What's the best 'resolution mechanic', in your opinion?

Pelt each other with d4s until one of you begs for mercy. Winner wins.

Percentiles because I've yet to see a percentile using system that has managed to fuck up a percentile roll.

Everything is inferior to Fudge dice.

I really like how degenesis does things as it reminds me of shadowrun but shaving insane amount of d6 into max of 12 d6.
Idea being that if you would have skill 13 you throw 12 and have 1 automatic success.

Degenesis?

I'm not a fan of systems with lots of dice. It's annoying

Whoops! Looks like you accidentally switched a few words around in your sentence. It's okay, we're not all native English speakers. :)
The correct way to say that is "Fudge dice is inferior to everything."

I'd love a "just the facts" version of it too. Make sure to post it in the share threads when it's done.

>3d6 roll under target, average human ability score 10
Gurps

Cypher System.

How does that work?

I like d100 because it's simple to understand how difficult something is, as easy to roll as any other system, makes homebrew and improve easier, and some of my favorite games use it.

If I only had d6s I like dice pools - versus target number, counting successes, and those high card style systems all work well.

I agree about d100s, it's just a shame d10s aren't more common.

Though, that does give me an interesting idea. A system that uses d6 that has 33%, 50%, and 66% as its only ratings... too bad you can't really go higher than 66% on a d6 without getting a funky number.

Hello 7th sea

A six-sided die has only six sides. Are people not smart enough to be able to figure the probabilities of 1/6 and 5/6 in their head?

2dN or 3dN bell curve, roll under. I'll settle for 1d20 or 1d100 roll under. Dice pools are an abomination.

3dN has that weird plateau in the middle, though.

Different stuff works well for different systems.

PbtA has 2d6+stat. On a 6-, bad stuff happens. On a 7-9, partial success, mixed results. 10+, good stuff. 12+, you actually make a permanent positive change.

Works great for most PbtA games. Wouldn't make sense in DnD or Star Wars unless you rewrote the whole game that way.

I've always liked the elegance of the PbtA mechanics, but a friend of mine can't get over the idea of static difficulty, that no two actions will ever be more or less difficult than one another.

2d6

I really enjoy the raise/call system of Dogs in the Vineyard. I think it's one of the few resolution systems that encourages both mastery of the system and good storytelling at the same time.

the jenga tower, as used in the 'dread' system

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_(role-playing_game)

Coin flips

>
In terms of talking about resolution mechanics that work very well in their context, I really love the way Legends of the Wulin fits the theme of the system. It uses an ORE-esque system of rolling d10s and making sets of dice, but the awesome thing is that it lets you make multiple actions on a single roll. I've not seen any other system that lets you execute multiple simultaneous actions so elegantly, and it really makes combat feel deeper and more interesting.

How does it differ exactly from ORE?

I've not got much experience of ORE, but I'll give you a basic rundown of the dice mechanic.

Each player rolls a static pool of d10s. There are a few ways it increases or decreases, but generally it remains at a set value, seven dice for starting characters. When you make a roll, one particular element is designated the Major Action, such as the attack on a combat roll or the requested skill for an out of combat roll.

The value of a die or set of dice is ten for each die in the set, plus the face value of the die. So one five has a value of 15, two sevens has a value of 27, three twos has a value of 32.

Here's where it gets interesting. In addition to the Major Action on a roll, for every additional set you roll you can take an additional Minor Action, whether a supporting skill in an out of combat action or extra attacks, debuff actions or similar in combat. Certain Kung fu techniques can also allow you to make extra Minor Actions on a single dice.

In general, you'll often be making multiple actions on every combat turn, especially since the Initiative Roll is also used for making utility actions in combat (a really clever idea, since it makes the initiative roll an interesting and interactive element of the combat round, rather than just unnecessarily confusing turn order.)

The only thing more inferior than other dice methods is your reading comprehension, apparently.

Agreed

Sounds like an awesome idea. Having a high skill than stats means more stable results, having higher stats means more potential.

Actually, I am going to apply this to Dream Pod 9's system. [Skill]d6 , take highest result, Extra 6s (if any) add to the result, max extra is 1+Stat Bonus.

