Why bell curve dice probabilities?
If you want to make modifiers matter more, use a flat probability and use larger modifiers.
Bell curves make judging the value of a modifier more difficult, which makes designing game elements that grant modifiers more difficult, and which also makes assigning conditional modifiers mid-game a much more ambiguous and fiddly process.
Has anyone considered a 1d12+modifiers system in place of 2d6+modifiers?
>>44050497
>Has anyone considered a 1d12+modifiers system in place of 2d6+modifiers?
Sounds like Modempunk.
>>44050497
>Why bell curve dice probabilities?
Lower chance of hitting the extremes.
>>44050497
Modifiers on bell curves are just shift-right shift-left no?
>>44050678
Is that a problem?
If you make a 2d6 game where special things happen only on a natural 2 or a natural 12, you are going to see either result only rarely. You might decide to nudge it up to a natural 2-3 or a natural 11-12... which would be just as common as a natural 1 or 12 on a d12 anyway.
>>44050497
Is that from that Sword Girls game? Because Jesus Christ, I still can't believe some fans are doing the unofficial English release.What a dedicated group of neckbeards.
>>44050497
No like seriously, how's it harder to calculate?
>>44050497
molest fluffy tail
There's no 'right' way to do dice mechanics, it's all a matter of what you want the mechanics to support and convey.
Single die tend to create very dramatic and swingy systems, which works for some genres, while bell curves and reliable averages gives a much more consistent feeling, which works better for others.
A variation I particularly like is Legends of the Wulin's dice system, rolling a pool of d10s and reading sets of dice (so 2 3's are 23, 4 6's are 46). You can rely on getting at least a two dice set on any given roll, but you also get those magical moments when you get a ludicrously high number and your opponents rolls all singles.
>>44050905
2d6+1 vs. DC 10
2d6+2 vs. DC 10
2d6+3 vs. DC 10
2d6+4 vs. DC 10
2d6+5 vs. DC 10
A situational +1 modifier will give a different increase to success rate for each of these, for no real in-game reason at all other than "bell curve."
>>44050960
Well yeah duh, you're approaching the middle of the bell curve, essentially values that are close to the median are more likely to happen. What is hard about that?
>>44050982
>>44050960
Think of it as prizing an "average" performance instead of swinging wildly between olympic level reflexes and then suddenly you trip on your shoe laces.
The higger your modifier becomes the higher your average performance becomes, numbers lower than the median (which is the median of the regular one + modifier) become more and more unlikely the farther they are from it, and so do the upper values.
I mean it's not rocket science, you don't need to calculate it precisely before hand and if you did then you'd do it easily, if it's just some shit you do at the moments' spur then fucking wing it.
To find appropriate modifiers shouldn't be full autism, but rather a mix of practice and basic reasoning ("well fuck this modifier will make the median be waaay too fucking high, better tone it down")
Ever heard of heuristic?
also holy shit I'm high
>>44050497
The extremes are less likely to happen. Most events will take place around a certain level of success is pretty intuitive. For example, on a 3d6 you know you'll probably roll 10+. On a 3d6+3 you'll probably roll a 13+ and getting a 10 is pretty easy.
Curved probabilities have one extra advantage in that they can simulate a degree of success fairly well. Normally this is reserved for dice pools, but with a curve, beating a target by some number of points is just as good. For example, on a 2d6 system, you could rule that partial/complete/critical success occurs at 8/10/12 and it'll have lower chances for increasingly good results.
Flat modifiers are a lot more random across its range of values. You might get a 1, 10, or 20 at equal odds. Doing degree of success this way will also feel rather random. You can devise a system of larger modifiers to put the odds wherever you like, but this involves a lot more busywork of adding together many things. 5th edition d&d tried to get around this sort of effort by making the modifiers fewer and smaller, though the tradeoff they have to live with is that now a 20th level and 1st level character have a rather small difference between them.
Now, I'm not saying that one system is superior to the other. I'm just pointing out some of the advantages of curved versus flat probability. d20 has its own advantages, such as being very straight-forward (it's a percentile system that works in 5% increments), only one addition upon rolling (d20+x), and people just like rolling them.
>>44050497
>Bell curves make judging the value of a modifier more difficult
[citation needed]
also
>Think of it as prizing an "average" performance instead of swinging wildly between olympic level reflexes and then suddenly you trip on your shoe laces.
Is a good example of why 2d6 is better. Excessive swinginess leads to the loss of feeling that player is in control. Each dice roll becomes "just fuck me up, senpai".
