Quote from: mcbobbo on January 10, 2024, 07:08:20 AM
We seem to have glossed over something really big, and it happens to be a pet peeve of mine, so here we go...

Rolling a bunch of dice and adding some or all of them together is what I'd consider a dice pool.

Rolling the same dice over and over to see if it succeeded is, IMO, not.

And doing the above in a single muscle motion by putting all the dice in your hand at the same time doesn't change the outcome.

A quick test for me is, does adding a die guarantee a different result (even if just one point higher).  If "yes", that is what I would call a dice pool.

The chief cause of this is those pieces of plastic being uninformed that they're supposed to confirm to probability.  They all behave independently without regard to how many you have in your hand at once.

For me a Doce Pool is when you can select how many dice to spend on an action from a pool of dice on hand.
Shadowrun was the first I think I ever really got into. Aberrant is the second.

Past that its just variants in how a success or fail is had. Do you count successes? Or add the dice?

But just rolling dice and adding them up is not a dice pool. If that were true then D&D would be a dice pool game. Unfortunately as usual there are people who slap a name on something that is not. Pick your Path books declaring themselves RPGs was one way back.

Quote from: mcbobbo on January 10, 2024, 07:08:20 AM
Rolling the same dice over and over to see if it succeeded is, IMO, not.

What system lets you roll as many times as you want for a single attempt?

Quote from: mcbobbo on January 10, 2024, 07:08:20 AM

Rolling a bunch of dice and adding some or all of them together is what I'd consider a dice pool.

Rolling the same dice over and over to see if it succeeded is, IMO, not.

What would you call rolling multiple dice and counting results above a target number? I would contend that your dice pool is an additive dice pool, while what I describe is is a success based dice pool. Both are pools so long as the number of dice that get rolled is subject to modifiers.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 10, 2024, 10:11:46 PM

So that's how I feel about dice pools and what they do well.  Obviously there are drawbacks in time to roll, etc., but I feel like most of these are minimizable with tight rules.  I do have some questions for the folks that are into this topic or are open to dice pool games (I'm using xd10 dice pools, with each roll equal to or over a target number, normally 7, awarding a "success," which the player then spends for effects.  This reduces the number of rolls in combat, and, if you allow successes to be spent defensively, works the same as a static defense score... I think the greatest weakness of WEG SW was the opposed rolls):

First, I have considered using two different methods to manipulate the die rolls (and, yes, I've got spreadsheet after spreadsheet from anydice.com to prove it!).  I've considered having anything that gives you a bonus adding a die to your pool.  Anything that makes your task harder will increase the target number (so I'd probably start the target number at 5+ if I went this route).  Mathematically, increasing the target number has a larger effect than increasing the number of dice.  This means the GM can be a little more liberal with bonuses, because anything that adds a penalty will have an outsized effect (so a couple of extra dice won't really offset being prone and blinded, for example).  I know that folks have expressed concerns upthread about not being able to discern the effects of varying multiple features of the die rolls.  Do you think I can get away with this, or would it put you off or cause consternation?

Second, I am structuring the dice pools to average between 3 and 5 dice (d10s), usually with only a couple of bonus dice available.  I don't foresee any rolls being over 7 dice.  But I am looking at mechanics that might play into the number of dice, like losing dice each time you do something strenuous (and regaining dice at a rate each round you don't... sort of a fatigue or stamina mechanic).  Will varying the number of dice each round be too much, especially with varying target numbers?

I'm curious as to your reactions and reasons...

Opposed rolls have their place, but most rolls should be faster to resolve than making two rolls. A penalty pool or an opposed roll can be nice when players make a roll and neglect to apply dice penalties, but players should not be rolling until they are told to.

For messing with both the target number and the number of dice, it's something early oWOD did that nWOD got a way from, and I prefer the speed and consistency of nWOD. I even reinked my dice to white out irrelevant numbers and make counting faster. Any time spent playing with dice is time not spent roleplaying, and from that perspective a static TN is better as it is faster. 

