Which game systems use the dice pool mechanic?

[HellHound]

There's also games like Alternity, who's baseline is a single-die mechanic, but the ever-present modifiers tend to turn it into soemthing more dice-poolish.

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.

 

[woodelf]

True. There are three main types of dicepool mechanics as far as I can tell.
1. D6-style: Roll a bunch of dice based on skill level¹, add them together, and try to get above a difficulty number.
2. World of Darkness-style: Roll a bunch of dice based on skill level, compare each separately against a difficulty number, and count how many succeeded.
3. Traveller 4-style: Roll a bunch of dice depending on difficulty, and compare to skill level.
¹ For convenience's sake, I use the term "skill level" to include ability scores and similar things as well.

There are some other variants as well (such as roll a bunch of dice and compare the highest to a difficulty, and roll a bunch of dice and see how many match), but these are the main ones I've seen.

Immortal (at least the 1st edition) is a variation on type 3: each aspect of difficulty requires rolling a different die. If it were D20 System-based, it would be a bit like this: If you want to hit someone, there's a certain DC, and you roll your attack ability [BAB]. If theey're more skilled at dodging, the DC goes up. If it's dark out, the DC to hit them stays the same, but you also have to succeed on a spot roll at an appropriate DC. As it gets darker, that DC would increase. If you're slogging through mud, you'd have to roll a balance check, along with the spot roll and the hit roll. And so on. Though Immortal generalized all "hostiles" (read: obstacles/challenges) into 6 broad categories, and you had 6 stats/skills that corresponded to them.

A notable variant on type 2, above, is what's found in games like Maelstrom and Underworld: traits are binary, rather than rated, and you get to roll one die for each trait that is applicable to the task at hand. You then count successes. There's probably a parallel variant for type 1 (roll one die per relevant trait, and add), but i can't immediately think of an example.

I 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.

And, just to add to the lists:

• DC Universe and Herc & Xena both used the "D6 Legends" system, which is of type 2.
• Providence is a weird type 1
• Maelstrom Storytelling, Storybones, Underworld, and a whole host of little indie games are of the type 2 subtype that has one die per trait
• IIRC, Burning Wheel uses a dice pool.

Earthdawn is not a dicepool system.

 

[Psion]

Nope, no dice pools in Savage Worlds.

Doh! You're right. I recall it did the open ended thing; forgot that as a base it's just one dice.

Similarly Earthdawn is "step die", not dice pool.

 

[Psion]

Odd. In my experience, HERO & Champions weren't dice pool games - but then again, I was playing them in the 80's.

Do you remember how powers like mind control and illusions worked (rolling the number of dice you purchased against a target number based on the target's ego)?

But again, I don't think it's fair to call it a dice pool system; it's just a subsystem of a sort.

 

[Psion]

True. There are three main types of dicepool mechanics as far as I can tell.
1. D6-style: Roll a bunch of dice based on skill level¹, add them together, and try to get above a difficulty number.

I call this additive, like OTE or D6.

A subset of these is "additive/best of" (and "best of" might be a non-mutually exclusive additional category; some games just give you the best of a given number of dice)

2. World of Darkness-style: Roll a bunch of dice based on skill level, compare each separately against a difficulty number, and count how many succeeded.

In math geek speak, binomial. Though new Storyteller is modestly different in that it gives a fixed target number and varies the number of successes needed instead... which is really a better/easier to work with and understand variant.

3. Traveller 4-style: Roll a bunch of dice depending on difficulty, and compare to skill level.

This is just a variant of additive AFAIAC. It doesn't matter so much which variable plays the roll of target number and which plays the role of dice-pool-driver.

 

[woodelf]

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.

For example, On The Edge by Atlas Games uses a system where each character has a skill level of xd6 in what they do, and you total your dice when you roll them and compare results. Highest wins. This is not a dice pool, but a simple escalating DC system.

The game that made the Dice Pool cool is Vampire, where you roll the number of 10-sided dice and determine how many of the dice individually rolled higher thanthe DC number. This is the same basic mechanic used in Shadowrun, which uses exploding d6 instead of d10, to the same effect. These are traditionally considered to be dice pool mechanics.