>>44050497
You sound like you're too hung up about the maths.
http://ryanmacklin.com/2011/09/the-math-will-fuck-you/
>>44050497
Is this about how Strike! RPG is a terrible system?
1d12 is kinda silly.
You use 2d6 when you want a bell curve, not because 2-12 possibilities has some great appeal. Using 1d12 over 1d20 sacrifices granularity for no real reason.
I was just now working on a game that works on 2d6 for skill rolls. So, I have a table I've been using for reference:
Dice Score Result or more
2 100
3 97.22
4 91.66
5 83.33
6 72.22
7 58.33
8 41.66
9 27.77
10 16.66
11 8.33
12 2.77
Unless the specifics of the number rolled matter a whole lot, you just get a straightforward "higher is harder" thing going on.
>>44050828
>you are going to see either result only rarely.
1/36 is pretty common.
>>44053307
less common than getting a a 1 or 12 on a d12.
Because everyone has some d6 lying around somewhere and almost nobody has d12s.
>>44054067
But you can glue 2d6 together to make a d11. Then you just add 1.
>>44051353
>5th edition d&d tried to get around this sort of effort by making the modifiers fewer and smaller, though the tradeoff they have to live with is that now a 20th level and 1st level character have a rather small difference between them.
It also reduced most of the situation or modifies to advantage/disadvantage. Which also pushes the result to an average either way.
Your olds of getting a ten doesn't alter too much but it does massively alter your a chance to get on a 1 or 20
>>44052963
What?
>>44052888
What's the benefit of 2d6 vs 3d6 (Like how GURPS does it?)
>>44054067
>tfw im working on a wargame centered purely on D12s
Good thing most FLGSs have some for cheap. I'm mostly using the D12 because it gives enough variance for what I need but not as much as a D20, and because it becomes a D2, D3, D4, or D6 as needed since 12 is so divisible.
>>44052963
How did strike! turn out anyway?
I liked the guys talk of combined rigourous tactical combat focus game play with more free form narrative elements, but you can promise some one one hand and crap in the other...
>>44054616
Well, 3d6 is even LESS swingy than 2d6, so if you still want SOME swingyness you might be better off going with 2d6. I mean on a 2d6 the two extremes are each 1/36, so a couple a session isn't unreasonable, but with 3d6 the extremes are... what, 1/216?
>>44054830
Look at forum post i get the impression what people seems to want is a 'slightly weighted D20'.
So maybe 2D10 or a roll X keep one System would do the trick
>>44054629
>Making people divide the number they rolled before they know what they actually rolled
>>44052954
What if the bell curved "feel" of the 2d6 is what you dislike?
>>44055494
Can you describe what is a "feeling" with regards to a diagram of the probablity distribution of a function? You can find a bell curve pleasing in some mathematico-aesthetic sense, but that has nothing to do with how players feel about rolling a certain pair of dice, and the results they get. Critting from rolling a nat 20 feels good, irrespective whether you find the probability distribution od D20 to your liking or not.
>>44055612
Yo pay attention to context.
>>44055612
"Why does this circumstantial modifier have so large an impact sometimes and so little an impact at other times?"
>>44054830
>3d6 is even LESS swingy than 2d6
The idea of "swinginess" in a system with a binary pass/fail result is pretty meaningless. A 50% chance to succeed is a 50% chance to succeed, regardless of how you're getting there. Modifiers should be scaled to the particular system, so something that gives you a +2 on 2d6 should give you something like a +3 on 3d6 and a +6 on a d20.
You people are all idiots.
Stop thinking about what your fucking dice rolls look like on anydice and think about the actual probability statistics of your rolls if you want to determine the chance of something either passing or failing.
Rolling ONE dice against a static target number plus or minus any optional modifiers is way faster than rolling three dice against a target number, adding them together, and then adding the modifiers.
A 20 sided dice has a 5% probability change for every number you roll against, it's very easy to think about the probability for each roll without having to roll percentiles.
By rolling 3d6 is way more complicated than it needs to be and you don't even get 20 fucking numbers to choose from.
1d20 >= 7 == 65% and 1d20>8 == 60% or you can choose 1d100>38 == 62% to be more exact
3d6 >= 10 == 62.5%
I didn't have to do anything other than multiple 20 and the die roll by five with the first one to get a probability, but to get the second number I had to add 9 fucking numbers together just to explain to you all that rolling multiple dice to add together is a waste of time.
>>44055874
See the heuristic post.
And also, stop being an autist. Even the probability of "at or more" is only ever SHIFTED, so if you have the any dice table or your own table you literally only modify the values and not the table.
