Let's say that i want to simulate 20th century warfare in all its bloody (and arbitrary) glory. Instead of simply saying, "when you cross the beach, 3 snipers shoot at you." How about having a Risk dice attached to the attempt?
The same can be used with the chance of running over a landmine, or being strafed from a low-flying plane.

This is the chance that you are a victim of the chaos and you suffer an injury (i don't want to kill folk this way, it's a bit too arbitrary)

The Risk dice are used when the action being undertaken is not part of the primary 'mission.' The PCs are running across that beach so that they can reach the communication bunker to cut the comms of the enemy unit. Getting there involves Risk dice, once they reach their goal, we get back to individual actions, targetting etc.

Players might be able to lower the risk by doing certain things or it increases for conspicuious actions, but if a bullet has your name on it...

How would that play out? Would you as a player get a bit annoyed at getting plugged by a bullet and having to limp your way through the mission without being able to affect that chance much? Or would it make the ultimate victory all the sweeter?

Would this suggest that players would be better off with playing more than 1 character at a time?

Not a bad idea, IMHO, as a simplification of random encounter tables.  I'd suggest giving the player some means of affecting the outcome, but I'm not sure how that would really pan out mechanically.

Best I can say is, if you've got players who want to play bloody, gritty, random and realistic warfare, that seems like a good mechanic.

But in the end, it's your game - If it looks right to you, use it.

Yes I would agree that it would only work in a game where this kind of melodramatic occurances would be expected, and if the price for taking the risk was realistic.

Idly;  thinking about it as a replacement for "random encounter" tables, it made me think of the "wandering damage" tables from that Dragon April Fool's issue.  Take that as you will.

Quote from: GlauG;292475Idly;  thinking about it as a replacement for "random encounter" tables, it made me think of the "wandering damage" tables from that Dragon April Fool's issue.  Take that as you will.

Ha!

Well, the general idea goes like this. The PCs want to cross the open sand, which is covered by sniper fire. The GM decides that it is a Risk 3 venture (3 on d10) and informs the players. They can choose to run the gauntlet or try to come up with a way around it. However, acts of conspicious bravery (IE high Risk numbers) are how you get decorated. You don't get a VC for nothing.

Quote from: One Horse Town;292477Well, the general idea goes like this. The PCs want to cross the open sand, which is covered by sniper fire. The GM decides that it is a Risk 3 venture (3 on d10) and informs the players. They can choose to run the gauntlet or try to come up with a way around it. However, acts of conspicious bravery (IE high Risk numbers) are how you get decorated. You don't get a VC for nothing.

Okay, in context it sounds a lot less random.  I like it as a system.

I have done something similiar with PCs within mass combat.   Here's what I have done with Fog of War dice.

Every round in a mass combat, the GM rolls 3D6.   On a 1, some crap happens to somebody - new opponents arrive, artillery shelling, sniper shot, etc.   If the PCs have a great round of combat (kill foes or do something cool), then they can lower the dice by 1D6 or 2D6.  If things go bad for them or they press deeply into larger battle or deeper into foe territory, then I may add 1D6 or 2D6 to my Fog of War dice.  

I have not done tables for the results, just made them up on the fly as made sense for the genre, battle, setting, etc.

Odds would be 1 - ( (1 - (1 / 6) ) ^ dice )

Or in other words, the chance of a 1 on a single d6, multiplied.

It's inverted because the odds of rolling a 1 go up as more dice are added.

Erm...It could probably be explained better. If I wasn't sick.

This makes sense, and is not nearly as unorthodox as it seems.  There are similar concepts in old games like Traveller (where you can take "damage" in your past), or Pendragon, where you could take damage during your off-season or in a battle without actually playing out the fight.

RPGPundit

True enough.

I've actually tied in this mechanism to the central combat one, so it all works the same, so that's a bonus. One roll tells you if you've hit and how much damage you've inflicted. One d10, that's it.