Dice Mechanics...

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(Appologies in advance for the cross-post... this is a genre-neutral
question, and these are the groups I'm lurking in at the moment)

I've played a lot of RPGs over the years (probably not as many as some
of you out there, but still lots by my standards) and most of them are
based around one of two basic dice-rolling mechanics:

1) Flat distribution - single dice or orther flat-probability
combinations (D100 frex)

2) Simple bell curve - 3d6 and the like

Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
large dice against the GMs small dice.

Can anyone figure out from the above a) what I'm talking about and b)
where I can find more information on it? Even some basic info would be
nice. I'd /like/ some pointers to a discussion on the probabilities
behind it, but I can work those myself with a bit more info.

--
Corey Murtagh
The Electric Monk
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!"
 
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On Wed, 19 May 2004 08:58, Corey Murtagh <emonk@slingshot.no.uce> wrote:
>1) Flat distribution - single dice or orther flat-probability
>combinations (D100 frex)
>
>2) Simple bell curve - 3d6 and the like

Personally, I like this one better.

>Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
>skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
>dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
>number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
>large dice against the GMs small dice.
>
>Can anyone figure out from the above a) what I'm talking about and b)
>where I can find more information on it? Even some basic info would be
>nice. I'd /like/ some pointers to a discussion on the probabilities
>behind it, but I can work those myself with a bit more info.

I'm not sure -- maybe it's Earthdawn?



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chuk
 
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On Wed, 19 May 2004 08:58:00 +1200, Corey Murtagh
<emonk@slingshot.no.uce> wrote:

>Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
>skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
>dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
>number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
>large dice against the GMs small dice.

It sounds vaguely like either the system used in Earthdawn or possibly
Alternity. I'm not sure but the system in Deadlands may also be
similar from some side comments I've heard.
 
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Corey Murtagh wrote:

> (Appologies in advance for the cross-post... this is a genre-neutral
> question, and these are the groups I'm lurking in at the moment)
>
> I've played a lot of RPGs over the years (probably not as many as some
> of you out there, but still lots by my standards) and most of them are
> based around one of two basic dice-rolling mechanics:
>
> 1) Flat distribution - single dice or orther flat-probability
> combinations (D100 frex)

Now this one's pretty standard and IMHO favorable for skill tests and the
like.

> 2) Simple bell curve - 3d6 and the like

Like in GURPS, I think? This is really good eg. for rolling damage,
but not really useful for skill tests, since skill experience and
difficulty would not be distributed by a gaussian bell curve.
Using a linear (d100) or exponential (don't know if such thing even exists
in any RPG) distribution is much better here.

> Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
> skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
> dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
> number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
> large dice against the GMs small dice.

Like in Earthdawn I would say. This is pretty nasty if you don't play the
system too often, since you need to look up the correct dice for every
skill level or test you've got to make. I also don't see why this would be
any better than using several six-sided dice or the like.
 
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In article <5e96c11f6e38bc1c276c17e1789a722c@news.nntpserver.com>,
shaw@caprica.com says...
> On Wed, 19 May 2004 08:58:00 +1200, Corey Murtagh
> <emonk@slingshot.no.uce> wrote:
>
> >Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
> >skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
> >dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
> >number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
> >large dice against the GMs small dice.
>
> It sounds vaguely like either the system used in Earthdawn or possibly
> Alternity. I'm not sure but the system in Deadlands may also be
> similar from some side comments I've heard.

It also sounds like the opposite of Ironclaw's:

Tests are rolled by taking the dice for the skill in question,
plus the dice from any traits that apply, (e.g. a mage casting a spell
will roll his magic trait die), read the highest die and compare to the
result of the opposed roll, (either your opponent's skill+trait dice or a
difficulty ranging from a trivial 1d4 to a near impossible 5d12 or more).


--
Phoenix
 
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In article <c8f056$9qr0$1@zam602.zam.kfa-juelich.de>,
Hendrik Belitz <honkaonka.belitz@fz-juelich.de> wrote:
<snip>
>> Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
>> skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
>> dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
>> number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
>> large dice against the GMs small dice.
>
>Like in Earthdawn I would say. This is pretty nasty if you don't play the
>system too often, since you need to look up the correct dice for every
>skill level or test you've got to make. I also don't see why this would be
>any better than using several six-sided dice or the like.

