WOD2 Probabilities

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With the recent news that the WOD2 system will have a single
fixed TN, will only require 1 success to succeed on any roll,
and will modulate difficulty by changing the size of the dice
pool, people have been wondering how this will work out.
Since the mathematics of this aren't too difficult, I have
made a spreadsheet to figure out the results for TNs ranging
from 2 to 10 (we don't know what the fixed TN will be), and
have decided to share it with the group.

The basic equation for this is that the chance of failing
all die rolls is p=f^d, where p is the probability of
failing all rolls, f is the probability of failing a single
roll (equal to the TN minus one, divided by ten), and d
is the number of dice.

Here's the chart, the numbers on the top are the number of
dice, on the left are the TNs, the intersections show the
probability of failing on all rolls, expressed to the
nearest percent:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
2 10% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
3 20% 4% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
4 30% 9% 3% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
5 40% 16% 6% 3% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
6 50% 25% 12% 6% 3% 2% 1% 0% 0% 0%
7 60% 36% 22% 13% 8% 5% 3% 2% 1% 1%
8 70% 49% 34% 24% 17% 12% 8% 6% 4% 03%
9 80% 64% 51% 41% 33% 26% 21% 17% 13% 11%
10 90% 81% 73% 66% 59% 53% 48% 43% 39% 35%


Frankly, it doesn't look good. Whatever the TN, it will only
distinguish broad levels of improbability, while delineating
precise increments of almost certain probability, but I suspect
that's somewhat intrinsic to dice pool systems. If the TN is
set at 8 or 9, the probabilities will cover a fairly decent
range, but one have a longer, and better modulated, range using
a stat+skill+1d10 vs TN mechanic (but of course, that wouldn't
be Storyteller). With a TN of ten, things spread out way to
far, and one would need to have vast arrays of dice to represent
almost certain success (22 dice to get less than a 10% chance
of failure).

One could tighten up these probabilities by reintroducing some
varient of the "ones cancel successes" botch mechanic, but don't
ask me for the numbers on that.

HTH

Old Toby
Least Known Dog on the Net

 

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Archived from groups: alt.games.whitewolf (More info?)

Old Toby <tobiasburmeister@earthlink.net> wrote:
: Frankly, it doesn't look good. Whatever the TN, it will only
: distinguish broad levels of improbability, while delineating
: precise increments of almost certain probability, but I suspect
: that's somewhat intrinsic to dice pool systems.

WoD/WoD2 dice systems are good enough when you don't really care about
the dice. For Exalted, I found out that the system was fun enough for
one campaign, and then you started getting annoyed with all the flaws.

Something of interest, however, is the system Godlike RPG uses, see the
link below. The curve is much more confortable, the resolving and amount
of rolls is very simple - one roll for determining resolving order,
hitting/succeeding, level of success, hit locations, damage amount etc.
All with one roll of d10s.

So far i'm only dreaming about converting the mechanics for use in my
M:SC game, but I certainly hope it's possible as the Godlike system is
so much faster and more robust.

Basically, you have a similar attribute-skill based dice pool as you
have in WoD/WoD2, but the results of a throw are judged in a more two
dimensional fashion. Primarily, you count a "width" of a roll, that is
the highest about of results that are the same and in order for a roll
to succeed you have to have two same results in a roll - a roll result
with a dice pool of 4 like "9, 7, 4, 4" is a success, as you have two
4s.

Order of resolving action per round goes from first the broadest, most
same roll results, to lowest and for same width the highest number on
doubles/triplles/.. goes first. Also, the roll result above means that
if you were hitting someone, you'll hit the location "4", which is the
right arm (iirc). The damage isn't rolled, instead all weapons determine
damage with a "witdh+n in killing(like lethal) and/or shock(like
bashing). Different kinds of armor reduce the damage by certain amounts.

Unfortunately I don't have the propabilities for getting a success on a
roll (excluding that with two dice it's 10%, with four 50% etc) at hand
as I don't have the book with me (oh, the book also kindly explains the
propabilities but in practice it's a system that is fast, varying,
deadly (it's for a WW2 (superhero) game) and letting those dice roll is
much more fun than with the WoD/WoD2 system, I can tell you

Of course there are variations and complexities you can introduce, but
the core mechanics goes about like that.

Little bit of info:
http://www.tccorp.com/godlike/about.html