If the type of dice used is making a meaningful impact on a campaign, then I question the setting and/or GM skill.

There is something to OP's question. I think the d20, in particular, is attractive to so many new players because it is used widely in marketing the hobby. Some may feel like they are finally playing the game they have heard about when they first roll it.

I favor regular polygons, so the d10 is the ugly duckling in my eyes.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 05, 2022, 07:11:53 PM-snip-

I see! Thanks for explaining as I've never heard the term "Friction" used in this context before and I wasn't sure what you had meant, but with your explanation, it makes complete sense. Thanks for the context and explanation.

Quote from: FingerRod on April 06, 2022, 08:03:36 AM
There is something to OP's question. I think the d20, in particular, is attractive to so many new players because it is used widely in marketing the hobby.

This is how I view it. Other than odd dice types I don't see why we don't use more types of dice other than "It's convenient" and "It's well-marketed". As everyone knows what a d6 is and probably has them in their house just like how everyone knows what a d20 is due to the success of D&D

Quote from: Fheredin on April 05, 2022, 07:41:22 PM
As a purist gamer, I tend to think that the D12 is Best Die, and I would really rather play D12 based games than D20 based ones because 1/12th is a better balance of effect and math and roll feel than the D20's 1/20th for the same reason that base 12 math is generally regarded as superior to the base 10 math we were all taught and use; divisibility.

Divisibility is the unspoken superpower of Imperial measurements because most measurements are base 2 or base 12.

This is similar to where I was thinking.

(1) As others have noted, the d6 is everywhere and I like rolling handfuls of d6's.

(2) The d20 is nice because it's more streamlined than d100.

(3) My other favorite die is the d12. I can use the d12 as a d2, d3, d4, d6, or d12. The d12 rolls well, and I have some d12's which are numbered I, II, III, IV three times, so it's a rolling d4 instead of a sharp pointy d4.

Quote from: Kahoona on April 06, 2022, 01:24:26 PMAs everyone knows what a d6 is and probably has them in their house just like how everyone knows what a d20 is due to the success of D&D

I don't think the success of D&D is what made d20s popular, I think it's the other way around. A d20 is almost the perfect randomizer. Each point represents a 5% chance so probabilities are easy to estimate and the range from 1 to 20 give a large amount of granularity where you can differentiate between many different levels of skill. You'll also notice that almost all games that use d6s do so in groups which allows a small number of dice to replicate a d20's advantage in granularity.

However, there is also the issue of playability. I've found that game that require players to assemble a pool of dice of multiple types to be unbearably slow.

Plug for Dungeons and Delvers: Dice Pool Edition.

Or, as I like to say, Savage Worlds as it should have been.

The basic premise for rolling dice are attribute + skill.   1D4 is a poor stat, going up to a 1D12 as maximum for an attribute or a skill.  This includes swinging a sword at somebody.  However, a lot of class abilities can add more dice.  Friends helping you can add more dice.

Note:  there is no 1D20 in this game.  I'm not even sure there are percentiles other than a random table or two.

Roll all of them, pick the best two dice results, and add them up.  Simple. 

Example.  A dwarf starts with one of three racial talents.  One is "soldier".   This means any attack made with an axe or hammer adds 1D4 to the pool.  If your dwarf has strength of 1D8, and melee fighting is also 1D8, all axe attacks are actually 2D8+1D4.   Let's say a roll of 1D8 is a 2, another 1D8 is a 7, and 1D4 is a 4.    You rolled an 11, instead of a 9 for being a dwarf soldier. 

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 06, 2022, 07:30:02 PM

Quote from: Kahoona on April 06, 2022, 01:24:26 PMAs everyone knows what a d6 is and probably has them in their house just like how everyone knows what a d20 is due to the success of D&D

-snip-

I see. I personally fall under the camp that it's due to the systems success that we use the d20. However I do agree that the 5% interval increase feels and looks good when it comes to probability.


As for the other parts of the discussion, it seems a common. Thought is "using dice outside of the norm" is frowned upon/going against the flow. And normally for no good reason, or wanting to be "quirky" this I can understand.

This said, I'm curious if there are times where this is appropriate? Would you consider using uncommon types of dice for thematic reasons appropriate? Or how about if you want to make use of a different level of distribution?

Do those scenarios justify the use of other styles of dice? Or is it still something that offers no use then being a novelty decision?

I'd say using less common dice is less being "frowned upon/going against the norm" and more a case of "making the system of resolution more complicated than it needs to be will greatly resuce the level of interest from the general pool of potential players.

If you're using a dice pool with counting successes and you succeed half the time with no other conditions then you may as well use a d6 because it's ubiquitous and rolls well. Only if you want exploding/subtracting results or have variable target numbers should you consider other sized dice.

Similarly, if you're using percentages, but everything is counted in increments of 5% then you may as well use a single d20 instead of a pair of d10's for the percentile results.

A related factor that can't be avoided is how the dice relate to math. Their purpose is to generate a random number, but how that number gets plugged into the game math is important for how often you'll see a given dice type or mechanic work. Even order of operations matters since it can slow things down.