Stop
Being
Retarded
And if you really don't want the "rolls tend to be average" schtick then just don't use it and stop asking why people aren't as dumb as you.
>>44055874
Woops, this is embarrassing, little correction on my part. I put in >= for the d20 when I meant to say >.
>>44055775
So, how did you get here from the alternate universe where RPGs never developed the concept of "crits."
(Also you're ignoring that "swingyness" also means that the same modifier means different things at different skill levels)
>>44055894
The probability difference between any result on a 3d6 and just using a d100 comes down to a fraction of a percent. There is almost no mechanical between the two and it just makes rolling longer.
>>44055946
Oh but a d100 has the dread scourge of MORE THAN ONE DICE. More complicated than 2dWhatever too, since you need to pay attention to ORDER
>>44055946
Yeah that except the "categories" on a d100 to match a bell curve are going to be frustrating to remember and frankly going to feel really silly.
>>44055988
You can actually just throw your d10s at a wall, as long as one ends up on the left side and one ends up at the right you have a direct result. Even if one ends on top of the other you could say top is left and bottom is right.
>>44055996
Target number of 50 + whatever and you get a result that is always higher than 50%
>>44055946
>roll the 6.25 range in the d100
>prob is 0.0625
>wanna roll a 3 on 3d6
>prob is 0.0046
Wat
>>44056025
If you really cared you could just throw 2d100s and read them out from left to right, first 2 being 1 to 100, second two being 0 to 99 and you'd get your fraction of a percent.
>>44055997
I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty so matter how "complicated" adding numbers is and how "simple" a d100 is, the fact is I've been regularly adding small numbers together since kindergarten and the number of times I've had to put one number in front of another and it's not because I just rolled a d100 is probably just in the DOUBLE digits. I do one on instinct, and the other i have to actually think about despite how "simple" it is.
>>44056041
>hey guys rolling 3d6 is too complex why not make it easier
>roll 2d100 instead
JUST
>>44056041
And where's your precious simplicity in that?
>>44056051
>>44056047
It's not simple. Fractions of a percent is a level of precision you shouldn't care about for tabletop games, but if you REALLY care it's still simpler than adding up numbers together. All you do is just read from left to right, it takes a cursory glance to assemble a 2d10. You could go all the way to 8d10 in the time it takes to add up your 3d6.
>>44056062
What kind of fucked up brain takes more than one second to add three numbers below or at 6 together?
>>44056062
Do you need to count on your fingers when performing basic addition or something?
>>44056070
What kind of brain takes more than a milisecond to use a d100?
>>44056062
> Fractions of a percent is a level of precision you shouldn't care about for tabletop games
Correct, though you just should increase the height of your number range if you want more granularity, instead of that d10 stuff.
>>44056078
So what does saving less than a second of time even fucking matter? You'll spend more time announcing the damn roll than you will reading it.
>>44056078
I think the argument is that d100 is technically faster, but not in an amount that actually matters.
Especially considering how the d100 is completely flat over such a huge range.
Lots of wasted granularity.
>>44056088
Sorry, I should be more specific. A standard d100 is [0-9, 0-9] that makes 2d100 for our 1000 numbers range become: [d100, d100].
>>44056102
Again I'll dispute that. Maybe I'm just dumb when it comes to this one specific thing, but I can perform basic addition on instinct but it does take me a little tiny bit of thinking to convert "2, 7" into "27"
Granted I could just get one of those d10s where it's all multiples of 10 and be performing basic addition instead.
>>44056102
You're right, which is why I prefer a d20 since you usually don't need to go below 5% precision wise.
>>44056102
>Lots of wasted granularity.
In my opinion the fact that risks are more intuitive to calculate more than makes up for it.
>>44055917
>So, how did you get here from the alternate universe where RPGs never developed the concept of "crits."
Crits don't really have anything to do with "swinginess". Personally, I'm not convinced that you need crits to occur less than 5% of the time. Much less than that and I'm thinking "why bother? Just drop the thing and simplify the system." But it's easy enough to add an additional die roll. If you roll a 20, then roll a d6 (or d10, or whatever) to see if you crit. If you roll maximum on that d6 (d10, etc.), then you successfully crit. Sure, it's an extra die roll, but you only have to do it 1/20 of the time, as opposed to 3d6, where you have to roll two additional dice *all* the time.
>Also you're ignoring that "swingyness" also means that the same modifier means different things at different skill levels
What you are talking about is probably the biggest legitimate difference between the two systems, but I don't honestly see any significant benefit to it.
