One of the things I always say about roleplaying games is that like any game, they're made up of elements of both choice and chance. Players enjoy both. Many game mechanics exist to help or hinder these areas; for example, Hero Points are often used to make up for the Random Stupid Things that dice sometimes give us, and social mechanics exist to ensure that the most persuasive player doesn't always win.

But basically players like having choices to make, and feeling that those choices affect the outcome of events, and they also like rolling dice, the excitement of not know what'll happen next. For a while I've thought it'd be good if we had a mechanic where the players could choose how many dice to roll. They'd choose their level of "risk", with big risks giving big payoffs but also big disasters.


Risk Dice
One way I thought of to do this was to have a roll-under system, but the more dice you roll, the more damage you'll do. So imagine the skill is 1-10, the player can roll 1d6 and be very sure of success, but only get 1 damage. But if they roll 3d6, they've less chance of success but will get 3 damage; and so on. Obviously to get a few choices of how many dice to roll, you need the thing they're trying to roll under to be substantial number. If the total's only 1-10, no-one will ever roll more than 3d6.

What I thought of was having Attribute + Skill, Attributes from 2-12, and Skills from 0-12. That gives us a normal total of 2-24.

Each task will have a difficulty, requiring so many successes. Assume that a normally-able person might have 6-8 in their Attribute, and 3-5 in their skill, for a total of 9-13; a professional will have either 6-8 in their Attribute with 9-12 in their skill, or vice versa, giving them a total of 15-20.

• Sleepy, 1 success. Only truly incompetent people will fail.
• Easy, 2 successes, normally-able people (Attribute + Skill > 12) will always succeed.
• Moderate, 3 successes, normally-able people will usually succeed, professionals will almost always succeed.
• Difficult, 4 successes, normally-able people will usually fail, and professionals usually succeed.
• Stressful, 5 successes, normally-able people will almost always fail, and professionals have some trouble.

At first glance this looks a bit like a dice pool system. But it's the flipside of one, since the player chooses how many dice to roll.

Thoughts? I was thinking this could be good in a combat system - you'd do damage equal to the Risk Dice you rolled.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThoughts? I was thinking this could be good in a combat system - you'd do damage equal to the Risk Dice you rolled.

Sweet, Kyle! Now that I've got you writing games again, maybe you'll expand this into a game?

-clash

Nice idea. It reminds me of the resource management of Pools in SR1-3.

Quote from: Kyle AaronBFor a while I've thought it'd be good if we had a mechanic where the players could choose how many dice to roll. They'd choose their level of "risk", with big risks giving big payoffs but also big disasters.

Another principle, though, is that choices need to be real choices and not fake choices (where there is only one right or optimal choice).  The problem I've seen with systems like this is that in practice is that players will fall into optimal patterns, making these less of a choice and more of a detail.

For example, in the Hero System, you can often trade your ability to hit a target for dice of damage in many circumstances.  The martial arts maneuvers, for example, will let the character add dice to their damage for a penalty to hit or subtract dice for a bonus to hit (e.g., Offensive Strike, Martial Strike, and Defensive Strike) and you can sacrifice damage with energy blasts in order to "widen the beam" and make it easier to hit.

The problem I've seen in practice is that the player who grasp the odds will simply optimize their odds to hit vs. the dice of damage (which is a choice of sorts, but it tends to fall into very predictable patterns for most players because what they consider an acceptable trade-off is often the same from encounter to encounter) or if they don't grasp the odds, they'll make wild guesses and often guess wrong, producing a frustrating or ineffective experience for the player, especially if the dice have a curve and the player doesn't understand the tipping point where the odds go from better than 50/50 to worse than 50/50 and when they've sacrificed their odds of success to the point that they can't reasonable except to succeed at all.

I think you could make this work but just be careful that the choices you present are real choices and I'd suggest making the odds transparent enough that even a casual player understands where they can afford to make the trade offs and when they are just making a bad choice.

Quote from: SkyrockNice idea. It reminds me of the resource management of Pools in SR1-3.

My friends and I were at a convention where Shadowrun was originally announced.  Tom Dowd is describing features of the setting and so on and we're all thinking it sounds pretty cool.  Then he says, "This is what we call a buckets of dice game."  To this day, I've never actually played Shadowrun.

This looks cool, but ... I don't quite understand it.  Help? :deflated:

Quote from: Kyle AaronSo imagine the skill is 1-10, the player can roll 1d6 and be very sure of success, but only get 1 damage. But if they roll 3d6, they've less chance of success but will get 3 damage; and so on.

This sounds like the players choose how many dice to roll, and can seek safe (but weak) success by rolling a small number of dice.

Quote from: Kyle AaronEach task will have a difficulty, requiring so many successes. [ .... ]

• Sleepy, 1 success. Only truly incompetent people will fail.
• Easy, 2 successes, normally-able people (Attribute + Skill > 12) will always succeed.
• Moderate, 3 successes, normally-able people will usually succeed, professionals will almost always succeed.
• Difficult, 4 successes, normally-able people will usually fail, and professionals usually succeed.
• Stressful, 5 successes, normally-able people will almost always fail, and professionals have some trouble.

This sounds like the GM determines how many dice need to be rolled, and the players cannot choose to seek success by rolling less (since having less successes mean they fail the roll).

I'm sure I'm missing something.  How do those two things fit together?

Quote from: TonyLBThis looks cool, but ... I don't quite understand it.  Help? :deflated:
This sounds like the players choose how many dice to roll, and can seek safe (but weak) success by rolling a small number of dice.

