story adding die rolls

[GamingGlen]

I heard about how great (gack) the new dice system* is in the new Star Wars RPG and how some dice determine, story-wise, how good or bad a success/failure was.  One benefit to that system is not having to look up on some table(s) for various special affects.  But I wondered if this was possible with the regular dice and came up with the idea that works for dice rolls that involve 2 or more dice, such as 1D100 (2 x 10-sided) for RQ or 2D6 (Traveller, my favorite sf RPG):  doubles.  RQ already has such for certain rolls: fumbles on 99 and 00.  But what if a 77 is rolled?  Might that be something just a tad more successful in some way (if made the skill check) or worse in some way (if failed the skill check)?  But, what if you want a success but with some aspect of failure, for example breaking your lock pick even though you successfully picked the lock?  One could say that even doubles (e.g., 44) make the check results better while odds doubles (e.g., 33) make the check results worse.  Again, this mostly would be used to help add some story-telling if that's desired and might not add anything every time (my own group isn't that interested in story fluff of that detail, alas).

I hope I was clear and look forward to comments.  Now I'm off to play my favorite superhero RPG: Champions. Hmm, wonder if would work for 3D6 as well, although most GMs have let people get extra affect when 3 ones are rolled.

 - Glen

 

* IMO: why have funky dice when "old" dice work just fine?  but as a game store owner: yay!  sell even more dice to players that might already have a pile of regular dice

Edited May 16, 2016 by GamingGlen

[Mugen]

9 hours ago, GamingGlen said:

I heard about how great (gack) the new dice system* is in the new Star Wars RPG and how some dice determine, story-wise, how good or bad a success/failure was.  One benefit to that system is not having to look up on some table(s) for various special affects.  But I wondered if this was possible with the regular dice and came up with the idea that works for dice rolls that involve 2 or more dice, such as 1D100 (2 x 10-sided) for RQ or 2D6 (Traveller, my favorite sf RPG):  doubles.  RQ already has such for certain rolls: fumbles on 99 and 00.  But what if a 77 is rolled?  Might that be something just a tad more successful in some way (if made the skill check) or worse in some way (if failed the skill check)?  But, what if you want a success but with some aspect of failure, for example breaking your lock pick even though you successfully picked the lock?  One could say that even doubles (e.g., 44) make the check results better while odds doubles (e.g., 33) make the check results worse.  Again, this mostly would be used to help add some story-telling if that's desired and might not add anything every time (my own group isn't that interested in story fluff of that detail, alas).

 - Glen

Some people use doubles as a trigger for critical successes or failures.

I like your idea better, as it can be decoupled from failure and success.

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I hope I was clear and look forward to comments.  Now I'm off to play my favorite superhero RPG: Champions. Hmm, wonder if would work for 3D6 as well, although most GMs have let people get extra affect when 3 ones are rolled.

In Nomine, a game in which you play angels or demons, uses a 3d6-based system. If a character rolls 3 ones, it means God makes a direct intervention. On a triple 6 (666...), it's Satan.

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* IMO: why have funky dice when "old" dice work just fine?  but as a game store owner: yay!  sell even more dice to players that might already have a pile of regular dice

That's because it's easier to read the special dice directly than to look at a table for each die.

Your argument is perfectly valid for The One Ring, where d6s have a small mark on the 6, and the d12 have "11" and "12" replaced with the Eye of Sauron and the Gandalf rune.

[g33k]

9 hours ago, Mugen said:

I like your idea better, as it can be decoupled from failure and success.

Agreed!  Though I note that your PC needs a crit-range to include 11% or you can't roll doubles on a crit...

I may just adopt this as a HR... Doubles is "something interesting happens" -- generally good, on a crit, generally bad, on a fumble.  For non-Crit/Fumble, I'll do the even/odd for good/bad value on the "interesting" bit...

[styopa]

For a while we tried a fatigue system based around that: roll %doubles and at that moment we check your encumbrance.  Depending on your load, you got 1+ "fatigue" tokens that each gave you a flat -5% on any roll until you rested.  The logic being, the more times you rolled %ile dice, the more "stuff" you were doing, and in abstraction, the more likely you were to get tired.

Ultimately, it just became another fatigue system dropped by the wayside.  I've come to the final conclusion that mechanical encumbrance systems are either too trivial for the bookkeeping (most of the time) or too punitive.  Now, I just say at the start of a session, to each player "so, what are you wearing/carrying?".  First, them going over what's where, and ending up with "and the rest of the stuff is in my pack" actually helps everyone at the table visualize each other.  Second, then, if it's enough to burden them to some degree, I mention it and they either amend it or accept it.

Then, 3 hours later when something happens when I think fatigue/enc would be relevant, I just mention it and tell them that they're growing really tired, so at this point you're -10% on physical skills, -5% on mental ones until they take a substantial rest.  (That's the same penalty I put in place if people have hiked all day, and are attacked at night before they are rested, too.)

It's arbitrary, I admit, but people seem to agree so far.