>>44055988
>you need to pay attention to ORDER
Which is a big issue if you're living twenty years in the past.
>>44056244
>What you are talking about is probably the biggest legitimate difference between the two systems, but I don't honestly see any significant benefit to it.
You don't, other people do. But just because you DISAGREE with the meaningfulness of "swingyness" in a pass/fail binary system doesn't make it meaningless.
>>44056096
I think it takes more than a second. You have to read three different dice in three different locations, then perform two math operations (1st die plus 2nd die, and the sum of those plus 3rd dice) to get the result. And while you'd still expect errors to be rare, they'll be a lot more common than with simply reading the result of the a single die. And, of course, some people are slower at math than others. Ultimately, a few seconds won't dramatically affect game length, but it can significantly affect how quickly the game *seems* like its going, detracting from momentum. If there's a good reason to use 3 dice, that's fine, but all other things being equal, a single die is superior.
>>44056268
Explain it to me then. Because this isn't an argument that's usually articulated.
>>44056274
All true, but strictly speaking, that particular post was debating 3d6 vs 1d100, which tosses out half that
>>44054676
Played a test game with some friends, and I'm in the process of tricking my group to use it for a sci-fi campaign.
It's good. The tactical side is really nice, and since it's modular, you can just decide to use or not use elements as you please (you could replace the more freeform-y skill system with one from another game if you wanted to).
I also really like the team challenge sub-system. I instinctively skipped over the chase rules, but I'll just go ahead and assume they are at least okay.
>>44056123
I think it's weird that you'd be able to add a 2 and 7 faster than you'd be able to read it as "27". The latter case is you simply reading the numbers in order.
>>44056102
>Lots of wasted granularity.
What are you even trying to say? That statement means fucking nothing.
I personally love the d100 system and it's granularity because as a DM I can play around with it a lot more. If skills are rolled with a d100 and are measured from 1-100, like they usually are, I can just add flavorful and fun stuff to the game where if a character spends time practicing something with a master or if they find an instructional manual or whatever the fuck I can easily just give them a flat +1 or +2 to that skill permanently, which feels like a nice event and a good boon for the player, but doesn't actually affect gameplay too much. You couldn't really do that in a system where skills measure from 1-20 because that one point represents way too big of a relative increase for it to be reasonable.
>>44056292
Not sure if it's half, but I take your point. d% is slower than single die.
>>44056294
Well in my head "two, seven" is not the same thing as "twentyseven", so I need to think for a sec to convert it over. But " two plus seven" IS the same thing as "nine".
>>44056289
It makes balancing harder for the DM. You can't increase difficulty in a nice, linear way, because if you give a -1 it's too easy but if you give a -2 it's near impossible. And that's not even trying to account for different characters. A +2 may mean the world for some characters and barely do anything for others. It's pretty hard to manage the amount of spotlight each character gets without the system actively working against you.
>>44050497
Because some people like random in our random number generation.
The fact that you have to have everything organized and just so is an indicator that you're not very imaginative and that you have a distinct lack of control in your own life, which leads to the need to enforce control in gaming.
Or you're just an autistic idiot who can't cope with the idea that sometimes less predictable is better than consistently predictable.
Realistically, the main difference between bell curve and linear probabilities is that bell curve probabilities are more random and thus modifiers, while meaning less individually, have a greater impact on the game when actually given out.
You see, modifiers aren't a requirement in a game. This means a game with bell curves and less modifiers available places a high value on modifiers when they ARE available, while in a linear probability based game, modifiers are a dime a dozen and are a requirement to the game to introduce any amount of real randomness to a die roll aside from a binary result (unless you prefer hundreds and hundreds of charts, i.e. Rolemaster).
>>44056335
That post was actually asking for the argument in its FAVOR, not against it.
>>44056302
There are three main advantages to d%, as far as I can tell. First, people are familiar with percentages, so the probabilities come much more instinctively to them. Second, progression can occur in small increments directly in the stats, rather than needing a separate experience point tally. Third, plus/minus 10 percentiles is a very useful modifier (D&D often leans on +/-2 for the standard situational modifier, which is 10 percentiles), and it's very easily portrayed on d%.
Oh. Just thought of another one. You have a decent bit of leeway with criticals, and can even have different levels of them:
>1/10 your score (so if you have a 43%, then you'd critical on 1-4)
>Every success that's divisible by 10 (so if you have a 53%, you'd critical on 10, 20, 30 and 40)
>Every success that ends in 5 (or every success that's divisible by 5, if you want to combine this one with the one before it)
Ultimately, I still favor the single-die approach for the simplicity, but I do see the advantages of percentile dice.
