Special dice systems

[Lee]

Ok, with the myriad game systems out there and varying transitions of edition, it's impossible for most people to try everything at once. I count myself as one of those people

We all know that each game system tries to differentiate itself from the others by employing a different take on dice mechanics. I've started this thread to get input from players of different game systems to try and figure out commonalities that can be distilled, then integrated into a dice expression builder.

You can contribute by specifying anything that goes beyond what my current system provides:

• Standard rolls for generic dice types i.e. d4 - d100
• Exploding dice with the possibility to cap the # of explosions
• Exploding on a range e.g. 7-10
• Adding a modifier to each die in the roll or to the roll's total
• Keeping/dropping dice
• Reverse behavior of keep/drop mechanics i.e. keeping the lowest, dropping the highest
• Chaining multiple die types in one roll; each die type cast capable of having unique rules within not found in other casts. The exception being explosion which, atm, applies to all die types in the chain.

I have a contribution from Jagged regarding the Hero system, detailed on the parent post here. I hope to hear from interested contributors soon

Thank you.

[wolph42]

whats different:
- exploding from a certain treshold e.g. 1d10e on 7+
- explode only when other condition is met (though thats easily done with an if statement)
- i don't know if you're actually gonna create 'standard' dices but keep in mind that d2, d5 and d30 are also pretty common.

[Lee]

whats different:

This is for W40k and/or Dark Heresy? I'm ashamed to admit that I have the books, always wanted to play , but never got around to doing so.

- exploding from a certain treshold e.g. 1d10e on 7+

It's already in the system.

- explode only when other condition is met (though thats easily done with an if statement)

Yeah, I'm trying to shy away from dependencies on aspects of a roll as it's easier to do in macros anyway.

- i don't know if you're actually gonna create 'standard' dices but keep in mind that d2, d5 and d30 are also pretty common.

Ah, we'll probably stick with 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20, 100 for controls, as I believe major game systems use all or subsets of this list already, and dice types like d2 and d5 can be derived through roll modification. Conversely, a field can be put in to customize dice sides, if ever there is a demand for it. This reminds me of something humorous I read a while back

[wolph42]

That is one funny link. I just mentioned the die cause in some systems eg w40k they're common. In w40k there is only the d10 which sometimes is rolled as d5. So you're right that it's a derived die but do is the d4.

[Bone White]

If you were going to add extra "features" which people didn't want to code themselves, then you may as well go the whole hog and make an expression parser.

2D2e2:1D2
Roll 2D2, each die explodes separately, they explode on a roll of 2, the explode die is 1d2. Add the results together at the end (as a standard die roll)
(2D2)+e(3,4):1D2
Roll 2D2, add them together, they explode on a total of 3 or 4, the explode die is 1d2. As the die-rolls were added at the start, there is only one result to total.

Complicated yes.
Overly so, yes.
Any more complicated to use than actually learning the roll controls of the macro language? Not likely.

[Lee]

@Bone White
Unless putting these in will actually support multiple (existing) systems, doing so would be unnecessary as the goal is to provide something quick to use as soon as a user opens the tool up. It is, after all, a dice bar; the process involved being users interacting with controls instead of typing expressions in, though one could certainly put an expression in if one so wishes.

Anything specific should be relegated to the macro system, which the dice options support by making the details of the roll available. Again, the objective of the discussion is to find out what's common in a lot of systems, integrate it into the system, if possible, and figure out a smart way to make the information available for extension through macro writing.

[wolph42]

@Bone White
Unless putting these in will actually support multiple (existing) systems, doing so would be unnecessary as the goal is to provide something quick to use as soon as a user opens the tool up. It is, after all, a dice bar; the process involved being users interacting with controls instead of typing expressions in, though one could certainly put an expression in if one so wishes.

Anything specific should be relegated to the macro system, which the dice options support by making the details of the roll available. Again, the objective of the discussion is to find out what's common in a lot of systems, integrate it into the system, if possible, and figure out a smart way to make the information available for extension through macro writing.

now that you are talking about a dicebar. Maybe you should have a look at my adaptation of Rumbles dicebox. I went pretty far with the bells and whistles to make it as agnostic as possible, including options to set several things.

Just download the BoT cmapaign (link in sig.) and run the dicebox.

[JML]

Did you think of success counting ? Something along the line of "every d10 over 8 is a success"…

[Lee]

now that you are talking about a dicebar. Maybe you should have a look at my adaptation of Rumbles dicebox. I went pretty far with the bells and whistles to make it as agnostic as possible, including options to set several things.

Just download the BoT cmapaign (link in sig.) and run the dicebox.

I'll take a look at it.

