What's your favorite dice system?

[Yora]

2d6 + attribute against a target number seem really neat.

Simple and straightforward, using only small amounts of normal dice.

 

[aramis erak]

I haven't played too many dice pool games but I've recently been delving into Coriolis' d6 with a success on a 6 system and I really don't like it. The game and it's trappings are amazing but the pile of dice gets real big, real fast, and I don't like games that stack up tons of different modifiers from different places whether its more dice or greater +/-.

You might, if you're the GM, want to use the T2K alternative...

Att	Skill
5	4	d12
4	3	d10
3	2	d8
2	1	d6

A roll of...

10+	2s
6+	1s
2-5	0s
1	as 1 in standard rolls.

This replacement means rolling 2d, rather than 3-12 d6.

Dice shifts off higher first, then lower. Shifts up cap at 2d12 in T2K, but I'd suggest allowing them to generate a third die.
Pushing works normally - but you can't push dice with successes nor complications.

 

[Weiley31]

I'll probably go with D20 and any Dice Pool making ttrpg. Although I've yet to play with any Dice Pool system yet. I splurged on Humble Bundle's Age of Sigmar: Soulbound promotion and I currently own, from the kickstarter before, Strange Machine Games' Robotech RPG. I would also like to start playing/doing the 20th Anniversary editions of White Wolf's Vampire/Werewolf line.)

If there's one "dice system" I don't/can't understand is the "rolling under" ones. Rolling under seems foreign to me as somebody who's so used to D20's rolling above method. Despite that, I splurged on a previous humble bundle deal for Modphius' Star Trek rpg, which is rolling under in some respects too.

I"ve yet to taken a plunge on the PBtA system of games. The one I do own from another kickstarter, Henshin, is a non-dice variant of PBtA.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I hear that 4d6-4 is a good replacer for a 1d20, if you'd like a bell curve distribution in D20 System games. I've never tried it, but the AnyDice.com graph seems legit. Personally, I'd go with the 4d6-3 instead, so that the curve slightly favors nat-20s over nat-1s, but that's just me.

Interesting. I never considered the possibility of rolling "0" as a result, but I find myself not disliking it. I wonder if they make a d6 numbered 0-5...

 

[Jer]

Interesting. I never considered the possibility of rolling "0" as a result, but I find myself not disliking it. I wonder if they make a d6 numbered 0-5...

There are a few different games where you can get a 0 as a result of your die roll in some way.

Fate has you adding up plusses and minuses and 0s to give a bell curve with 0 mean.

Icons 1st edition had you rolling a positive d6 and a negative d6 and adding them together to get a bell curve with a 0 mean (2nd edition moves this to opposed single d6 rolls which is mathematically the same, but losing the need to subtract your dice).

Feng Shui has the same kind of system as Icons, but with exploding 6s.

Torg and Torg Eternity have a roll-a-die-with-exploding-10s-and-20s-then-look-it-up-on-a-chart-for your result that gives 0 as the mean value as well.

Also in Ars Magica when you roll a d10 as a "stress die" the 0 counts as a 0 rather than a 10 and you have to roll botch dice to see how badly you screwed up.

 

[Staffan]

If there's one "dice system" I don't/can't understand is the "rolling under" ones. Rolling under seems foreign to me as somebody who's so used to D20's rolling above method. Despite that, I splurged on a previous humble bundle deal for Modphius' Star Trek rpg, which is rolling under in some respects too.

This is funny to me, because the Swedish RPG tradition is heavily descendant from Basic Roleplaying. Roll-under often has percentile values, which makes for an instant understanding of your chances. You have a skill of 63? Well, that's a 63% chance of success, then.

 

[Jer]

If there's one "dice system" I don't/can't understand is the "rolling under" ones. Rolling under seems foreign to me as somebody who's so used to D20's rolling above method. Despite that, I splurged on a previous humble bundle deal for Modphius' Star Trek rpg, which is rolling under in some respects too.

Heh - roll under systems are what I cut my teeth on - between the "skill" system in D&D (thieves skills, proficiencies/skills from 2e/Gazeteers), Star Frontiers, Call of Cthulhu and others, roll under was the most common non-D&D system I encountered in the early days.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

There are a few different games where you can get a 0 as a result of your die roll in some way.

Yeah, I meant in a d20 game specifically. But thanks.

 

[Blue]

I hear that 4d6-4 is a good replacer for a 1d20, if you'd like a bell curve distribution in D20 System games. I've never tried it, but the AnyDice.com graph seems legit. Personally, I'd go with the 4d6-3 instead, so that the curve slightly favors nat-20s over nat-1s, but that's just me.

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Just to make a side comment on this. D&D aims for the rough middle, say 45-65% as common chances of success. When you do to a bell curve, each of those has a lot more than 5% difference between them, sometimes more than double. That means that a +/-1 makes a much larger difference than it would in the flatter d20 distribution. Move from needing an 11+ to a 10+ and that's over a +2 bonus in standard d20 rolling. Which makes pluses a lot more valuable and encourages min-maxing.

 

[CleverNickName]

Just to make a side comment on this. D&D aims for the rough middle, say 45-65% as common chances of success. When you do to a bell curve, each of those has a lot more than 5% difference between them, sometimes more than double. That means that a +/-1 makes a much larger difference than it would in the flatter d20 distribution. Move from needing an 11+ to a 10+ and that's over a +2 bonus in standard d20 rolling. Which makes pluses a lot more valuable and encourages min-maxing.

Yep, and that's why I don't like bell curve-based systems. I prefer a nice, linear, swing-y d20 System that makes min-maxing as futile as possible. I mean, that +8 to Perception sure looks nice until you roll a 2...

I just saw this 4d6-thing over on Reddit a while back, and thought it was interesting.