I've always felt like all this talk about which dice system is "faster" is completely meaningless. First off the differences are minuscule enough to completely dismiss. Secondly, how long a roll "really" takes depends more of how the system interacts with the rolled values than on the roll itself. Rolling a d100 and just comparing it with a set value is a lot faster than rolling a d20 that you have to compare and/or calculate through 3-4 other numbers, which is sometimes the case.
>>44056348
Yes, but then its pointless from a "1d100 is faster than adding numbers" perspective because you're right back to adding numbers together.
>>44056330
I suspect this is more a matter of habit than anything else. You're far more used to doing one than the other. If you used percentile dice for a while, you'd *probably* be able to read them more quickly. Unless your brain is just wired weird. I mean, individuals are inexplicably good or bad at random, particular things.
>>44056357
Personally, I like having a system that doesn't strictly have criticals, but whatever you're trying to do goes that much smoother the bigger the difference is between your success roll and your skill (conversely, you fail more spectacularly the bigger the difference is between your failed roll and your skill), and this just fits best in d100.
>>44056364
Ok, I'm gonna blow your mind: you can choose your dice based on what you find easier.
>>44056373
Something I admitted when I first brought it up! But I've been doing basic addition for literal decades, d100s every couple weeks when we manage to find the time is honestly not very likely to ever catch up.
>>44056120
That doesn't simulate the behavior of a 3d10/3d6/ndwhatever for n>=2
>>44056383
I'm not telling anyone what to do, silly, just arguing with someone who thinks they've got the One True Way to design RPGs by providing a counterexample.
>>44056358
>Rolling a d100 and just comparing it with a set value is a lot faster than rolling a d20 that you have to compare and/or calculate through 3-4 other numbers, which is sometimes the case.
I'd certainly agree with this. But dice speed is a factor, and all other things being equal...
>>44056364
I don't add them. I view the "0" in the 80 as a placeholder in which to insert the 1 of the ones die. So it's not "eighty plus one" but rather "eighty... one".
It's kind of like how greater than / less than is something you can do without actually having to subtract one from the other and see if the result is higher or lower than zero.
>>44056395
>So it's not "eighty plus one" but rather "eighty... one".
But even if you math it out, it's the easiest of math: 1 + 0 = 1.
>>44056395
>But dice speed is a factor
The least meaningful factor though
>and all other things being equal...
But they never are.
I think it's much more meaningful to talk about speed in systems by addressing the number of calculations they make the player go through to get to an "end number", instead of focusing so fanatically on what kind of dice are used, when the speed difference between any two given dice systems is so small.
>>44050497
Okay:
Effectively, the best dice system is the one that through practice and intuition (based on their properties) seems to best translate the game's mechanics into meaningful interactions.
If you want a very simple game you might as well just use a single d6, if you want a very stable system you can use a 3d10 with success/failure degrees. And so on
>>44056419
I see it as a quest to reduce the number of unnecessary operations, with the dice being one of the factors potentially contributing to this. We're having a discussion about dice systems, so naturally that's what we're focusing on here, but that doesn't mean that other factors aren't important (even *more* important).
>>44056392
How is being nearly as fast any one-die mechanic while being so much better in everything else a counterexample?
>>44054481
How exactly do you think physics works?
Or geometry?
Not that I don't appreciate your initiative.
>>44055775
I think he is using "swingyness" to mean an inability to reasonably guess what the outcome of the roll will be.
>>44050497
>>44050828
> is that a problem?
Without/a weak a bell curve I could roll three 1s in a row and all the modifiers in the game wouldn't matter.
Too strong a bell-curve can also be a problem, however. While it does mean it all comes down to modifiers, basically, with a quite minimal chance of the dice making/breaking the situation, it also elmeninates the meta-sense of risk. Having too solid/absolute an understanding of what your character can and cannot do is boring; it's why the games use dice in the first place: shit happens, and you're not always in control of that shit.
If you were to use d20 numbers, since everyone knows those by heart and it's an easy standard for comparison, 1d20<3d6<2d10 in my book.
>>44056643
>Without/a weak a bell curve I could roll three 1s in a row and all the modifiers in the game wouldn't matter.
Do you really need your chance to success to be more than like 92% or 95%? At some point aren't you just better off saying "you succeed" without necessitating a roll? And if there absolutely must be a chance for failure, you could just institute an additional die roll. So you roll a d12, on a roll of 1, you roll again, with another 1 indicating a critical failure / automatic success.
It entirely depends what kind of game you want to run. d20 lends itself well to a group of bumbling adventurers that fuck up as much as they get things right.