For example; in a roll under percentile system, you have a skill of 75% and because of the target's defenses you have a -15% penalty.

With a d20+mod system you have a +7 to hit and the target has a defense of 20.

The odds in both examples are the same, but in the first you have to do double digit subtraction before you can roll. In the second, you perform a single digit addition after rolling.

The general rule for humans is, in order of math difficulty, compare>addition>subtraction>multiply>divide. So you'll generally get the largest potential audience using the easiest possible math required for a result.

Savage Worlds is a winner in this regard for making it almost entirely a "compare" function with the size of die being your skill. Did your roll beat a 4? Success. Did it beat an 8? Success with a raise. It's not quite that simple, particularly when combat breaks out, but it's definitely one of the simpler ones in terms of math.

The d20 system primarily wins in popularity because the math is mostly add then compare and it takes gaining several levels before that addition requires double digits. You can even run hit points mostly by addition (add each instance of damage together until it beats your hit points) and damage rolls are also just addition. The few things that aren't adding or subtracting are the most basic multiply/divide functions (i.e. double/half).

In other words, it's just complex enough to do it's job, but not moreso.

Quote from: Kahoona on April 07, 2022, 03:12:09 AM
As for the other parts of the discussion, it seems a common. Thought is "using dice outside of the norm" is frowned upon/going against the flow. And normally for no good reason, or wanting to be "quirky" this I can understand.

This said, I'm curious if there are times where this is appropriate? Would you consider using uncommon types of dice for thematic reasons appropriate? Or how about if you want to make use of a different level of distribution?

Do those scenarios justify the use of other styles of dice? Or is it still something that offers no use then being a novelty decision?

It's not this cut and dried, but in general:  Using a certain type of dice mechanics should not be a primary goal. (One of the niche exceptions would be building a prototype game as a kind of intellectual and crafting challenge.  "Let's see if I can make a game built entirely around the d12."  Just expect trouble if you try to stick with that beyond the prototype level.)  Arguably, using a particular type of dice mechanic shouldn't be a goal at all, but you can make secondary or tertiary goal arguments on the grounds of aesthetics, availability, etc.

On the other hand, if having followed the goals of the design leads you to a distribution where an offbeat dice mechanic makes sense, it's worth considering.  If in the course of pursing that, other issues in the design start to resolve, you are onto something.  This is a general rule in all kinds of design, not just games.  A "solution" that works OK but doesn't address any other problem or even causes edge issues to spin off from it--that's not ideal.  It might be a solution you end up settling on for other reasons, but it is settling.  A single "solution" that resolves multiple issues without edge cases is much more than OK. 

Your dice mechanics--in the larger picture not being all that important as long as they aren't causing trouble--should ideally be chosen to solve as many problems as possible with as few edge cases as possible.  Granting that pursing all edge cases is likely to both be a fruitless search and also a risk to suck the life out of the game.   (Your honor, see Exhibit #1, where D&D 5E "advantage/disadvantage" mechanic is excellent--and then used too much in a misguided effort to reduce all edge cases.)

Quote from: hedgehobbit on April 06, 2022, 07:30:02 PM

Quote from: Kahoona on April 06, 2022, 01:24:26 PMAs everyone knows what a d6 is and probably has them in their house just like how everyone knows what a d20 is due to the success of D&D

I don't think the success of D&D is what made d20s popular, I think it's the other way around. A d20 is almost the perfect randomizer. Each point represents a 5% chance so probabilities are easy to estimate and the range from 1 to 20 give a large amount of granularity where you can differentiate between many different levels of skill. You'll also notice that almost all games that use d6s do so in groups which allows a small number of dice to replicate a d20's advantage in granularity.

However, there is also the issue of playability. I've found that game that require players to assemble a pool of dice of multiple types to be unbearably slow.

I would disagree on the D20 being a perfect randomizer. I expect one of the key reasons D&D used it (and by extension other games copying D&D/ the D20 OGL) is that having a linear distribution with 5% granularity makes most of the design work easy. You can do most of the math in your head. Not sure this meaningfully adds to the player experience. I wouldn't say that D20 is bad, but I do generally think it's overused, and the reason is likely because it is so easy on the game designer.

As to pool systems which use multiple dice types; the speed depends greatly on implementation and how a particular table manages it. Cortex is not a particularly fast system, but I think most of that is because it's a mixed die system which also has the GM roll for difficulty and a lot of addition. That said, I think comparing a mixed die pool to a D20 core mechanic or even a 2d6/ 3d6 system misses the point; a mixed die pool is a very crunchy system, roughly equal to percentile with multiple modifiers applied. Comparing a mixed die pool to something like D20 will inherently make the mixed pool system look slow because the mixed pool is delivering several times the crunch.

I'm not saying these are fast systems, but in apples to apples comparisons they actually do rather well.