This sounds like the GM determines how many dice need to be rolled, and the players cannot choose to seek success by rolling less (since having less successes mean they fail the roll).

I'm sure I'm missing something.  How do those two things fit together?

The GM doesn't fix the difficulty. The difficulty is what the player makes of it. It's a label. "Ha! Four successes! I made a difficult task! Awesome!"

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceThe GM doesn't fix the difficulty. The difficulty is what the player makes of it. It's a label. "Ha! Four successes! I made a difficult task! Awesome!"

Ah, gotcha.  So "Four successes" could also be termed "Four dice", right?  Thanks.  That makes sense.

The Jags drama system lets players take extra risk for reward.  However, the risks have concrete, in game, consequences.  For instance, a surgeon in a difficult operation could try a medically questionable procedure.  If he makes his roll: yeah!  If he fails, there can be some consequences like having to go before a review board.

I think that this is better than just the "do less damage" risk.  There is no obvious optimal choice, and the decisions are rather dramatic.

Yep, Clash has got it.

Jeff, the damage was just an example. Naturally someone who achieved lots of successes in some other task would do better.

For example, think of the Burglary skill being used for lockpicking. Let's say the PC has Agility 7 + Burglary 7 - averge agility but a professional thief, total 14. Obviously the player wants the character to open the door, but how quickly? The GM may say, "1 Risk Die means you spend 20 minutes doing it; 2d6 means 10 minutes, 3d6 means 5 minutes, 4d6 means 2 minutes, and 5d6 means click-clack-snick and it's done, like in the movies."

So if the player choose 1d6, then they're certain to succeed, because the worst they can do is 6, which is under 14 by heaps. They take 20 minutes and it's done. They're also certain of success in 10 minutes. But if they want to take only 5 minutes, then they have to roll 14 or under on 3d6... quite probably success, but not certain. Then if they go for 2 minutes or instant, that's 14 or under on 4d6 or 5d6, maybe they fiddle around for a couple of minutes and nothing happens, woops.

That's how I see it with any sort of task. You can aim to do things:

• well
• quickly
• okay but quickly
• well and quickly

Each requires more successes than the last. A failed roll would mean they waste their time, or stuff it up. The reasoning is that if you take enough time and gather enough resources to do something, you can do anything, pretty much. But adventurers are usually in a hurry, and/or want to be flashy.

QuoteOne way I thought of to do this was to have a roll-under system, but the more dice you roll, the more damage you'll do. So imagine the skill is 1-10, the player can roll 1d6 and be very sure of success, but only get 1 damage. But if they roll 3d6, they've less chance of success but will get 3 damage; and so on.

Kyle,

This sounds very cool. I'll have to turn it over in my head a bit more, but what about having damage work like this instead:

Player chooses the number of dice to roll and does damage based on how close (s)he comes to the skill threshhold without going over it? Would that work or are there problems there that I'm not seeing.



One other thought: If I were playing this game (and I would do it in a heartbeat since the system sounds fun) I would want a table on the character sheet with the average range your roll is likely to fall into given different size dice pools. I'd want that just so that I didn't have to work it out on the spot every time I was thinking about rolling.

This would work as an alternate task resolution system for the StarCluster system, Kyle. Mind if I nab it for the StarCluster System Toolkit?

-clash

Well, that's an idea, manydipresso, but I'm thinking of what it's like when people roll. What's most fun is when you roll, and the instant you see the roll, you know the result. Any delay to add in bonus or malus and multiplier or look up tables and charts is anti-climactic.

So, "if I roll 1d6, I'll definitely succeed but only score 1 success... but if I roll 5d6, I've a shit's show in hell of success, but if I do, then GLORY!" Then they roll, and as soon as they add it up - glory or embarassment, in one!

Yep, a little chart would be fair enough.

1d6 -> 3 or 4
2d6 -> 7
3d6 -> 10 or 11
4d6 -> 14
5d6 -> 17 or 18

dunno if it'd really be needed, though, players would absorb the numbers quickly enough. I find players become quite good at knowing how likely their character is to succeed at stuff. They get a sort of instinct about it, dividing things into four: "piss-easy, probably succeed, probably fail, not a fucking chance."

PS: Clash, I'll charge you ten bucks for that!

Kyle? I'm serious.

-clash

Kyle, very nice.

How would you work opponent defense in a combat system under this?  Would an opponent's defense add to the roll?  Which would make for some interestsing variable odds.  Would it add to the number of successes needed?  Which could get out of hand rather quickly, a +3 being very very tough.  Would the defense reduce damage?  Almost a reverse armor class, it has nothing to do with your chance to get hit but decreases the bad effects of getting hit.

I could see all sorts of possibilities with the choose your risk approach.  Say could you add 1 success to aim at an arm, add 2 for a hand, add 3 for an eye, etc.?  For example, you want to hit your opponents hand and get him to drop his sword, you're told 7 points of damage will certainly do that; so 2D6 for damage, add 2D6, for aiming at the hand, roll 4D6 to hit the hand for 7.  

It reminds me of the later Traveller task resolution approaches where as things get more difficult you have more D6 to roll.  Except here, the players set the difficulty through how much time they take to do the task, or what they wish to accomplish.  Very cool.

I guess you could also set a minimum number of success for some tasks.  For example brain surgery, it doesn't matter how much time you take, it still takes 4 success to not kill the guy.

Have you worked up the various odds on this system?