Adding or multiplying?

what do you think is the generally better system? multiplying rolls with stats or adding them as a flat number?

Out of those two? Easily adding. Multiplying will make things way too swingy.

A roll that will succeed 50% of the time for someone with a 1 in the skill, becomes a 75% chance for someone with just a 2 in the skill, and inversely, if you set up a challenge to be moderately difficult for someone with a 2 in the skill, it becomes much much harder for someone with a 1, and these differences only get more and more exaggerated the more you broaden the "range" of potential skill levels. That means you have to either make it so everyone has like, a 1-3 in skills tops, or just accept that some people will utterly blow others away in some areas, and get utterly blown away in others.

if you use these values as comparison , one is of course twice as big as the other

it would make sense that has only half the chance of failure if the skill or stat is twice as high.
but i guess it would only work in a system where having 20 points in a stat literally means you have for example twice the physical strength of someone with 10 strength.

Multiplying

Because, this allow death by tousands papercuts, a thing needed to allow someone killing a way tougher guy

how is this not possible with a flat roll bonus?

addition
Y > X so X - Y < 0

multiplication

Y > X
X / Y is never smaller than 0

forgot this , stupid me

i am currently using 2d10, would this make for reasonable probabilities?

adding
mainly because multiplication is far more complicated to do mentally and will slow down the game

In the forum game i run its addition for things like buffs and nerfs, then multiplication for elemental affinities

It depends on what you want the dice to represent. The probability of 1d10 * 1d10 gives you a logarithmic curve. About 50% of the results will be 20 or less, and 75% will be 40 or less. Go to anydice and load up the 'at most' chart to see it.

In my experience, multiplication is very risky in an RPG. It can easily become more important than any other factor and lead to some ludicrous results. Of course, in some games that works, like Maid RPG. But if you're not going for insane comedy shenanigans, avoid multiplication like the plague.

>what are calculators

typing 5 signs at most isnt that slow

it is (d10 + d10)x skill/stat

it is supposed to emulate how a slighter advantage gives you a far higher chance of 'winning' a check, especially in STR vs STR checks.
i think it is also a good way to deal with our "cursed" dice , to prevent being oneshotted by enemies half the parties power in the first encounter. with values not jumping around as much , players just are far more confident in their specialisations

> "ok guys, pulls out your calculators and roll to see if you hit"

Me and my friends are creating a homebrew rule set and I want to change the current dice setting we are using. As it is right now, we roll like a million dices and just add everything up which takes too long.
We are going with a focus on skills rather than attributes so my thoughts are as follows:

1-5 in attributes. What you have in STR for example, say 3, will give you a +3 to your roll.
Let´s say that you have a foundation of 2d6 to roll. every relevant skill increases your dice with 1d6, and a speciality in that skill increases the die to a d8.
What would be the relevant number the players have to roll to succeed?
I was thinking of say a standard 12+ to succeed, which changes to the lowest of 9 and the highest of 15 depending on how challenging it would be. Would that be plausible way of rolling dice?

This is just a quick thought so destroy my ideas with constructive critisism and help me.

Who doesn't know their times tables?

literally nothing wrong with it
multiplying with calculators is just as quick as adding numbers in your head

Quick, what's 13*18? No calculators allowed.

d10 systems work fine with multiplying in your head
everything above should of course be using a calculator

Eighteen squared is 324, minus 90 is 234. But that's still a strawman. It's a d10 system.

...

It's 2d10 X (unknown) stats.
13*18 could easily be within the required calculations for the system.

Well then you'd get really good at double-digit multiplication in your head. Just practice and find tricks that make it easier, and bam, you've got a learning tool!

I like "difference" between two rolls, but that's just addition on two sides then a subtraction.

From my time playing a handful of systems, big numbers in RPGs seem redundant if you don't need to measure the efficiency of an attack or skillcheck in micrograms.

What you described is similar to the Silhouette system, with one main difference.

It also uses a flat -5 to +5 stat array. Most people only get a +/-1 to stats. 2's and especially 3's are trully exceptional, and +5's are demi-god status.

In silhouette, you roll a number of dice equal to your skill, but you only ever keep the highest dice.

So if you have 5 levels in a skill and +1 in the related attribute and roll 3, 4, 2, 5, 1, then the result is a 6.

Target numbers are usually in the 2-6 range and rarely get higher than a 10, so numbers never get too big or swingy.

Usually, a specialty in a skill just gives you a flat +1 bonus, but increasing your dice to a d8 can work. The system kind of prides itself on only requiring the ever ubiquitous d6 though.

It's personally my favorite system.

i think multiplying works fine as a frame , since it allows systems where having double the points literaly means having double as much of that stat

shit like 10 str = lifting 100kg and 11 str = 150kg is stupid anyway , it takes away a good bit of granularity.

a multiplying system also still leaves a tiny chance of beating a far surperior opponent , (for example , a d10 requires your opponent to have more than 10x your stat to always beat you in a check), while the amount of swingyness can be easily controlled on both high and low levels by using 2d6 (with 2 6's as 1 and single 6 as reroll) or other combinations

flat d20 on the other hand is extremely swingy on low stats , and matters little on high stats, if you want to give an entity double the actual ability in one stat , you have to recalculate how it translates into the stats on the sheet.
the flat system may be easy to calculate in your head - but i still prefer a system that is easier to estimate and interpret , and works just as good no matter the scales

Adding. Most people are idiots who have trouble with simple sums let alone multiplication.

thats what we have calculators for

>a million dices
Singular = die
Plural = dice

"dices" is what one does to food with with a cutting board and a knife.