>>44056864
Why does a d20 indicate bumbling more than, say 3d6? 10 or under gives you a 50% probability in both systems. 14 or under gives a 90.7% chance to succeed on 3d6, while 18 or under gives you a 90% chance to succeed on a d20. The thing you have to do is to peg the size of your modifiers / steps to the standard deviation of the system you're using rather than the range, itself. You don't expect "15 or under" to mean the same thing on d% as a d20, and you shouldn't expect it to mean the same thing on 3d6 and a d20.
>>44056920
Variance is higher on a d20. "Percentage to beat threshold" does not reflect the fact natural 1s and 20s exist with equal occurence and unless you're a boring DM those are going to mean something special.
It really depends whether you consider a DC check as binary or a spectrum of success/failures. I find it a lot more fun as a spectrum, personally.
>>44056850
Not the Anon you're replying too but I know I prefer it because it makes those out-comes less common. Natural 1s and 100s are supposed to be rare and a bell curve tends to the medium which thus places a higher value on modifiers while at the same time providing a chance for the amazing to happen.
Of course you are just shit-posting so it's not like me saying this matters because clearly you're just gonna say "WELL YOU SHOULD JUST FLAT PERCENTAGE CHANCE YOU FAG FOR REASONS." without taking into account that the bellcurve is used to simulate more consistent skill and lack there off, it's nothing to do with having high success rates, it's high success rates for success and failure. But clearly the bell-curve is too casul, right?
>>44056850
You should only use rolls where there is a consequence for failing.
>>44050497
>Bell curves make judging the value of a modifier more difficult
what is realism?
>>44056342
Did you even read the OP?
>>44056643
>Without/a weak a bell curve I could roll three 1s in a row and all the modifiers in the game wouldn't matter.
Why are you using "1 = automatic failure" in your game?
>>44057031
>Of course you are just shit-posting so it's not like me saying this matters because clearly you're just gonna say "WELL YOU SHOULD JUST FLAT PERCENTAGE CHANCE YOU FAG FOR REASONS."
Why don't you try discussing shit like a normal human being instead of doing whatever the fuck it is you're trying to do here? I haven't the slightest clue what you're trying to say, only that you're engaging in some kind of ad hominem bullshit. The only person who has mentioned "fag" or "casual" in this entire thread (or even implied them) is you. So maybe you want to make sure you're not covered in shit before you start throwing shit at other people?
>>44056959
It's not much of a spectrum if min/max results are the only ones differentiated from simple success/failure. Here is a graphic showing the relative chances on 3d6 vs. d20, with the dark blue/red indicating critical results, and light blue/red indicating normal success/failure on a check you have a 50/50 chance to succeed.
Are you stupid? There is an equal chance of getting a 1, 10 and a 20 on a d20.
There is a 27 times greater chance of rolling an 11 than a 3 in a 3d6.
This means d20 has greater variance. If you want more average results, you use 3d6. If you want a wide variety of results, you use a d20.
I'm not exclusively counting extremities, if you get a 4 on a DC15 check then you should fail more spectacularly than if you got a 14. This is far more likely to happen on a d20 than a 3d6 and this is fine if it's what you're going for. Yes, the success probabilities might be the same but that does not mean the result of each dice will be.
>>44057410
You could also just use larger modifiers.
And maybe not do "hurr 1 = autofail!"
>>44057410
>if you get a 4 on a DC15 check then you should fail more spectacularly than if you got a 14.
Okay, but you shouldn't interpret a failure of 9 the same on every dice system. It should mean about twice as much on a 20 as 3d6, and so it really just comes down to granularity. And if we're shooting for greater granularity, d% are the way to go. Failing by 9 on that means very little, and you could fail by 45 a roll you had a reasonable chance to succeed on. But so what? Failing by 5 on d% should be treated the exact same way as failing by 1 on a d20, and I don't know that having intervening numbers really affects that much.
>>44057445
No. That's not what I said at all. I simply said they meant something special. It should merit additional flavour text if you roll a 1 and fail, or roll a 1 and succeed unless you want all your rolls to be the same.
>>44057469
It absolutely should, but that happens far less often. You are going to have large failures and successes more often than using a bell curve dice system.
>>44057410
This, fucking this. The amount of times in my life I've seen people saying that you get the same results and probability using 1 die versus a pool is a fucking joke.
>>44057487
>You are going to have large failures and successes more often than using a bell curve dice system.
Not if you're doing it right. How badly failing by a particular number should be is ideally judged more on standard deviation than range. Thus, failing by 4 on 3d6 is more like failing by 4 on 1d10 than on a d20.