Quote from: Fheredin on April 07, 2022, 08:33:45 AM
As to pool systems which use multiple dice types; the speed depends greatly on implementation and how a particular table manages it. Cortex is not a particularly fast system, but I think most of that is because it's a mixed die system which also has the GM roll for difficulty and a lot of addition. That said, I think comparing a mixed die pool to a D20 core mechanic or even a 2d6/ 3d6 system misses the point; a mixed die pool is a very crunchy system, roughly equal to percentile with multiple modifiers applied. Comparing a mixed die pool to something like D20 will inherently make the mixed pool system look slow because the mixed pool is delivering several times the crunch.

The question though is whether the added crunch is actually necessary or provides information worthwhile enough to be worth the added resolution time.

For example, how much is adding a complication die into the mix worth compared to a GM just deciding to introduce complications when they make logical sense and keeping the check to a basic pass/fail (or basic MoS... ie. botch, fail, marginal success, complete success or critical success if degrees are needed)?

Many times the added complexity of dice rolls is just automating what a GM is supposed to do anyway and, because of this, often feels a bit like the HERO System flaws like enemy or DNPC where a random roll requires the GM to insert plot element X into their adventure or the PC is getting free points for not having to deal with the flaw you find annoying to implement (which is why M&M's complication system is so much better).

Okay, you pulled off your stealth check, but got a complication. Now the GM has to figure out something to create a problem even if logically there shouldn't be one. Similarly, you fail your stealth check, but get an advantage... and now the GM has to come up with some way that carelessly stepping on a twig and alerting the guards gives you an advantage.

It's basically dumping work onto the GM that might not create a better result than just allowing the GM to improvise themselves off the results of a simple pass/fail and the specific circumstances of the situation. A good GM will almost certainly produce better results than that random die roll. At best I'd say, the random die roll is best employed for reminding a new GM to include aspects beyond pass/fail into their challenges and should be skippable by more seasoned GM's.

I don't think it's an accident than systems with more complex resolution systems never seem to gain much traction. The ones people keep coming back to don't have gimmick dice systems they have straightforward ones (mostly 1-2 simple add/compare functions... ie. Rolled dice+mod compared to TN -or- individual dice rolls compared to TN and successes added up).

I'll go on record here and say that dice systems that are needlessly complex can ruin a game for me. 

Usually these are games designed around using D6 dice in ways to increase their range of results, but at the cost of simplicity. 

At this point I think RPG dice are so common it doesn't need to be a concern of the author of finding dice.  Hell, just download an rpg dice app for your phone these days. 

QuoteFor example, how much is adding a complication die into the mix worth compared to a GM just deciding to introduce complications when they make logical sense and keeping the check to a basic pass/fail (or basic MoS... ie. botch, fail, marginal success, complete success or critical success if degrees are needed)?

For me... a lot, because I hate introducing such things on my bias, but I also don't like really simple fail/miss results for most of tests.
And what make logical sense to me, and what make logical sense to everybody else, that's big can of worms
(Though there is also question of - how often do you roll - if rolls are rare then complexity is less of a problem).

QuoteI don't think it's an accident than systems with more complex resolution systems never seem to gain much traction. The ones people keep coming back to don't have gimmick dice systems they have straightforward ones (mostly 1-2 simple add/compare functions... ie. Rolled dice+mod compared to TN -or- individual dice rolls compared to TN and successes added up).

Obviously simple systems gonna generally get more traction that complex ones if given simmilar advertisement push and recognizability.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on April 07, 2022, 12:51:08 PM
I'll go on record here and say that dice systems that are needlessly complex can ruin a game for me. 

Yeah. I've tinkered with various oddball systems, dice pools, dice chains, etc. And always circle back around to the good old D20 roll over mechanic.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 07, 2022, 04:20:23 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on April 07, 2022, 12:51:08 PM
I'll go on record here and say that dice systems that are needlessly complex can ruin a game for me. 

Yeah. I've tinkered with various oddball systems, dice pools, dice chains, etc. And always circle back around to the good old D20 roll over mechanic.

Same here.  I could invent my own system, but once you look around you can find a game that already does it. 

I mentioned this above.  The simple sequence of upgrading attributes and skills by using increasing sizes of dice is the core of Savage Worlds and Dungeons & Delvers Dice Pool Edition.  I have both, and bought their dead tree versions in book form too.  I prefer Delvers for its simplicity.  It makes more sense over Savage Worlds where you only really use an attribute die roll once in a while.  Delvers is very consistent, so it's easy.

I've also toyed with making a 1D6 based game that is just a single 1D6, never a handful.  Then I found a dieselpunk airplane adventure game called Warbirds.  I like planes, so that was an easy sell. 

My only other thought was to make a 1D10 based game, simply because you can use a deck of cards if you don't own gaming dice.  Just take out the face cards and jokers. 

But, why?   Again, it's a solution to a problem we don't have.  RPG dice are NOT hard to find anymore.  My local Walmart sells them.  Even more, use a dice roller app on a phone like I mentioned. 

Crazy dice systems are more problematic than helpful.