Just a quick "anyone thought of this?" question:

The seeds of a task resolution system for my criminal RPG began developing from the earlier thread on dice-bluffing. It's very sketchy, but the idea is that two or more players would gather dice of whatever type they prefer, the number limited by some trait. The dice are rolled, one result is chosen and kept a secret. Each player would announce a result and the die type on which the result came up. Something like "I got a 4 on a d20" and "I got a 10 on a d12." (That's where the bluffing stuff comes in as you can question whether another player is telling the truth.)

Okay, back to the point, I'm developing a mechanic wherein opponents reveal their chosen dice and see if anything matches between them. If the result matches, something happens. If the die type matches, something else happens. If both the result and the die type match, something really big happens. If nothing matches, nothing happens.

Like I said, very sketchy, so I'm just wondering if a similar mechanic has been used by other games, what those games were about, and what themes the mechanic reinforced in actual play.

Interestingly, the closest analogue I can think of is not an RPG - it's Cheapass Games' Button Men. I'm really only familiar with the core rules, there - but there's a similar element of significance to the die sizes, albeit in a different direction than you imply. (In brief, a small die is fast, a larger die is powerful, and each has value in the game. Characters are defined by a selection of dice, carefully game-balanced by Cheapass monkeys.)

In terms of using matching, I'd worry that in a single-die announcement which runs to d10/d12/d20, matching a result is too low-probability an event when those dice are in use to base a core mechanic off - unless one player announces a result first and then his opponent gets to choose which of his own dice he calls. But it would otherwise feel kind of like a game where there was a core mechanic based on drawing a joker from a deck - you have to build the system assuming that 98% of the time they will not, which doesn't give you as the designer a lot of dynamic range to work with.

- Eric

A dice game that is just begging to be part of an rpg mechanic is the classic "Liar's Dice."

Everyone playing begins with five six-sided dice. Everyone rolls their dice in such a way that no one else can see them, and then the first player (my memory on determining who that is is hazy) makes a bid: "two threes", for example. The next player then has to challenge, or make a bid, which must be higher in quantity ("three threes") or ranking ("two fours"). If a challenge is issued, all dice are revealed. If the bid is matched or beaten, then the challenger loses a die. If not, then the one who is challenged does. Play continues until only one player has dice left.

One variant I'm unsure about: in my Googling it appeared that one bids on all dice rolled, not just one's own. My memory of playing with my dad is that we bid only on our own dice; perhaps that's not accurate.

It's a pretty rich game of bluffing and changing odds, so it would need to match well with whatever it was incorporated into.

--JB

First, Liar's Dice was discussed in an earlier thread on bluffing... I think it was in the old "Encouraging Cheating" thread here in RPG theory.

On topic, i'm not clear on what the bluffing does in the specified mechanic. If you're going to reveal dice and match them anyway what need/benifit for bluffing?

Thomas

I guess I was thinking of something more along the lines of a bluff in a game of poker. That would probably involve a mechanic wherein one could give the impression of having a high success through the act of bidding a high amount of metagame resource. Then again, why not just play poker? Hrm...

I've been researching Perudo the traditional South American dice game on which Liar's Dice is based, and it's pretty much the sort of mechanic I was envisioning. There's the matching, the bluffing, the calling of bluffs, even a bit of theft as one can steal dice from other players.