What are your thoughts on TTRPGs with non-standard dice?

[Micah Sweet]

More than 3-4 is what, 5? You're not really clarifying your position in a way that informs us here.

With four players and a GM, let's be real, if you're playing WoD games, owning about 50 d10s is a pretty good idea. If you're playing Shadowrun, and you don't have at least 50 d6s, you're probably going to regret it. If you're playing D&D or Shadowdark, and you don't have 10 d10s, you're going to be sad in my experience. With Daggerheart, you need at least 8 d12s, and they need to recognisably different from each other, and ideally one looks good or light and one looks evil or dark in each pair. Call of Cthulhu - I think you'll want probably 5 normal d10s and 5 two-figure d10s for a five-person table.

I think just from the above we're really talking a dead minimum of 10 "complete sets" plus extra sets of d6s and d10s. And if you want to play that weird game someone told me about that uses a dice pool made of d12s and then strikes all the odd rolls from the pool (or whatever it was), you're probably going to need like 30+ d12s, which even I don't have!

Maybe you could give some more precise guidance on how many is too many lol? I'm sure most of us do have "too many" - I'm not sure it's by as much as might be implied though.

Other people seemed to get what I meant, or in any case only you have expressed confusion.

Of all the games you listed, the only ones I've played are D&D (various games under that name) and Shadowdark (only once). You hardly need as many dice as you suggest, though in limited circumstances it would be nice.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Of all the games you listed, the only ones I've played are D&D (various games under that name) and Shadowdark (only once).

I see.

 

[Ulfgeir]

The definition of "complete set" depends a lot on which game it is. For Savage Worlds, I'd want to have two sets of d4 through d12 plus a distinct d6 as a wild die. Maybe an extra die or two if I have some weapon that deals a buttload of damage, but that's situational. But if I'm playing Pathfinder... well, my 13th level sorcerer can cast spells that deal 8d10 fire +8d10 positive (only vs undead, so ideally I'd have two differently-colored sets of 8d10, but I could reroll in a pinch), 16d6, 9d12, 15d4 or 8d8 damage. So yeah, that can vary a bit. At higher levels I'd need even more.

Edit: Also, whomever came up with brass dragons using buttloads of d4s for breath weapon damage should spend their days dancing barefoot on said d4s. Probably whomever was in charge of the 2e Monstrous Compendium (as IIRC pre-2e dragons just did damage equal to their hp?).

I mean we had in Exalted 2e a situation where one guy rolled 34 D10's with I think 7+ counted as successes. The result: not a single success on that roll...

And I have as the GM in Shadowrun 1e in a published adventure rolled 26 d6 for one attack (and this is "exploding dice", so roll a 6, then roll again and add to that die) . My players knew I only had 20 (well Technically I had loads more, but I had 2 sets of 10 each of small dice that I used) at the time so they were not happy when I counted successes and then rolled some dice again...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean we had in Exalted 2e a situation where one guy rolled 34 D10's with I think 7+ counted as successes. The result: not a single success on that roll...

SOUNDS LIKE EXALTED 2E ALRIGHT. PLEASE DONT PRINT IN THE PAPER THAT IM STILL MAD ABOUT EXALTED 2E.

EDIT - On a happier note I still remember rolling like 18d10 for Aggravated Damage to a werewolf in VtM and watching as 10 after 10 after 10 appeared. I think I got 6 or 7 10s and most of the rest were successes. That may be my best roll.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mean we had in Exalted 2e a situation where one guy rolled 34 D10's with I think 7+ counted as successes. The result: not a single success on that roll...

And I have as the GM in Shadowrun 1e in a published adventure rolled 26 d6 for one attack (and this is "exploding dice", so roll a 6, then roll again and add to that die) . My players knew I only had 20 (well Technically I had loads more, but I had 2 sets of 10 each of small dice that I used) at the time so they were not happy when I counted successes and then rolled some dice again...

I don't remember the exact number, but Back in the Day our SR1e decker had to be given a bowl to roll all his D6 in, which suggests to me it may have been in the 30-40 range.

 

[LordEntrails]

You don't get things like "You managed to lock the door to keep the stormtroopers out, but you also fried the mechanism that extends the bridge across the chasm." or "You don't manage to slice the electronic lock to get it open, but you do manage to turn off the alarm so someone using force won't set it off." or "You don't find the thing you were looking for, but you do find this other things instead."

Sure you can. Levels of success. Succeed by +3 and you get to do both, etc. Or throw two dice, one is success/failure the other is levels, complications or your second axis.

All you are doing is working out the chance of an activity happening and resolving with dice. Having special facings on the dice does not change this, at all. Having different number of sides on the dice just changes the odds of rolling any given outcome, which imo can be facilitated with what we consider the standard RPG close enough to not warrant a special die.

 

[Argyle King]

I mean, but do results like that have any extra value? Maybe it's just the example but it sounds it's producing a somewhat nonsensical result. Like, not completely, but also not possessed of special value compared to say a d6 dice-pool system which counted 1s as indicating something bad.

That's what I'm looking to see - something actually special. I presume there are funky dice systems which achieve that, I just don't know of them.

EDIT - Also this again may be the example but, like this seems like something that wouldn't be really appropriate to roll for skill checks? Like, your skill doesn't influence what method the reactor requires to fix it. Like, Jimmy Carter had to inside a nuclear reactor to fix it, but it wasn't because of skill or lack thereof, it was the literally the only method by which the reactor could be fixed. Maybe I am misunderstanding?