Depleting a dice pool by a universal penalty is simple enough. Wound penalties in WOD are easy enough to apply and remember. If the penalties are per skill or attribute, then that would be far more annoying to track and subject to error.

One of the WW mechanics I particularly liked was Scion's Arette, which would award bonus success if the initial pool succeeded. Likewise, OnyxPath did scaling right by having the dice pool be relative to power tier, so two giants arm wrestling would roll their flat, sensible dice pools against each other, but a giant arm wrestling a mortal human would get automatic successes because of the power game.

I would consider capping dice pools and having anything extra be a depleting pool of successes that could be added to a roll and is refreshed upon rest. Vaguely like luck or maneuver pool in Mekton.

I often feel like dice pool systems are clunky for a couple of reasons.

1.  The author is trying to make an RPG based on just D6 dice because you can't physically get any gaming dice with D8's, D20, ect.  They were only sold in specialty hobby shops.

That isn't the case anymore.  You can get gaming dice from Walmart.  Hell, if you have to you can download a free dice rolling app for your phone.

But, back in the 80's you may have had some trouble getting weird dice, so you wrote your game to only use cube shaped D6 dice.

2.  You have a "cool and innovative" way to roll dice and make them needlessly complex.   If you roll 3 dice, but need them to both be added up and to be counted as "successes", but only if no 1's are rolled, ect, ect,  Sweet baby Jesus, please, no.  I don't need to re-invent how you roll dice.  One game I know uses D10's, and you roll it once, but the "width" of the dice roll (how far apart the numbers are) is one thing, and the "height" of the roll (the largest rolled number) are both significant to a standard dice roll.  Just shoot me now.

There are several games out there I won't play because i just based on weird dice mechanics like that.  They're not for me.  I don't want to fight with the rules and struggle to remember how it all works.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 14, 2024, 12:08:04 PM
I often feel like dice pool systems are clunky for a couple of reasons.

1.  The author is trying to make an RPG based on just D6 dice because you can't physically get any gaming dice with D8's, D20, ect.  They were only sold in specialty hobby shops.

That isn't the case anymore.  You can get gaming dice from Walmart.  Hell, if you have to you can download a free dice rolling app for your phone.

But, back in the 80's you may have had some trouble getting weird dice, so you wrote your game to only use cube shaped D6 dice.

2.  You have a "cool and innovative" way to roll dice and make them needlessly complex.   If you roll 3 dice, but need them to both be added up and to be counted as "successes", but only if no 1's are rolled, ect, ect,  Sweet baby Jesus, please, no.  I don't need to re-invent how you roll dice.  One game I know uses D10's, and you roll it once, but the "width" of the dice roll (how far apart the numbers are) is one thing, and the "height" of the roll (the largest rolled number) are both significant to a standard dice roll.  Just shoot me now.

There are several games out there I won't play because i just based on weird dice mechanics like that.  They're not for me.  I don't want to fight with the rules and struggle to remember how it all works.

Point 2 doesn't feel to me as an argument or giving any mathematical, table related, or imperative reason as to why.
other than you can't be bothered to remember another set of rules or mechanics, which is a valid reason, except in a vacuum and relative to others.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on January 14, 2024, 02:14:23 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 14, 2024, 12:08:04 PM
I often feel like dice pool systems are clunky for a couple of reasons.

1.  The author is trying to make an RPG based on just D6 dice because you can't physically get any gaming dice with D8's, D20, ect.  They were only sold in specialty hobby shops.

That isn't the case anymore.  You can get gaming dice from Walmart.  Hell, if you have to you can download a free dice rolling app for your phone.

But, back in the 80's you may have had some trouble getting weird dice, so you wrote your game to only use cube shaped D6 dice.