I agree, Deadlands uses a system of different sided dice and we found
that all it managed to do was obfuscate how difficult a task was
to succeed at, as the probability curves were different for each dice type.
(I'm not advocating some sort of bean counting style of play but
a player/GM should be able to look at a the difficulty vs skill and be able
to tell if the task is trivial, difficult or near impossible).


--
Michael
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NPC rights activist | Nameless Abominations are people too.
 
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"Corey Murtagh" <emonk@slingshot.no.uce> wrote in message
news:1084913989.636350@radsrv1.tranzpeer.net...
> (Appologies in advance for the cross-post... this is a genre-neutral
> question, and these are the groups I'm lurking in at the moment)
>
> I've played a lot of RPGs over the years (probably not as many as some
> of you out there, but still lots by my standards) and most of them are
> based around one of two basic dice-rolling mechanics:
>
> 1) Flat distribution - single dice or orther flat-probability
> combinations (D100 frex)
>
> 2) Simple bell curve - 3d6 and the like
>
> Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
> skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
> dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
> number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
> large dice against the GMs small dice.
>
> Can anyone figure out from the above a) what I'm talking about and b)
> where I can find more information on it? Even some basic info would be
> nice. I'd /like/ some pointers to a discussion on the probabilities
> behind it, but I can work those myself with a bit more info.

Not actually answering your question but adding something to the mix -
Godlike uses d10s only but changes the probabilities by requiring identical
numbers to be rolled, with effects varying based on the number that is
matched and how many of them there are. Rolling 5d10, a result of 2 10s
would be good in some respect, a result of 5 5s would be good in a different
way. I forget what the different results mean though :(

Ad.
 
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Adam Brooks wrote:

> Not actually answering your question but adding something to the mix -
> Godlike uses d10s only but changes the probabilities by requiring
> identical numbers to be rolled, with effects varying based on the number
> that is matched and how many of them there are. Rolling 5d10, a result of
> 2 10s would be good in some respect, a result of 5 5s would be good in a
> different way. I forget what the different results mean though :(

If I remember right, height (the matching roll) indicates how well the
character did, while width (the number of matching dice) indicates how
quickly it was done. Thus, 2 10s might be an excellent result that takes a
while, while 5 5s might be an acceptable result that's done quickly
(depending on the difficulty of the task).

If the dice pool has multiple matches, the player can select which one
he/she wants to use.

--
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/,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
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Rick Pikul wrote:

> It also sounds like the opposite of Ironclaw's:
>
> Tests are rolled by taking the dice for the skill in question,
> plus the dice from any traits that apply, (e.g. a mage casting a spell
> will roll his magic trait die), read the highest die and compare to the
> result of the opposed roll, (either your opponent's skill+trait dice or a
> difficulty ranging from a trivial 1d4 to a near impossible 5d12 or more).

One nice thing about a system like Ironclaws's is that it can easily
represent "talented, but not skilled" vs. "skilled, but not talented".
E.g., someone with 1d12 to roll can achieve very high results, but is also
fairly likely to roll low. Someone with, say, 3d8 to roll can't achieve
results as high, but will much more consistently achieve 7's and 8's, and
is very unlikely to roll a 1.

--
ZZzz |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efindel@earthlink.net>
/,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
 
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Hendrik Belitz wrote:
> Corey Murtagh wrote:

>> 1) Flat distribution - single dice or orther flat-probability
>> combinations (D100 frex)
>
> Now this one's pretty standard and IMHO favorable for skill tests and the
> like.
>
>> 2) Simple bell curve - 3d6 and the like
>
> Like in GURPS, I think? This is really good eg. for rolling damage,
> but not really useful for skill tests, since skill experience and
> difficulty would not be distributed by a gaussian bell curve.

It doesn't matter how those are distributed, though -- what matters is how
an individual's successes and failures vs. different difficulties are
distributed.

