dm4hire
Explorer
I’ve been toying around with the idea of creating a new game for awhile now but have been trying to figure out how to make it stand out from the rest. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get past the wistful stage as far as game design goes, but one thing that has stuck out to me is the abundance of new dice types that aren’t being used. Just about every game system out there tends to focus on the traditional seven dice first used by D&D or some combination of those dice. Whether that combo be just a simple d6 mechanic, percentiles using d10s or a d100, or a step progression they all tend to focus on traditional dice. The one exception I’m aware of is an out of print game that used d30.
My reason for pondering this is that over the last couple of years we’ve seen the introduction of the d24, d16, d14, d7, even a d34, and I recall but can’t find the d18. So why haven’t these dice worked their way into the mainstream? Instead they seem lost on the Island of Misfit Toys. It would seem to me that with these editions one might be able to make a better step progression system.
Take the Coretex system which uses d2, d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12. It uses a d2! Flip a coin or use one of the other dice to determine even or odd. But a probability of one or two for a weak score was determined to be needed; that and I think they wanted to keep the game at six dice. Why though? Mainly because the designer wanted a steady progression using steps of two and I’m pretty sure d14’s weren’t out or if they were didn’t even cross his mind probably. It could also have been a matter of convenience since anyone can find a set of the stand seven dice types.
The point though is that these dice are out there now. A steady progression can easily be done now by using d4 – d16 and if you can find the elusive d18 one could bump that to d20 without missing a two point step. That would give a progression nine dice. A smaller pool with more of a curve would be going in steps of four from d4 – d24, totaling only six dice needed. Going one step further by jumping to an increment of eight would see a three dice pool of d8 – d24 making a tri-stat system interesting.
I realize this doesn’t even touch using them as expanded forms of weapon/spell damage since traditionally that progression also tends to work with combinations of the standard dice pool. Regardless though, what other ways could these unused dice be incorporated into a game system? Is it even feasible to include them since the game world seems grounded on the traditional seven?
My reason for pondering this is that over the last couple of years we’ve seen the introduction of the d24, d16, d14, d7, even a d34, and I recall but can’t find the d18. So why haven’t these dice worked their way into the mainstream? Instead they seem lost on the Island of Misfit Toys. It would seem to me that with these editions one might be able to make a better step progression system.
Take the Coretex system which uses d2, d4, d6, d8, d10 and d12. It uses a d2! Flip a coin or use one of the other dice to determine even or odd. But a probability of one or two for a weak score was determined to be needed; that and I think they wanted to keep the game at six dice. Why though? Mainly because the designer wanted a steady progression using steps of two and I’m pretty sure d14’s weren’t out or if they were didn’t even cross his mind probably. It could also have been a matter of convenience since anyone can find a set of the stand seven dice types.
The point though is that these dice are out there now. A steady progression can easily be done now by using d4 – d16 and if you can find the elusive d18 one could bump that to d20 without missing a two point step. That would give a progression nine dice. A smaller pool with more of a curve would be going in steps of four from d4 – d24, totaling only six dice needed. Going one step further by jumping to an increment of eight would see a three dice pool of d8 – d24 making a tri-stat system interesting.
I realize this doesn’t even touch using them as expanded forms of weapon/spell damage since traditionally that progression also tends to work with combinations of the standard dice pool. Regardless though, what other ways could these unused dice be incorporated into a game system? Is it even feasible to include them since the game world seems grounded on the traditional seven?