2.  You have a "cool and innovative" way to roll dice and make them needlessly complex.   If you roll 3 dice, but need them to both be added up and to be counted as "successes", but only if no 1's are rolled, ect, ect,  Sweet baby Jesus, please, no.  I don't need to re-invent how you roll dice.  One game I know uses D10's, and you roll it once, but the "width" of the dice roll (how far apart the numbers are) is one thing, and the "height" of the roll (the largest rolled number) are both significant to a standard dice roll.  Just shoot me now.

There are several games out there I won't play because i just based on weird dice mechanics like that.  They're not for me.  I don't want to fight with the rules and struggle to remember how it all works.

Point 2 doesn't feel to me as an argument or giving any mathematical, table related, or imperative reason as to why.
other than you can't be bothered to remember another set of rules or mechanics, which is a valid reason, except in a vacuum and relative to others.

I can totally see the reason why people do things like design dice pools like that and why it irritates people like weirdguy564. It's easier to do something weird on the designer end than it is to design a game which is both mechanically innovative and mechanically tight, and because of that a lot of these mechanics are...of questionable utility.

As a matter of personal preference, I tend to like dice mechanics which give me complex options, but don't actually compel me to do something complex. This puts me in a strange place where that kind of mechanic is clearly what dice pools are good at, but I usually find myself at odds with most dice pool game designers because they like constantly forcing me to figure out what the dice are telling me like I'm reading tea leaves.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 14, 2024, 12:08:04 PM
I often feel like dice pool systems are clunky for a couple of reasons.

1.  The author is trying to make an RPG based on just D6 dice because you can't physically get any gaming dice with D8's, D20, ect.  They were only sold in specialty hobby shops.

That isn't the case anymore.  You can get gaming dice from Walmart.  Hell, if you have to you can download a free dice rolling app for your phone.

But, back in the 80's you may have had some trouble getting weird dice, so you wrote your game to only use cube shaped D6 dice.

2.  You have a "cool and innovative" way to roll dice and make them needlessly complex.   If you roll 3 dice, but need them to both be added up and to be counted as "successes", but only if no 1's are rolled, ect, ect,  Sweet baby Jesus, please, no.  I don't need to re-invent how you roll dice.  One game I know uses D10's, and you roll it once, but the "width" of the dice roll (how far apart the numbers are) is one thing, and the "height" of the roll (the largest rolled number) are both significant to a standard dice roll.  Just shoot me now.

There are several games out there I won't play because i just based on weird dice mechanics like that.  They're not for me.  I don't want to fight with the rules and struggle to remember how it all works.

Neither of these describe any dice pool system I've played

Quote from: Domina on January 14, 2024, 04:15:57 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 14, 2024, 12:08:04 PM
I often feel like dice pool systems are clunky for a couple of reasons.

1.  The author is trying to make an RPG based on just D6 dice because you can't physically get any gaming dice with D8's, D20, ect.  They were only sold in specialty hobby shops.

That isn't the case anymore.  You can get gaming dice from Walmart.  Hell, if you have to you can download a free dice rolling app for your phone.

But, back in the 80's you may have had some trouble getting weird dice, so you wrote your game to only use cube shaped D6 dice.

2.  You have a "cool and innovative" way to roll dice and make them needlessly complex.   If you roll 3 dice, but need them to both be added up and to be counted as "successes", but only if no 1's are rolled, ect, ect,  Sweet baby Jesus, please, no.  I don't need to re-invent how you roll dice.  One game I know uses D10's, and you roll it once, but the "width" of the dice roll (how far apart the numbers are) is one thing, and the "height" of the roll (the largest rolled number) are both significant to a standard dice roll.  Just shoot me now.

There are several games out there I won't play because i just based on weird dice mechanics like that.  They're not for me.  I don't want to fight with the rules and struggle to remember how it all works.

Neither of these describe any dice pool system I've played

In fact, those sound like distinct outliers. Most dice pools are just, roll and add them up, or count all the dice that do at least X. Sometimes you have a special die, and sometimes you have rules about counting the successes. Typically dice pool systems are straightforward.