With a bell curve, you can have approximately the same range of variability,
while having the chances of extreme results be much smaller. E.g.,
comparing 1d20 to 3d6, the ranges covered are similar (1-20 vs. 3-18), but
someone using 1d20 has a 5% chance of rolling a 1... while someone using
3d6 has about a 0.5% chance of rolling a 3.

This can make a huge difference to how competent characters seem. If, say,
you need a 5 or better to pick an "easy" lock, then someone rolling 1d20
will fail 20% of the time... while someone rolling 3d6 will only fail about
2% of the time.

The essential result is that the character's performance is more predictable
-- they're less likely to succeed or fail on the extremes, but still have
the possibility.

BTW, another method to get a bell curve, used by very few games, is to roll
three dice of the same type and take the middle result. Thus, you could
get the full 1-20 range with three d20, and still get a bell curve.

> Using a linear (d100) or exponential (don't know if such thing even exists
> in any RPG) distribution is much better here.

I'd think that the various "roll multiple dice, take the best one" systems
would be about the closest there is to an exponential distribution in
games.

--
ZZzz |\ _,,,---,,_ Travis S. Casey <efindel@earthlink.net>
/,`.-'`' -. ;-;;,_ No one agrees with me. Not even me.
|,4- ) )-,_..;\ ( `'-'
'---''(_/--' `-'\_)
 
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On Wed, 19 May 2004 11:14:31 +0100, "Adam Brooks"
<adam.tea.brooks@tfn.coffee.com> wrote:

>Not actually answering your question but adding something to the mix -
>Godlike uses d10s only but changes the probabilities by requiring identical
>numbers to be rolled, with effects varying based on the number that is
>matched and how many of them there are. Rolling 5d10, a result of 2 10s
>would be good in some respect, a result of 5 5s would be good in a different
>way. I forget what the different results mean though :(

"Width" and "Depth" (or is it "Height"?) are the terms used in ORE
(the generic name for the engine used in Godlike and the some-day-out
Wild Talents). Width is usually used for degree of success; the other
for setting difficulty.
 
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Corey Murtagh <emonk@slingshot.no.uce> wrote in news:1084913989.636350
@radsrv1.tranzpeer.net:

> 1) Flat distribution - single dice or orther flat-probability
> combinations (D100 frex)
>
> 2) Simple bell curve - 3d6 and the like
>

There's also systems where you have a target number and have to roll a
certain number of "successes", such as in Storyteller, you roll a number
of d10's and count the number of dice that exceeded the target number,
minus any 1's (which cancel a success die). Shadowurn works this way too
using d6's with the added complexity of rerolling 6's to get even higher
numbers than 1-6.

Sorry I couldn't answer your question, I am not familiar with any systems
where difficulty varies the sides of dice. However, there are plenty of
systems where you use different sided dice depending on your stats and
skills levels. Deadlands, Earthdawn, and probably others.

Knight37
 
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Corey Murtagh wrote:
> (Appologies in advance for the cross-post... this is a genre-neutral
> question, and these are the groups I'm lurking in at the moment)
>
>
> Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
> skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
> dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
> number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
> large dice against the GMs small dice.
>

As other people have mentioned, this sounds similar to Alternity. The
base target was rolling Attribute + Skill or less on d20. Difficult
tasks had a positive step modifier and easy tasks had a negative step
modifier. Each step was a die, increasing in order, i.e. d4, d6, d8,
d10, d12, d20, then multiple d20s.
For example, a task with a +3 step modifier would use a roll of 1d20+1d8
and one with a -6 step modifier would use a roll of 1d20-1d20. -7 would
be 1d20-2d20, +7 would be 1d20+2d20, etc.
Different colored d20s were used with one being designated the control
die and the other the modifier die when +/-6 was reached.

--
Michael Sears armitage@mhcable.com
"No turning back where the end is in sight.
There's a job to be done, a fight to be won."



