Reimagining Dice pool-based systems

[Bodshivita]

G'day, Denners! Long-ass time lurker, first time poster 'ere.

I've been thinking of approaching the well known issue of manageable dice pool sizes, and system scaling for awhile now, and I wanna share an unconventional design concept for constructive critique... Mainly for an 'do Exalted right, damn it' sortta game.

Basically, you have Attributes (Characteristics, Abilites, whateva you wanna call 'em) establish how many dice players'll chuck, constrained down to five to ten dice. With nothing else touching your dice pool, ever.

Setting-up skills n' extra shit to adjust the success/hit variance of the dice themselves by doing something other than adding more dice...

The framework I'm currently screwin' 'round with handles things as follows:

'Tis a roll xd6/xd10 n' count-up hits system akin to After Sundown, SR4, Storyteller System, etc.

Using a d6, success numbers are 4's, 5's an' 6's, while 1's deduct from scored hits; familiar ground for a helluva lotta us, 'cept following a result rubric. Better grades have tangible effects on your action, such as rewards an' mechanical/narrative modifications.

Grade Scale

S+: 30 hits.
S: 20 hits.
A+: 15 hits.
A: 12 hits.
B+: 9 hits.
B: 6 hits.
C+: 3 hits.
C: 1 hit.
D: No hits.
F+: No hits, 1 miss.
F: No hits, 5 misses.
F-: No hits, 10 misses.

Using the Attribute Scale below to determine die pool.

Attribute Ranks

0: Absent.
1: Impaired,
2: Below Average,
3: Mortal Average
4: Above Average.
5: Gifted.
6: Exceptional.
7: Limit of Mortal Capability.
8: Mythic
9: Ascendant
10: Preeminent

Now, notice how there's no way in hell anyone could consistently get enough hits for a B, let alone those other grades with just ten dice, yeah? ... Well, here's the angle/die gimmick.

In this system, the mechanics are intended to interact with the dice in a manner that'd make 'em more efficient; scaling the system by improving the quality of yer dice, in lieu of the quantity (metric fuck ton of fucking dice).

Kinda like this:

Skill Ranks

0: Unskilled, Double Jinx'd 1's
1: Student, Double 6's.
2: Novice, One Re-roll.
3: Adept, Double 5's.
4: Expert, Two Re-rolls.
5: Master, Double 4's.

Each Skill Rank makes your dice, however many you have, better. Either by generating more hits per rolled number, or granting re-rolls, which should be comparable to rolling N*additional dice to achive similar results.

A Master of Craft is simply getting four/six/ten hits outta his two dice, 'cos he's that badass.

The Skill Rankings are the most basic die upgrade, though that should convey the intent of the system.

Skill Test Bonuses n' Penalties straight-up add/subtract hits, while shit like specializations boost an action's grade within it's field.

Aaaaaand, those are the basics. Any and all input'll be greatly appreciated!



And, yeeeeah. There's an entire game in beta behind this shit I wanna share once I polish more bits of the system, cheers! Though, ideally, this is a possible solution to 'whyarethesefuckingdicepoolsfuckinghuge?!' shenanigans you get from SR, or WW Flagships/Shovelware.

[Red_Rob]

I'm looking at this compared to Shadowrun. There you have basic ability (Attribute) and skill both add to your dice pool whilst difficulty increases the hit threshold. Here only basic ability sets your dice pool, skill causes some funky accounting to increase hits (including rerolls that are basically additional dice), and difficulty adds/subtracts hits, in addition to having a sliding scale of success? That seems kind of... clunky.

If I have 5 Reflexes and 4 Athletics in Shadowrun I can tell you straight away I will on average get 5+4/3 = 3 hits. If a task is difficulty 3 hits or less I have a better than average chance of succeeding, if it is more than 3 hits I have a higher chance of failing. This kind of clear guess-timation of odds is invaluable in an RPG where players are trying to gauge the chance of their actions working on the fly. In your system when I have 5 reflexes and Athletics skill level 3 I am rolling 5 dice but then doubling 5's (and maybe 6's, it's not really clear?), but maybe I get a reroll too, and then a difficult task is subtracting 2 hits, and I need 3 hits to get a C+ result and... and... there are just too many axes to easily calculate at the table.