Number 2 is a (bad and grossly misunderstood) description of ORE (the One Roll Engine), the system used in Wild Talents (one of the best superhero games out there). In ORE you roll a D10 pool and look for matched sets (three sixes or two eights, for example); the value on the die is the height and represents the quality of your action, the number of matching dice is the width and represents speed or quantity (depending on the situation). In combat, the height is the hit location and the width the damage inflicted (the system has hit location based wounds), with 10 being the head.
In actual practice the system is fast as hell since you simply need to group your dice by result and count them, usually on your fingers since the pools are generally not very big and give you a ton of information at a glance.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 14, 2024, 12:08:04 PM
I often feel like dice pool systems are clunky for a couple of reasons.

1.  The author is trying to make an RPG based on just D6 dice because you can't physically get any gaming dice with D8's, D20, ect.  They were only sold in specialty hobby shops.

That isn't the case anymore.  You can get gaming dice from Walmart.  Hell, if you have to you can download a free dice rolling app for your phone.

The clunky ones are 99% of the time the ones where the designer read about dice pools or just herd the word and slapped together a game without actually understanding what a dice pool is. Others just slapped the word dice pool on something that isnt just for marketing.

The d6 is alot easier to find. Outside of game shops nowhere local, and this is a big city, has RPG dice just racked. But I can wal into a Wallgreens or such and fet some rather nice quality d6s for a buck or two. Bycycle d6s are pretty good really.

Also some people just dont like the polyhedrals other than maybe the d8 whuch pops up in some board games for some reason.

Quote from: pawsplay on January 15, 2024, 06:51:04 PM
In fact, those sound like distinct outliers. Most dice pools are just, roll and add them up, or count all the dice that do at least X. Sometimes you have a special die, and sometimes you have rules about counting the successes. Typically dice pool systems are straightforward.

That's been my experience as well but I'm a bit biased likely due to how I started gaming.  I started gaming in the early 90s and found the legacy systems popular back then with the combo d20/percentile systems (specifically D&D pre-3rd edition and anything Palladium) very unintuitive and cobbled together because that's effectively what they were in practice.  The d6 dice pool systems (whether Star Wars, Shadowrun, or Heavy Gear) felt much more cohesive because they were designed to be an all in one mechanic at the expense seemingly only of rolling more dice which I didn't mind.  Pure percentile systems didn't fall into either category but honestly at the time I didn't have much experience with them.   I'm repeated surprised that some folks have such an intense dislike of dice pools and I never know if it's just a vocal minority that despise them or if I'm the weirdo.  Whatever the case, their heyday seemed to be in the 90s though they definitely persist as a notable minority core mechanic to this day for which I'm glad as I've started to move away from anything d20-based in recent years due to WOTC's generally consistent and increasing douchebaggery. 

That said... I fully admit that the base mechanic was taken to the extreme in years past (like with the Shadowrun Pornomancer face build throwing a bucket of several dozen dice for social tests in editions past) that probably contributed significantly to opinions against the mechanic.   While I don't want to go back to rolling more than a dozen D6s, I don't personally find up to that number burdensome and the variety of modern mechanics like variable target numbers and rerolls add alot of versatility to the system to account for player abilities, difficulty levels, and environmental factors in game.   At the low end, I'm ok with the 2d6 systems popular in rules light systems as well as 2d10 replacing the d20 as long as you do the math to fine tune the success probabilities to match expectations.

Anytime you have a dice result called "Despair", you should reconsider your system.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on January 16, 2024, 11:07:21 AM


Anytime you have a dice result called "Despair", you should reconsider your system.

I know there's people sold on the Genesys system but man is it clunky.  It just takes time to sort out the results of a roll.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on January 16, 2024, 11:07:21 AM


Anytime you have a dice result called "Despair", you should reconsider your system.

Genesys is a shitty system, a thinly veiled excuse to sell proprietary dice. The fact that it uses a pool of those dice is simply a business decision.

Genesys is definitely not for me.