Dice pool game design woes

[Morrus]

Here we go. We have a potential dice mechanic!

 

[Morrus]

I'm looking at those two tables, and it stirkes me as odd that simply adding exploding dice means the 50% chance goes from 'about' twice as many dice as the TN to exactly the same number of dice as the TN. That's making me think one of those two tables has to be wrong.

 

[clearstream]

Here we go. We have a potential dice mechanic!

View attachment 283596

As a space fight, it puts me in mind of lights on a display panel or HUD. The colouring could be reconsidered in that light.

You've probably already considered this, but are there likely to be any sight-related readability issues on the red-yellow scheme? There's a type of colour-blindness for which red looks more green and less bright... which seems quite close to saying it looks yellow.

 

[Morrus]

As a space fight, it puts me in mind of lights on a display panel or HUD. The colouring could be reconsidered in that light.

You've probably already considered this, but are there likely to be any sight-related readability issues on the red-yellow scheme? There's a type of colour-blindness for which red looks more green and less bright... which seems quite close to saying it looks yellow.

The colours don't communicate any information, they're just what I had handy for the playtest. One die type has dots, the other has numbers, which is the important difference. But no, the colours can be anything, so they won't necessarily be those colours in the final thing.

 

[Morrus]

I have made the dice ready for play testing!

 

[mamba]

I'm not sure I'm reading it right. If I'm reading it right, the table then looks like this:

those % are too high, there is no way one die has a 2% chance of exploding 5 times

 

[clearstream]

those % are too high, there is no way one die has a 2% chance of exploding 5 times

The % in anydice is 0.78. Less than 1%. I calculate it as lower still.

 

[clearstream]

@Morrus maybe this calculator does it [it does not, see edited edit]

Shadowrun dice calc

EDIT You enter 4 as your success number, and explode is fixed at 6. Choose "cumulative". However, there is no way to set a TN.

 

[mamba]

The % in anydice is 0.78. Less than 1%. I calculate it as lower still.

it certainly is lower than that: (1/6)^5 / 2, so 0.0000643 (to meet TN 6, exploding 5 times is twice that)

 

[pemerton]

This makes a too-small-by-one pool twice as likely to succeed at a task than an just-enough-to-succeed pool.

TN 2. 1 die = 50% chance, 2 dice = 25%
TN 3. 2 dice = 25%, 3 dice = 12.5%
...

Basically, you are replacing a 50% success die with a guarenteed 100% success.

In other words, it would often make mechanical sense to have a less skilled character try something to improve the chance of success, if you know the TN going in.

Though with 1 die you can't succeed vs TN 3 (0%) but with 2 dice you can (25%).

The way that Prince Valiant handles this is by (i) using a lot of opposed rolls, and (ii) not being a party-based game in which one character from a group of them "tries something".