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Dice mechanics and game theory
Nov. 24th, 2015 06:00 pmDice are an important part of RPGs. I'm sure there's a perfect mechanic somewhere. I did try coming up with a new one years ago when toying with Tales out of anchor with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
flannelcat. Never worked though.
The classic mechanic is simply to use the dice score. Add the die to your skill, and if that's higher than the difficulty level then you succeed. There are other arithmetic mechanics, but they're generally equivalent. Here's the thing, no matter how inept you are at a skill, it should possible, through sheer chance, that you will succeed. Likewise, no matter how high the skill, it's possible that something goes wrong; the sword breaks, the gun misfires or whatever. And because this is a about the story, this theshold should actually be lower than in the real world Million to one shots should happen all the time; maybe not nine times out of ten, but once or twice per session makes for some drama.
And this really doesn't allow for that sort of nuance. You could make a natural 20 a success, and a natural 1 a failure but that is a bit artificial. The other problerm is the linear level. A high level will win statistically 19 times more often than an untrained character. All tasks are clamped to that range. It's a little unsatisfying.
Savage worlds uses an interesting mechanic. You roll a polyhedral die, with the number of sides related to your skill level. If you roll the maximum, the die "explodes" - you get to roll again and add to the score. This can happen multiple times. You also get to roll a D6, and if that rolls higher you take that score. The D6 may also explode. This does make it a lot less predictable. It also means in principle, anyone can manage any difficulty. If I declare a difficulty of 600 for firing an arrow in the air, the wind taking it and it hitting the villain killing him, then there's a mathematical possibility (approx 1 in 653 318 620 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000) that after rolling a hundred 6's in a row the bottom level character succeeds. Plus it allows polyhedrals, which I like because I'm a maths nerd and Iike platonic solids. People seem to criticise it a lot though. Never really been sure why.
To be honest, I'm actually quite happy with the Fate system. 4 dice with + and - on, plus your base skill must equal or exceed the difficulty. So basically another arithmetic system. But it gains in one respect - aspects. You can tag an aspect and get a bonus. It works. Although there it's mainly about supporting the story. If you do something awesome then you are more likely to succeed. It is about the story. It works.
flannelcat. Never worked though.The classic mechanic is simply to use the dice score. Add the die to your skill, and if that's higher than the difficulty level then you succeed. There are other arithmetic mechanics, but they're generally equivalent. Here's the thing, no matter how inept you are at a skill, it should possible, through sheer chance, that you will succeed. Likewise, no matter how high the skill, it's possible that something goes wrong; the sword breaks, the gun misfires or whatever. And because this is a about the story, this theshold should actually be lower than in the real world Million to one shots should happen all the time; maybe not nine times out of ten, but once or twice per session makes for some drama.
And this really doesn't allow for that sort of nuance. You could make a natural 20 a success, and a natural 1 a failure but that is a bit artificial. The other problerm is the linear level. A high level will win statistically 19 times more often than an untrained character. All tasks are clamped to that range. It's a little unsatisfying.
Savage worlds uses an interesting mechanic. You roll a polyhedral die, with the number of sides related to your skill level. If you roll the maximum, the die "explodes" - you get to roll again and add to the score. This can happen multiple times. You also get to roll a D6, and if that rolls higher you take that score. The D6 may also explode. This does make it a lot less predictable. It also means in principle, anyone can manage any difficulty. If I declare a difficulty of 600 for firing an arrow in the air, the wind taking it and it hitting the villain killing him, then there's a mathematical possibility (approx 1 in 653 318 620 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000) that after rolling a hundred 6's in a row the bottom level character succeeds. Plus it allows polyhedrals, which I like because I'm a maths nerd and Iike platonic solids. People seem to criticise it a lot though. Never really been sure why.
To be honest, I'm actually quite happy with the Fate system. 4 dice with + and - on, plus your base skill must equal or exceed the difficulty. So basically another arithmetic system. But it gains in one respect - aspects. You can tag an aspect and get a bonus. It works. Although there it's mainly about supporting the story. If you do something awesome then you are more likely to succeed. It is about the story. It works.