[Nitpick]That's Over the Edge. On the Edge is the TCG. Also, i'd say that ShadowRun had gotten the dicepool meme out there quite handily before V:tM came along. It's just that, generally, those who were interested in V:tM weren't interested in SR, and vice versa.[/nitpick]

Anyway, i'd say you're odd-man-out on this one. See http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/systemdesign/dice-methods.html , frex. Ghostbusters is generally referred to as the first dicepool RPG (though i believe SR was the first to use the term), and it's of the add-them-up type. The more-or-less agreed-upon definition of a dicepool is a mechanic where the number of dice, all of one size, vary with skill level. Usually, this is directly proportional to the change in skill (i.e., one die per point of skill, or per relevant trait). Usually, what that die is is constant for the whole game (but in some cases, e.g. Deadlands, it can vary from character to character or trait to trait). Usually, a game like Alternity is excluded because it's fundamentally a one-die system with variable (vice constant) modifiers--it just happens that at the extremes that modifier die becomes multiple dice because there's nothing bigger.

I'm not sure where to put a game like Providence: you have a dice pool equal to stat+skill, but, no matter what that total is, you always total two dice. Furthermore, all dice beyond two are converted to a static modifier. However, you can choose to roll more than two of your dice (if your dice pool is bigger than 2), but in that case you still only total up two of them, and you convert whatever dice you didn't roll into a static modifier. [So, frex, if your pool was 6d, you could roll 2d, add them, and add 4n (i'm not certain, but i think n=3); or roll 4d, add two of them, and add 2n. I remember noting that the probabilities were such that it was never to your advantage to roll more than 1 (or maybe 2) extra die.]

 

[Woas]

Don't forget: GODLIKE

 

[Campbell]

In math geek speak, binomial. Though new Storyteller is modestly different in that it gives a fixed target number and varies the number of successes needed instead... which is really a better/easier to work with and understand variant.

Interestingly enough it seems that Shadowrun 4e will use an identical mechanic to the New World of Darkness dice pool mechanic. Of course SR will still use D6s, but with no exploding dice. From the FAQ posted on FanPro's site it looks like SR4 is going to be my kind of game.

 

[Umbran]

For example, On The Edge by Atlas Games uses a system where each character has a skill level of xd6 in what they do, and you total your dice when you roll them and compare results. Highest wins. This is not a dice pool, but a simple escalating DC system.

This is what I meant when I said they perform differently. Note that while the above and d20 are both "generate a single random number, compare that number to a target number" structure, the random numbers generated don't behave the same at all, in terms of probability.

Some folks classify based upon how you compare dice to target number, others classify by the probability distributions the dice create. While the former may not consider d6 a "dice pool" game, the latter would.

Don't forget: GODLIKE

It hasn't been forgotten. Godlike is the "roll a bunch of dice, arrange in patterned sets. Both the pattern and the size of the set may be relevant" sort. The pattern Godlike uses is sets of equal numbers.

 

[HellHound]

[Nitpick]That's Over the Edge. On the Edge is the TCG. Also, i'd say that ShadowRun had gotten the dicepool meme out there quite handily before V:tM came along. It's just that, generally, those who were interested in V:tM weren't interested in SR, and vice versa.[/nitpick]

Agreed and Agreed. Although not on the last point, as I've run both... only a few hundred hours of Shadowrun compared to years of Vampire, however.

Anyway, i'd say you're odd-man-out on this one. See http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/systemdesign/dice-methods.html , frex. Ghostbusters is generally referred to as the first dicepool RPG (though i believe SR was the first to use the term), and it's of the add-them-up type.

We alays referred to those as additive, without the words "dice pool" in there. Cool, thanks for the link.

I certainly agree that Ghostbusters is a very important RPG, and one we had the enjoyment of playing on-and-off for a year or two before I made the mistake of selling it off.

While Prince Valiant was the first RPG I know of that had a non-additive dice pool system, Ghostbusters not only used additive dice pools, but also had the Brownie Points rules where players could directly influence die rolls and game play - including having to provide reasons why spending these points provided them the results they wanted, taking the game into narrativist grounds.