.

JW

Hi JW,

i read you post and im thinking on how about help you with your mechanics. Why dont you give a try at the resource pool for buying dices that i mentioned? You could say that a dodge need a d6, while an attack costs a d4, and an even more powerfull maneuver would cost more...

Or forget abou the dice and just work on earning points to buy actions, special effects, etc.

I also prefer changing the dice type..but more and more im getting to convince myself that in gameplay it may get confuse..everytime players would need to roll different dices for the same stat or skill...

If simple is better (or at least, less confusing) im going to keep the difficult number option..

If you need anyhelp with your mechanics just ask me..i dig creating mechanics and testing them..

Thanks
My "feel" from my RL expereince with WMA, is  that unless one "fumbles" its not about passing a teast to do something, its about bout doing it better than your opponent. maybe with spreading ones skill amongst the options chosen. So if I choose to offline - parry - strike, I would have to spread my skill level across those three actions? If I only attempted 1 action I would roll the dice alloted to my skill stat, for each extra action I try in the same passage, I go down one die and roll one of that type of die for each action..

Going a bit OT from your original post.

Jonathan

Hereward wrote:
Thanks
My "feel" from my RL expereince with WMA, is  that unless one "fumbles" its not about passing a teast to do something, its about bout doing it better than your opponent. maybe with spreading ones skill amongst the options chosen. So if I choose to offline - parry - strike, I would have to spread my skill level across those three actions? If I only attempted 1 action I would roll the dice alloted to my skill stat, for each extra action I try in the same passage, I go down one die and roll one of that type of die for each action..

Going a bit OT from your original post.

Jonathan

Hello everyone..This is a new UPDATE..
important: i have read the posts about skills or traits, skill vs traits, yes skills no traits...so i know where im stepping on and therefore this is not a final solution..its just a thought

CONCERNING TRAITS AND SKILLS.

OPTION 1 - STATS GIVE BONUS TO TRAITS (with a twist )

i.e: If the elven archer has a nattural excellent (d20) dexterity he has a +3 in his skills that are dexterity based/related.(the d20 is 3 steps away from the d8.)
Let us consider that he has a fair archery training (d10). Now, take a look at the twist:
The twist: the +3 bonus apllies only if he suceeded in his roll. (rolling over 4).If he rolls a 2 he doesnt scores 5. But, if he rolls 5 he scores 8.

This option allows the felling of the (heavy gear rpg) where his skills are his chance os sucess and his good natural apptitude amplify his scores. The stats work as his degree of sucess.. That way two characters with the same traing will have different results. The more tallented one will also hit the target but will also hit better.

The contrary apllies. When having a stat under d8 you get a penalty for every step under it.

If a person has no training in a skill she rolls a d4. Plus or less the step difference from his traits.
i.e: a character with poor (d6) dexterity with no climb skills roll a d4 -1. This gives him a 18,75% chance of sucess. (is that right?)
i.e: a beserker.. he has an excellent strength (d20) and a poor dexterity..(d6). Let us say that he has no training with hammers and just picked up one from the floor.. He has a low chance of hitting anyone (18,75% if thats right) but he does a LOT of damage. If he rolls a 4 and then a 2 he scores 5 (6 -1dexterity). HOWEVER, theres a +3 bonus from his trength that increases his degree of sucess.. He scores 8, and a large hammer has a x4 multiplier..Any attempt to defend or dodge that scores under 5 (misses) and he will really hurt(8-4=4) his opponent with one blow.(4x4=16, hp is stax5, normally 25)

NOW, ON OPTION 2..I ALREADY HAVE IT WRITTEN BUT IM RUNNING OUT OF TIME.. ILL POST IT LATER..KEEP THE FEEDBACKS AND THANKS TO ALL..
BYE

Hi there!
I'm new at The Forge and I have some long ago written stuff here about dice. Hope it's good for something.

So.
When you throw a dice once, the probability for a given value to occure is the same for every value, i.e. 100/nr. sides.
This is ture for every die, no matter how many sides does it have.
However, if you roll it more then one times, the bell-shape starts to appear. More on this later.

Another important parameter is the average.
Here are some values:
die  average
2D4: 5
3D4: 7.5
2D6: 7
3D6 10.5

One can see, that the average for xDy is x*(1+y) / 2. Simple isn't it?

Some other frequent die setting I've met with:
1D6+14: 17.5
1D6+12: 15.5
1D10+10: 15.5
1D10+8(2x): 15.15
2D6+6(2x): 14.36
1D10+8: 13.5
2D6+6: 13
3D6(2x): 12.17
1D10+6: 11.5
3D6: 10.5
1D6+5: 8.5
1D6+4: 7.5
1D6+3: 6.5
1D6+2: 5.5
1D6+1: 4.5

And now about those bell-shapes. Why do they occure? It's because when you throw more than one times with a die (and add the results), a higher sum has more ways to be the result, then a smaller one. For example with 3D6 you can have the sum of 11 from the following die-settings: 1-1-9, 1-2-8, 1-3-7, 1-4-6, 1-5-5, 1-6-4, 1-7-3, 1-8-2, 1-9-1, 2-1-8, 2-2-7, 2-3-6, 2-4-5, 2-5-4, 2-6-3, 2-7-2...and lots and lots more. On the other hand the sum of 3 can appear only if you throw 3 times 1. Slim is the chanse, is it not?