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Hendrik Belitz wrote:
>
> Like in GURPS, I think? This is really good eg. for rolling damage,
> but not really useful for skill tests, since skill experience and
> difficulty would not be distributed by a gaussian bell curve.
> Using a linear (d100) or exponential (don't know if such thing even exists
> in any RPG) distribution is much better here.
>
The "exploding" d6 mechanic that Shadowrun uses is not precisely
an exponential distribution, but it's pretty close. I believe that L5R
does something similar with d10s, though I've never actually played that
one. I'm really fond of the Shadowrun dice mechanic... it lets skilled
characters get significantly better at easy stuff and gives them fair
odds of doing the difficult stuff without it ever becoming trivially
easy to do nearly impossible things.

--
John Campbell
jcampbel@lynn.ci-n.com
 
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In article <JyYqc.4602$r6.3181@nwrddc03.gnilink.net>, jcampbel@lynn.ci-
n.com says...
> Hendrik Belitz wrote:
> >
> > Like in GURPS, I think? This is really good eg. for rolling damage,
> > but not really useful for skill tests, since skill experience and
> > difficulty would not be distributed by a gaussian bell curve.
> > Using a linear (d100) or exponential (don't know if such thing even exists
> > in any RPG) distribution is much better here.
> >
> The "exploding" d6 mechanic that Shadowrun uses is not precisely
> an exponential distribution, but it's pretty close. I believe that L5R
> does something similar with d10s, though I've never actually played that
> one. I'm really fond of the Shadowrun dice mechanic... it lets skilled
> characters get significantly better at easy stuff and gives them fair
> odds of doing the difficult stuff without it ever becoming trivially
> easy to do nearly impossible things.

Not really a direct reply, but a good place to hang this:

When you try a new system, and it uses an odd die rolling
mechanic, it is very worth your time to do a bit of graphing to see just
what the probabilities are actually like. If opposed rolls are used,
also graph the results of some of those, (sometimes they can have odd
effects).

--
Phoenix
 
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Thanks to all for your responses. Lots of good info there for me to
follow up!

--
Corey Murtagh
The Electric Monk
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!"
 
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"Hendrik Belitz" <honkaonka.belitz@fz-juelich.de> wrote in message
news:c8f056$9qr0$1@zam602.zam.kfa-juelich.de...
> Corey Murtagh wrote:
>
>> (Appologies in advance for the cross-post... this is a genre-neutral
>> question, and these are the groups I'm lurking in at the moment)
>>
>> I've played a lot of RPGs over the years (probably not as many as some
>> of you out there, but still lots by my standards) and most of them are
>> based around one of two basic dice-rolling mechanics:
>>
>> 1) Flat distribution - single dice or orther flat-probability
>> combinations (D100 frex)
>
> Now this one's pretty standard and IMHO favorable for skill tests and the
> like.
>
>> 2) Simple bell curve - 3d6 and the like
>
> Like in GURPS, I think? This is really good eg. for rolling damage,
> but not really useful for skill tests, since skill experience and
> difficulty would not be distributed by a gaussian bell curve.
> Using a linear (d100) or exponential (don't know if such thing even exists
> in any RPG) distribution is much better here.
>
>> Now, I've heard a tiny bit about a dice system using more interesting
>> skill check resolution involving various numbers of variously-sized
>> dice. Difficulty is reflected in the sides of the dice as well as the
>> number of dice rolled. Frex, a hard task might find you pitting a few
>> large dice against the GMs small dice.
>
> Like in Earthdawn I would say. This is pretty nasty if you don't play the
> system too often, since you need to look up the correct dice for every
> skill level or test you've got to make. I also don't see why this would be
> any better than using several six-sided dice or the like.
>
>

ED Step system handles graefully the difference in capability between a
lowly warriorand a dragon, giving the dragon a small change of failure, and
the warrior vanishingly improbable chance of succeeding at the same task
(assuming a task whose difficulty is closer to the dragon's level than the
warriors).

It's not even terribly ahrd ot figure out the step system - the Step value
is the sum high-average (the avrage result of a die is x.5 where x is half
the faces; high-average is x+1 (or rounding x.5 mathematically) of all the
dice involved. Knowing that, you can guess at what dice you are using
(though I have no idea why Step 14 is d20+d4, except that that is the only
2-dissimilar-dice combination available, otherwise d12 works, as does quite
a few 3-dice solutions).

But I digress.