>>44057532
That's not what the OP is saying at all.
>>44057538
That is true, what I meant to say was you will get larger failures than a d20 (and successes obviously) can represent but far less often, but with a regular d20 you will still get large failures but more often.
Case in point something like Shadowrun where critical glitches are insanely rare, but incredibly bad for everyone involved when they happen.
Modifiers meaning more around average skill values makes sense though.
Say we've got three people: a total amateur that needs to roll a 4 or less on a 3d6 to succeed, a competent if untrained guy that needs to roll a 10, and a professional that only fails on a roll higher than 14. If you give a fancy-schmancy tool that gives a +2 bonus to the amateur, he goes from 4 to 6; that's a +7.4% chance of success. Big whoop, still probably going to fail, because fancy tools and good conditions does not a master make. Similarly, the actual professional goes from 14 to 16, netting the same bonus of +7.4; one you're *that* good, fancy tools don't help that much.
Now, lets look at the average competent dude that goes from 10 to 12. That translates into a +24.1% chance of success. That's fucking huge. It also makes sense. For many people, the right tools or right conditions often do spell the difference between success and failure in a way they do not for people already on the extreme ends of the competency spectrum.
I'm not trying to argue that the realism makes bell curves intrinsically superior to flat probability; sometimes you want to play a game where every roll is a gamble and you're just as likely to fall on your face as do perfectly average. That can be a lot of fun and it certainly suits more cinematic games with larger than life heroes. I'm just trying to argue that XdY systems shouldn't be totally ignored; they have their purpose, their purpose is desired in a number of games, and they fulfill their purpose well.
>>44057651
>the amateur isn't helped by the tools that much
>but neither is the actual professional
>but the average competent dude gets a big fat extra chance of success!
Amount of sense this makes = 0
>>44057595
>you will get larger failures than a d20 (and successes obviously) can represent but far less often, but with a regular d20 you will still get large failures but more often.
I agree with the first point, but not the second. Or with the second point, but not the first. It all depends on whether you're talking in absolute numerical terms (in which case the second point is true, but not the first), or in proportion to standard deviation (in which case the first point is true, but not the second).
Since I've already talked some about the second point in earlier posts, let's look at the first. Standard deviation on 3d6 is much smaller than on a d20, and a minimum or maximum result is much less likely. They are more extreme occurrences and it makes sense for the GM to treat them as such in-story. But they obviously seldom come into play, so I don't know that it matters very much what you do with them. And you can get very rare, very extreme results by adding an additional die roll on a min/max result on a single die system. For instance, on a d20 system, when you roll maximum, roll a d10 and add it to the result, treating a result of "0" as zero rather than ten.
Yeah, I love exploding dice systems too. SW is one of my favourite because of the craziness that can result from it.
>>44057760
I'm of the mind that critical successes/failures shouldn't even be on normal rolls short of in-game resources like fate points.
>>44050497
I literally do not understand your problem.
>>44050917
I am fascinated by this dice mechanic. I have only heard the name of the game and that it uses dice pools, but I didn't know it was some weird variant. Tell me more?
>>44057672
Okay, I want you go to the store and grab the biggest, fanciest, most expensive art set you can find – a ton of high-quality brushes, smooth oils, a right proper canvas, i.e. the shit that would probably constitute some sort of equipment bonus if this were a game – and start painting.
Assuming you're like most people and not a trained painter, that fancy art set won't do jack shit. Your shitscribbles will still look like shitscribbles. You could have painted it with horribly abused brushes from a public elementary school in a low-income area and it would have had no noticeable impact on the quality of your work. It's more than the bonus not being enough (that happens in flat-probability systems all the time), it straight up had little to no noticeable impact on your work.
If, however, you're a master painter and you do hand-painted portraits for a living, what you're painting will come out decent. However, the expensive art set won't be the deciding factor; at best it makes your good work slightly better, and in game terms it improves your margin of success/pads out any penalties for trying harder things*. You could again use those crappy brushes the amateur should have used and done a decent enough job. At this point, any assistance you get is just running up the score; you're a professional with professional skill.
Now, lets say you're somewhere in the middle, neither a professional nor a scrub that doesn't know which way to hold a brush. A second year art student. The crisp lines from the brush or the smooth application of the paint can very well be the thing that makes the difference between your work being passable and it being terrible. Note that we aren't worried about overall quality in this context, just whether it can be called passable or not. Had the tools at your disposal changed to something of less high-quality, there's a solid chance you would not have had as easy a time painting something decent.
