Which game systems use the dice pool mechanic?

[mcrow]

I don't think it was mentioned yet, but Fireborn is a dice pool system.

 

[Thanee]

Dice pool mechanic implies to me, that there is a pool of dice, which is not automatically used, but rather the player can choose how to use the dice in the pool, like the combat pool in Shadowrun or the dice pools in World of Darkness games, when you split up your actions. Using multiple dice is by itself not yet a dice pool. It's how you use them.

Shadowrun the miniature game also uses a dice pool mechanic.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Psion]

I don't think it was mentioned yet, but Fireborn is a dice pool system.

Other than in the innagural post?

 

[Psion]

Dice pool mechanic implies to me, that there is a pool of dice, which is not automatically used, but rather the player can choose how to use the dice in the pool, like the combat pool in Shadowrun or the dice pools in World of Darkness games, when you split up your actions. Using multiple dice is by itself not yet a dice pool.

It's not enough. Nobody (that I know of) calls GURPS or Classic Traveller a dice pool. They use a fixed number of dice.

The way I use -- and typically see used -- the term "dice pool" is a system in which one of the principal means of varying the chances of success is by varying the number of dice rolled.

Only diehard Shadowrun players insist on sticking with the "discretionary pool" definition.

 

[mcrow]

crap.....that's what I get for posting before getting my coffee.

 

[Thanee]

Only diehard Shadowrun players insist on sticking with the "discretionary pool" definition.

That might be.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Staffan]

Hmm - I never considered this to be a Dice Pool mechanic - When discussing Dice Pool Mechanics with other designers, the implicationis that you don't total the numbers on the dice in a pool, but test each die for results.

I usually see D6 brought up in discussions on dice pools, so that's why I included it. I did specify that it's a different type of dicepool, though.

think it's worth distinguishing between "regular" type 1 (D6 System) and games like L5R and Silhouette, where you total only a subset of the dice rolled.

And, as someone else mentioned, there's a subcategory of type 2 where, either instead of or inaddition to matching individual dice agaist a difficulty, you do some sort of matching or other discrimination within the dice pool. The ORE system from Godlike, comes immediately to mind--i think some others basically just count successes but also care about matches.

L5R/Silhouette and Godlike were the ones I thought of when I wrote the bit about other variants, though never having played either of them my understanding of them is pretty vague.

 

[TDRandall]

I agree that some people see it as tending to become dice-poolish, but since the dice are addedincrementally to roll higher and higher avarages and maximums based on your total modifier, against a set DC, I don't consider it to be a true dice pool per se.

Wow, I don't remember Alternity being dice-poolish at all except for the very bad end (when you had to roll multiple d20s). It was always 1d20 +/- XdM, where X is almost always 1 and M was the modifier dice type, with its number of sides depending on the number of shifts you took due to modifiers. So that meant you really only had to have one of every type available in case it became the modifier die but you never rolled more than two at a time. (Again, except for the case of additional D20s).

Are you saying that I should have been rolling (if my character was in a bad spot) 1d20+1d4+1d6+1d8.....? Yeeks!

 

[Psion]

Wow, I don't remember Alternity being dice-poolish at all except for the very bad end

Yeah... throwing in more than two dice is just Alternity speak for "you know how this is gonna turn out, don't ya" more than an authentic dice pool system.