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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nth Dimension Games" data-source="post: 9887875" data-attributes="member: 7056791">One one hand, rolling dice represents the probability of creating an entirely new universe based on the outcome of a check and on the other hand, nothing. My preference is going to come down to the game. Reading through this thread, dice represent a lot of different things. Some I read and know I'm not going to like that type of game so the esoteric way they use their dice is none of my concern. For games that seem interesting, I'm more interested in what the dice represent. For my system, the randomness of the dice represents all the tiny little things it doesn't account for. We can have modifiers for moving across slightly wet bumpy terrain with the occasional mud pit and have lists upon lists of every possible situation we can come across, or we can roll it into a dice roll. If you fail, because of the dice, then it was because of -insert narratively relevant/interesting reason here-But its not even that shallow because the die rolls are also tied to the skill of the person/creature using it. The higher their skill, the higher value of dice they roll. What's happening is the totality of the random things we don't account for or control represents about 20 points of any sort of task that can result in failure. Contested comparisons, Searching for a Hidden enemy, both carry the same 20 point variation. If the searching character has a higher skill, they are able to cut into that 20 points deeper than the lower skilled hidden enemy. They may not do it every time, but the probability that they account for one of those unnamed/unknown variables is higher. This is not necessarily a hidden mechanic because of how the dice tell the story it's how I've justified what the precisely impact the dice have on the task at hand and how I justify why dice scale with skill.I'm going to get into maths a bit so if that's not your thing, thanks for reading this far.Dice are scaled off a character's Rank for that task. Ranks 1-3 allow for a d4, 4-6 a d6, 7-9 a d8, 10-12 d10, 13-15 d12, and 16+ the d20. What this allows me to do, is to keep the random component of the dice about 30% of the influence of any action that can result in failure. My issue with games like D&D is how the d20 is so overwhelmingly important in the early levels, becomes balanced in the mid game, and irrelevant at the end game. I think this is why we see so many different 2d6, 1d12, etc systems emerge, to keep the randomization under control. So back to the OP's question. What's a good core mechanic? I think rolling dice is a perfectly fine core mechanic but I don't want systems which require you to always use it. There should be a way to guarantee an outcome. My justification for why dice are rolled, accounting for the unknown, will allow what they do know (their skill rank, miscellaneous modifiers, attribute modifiers) to be enough regardless of what they don't know, ya know?The d20 in D&D requirement for almost everything and the automatic 5% to fail at anything has contributed to its current silly state. I hate this core mechanic but a lot of people love it.</blockquote>

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