>cont.
>>44057972
No, honestly, the average guy and the master should benefit from the set equally as much.
The set doesn't matter AS MUCH for the master, but that's because the bulk of his total bonus is from his own skill. He still makes as good use of the tools as the average guy.
>>44057972
*This is were it starts getting more complex. In a lot of games, people can either take penalties to attempt more difficult tasks or rely on the margin of success to determine the overall effect of their roll. While the base fail/succeed check is not strongly affected by a bonus once you've reached higher levels of skill, the impact can be magnified when applied to the margin of success. Similarly, you can take a -2 penalty to attempt a more difficult task and rely on the bonus to let you succeed. Continuing our example of the painters, Michelangelo would obviously be a master painter and probably had some of the best tools at his disposal. The sheer size and placement of the Sistine Chapel's artwork suggests a hefty penalty, and the quality of the work implies a very high margin of success. The roll to paint was far beyond a simple pass/fail check; MoS and penalties mattered, so even a master painter can benefit greatly from any bonus from equipment.
>>44056043
I have absolutely no idea what this says.
>>44057942
In LotW, you generally roll a fixed dice pool based on your Rank- A general indication of power and capability in the world of the Wulin. The base pool is 7 dice for a starting character.
The really interesting thing about the dice system is that every set can be use for an action. On any particular roll, you'll have a Major Action, which can be made on a single die, and any number of Minor actions which require sets.
For example. I might roll 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 7, 9 as an attack against an opponent.
The simplest thing to do would be to take my highest set (2 4's, 24) and use it as my main attack.
However, I might choose to use the single dice 9 (1 9, 19) instead. It's only 5 points lower, and it means I have two extra sets I can use to throw out extra attacks, debuffs or other useful tricks Kung fu styles can give you.
The ability to take multiple actions on each roll is a cool element of the system. I had a firwt time player remark that more interesting things happened in a single round of LotW than in an entire D&D encounter.
>>44054830
>I mean on a 2d6 the two extremes are each 1/36
Not if dice hate you!
>FOUR 1/1 in two sessions
>mfw
>>44058012
He is saying his skill bonus supplants and surpasses most of the gear bonus because shit equipment or not he is skilled enough to make something good, to the point where the diff between his shit-equip work and his god-equip work is lesser than it would be for those thar can't bring out the best out of crap
Bwa-ha-ha, what about Savage Worlds - skill die + d6 with exploding dices? Or roll and keep like in 7th sea?
Die mechanics should be fun. Die pools are fun. Rerolls and exploding dices are fun. "Realistic" 2d6 and flat d20 are not!
>>44058415
And the same thing gets represented with flat curves.
1d12 + 8 from the master + 2 from tools still means the master is providing the bulk of the bonus.
>>44058548
What about operators operating operationally, or gritty low-fantasy games where players are meant to feel limited in some way? My group and I have a lot of fun with games like that. Realistic dice mechanics are just as valid as the intricate systems; neither is objectively superior over the other.
The only inferior dice mechanic is specialized/gimmic dice. D&D basically standardized the average neckbeard's dicebag to include d4/6/8/10/12/20/100. Most places that sell game stuff sell those. We have a ton of dice at our disposal and it's totally unnecessary to do you own snowflake dice for your own system. Shit's dumb, especially when 98% of the time it's just a reskinned d6.
>>44058681
I always run heroic games, even if they are gritty and dark, just because I had enough mundane things IRL. Were is fun in adventures of average Joe?
>>44058548
Exploding die are fun. If you want a simple system for when skills and their bonuses get higher than 19 you can use semi-exploding die. If you roll a 20 you roll again with the the target number - 19 for the TN for the second dice. If you roll a 20 again then I'm sorry, but the dice say no.
>>44058919
Personally I love trying to punch above my weight class, without the dice helping me along.
It's one thing for a Hero to do something awesome; they're a Hero, doing awesome things is their job description. The universe (in the form of the system and, in this context especially, the dice mechanics) supports him doing awesome things. It's another for someone to truly and honestly struggle to accomplish awesome things, to have the skill and gumption to do all that without the universe helping you along.
Saying it in a less flowery way, I like my games hard. I like DS and G-rank MonHun and Dwarf Fortress and stuff that's just balls hard and requires going above and beyond to do stupid awesome shit.
That being said, I don't dislike "you are awesome, now go be awesome" games either, be they tabletop or vidya. I like Mutants and Masterminds almost as much as I like GURPS, and I've got plenty of time logged on stuff like MGR, Asura's Wrath, etc.