Yeah, PBTA uses a lot of other mechanisms to increase the difficulty of rolls.

For example, attacking a dragon successfully should be hard. If you're using Dungeon World, it shouldn't be a simple Hack and Slash roll. If the dragon is strong and resisting, you probably have to Defy Danger to even get close to it. Before that, you might need to find an opening - that'd require Discern Realities. By stacking three moves to achieve one action, it becomes astronomically harder.

Or, you can simply make it not possible in the fiction. It's too high up; you need to find a way to get closer to it to attack. It's got impenetrable scales; you need to find a chink in its armor. It's protected by powerful regenerative magic; you need to find the weakness in the spell. And so on.

This puts a lot more onus on the GM to make difficulty 'work', but it's solid when you get it.

3d6 or 1d100. 2d10s acting to represent something close to 1-100 is good too if the game is rebalanced to account for using 2 dice instead of one.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. I'll pitch it to him that way next time the system comes up.

There isn't a difference for 2d10 if you set each one to a digit before rolling, though.

>1d20.
>All NPCs and obstacles have a level 1-10 (with modifications, e.g. lv 3 monster with lv 4 attack.). >Target number is Level*3.
>Skills is a +3 or +6 (from two rank 1 skills or a rank 2 skill) bonus.
>Cast from HP to get aditional +3's (with a limit based on level).
>Crits on 20 and partial crit on 19.

So it's roll-under?

Can you cast from HP on any roll, or just magic?

When do skills apply? Just when they're relevant?

Why do you like the system?

Your stats (Might, Speed and intelect) are pools that you can spend to activate powers or spend Effort (spend 3 points for the first +3 and two points for each additional +3). In addition to your pool some of your stats may have Edge, Edge is a discount on all powers and Effort for that attribute.

I called it cast from hit points because damage is dealt to your pools, usualy Might, but mental attack deal Intelect damage.

Skills apply when tey're relevant, but you can only get a bonus from two levels of skills.

the system is roll over. NPCs usually only have a level (determines TN for checks against them), Modifications (the NPCs "Skills") HP, Damage (which is static) and movement.

All rolls are made by the players, so you roll to hit an NPC and you rollto not get hit by an NPC.

I'm not the guy who originally mentioned the Cypher system, but I like the Strange, an RPG that uses the system, as a player because you get to play a lot of different characters in the same campaign. As a GM I like that NPC rules are easy to do on the fly and that they get out of the way so I can focus on what the does rather than what it's AC, Will save and init bonus is

Depends, really.

FFG Star Wars have an interesting system where you you pick good dice from your charsheet and bad dice from your opponent's charsheet. Then, with a roll you get some amount of 3 currencies: successes, advantages and triumphs, which you can spend on your action

Oh, it's a tri-stat system?
I like systems that only have players roll, and having TN set by NPCs and obstacles' 'levels' seems interesting enough.
Do players have levels?
I do like the freeform-ness of the rules. Does it have any mechanical crunch alongside that - for example, lists of features or abilities or whatever?

Yeah, I like Star Wars' system, but I hate the special dice. Hate.

Yes, players have levels, if IIRC that is.
There are abilities that players can obtain as well as things called 'GM intrusions' that are kinda like compels in FATE. I recommend checking out Numenera or The Strange, but there is a generic cypher system rule set.

There is? I'll look for it. Thanks

How can you like the system but hate the dice? The system is built around the dice and vice versa.

I like the idea of player + enemy, each with a different meaning and canceling each other out. I don't like needing specialized dice for it.

I agree it's a weird feeling, since it's tough to imagine how it'd be done -without- specialized symbols, you know?

I don't know if it's meaningfully better than other mechanics, but I have the most fun with the FFG Star Wars RPG system. I also really like the dice pool system of V20 WoD.

Yeah, I guess I get that. I personally love the special dice, but I understand why people would not.

If I remember correctly, FFG's End of the World games use a good/bad dice system with d6s. But I don't remember exactly how it works. But I'm sure it hackable into something you could use.