Did you think of success counting ? Something along the line of "every d10 over 8 is a success"…

Good one. I've put in an item for this on the roll detail object. If I may ask, which game system(s) employ this?

[Bone White]

Good one. I've put in an item for this on the roll detail object. If I may ask, which game system(s) employ this?

WH40k RP games, dierolls have a "difficulty" target, which you have to roll over to pass.

[wolph42]

Good one. I've put in an item for this on the roll detail object. If I may ask, which game system(s) employ this?

WH40k RP games, dierolls have a "difficulty" target, which you have to roll over to pass.

they also have a 'degree of success/fail' system, which indicates HOW succesfull/failure you were. Unfortunately they revise these rules about ever book:
let say difficulty 51 and 1d100 result 19
- initially: 51 - 19 = 32, every multiple of 10 you succeed with is 1 DoS so: 3 DoS
- initial alternative: IF you succeed THEN the tens digit (19) of you die roll is the DoS: 1 DoS
- next book: same rule BUT succeeding is ALSO 1 DoS (so rolling 51 on 51 is 1 DoS instead of 0) hence the former rule +1: 4 DoS
- or the alternative rule +1: 2 DoS
- next book: now you only look at the tens digits and THAT is the DoS with a minimum of 1 so: 5-1 + 1 = 5 DoS

so thats 5 different results for the same die/difficulty combination in one system (spread over several books).

[Bone White]

Good one. I've put in an item for this on the roll detail object. If I may ask, which game system(s) employ this?

WH40k RP games, dierolls have a "difficulty" target, which you have to roll over to pass.

they also have a 'degree of success/fail' system, which indicates HOW succesfull/failure you were. Unfortunately they revise these rules about ever book:
let say difficulty 51 and 1d100 result 19
- initially: 51 - 19 = 32, every multiple of 10 you succeed with is 1 DoS so: 3 DoS
- initial alternative: IF you succeed THEN the tens digit (19) of you die roll is the DoS: 1 DoS
- next book: same rule BUT succeeding is ALSO 1 DoS (so rolling 51 on 51 is 1 DoS instead of 0) hence the former rule +1: 4 DoS
- or the alternative rule +1: 2 DoS
- next book: now you only look at the tens digits and THAT is the DoS with a minimum of 1 so: 5-1 + 1 = 5 DoS

so thats 5 different results for the same die/difficulty combination in one system (spread over several books).

Essentially, macro controlled.

[Xaelvaen]

I would like to add to the mix of controlling the 'exploding' content would be useful on many degrees. By that, I mean BW's initial example - at least the part coming after the colon.

So if you were to explode dice (4d10e) and add just a simple control (:1d10) you could simply make it default to the same dice being rolled, so no extra learning curve for anyone who didn't need it. However, allowing you to change it would open an easy doorway for a lot of tiny things that often get overlook. In example, in Numenera, there's the ability explode a d6 on top of a d20 (when you roll a natural 20, you can add 1d6). Its not that I can name a ton of systems that would use the different dice approach, but I certainly can think of how implementing this 'early on' would payoff in the long haul.

I'd also like to +1 the 'dice counting' mention; that would come in handy for quite a few scenarios.

All that being said, none of it is -overly- difficult to macro, but its a lot less difficult to macro it into a more complicated macro if you don't have to use macro.return to roll a series of dice because you're out of 'nesting' room lol. (Like trying to make an initiative macro for Exalted - macro.return is a life-saver).

[Rumble]

Another counting sets (e.g., you roll 6d10 and you end up with three 5's, two 1's, and a 4)--like what's used by One Roll Engine games. I can think of at least 3 games that use that, although none are "big names."

Just remember that once you start this, it's easy to find yourself in a rabbit-hole with no bottom.

I'd look at Roll20's dice dialog, as well as the stuff like the macro options wolph posted, and keep a tight rein on the urge to make this do everything (I assume you're doing so; just reinforcing!). My solution for the "quick dice roller thingy" when you open MapTool was a calculator-like panel that you clicked buttons to build the expression. It intentionally handled nothing beyond exploding dice, and Fudge/FATE dice.

dice-window-2.png (12.97 KiB) Viewed 1884 times

[jfrazierjr]

lee... le'ts discuss this in some detail. I (still) have plans to get around to updating DiceTool with JavaFX support and incorporating the new Parser engine that Craig wrote. My hope was to build such a dice panel for "simple" expressions but have an edit dialog for more complex formulas(and or direct javascript function calls or a combination). If you have any plans to change existing syntax, I would highly recommend talking to Craig and checking out his post from earlier this year about the dice syntax his new parser supports so we do it in a consistent way.

From my point of view, I am more interested in the UI aspects, again, not to say what's the "right" way, but ensuring a consistent look/feel as much as possible across apps.