Asmor
First Post
Not sure where on this site is best to post stuff about homebrew systems, but this is a resolution mechanic I've been kicking around in my head... I got the idea from the Pirates of the Spanish Main RPG... Didn't actually read the book, but I checked out the character sheet and was intrigued by the fact that each stat had 5 dots, a la White Wolf's Storyteller system, but undernear each dot was a die-type... i.e. d4, d6, d8, 10, d12 in that order.
So here's what I'm thinking... Some combination of attributes and skills, like in Storyteller. One of the two (attributes of skills) determines the die you use and is either rated 1-5 or 0-4, while the other one determines how many of those dice you use.
For example, let's say attributes determine how many dice you roll (your natural ability in an area), and skills are rated 0-4, where 0 is untrained and you roll d4s for that skill. So... Let's say you've got Dexterity 2 and a firearms skill of 3. You'd roll 2d10.
Now, when you roll dice, you're looking for successes. Each die type has a target number, as below:
d4: 4
d6: 5
d8: 6
d10: 7
d12: 8
Each die which meets or beats its target number is a success. In addition, rolling the maximum on a die makes that die "lucky." Lucky dice can't be cancelled. For every 1 you roll, you cancel one success (but remember that lucky dice can't be cancelled).
The chance of getting lucky or unlucky is always the same (i.e. a 1/N chance on a dN). In practice, since lucky dice trump unlucky ones, when you roll more than 1 die you actually are more likely to succeed because of luck than fail because of it.
However, as you get more skilled, the part luck plays in your results drops significantly... On a d4, you've got a 25% chance of getting lucky and a 25% chance of getting unlucky. On the other hand, with a d12 you've got an 8% chance of either.
Also interesting is the natural curve of success that is produced. For each die, this is the likelihood of that die succeeding:
d4: 1/4=25%
d6: 2/6=33.3%
d8: 3/8=37.5%
d10: 4/10=40%
d12: 5/12=41.7%
Ultimately, while mathematically interesting (to me, at least), I think that this curve is actually the system's downfall. In the end, the difference between the highest dice is negligble. If I did the math right, this is the likelihood of getting at least one success on 3d10 and 3d12 (ignoring 1s for the moment):
3d10: 78.4%
3d12: 80.2%
It would be relatively simple to make the die size matter if it were a straight "add 'em up" roll, as opposed to the successes mechanic, but in that case I worry that the larger dice would simply overwhelm the smaller dice. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, though.
Any ideas on this?
So here's what I'm thinking... Some combination of attributes and skills, like in Storyteller. One of the two (attributes of skills) determines the die you use and is either rated 1-5 or 0-4, while the other one determines how many of those dice you use.
For example, let's say attributes determine how many dice you roll (your natural ability in an area), and skills are rated 0-4, where 0 is untrained and you roll d4s for that skill. So... Let's say you've got Dexterity 2 and a firearms skill of 3. You'd roll 2d10.
Now, when you roll dice, you're looking for successes. Each die type has a target number, as below:
d4: 4
d6: 5
d8: 6
d10: 7
d12: 8
Each die which meets or beats its target number is a success. In addition, rolling the maximum on a die makes that die "lucky." Lucky dice can't be cancelled. For every 1 you roll, you cancel one success (but remember that lucky dice can't be cancelled).
The chance of getting lucky or unlucky is always the same (i.e. a 1/N chance on a dN). In practice, since lucky dice trump unlucky ones, when you roll more than 1 die you actually are more likely to succeed because of luck than fail because of it.
However, as you get more skilled, the part luck plays in your results drops significantly... On a d4, you've got a 25% chance of getting lucky and a 25% chance of getting unlucky. On the other hand, with a d12 you've got an 8% chance of either.
Also interesting is the natural curve of success that is produced. For each die, this is the likelihood of that die succeeding:
d4: 1/4=25%
d6: 2/6=33.3%
d8: 3/8=37.5%
d10: 4/10=40%
d12: 5/12=41.7%
Ultimately, while mathematically interesting (to me, at least), I think that this curve is actually the system's downfall. In the end, the difference between the highest dice is negligble. If I did the math right, this is the likelihood of getting at least one success on 3d10 and 3d12 (ignoring 1s for the moment):
3d10: 78.4%
3d12: 80.2%
It would be relatively simple to make the die size matter if it were a straight "add 'em up" roll, as opposed to the successes mechanic, but in that case I worry that the larger dice would simply overwhelm the smaller dice. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, though.
Any ideas on this?
