Dice Pools Or Variable Dice?

Diamond Cross · May 28, 2010

Here's what I mean. A dice pool uses a pool of several dice of the same shape and is usually rolled against a difficulty number. For example, the World Of Darkness is this style. For every dot in a Stat and skill, the dot represents one d10 and the standard difficulty is 7. If you have a DEX of 3 and a Firearms of 2 that's five d10s to roll.

The original Star wars used d6s.

Dungeons and Dragons uses different dice, it uses a d20, d12, d10, d8, d6 and a d4, for different tasks. A d20 is used to roll a to hit against someone's defenses. several d6s are used to determine the damage of a Fireball spell.

So which style do you prefer? Do you prefer a dice pool or a variable dice system?

I like both styles myself.

MortonStromgal · May 28, 2010

I prefer dice pools but I like to keep them at 10 dice or less unless I'm using mini d6s. Just because its hard to fit that many dice in my hands. I really enjoy games like Desolation that use d2.

Umbran · May 28, 2010

I don't outright prefer one over the other, in general. Various dice mechanics yield up various probabilities and properties for the system. Different systems, trying to accomplish different things, have different needs.

Nifft · May 28, 2010

Dice pool systems seem better at giving degrees of success / failure.

I haven't seen a dice pool system that uses Hit Points in quite the same way as variable dice systems do, and so far HP seem to be a very good way to handle abstract combat, so for combat in specific I think variable dice systems have an advantage -- but perhaps only because of my ignorance of a good HP-based dice pool system.

Cheers, -- N

El Mahdi · May 28, 2010

deleted

maddman75 · May 28, 2010

Nifft said:
Dice pool systems seem better at giving degrees of success / failure.

I haven't seen a dice pool system that uses Hit Points in quite the same way as variable dice systems do, and so far HP seem to be a very good way to handle abstract combat, so for combat in specific I think variable dice systems have an advantage -- but perhaps only because of my ignorance of a good HP-based dice pool system.

Cheers, -- N

Eh, most of them use hit points. I mean the archetypal dice pool isystem is White Wolf, and while they can call them health levels all they want and you only get 7 or so, they're still essentially hit points.

I like dice pools for several reasons.
- They tend to cut down on the math in the system, with modifiers simply adding or subtracting the dice in the pool, or changing what you need for success, or the number of successes you need. (Hopefully not all three, one is sufficient)
- They give you a tactile feel in the game - rolling a big handful of dice means this is something you're awesome at, rolling one or two means you're going to need a lucky break.
- They tend to be better at determining margins of success as well as extended actions (actions that may take several rounds to achieve)
- They give a nice bell curve, with fewer unexpected results. This is completely something to taste, but I'd much prefer a system where someone who is good at something almost always succeeds and someone who is bad almost always fails. Single dice can be too 'swingy'.

Nifft · May 28, 2010

maddman75 said:
Eh, most of them use hit points. I mean the archetypal dice pool isystem is White Wolf, and while they can call them health levels all they want and you only get 7 or so, they're still essentially hit points.

Not how I see them!

HP are abstract things, and you only need 1 of them to kick ass.

Health level / wound systems tend to inflict penalties on you as you suffer them.

These penalties lead to a "death spiral", because being wounded makes you easier to kill.

That's the difference I'm talking about.

Cheers, -- N

Umbran · May 28, 2010

maddman75 said:
- They tend to cut down on the math in the system, with modifiers simply adding or subtracting the dice in the pool, or changing what you need for success, or the number of successes you need. (Hopefully not all three, one is sufficient)

But, in a single-die system, modifiers merely change what you need for success.

How much math you need to do to determine the final modifier is not a function of how many dice the mechanic uses. You can create a dice-pool mechanic with complicated math in the modifiers just as easily as you can for single-die.

Go look at Shadowrun 2nd Edition if you don't believe me.

amnuxoll · May 30, 2010

Record my vote against dice pools. I agree you can get "neater" probability curves with them but the time it takes to add up successes every time you roll an attack adds up. A major flaw in a lot of RPGs is how long it takes to get through a combat.

I also dislike things like the 15d6 fireball for the same reason.

firesnakearies · May 30, 2010

I love dice pools. The new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition has a really cool dice pool resolution mechanic. And Shadowrun is one of my favorite games of all time.