Or scale the die used up/down based on penalties and bonuses, which Daggerheart actually does do with some powers and abilities. Like ones that make you roll a d20 for the Hope die instead of the d12, or reduce the GM's die to a d12, and so on. I think there may even be one that lets you roll a d20 for the Fear die, so your chance of success goes up a lot but your chance of rolling with Fear does as well.

I'm not as familiar with Genesys, but I have played a lot of Edge of Empire (which is mostly the same system).

You have success VS failure.
You also have advantage VS threat.

On top of that, you may use high skill, help from allies, or favorable circumstances to upgrade to better dice that also enable Triumph. Triumph counts as success but is also kinda like a supercharged version of Advantage that causes something exceptionally good.

Conversely, enemies and poor circumstances may cause your negative dice to be "upgraded" to even worse dice which allow for Despair. Despair is the negative counterpart to Triump. (And, yes, it is possible to roll both Triumph and Despair - which means that something incredibly good and something incredibly bad both happen.)

So, you essentially have a 2-axis system that also has some special things that can be rolled on certain dice.

Then, on both axes (plural of axis, not the weapon,) you also have a spectrum of results. Additional success beyond what is needed can be spent for extra effects such as weapon abilities, extra damage, or critical hits. Extra advantage/threat can be spent either by the players or the DM for various effects. Some effects are generically available to everyone; some are special things unlocked through a career's skill tree.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not as familiar with Genesys, but I have played a lot of Edge of Empire (which is mostly the same system).

You have success VS failure.
You also have advantage VS threat.

On top of that, you may use high skill, help from allies, or favorable circumstances to upgrade to better dice that also enable Triumph. Triumph counts as success but is also kinda like a supercharged version of Advantage that causes something exceptionally good.

Conversely, enemies and poor circumstances may cause your negative dice to be "upgraded" to even worse dice which allow for Despair. Despair is the negative counterpart to Triump. (And, yes, it is possible to roll both Triumph and Despair - which means that something incredibly good and something incredibly bad both happen.)

So, you essentially have a 2-axis system that also has some special things that can be rolled on certain dice.

Then, on both axes (plural of axis, not the weapon,) you also have a spectrum of results. Additional success beyond what is needed can be spent for extra effects such as weapon abilities, extra damage, or critical hits. Extra advantage/threat can be spent either by the players or the DM for various effects. Some effects are generically available to everyone; some are special things unlocked through a career's skill tree.

I'm just profoundly unconvinced that this actually produces as a better outcome than, I dunno, other systems. Slightly different? Perhaps but better?

One thing I don't hear is a lot of like, exceptional praise for Genesys. It's well-regarded but like, moderately so. It's definitely good to get away from a binary, but I'm not hearing anything that makes me think you gain anything remarkable here.

 

[Parmandur]

Personally funky dice are a hard red line for me. A couple of reasons for this:

1) No king rules forever, and most don't rule very long at all. I've often played RPGs 10 or more years after they were published, and had a good time, and if a game is designed around funky dice, it makes it that insanely harder to do. Plus, stockists just often don't have the funky dice even for newer games!

I experienced this recently with a game from less than two years ago, which didn't hard-require but strongly suggested funky dice. I thought "What the heck, how much can some dice cost, $10?". Turned out cost wasn't the issue. Literally no RPG or dice store or Amazon or similar being able to sell me even a single one of those dice was!

I later found a person on eBay selling a small number of them (not enough to play the game really) for like, 10x as much as normal dice would cost + surprisingly insane shipping + it would take weeks.

2) Most "funky dice" games don't actually need funky dice to do what they're doing, and often are not even more efficient. In the most extreme cases, it's clearly just a way to force people to spend more money and get more locked into their ecosystem (looking at you, FFG). I get that there can be situations where they would theoretically be beneficial, but even then, I think any designer thinking of going that way for non-cynical reasons should stop and ask - "Is it worth it? Will most people buying this RPG thank me for this decision once they play it?". It's definitely a barrier to entry and the long-term survival of an RPG, and also means that even if it really benefits, but doesn't come with the dice, people are likely to have a worse first-play experience than intended and less likely to keep playing! That's a lot of extra risk to pile on your RPG, an already-risky product!

Most games at least have a translation table for non-funky dice, but with some it's complicated enough that it's not really worth it, so in a world where there are literally thousands of at least decent RPGs, maybe just play one that's easier to play?

I mind cards a bit less so long as you can get them on PDF, because I've printed and cut cards from cardstock before. It's not great, but it prevents it being a hard red line. Especially if they game doesn't actually need them need them (like 4E and DH don't actually need them, they're just fun).

With weirdly-sized dice i.e. d24s etc. I don't loathe them but it feels like a cheap gimmick to try and get nostalgia points for me. The only odd die my main group really enjoyed in the last ten years was me bringing out non-foot-hurting d4s recently! One of the players said it couldn't be done, and proceeded to stomp barefoot on one before accepting that indeed, these were basically safe!

Yeah, this about sums up how I feel about it: somewhat open in the abstract, but in the concrete a pain in the rear end.

 

[Parmandur]

A. As a general rule, I'd say that TTRPGs have adopted a "standard set" of the D&D dice. The d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20.

I mean, aside from the d10, those others are anciently recognized geometric set of 3 dimensional symmetrical shapes: all the other weird dice shapes (including the d10) are weird kludges.