Some numbers:

Value: How many in 100 throws will result that value

For 2D6:

2: 2.7778 %
3: 5.5556 %
4: 8.3333 %
5: 11.1111 %
6: 13.8889 %
7: 16.6667 %
8: 13.8889 %
9: 11.1111 %
10: 8.3333 %
11: 5.5556 %
12: 2.7778 %

3D6:

3: 0.4630 %
4: 1.3889 %
5: 2.7778 %
6: 4.6296 %
7: 6.9445 %
8: 9.7223 %
9: 11.5741 %
10: 12.5000 %
11: 12.5000 %
12: 11.5741 %
13: 9.7223 %
14: 6.9445 %
15: 4.6300 %
16: 2.7778 %
17: 1.3889 %
18: 0.4630 %

1D10: 10% for every one

2D10:

2: 1 %
3: 2 %
4: 3 %
5: 4 %
6: 5 %
7: 6 %
8: 7 %
9: 8 %
10: 9 %
11: 10 %
12: 9 %
13: 8 %
14: 7 %
15: 6 %
16: 5 %
17: 4 %
18: 3 %
19: 2 %
20: 1 %

For 3D10:

3: 0.1 %
4: 0.3 %
5: 0.6 %
6: 1.0 %
7: 1.5 %
8: 2.1 %
9: 2.8 %
10: 3.6 %
11: 4.5 %
12: 5.5 %
13: 6.3 %
14: 6.9 %
15: 7.3 %
16: 7.5 %
17: 7.5 %
18: 7.3 %
19: 6.9 %
20: 6.3 %
21: 5.5 %
22: 4.5 %
23: 3.6 %
24: 2.8 %
25: 2.1 %
26: 1.5 %
27: 1.0 %
28: 0.6 %
29: 0.3 %
30: 0.1 %

For 3D6(2x):

3: 0.0028 %
4: 0.0333%
5: 0.1694 %
6: 0.6743 %
7: 1.7826 %
8: 4.0580 %
9: 7.3445 %
10: 10.8480 %
11: 13.9975 %
12: 15.9337 %
13: 15.3640 %
14: 12.1530 %
15: 8.5674 %
16: 5.4287 %
17: 2.7269 %
18: 0.9160 %

1k10+8(2x):

9: 1.034 %
10: 3.019 %
11: 4.8887 %
12: 6.9673 %
13: 9.0473 %
14: 11.0243 %
15: 13.1030 %
16: 14.9423 %
17: 16.9903 %
18: 18.9837 %

2k6+6(2x):

8: 0.0793 %
9: 0.6273 %
10: 2.083 %
11: 4.9413 %
12: 9.6437 %
13: 16.607 %
14: 18.133 %
15: 17.2663 %
16: 14.6503 %
17: 10.4893 %
18: 5.479 %

If anybody needs these values for some other die-settings, or any other things like these, post your question, and I'l post back as soon as I can.
Hope it helps.

Appologies for spelling (and other) errors, english isn't my first language.
By!

Thanks for the info..Quite a handfull to have all the probabilities already calculated.

Im still sticking with my previous mechanic, but im developing a new one that will require much of your info..

Thanks again..
bye,
mauricio

NEW UPDATE !!!

Hello again.. This is my update on skills..how you buy them and so on..check it out..

Lets say that the GM gives you a certain number of dices to buy your skills..*
*(im still thinking about, but probably 50 points, or 1 d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 and more 2d10 (1d20))

The skills are freeform..you choose what you want.. doesnt matter its focus (that will depend on the style and GM)
The twist: when i choose a skil i may use everything related to it with that dice or give higher/lower values but keeping the balance. And i can only increase something one step higher.
i.e: i choose as a swashbuckler to buy fair fencing (d10). i can use all things related to fencing with a d10 OR,

i come up with a special disarm manuever..and give it a d12, im great doing it.. i dont have to use my d12..i just increase my speciall manuever because now i must balance it..therefore i must get 2d6 or 1d8 and 1d4 in two other things..

ie: i used one d10 and bought fencing. I decided that i have a speciall disarm manuever with a d12. That extra training in this manuever got me a bad charge manuever (d4) and poor training in lets say..ettiquette. I trained much and knowing i can disarm my opponents made me arrogant..

I know that post isn well written..i may post it back again.. the main point is..buy a skill..(using one of your dices..) you may lower or increase some specialities under it but only if you keep the dices at balance..

I hope that you like (at least those who understand it..sorry guys) and please send in your opnions.

bye,
mauricio