Regarding the actual system, I'm not sure if skill levels give you only the listed benefit or all the benefits above (which would be weird because then everyone gets the "jinxed 1's" from unskilled...). Also are rerolls only on failed dice or can you re-roll and keep successes (which are literally just additional dice)? Finally I don't see the benefit of having a difficulty scale (you need a B result to pass this difficult task!) whilst also adding and subtracting hits for difficulty.

If you want to make a system that avoids huge dicepools, maybe you could just... make the numbers smaller?

[Bodshivita]

If I have 5 Reflexes and 4 Athletics in Shadowrun I can tell you straight away I will on average get 5+4/3 = 3 hits. If a task is difficulty 3 hits or less I have a better than average chance of succeeding, if it is more than 3 hits I have a higher chance of failing. This kind of clear guess-timation of odds is invaluable in an RPG where players are trying to gauge the chance of their actions working on the fly. In your system when I have 5 reflexes and Athletics skill level 3 I am rolling 5 dice but then doubling 5's (and maybe 6's, it's not really clear?), but maybe I get a reroll too, and then a difficult task is subtracting 2 hits, and I need 3 hits to get a C+ result and... and... there are just too many axes to easily calculate at the table.

Regarding the actual system, I'm not sure if skill levels give you only the listed benefit or all the benefits above (which would be weird because then everyone gets the "jinxed 1's" from unskilled...). Also are rerolls only on failed dice or can you re-roll and keep successes (which are literally just additional dice)? Finally I don't see the benefit of having a difficulty scale (you need a B result to pass this difficult task!) whilst also adding and subtracting hits for difficulty.

Thanks for the feedback, Rob.

As you've already pointed out, this is a pretty raw and clunky hotbed of marginally tested ideas in an attempt to do something novel. I did (and still do) utilize smaller numbers in a traditional attribute/skill setup, save for multiple hits per successful die, substituting die explosions.

Die re-rolls were intended to be for failed dice to avoid explosions, and thus, minimalize dice rolls. The benefits gained from increased skill ranking were indeed intended to scale up to the next level, and 1's are only ever counted multiple times if you're unskilled, or cursed.

In retrospect, a difficulty scale for tasks wouldn't be needed if penalties and 1's remove hits.

Getting the idea out there to see if there was anything worth salvaging for later use was enough, though.

[Ice9]

A Master of Craft is simply getting four/six/ten hits outta his two dice, 'cos he's that badass.

Not seeing how that part works. He gets four hits almost all the time, because 4-6 all count double and he gets to reroll the failed dice twice. But he never can get more than four hits, because double is as good as it gets. Unless there's an exploding mechanic I'm missing?

[Bodshivita]

A Master of Craft is simply getting four/six/ten hits outta his two dice, 'cos he's that badass.

Not seeing how that part works. He gets four hits almost all the time, because 4-6 all count double and he gets to reroll the failed dice twice. But he never can get more than four hits, because double is as good as it gets. Unless there's an exploding mechanic I'm missing?

There are two portions to a character's attribute & skill rankings.

Skills have a your typical talent rank, and a three tier 'Arete' scale: Minor, Advanced & Prime.

Arete is simply an additional layer to skills which allow you to turn 'em into superpowers.

Minor Arete is perfectly mundane skill use.

Advanced Arete is much of what mid-level D&D characters can accomplish as feats of superlative skill.

Prime Arete flat-out allows you to use athletics to jump on air, or pull a pop-eye by fabricating things such as walls, or ships with melee.

Each upgrade also increased your hit ratio your Skill Rank grants. Granting tripling hits per success at Advanced, and quadrupling at prime.

Attributes had something similar, though that granted attribute-based powers.

[Red_Rob]

Die re-rolls were intended to be for failed dice to avoid explosions, and thus, minimalize dice rolls.

It's important to remember that rolling 5 dice, reading the result, picking up two of those dice, rerolling and reading that result is not actually quicker than rolling 7 dice.

[Blasted]

It looks to me like trying to calculate the odds of something in your head is going to be rather difficult.
Should I try and jump the gap? I have 8 dice and need 4 hits. Looks like 50% at unskilled, but isn't because of 1s, I believe it is 50% at skilled. even though there's a bonus. And as you go up the bonuses really start to screw with doing it in your head.

To be honest, I don't see any advantages in the bonus ladder, or the jinx'd 1s. I'd prefer just to have automatic success dice and no jinx'd 1.