I just don't like having to buy lots of dice I can't use for anything else, you know?

But Gurps is literally trash, implementing a point buy system that doesn't really kick in on the increasing cost for diminishing returns bit until after you are in the "critfail or pass" range

>But Gurps is literally trash
t. Asspained Pathfinder player

what did they do?
why is it the best?

For simulation: dice pool + modifier VS target number.

For not-so-serious fun: 1 die.

I haven't tested it yet but for narration Fantasy Flight Games came up with special dice for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition

Thankfully, they had the decency to put a lookup table for normal dice into their rulebooks
Though it's not terribly handy

>roll [skill], keep [stat]
You mean roll number of dice. Keep of dice?

Yes. What else could it refer to, dummy?

Of the systems I played, I enjoyed dice pools in both Shadowrun and Vampire the most.

The "Roll, keep best" idea also sounds intriguing, but I don't know if it's been done anywhere to see how well it works. I know about DnD chargen, but that's a horrible application of the mechanic.

A great example is L5R

>The One-Roll Engine
Starting to like it alot, but we're runninga super hero game with it, which it seems to be a great fit for.

Mutant År Noll/Year Zero and Genlab Alfa has some great dice pool mechanics with a push your luck element to them that works very well for the setting and I personaly think is a great introduction system for some one that's never played RPGs befor.

The Star Wars games handles the special dice idea beter, in WHFRP 3rd ed it becomes some what of a mess. Simplified version is used in Mutant Year Zero, only d6s but different kinds depending on ability, skill, and gear (which still are only d6s but they might react differently on failures - 1s).

On my opinion the best resolution mechanics is like this.
The dice goes from 0 to 9

You have X% chance of doing something.
If X is EXACTLY 100 or more you do it without roll.

Lets imagine the chance to do it is 00.00051565156676543216%
You must roll less than this numbers to do the action
You roll JUST ONE DICE,
Imagine you get a 6, this means you already failed, no need to roll more dices despise the ultra low chance.
Now imagine that instead of getting 6 you got 0, in this case you cant know if you will do the action or not, you roll again to find the second digit of your number, you get 3 on the dice, now, with 2 rolls you discovered that you will fail.
Yes the chance to do the action was ultra small but you were able to do it with 2 rolls.

so this means that you will have only 1 in 10 chance of needing 2 rolls no matter how small or high the chances are, or how many numbers there are after the decimal.
also just 1 in 100 is the chance of needing 3 rolls
and 1 in 1000 is the chance of needing 4 rolls.
the chance is even smaller because sometimes the chance wont be 50.000635% but just 50%.

This resolution mechanic even allow (100/3)%

>too bad you can't really go higher than 66% on a d6 without getting a funky number

you can do

(D6 * 6 )+ d6 -6
this means you will use the d6 as digits of a base 6 numbers and convert them to base 10

or you can do
(6*10) + d6
the math here is easier to do, but this way you actually generate the base 6 number and not the base '0 onw

or you can do
(6*10) + d6
You must assume 6 is 0
also you dont need to multiplay by 10 just use the numbers in the order is rolled like digits

Yeah, I love the elegance of ORE, but not the number of dice you need to roll.

Yeah, but that math isn't simple at all. Who the fuck wants to convert to base 10 or deal with base 6? I'd call that "funky numbers".

Depends on what you are going for.

d% roll under, especially with adding bonuses to the target number, gives you a nice elegant way to determine the difficulty of the task: the target number is the chance of succeeding. If a roll has a 60 target roll, then it's a 60% chance of success. If the target gets a +20 bonus, then it's a 20% better chance. The difficulty is that it's nonstandard for most systems today, so people might not understand it.

Fate/FUDGE has a very elegant system: dF dice which average zero, so the average is whatever the current skill level is. It's possible to do away with the dice entirely in such a system, if you prefer, or eliminate dice on one side or another. It's quite nice if the GM doesn't want to roll, such as on a forum game, or something similar.

HeroQuest had a very nice system, of opposed d20 rolls against their own target numbers. However, a lot of that was due to the particulars of the system working very well together, as opposed to a general complement to the d20 die.