Are Dice Pools Good, Actually?

[Umbran]

No thanks.

So, you are asking us about dice pools, but leaving it so you can reject our points without justification?

 

[prabe]

When you are playing D&D, you roll a d20, add your modifiers, and report the result to the GM, who tells you whether you succeed. The GM is not usually telling you the AC of the monster, or the DC of the save or skill check.

This a bit of a quibble (sorry) but as a DM I've found that keeping DCs and ACs secret at the table just slows things down. If everyone is rolling a save, I'll usually announce the DC and let people tell me whether they pass/fail; in combat I'll usually announce the AC sometime after the first round. Part of that is probably because my tables have six players (plus me DMing) each.

 

[Nimblegrund]

Yeah, the terminology, but also just...it feels like I could just as easily be rolling to hit a target number instead of rolling to count the number of times I hit a given result to then compare that derived number to a target. Even “hit” is counterintuitive, IMO.

I will say that counting successes can lead to easy “mixed success” mechanics, but so can a DC ladder, where if your DC was moderate and you beat the Hard DC, it’s a better success, and if you hit the Easy DC it’s a mixed success.

Well, if the term "hit" is confusing maybe its a sign you need to jazz up your combat descriptions.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, if the term "hit" is confusing maybe its a sign you need to jazz up your combat descriptions.

That’s a nonsensical response.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, you are asking us about dice pools, but leaving it so you can reject our points without justification?

No, but if that’s your takeaway, that’s fine

 

[doctorbadwolf]

First - for dice pools, it typically isn't a low number. The bell curve of dice pools means that we are generally going to not bother using the dice when the target is notably below the middle of the distribution. For even a basic 3d6 and sum dice pool, you are interested in target numbers above ten. As soon as your additions are getting into double-digits, human mental addition slows down.

Second, to make your point, you are pushing the adjudication step to the player, when that's typically done by the GM.

When you are playing D&D, you roll a d20, add your modifiers, and report the result to the GM, who tells you whether you succeed. The GM is not usually telling you the AC of the monster, or the DC of the save or skill check.

Same thing here - the player generates the die result, but the GM is the one who does the adjudication. So, it is typically the player's responsibly to sum the dice, or count the hits, and report to the GM - the GM then tells you what happens.

in most dice pool systems I’ve played where you count the sum, the DC is known to the player.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think I'll take a shot at this, though I won't pretend it's exactly what @doctorbadwolf is thinking (so please don't react as though I'm putting words in his mouth).

Pick up a handful of d10s (let's say six) and roll them. The questions are "Did you roll over 30?" and "How many dice rolled 8 or higher?" I can see someone having an easier time doing the addition (less weird) and preferring to have one success threshold (30) to compare to (more satisfying). I'll point out that doing the math by sight is likely to be quicker/easier with pipped d6s than something with numerals, but that's ... not really relevant here (unless it is, I guess).

That’s exactly it.

I figure terms like “weird” and “satisfying” don’t actually need definition, the person who asked just wanted to find something to nit pick or to create a point of argument that doesn’t need to be there. They’re incredibly common words. They mean what they generally mean.

It’s weird to get “successes”, “hits”, etc that don’t add up to “success”. It’s also weird even with a more neutral term like strike, because I’m still counting, but for some reason not counting up the numbers in front of me. It feels like it’s different for the sake of difference, and it feels arbitrary and gimmicky. And even when it’s used for mixed success and stuff like that, I’d rather just have a DC ladder like pbta games (below 7 is total failure, 7-9 is mixed success, 10+ is total success), but with numbers that make sense for whatever the dice pools creates as a bell curve.

Rolling all 4s feels absolutely bonkers as a total failure.

 

[Aldarc]

I figure terms like “weird” and “satisfying” don’t actually need definition, the person who asked just wanted to find something to nit pick or to create a point of argument that doesn’t need to be there. They’re incredibly common words. They mean what they generally mean.

It's very rude of you, doctorbadwolf, to openly say this or assume these things about me or anyone.

It’s weird to get “successes”, “hits”, etc that don’t add up to “success”. It’s also weird even with a more neutral term like strike, because I’m still counting, but for some reason not counting up the numbers in front of me. It feels like it’s different for the sake of difference, and it feels arbitrary and gimmicky. And even when it’s used for mixed success and stuff like that, I’d rather just have a DC ladder like pbta games (below 7 is total failure, 7-9 is mixed success, 10+ is total success), but with numbers that make sense for whatever the dice pools creates as a bell curve.

It is not about nitpicking. You are seemingly using "weird" to mean something different from what you were used to with dice: e.g., roll d20 + modifiers against a target number. It's merely different from your perceived "normal" but not somehow inherently weird. And you are not able to adequately explain or substantiate how this dice pool method is "weird" at all. Your argument is weirder than the dice pool systems you are complaining about. For other people, it's clearly not weird, unusual, or unsatisfactory. So this thread comes across as "Old Man yells at sky that things he is not used to are weird and unsatisfactory."

 

[Bedrockgames]

I like dice pools. All my games use them. We do it with rolling a pool of d10 and taking the single highest result (so you don't have to count successes). The only time successes are counted is exceptional abilities that allow for "Open Damage", where you do count all the successes over target number for purposes of determining the number of wounds you cause. But most of the time, you roll between 1-6 d10 and take the single highest result.

 

[Derren]

Dicepools are superior to the D20 until you get to really high modifiers.

A d20 has a huge variance of results with a linear probability. A 1 is equally possible than a 10 or a 20.
Assuming a "counting hits" system you need 19 die to even get this spread which is usually a above average pool. And even then the probabilities are not linear but form a curve making it much easier to judge probabilities while still allowing for freak results.