Chance Mechanics

flipping a coin 2 times has the same probability spread as a d4, 3 times has the same spread as a d8. I can't think of a scenario where using coin flips would be a better method than just rolling dice. Flipping a coin 4 or more times can let you simulate shit that would be hard to do with dice like d16s and d32s but what advantages would doing that offer over rolling a d20 or some d10s?

It takes forever to do what effectively amounts to a straight d% roll

That just sounds like a dice pool system.
Burning Wheel uses d6s with 4/5/6 as a success, so, 50/50 per die.

Then you have a certain amount of "flips" (dice, a pool created from your skills and stuff) to get a certain number of "heads" (successes) to succeed on a task.

I mean if you wanted to make tasks both decide your pool *and* your successes needed, at that point you really are just at an overly complicated d100 roll (with harder to read probabilities), as other user said. More-so than most systems are, because then it's not even caring about the character's abilities.

You can simulate a d16 by throwing 2d4 (1/2)4=(1/4)2=1/16 and a d32 by throwing 1d4 and then 1d8 (1/4)*(1/8)=1/32

There's always Rock, Paper, Scissors. You beat the other guy and you win. You tie and the person with the higher score wins (otherwise you throw again, with a second tie possibly going to the active character). You lose and you lose. You could, of course, make it more complicated than that. If your score is high enough above somebody else's then a loss for you counts instead as a tie, necessitating a re-throw. You could also have rock, paper and scissors each have a different special effect if you win with them, maybe indicating power, passive?, and finesse. So throwing a rock in combat might mean you knock somebody down or stun them. Throwing scissors in combat might mean you find the chink in their armor or disable their leg. Throwing paper could represent a feint (setting you up for a devastating follow-up strike), disarming your opponent, tripping him, or anything that doesn't deal normal, direct damage. The trick to all of this is that whoever you were throwing against would be anticipating the results if you threw a certain sign, and might plan what to throw against you on that basis. But, of course, you'd be anticipating that. And they'd be anticipating that you'd be anticipating that. And you'd be anticipating that they'd be anticipating that you'd be anticipating that.

can someone give me the honest story on why dice pools are good? They get the job done but they feel like cancer whenever I have to play with them.

Drawing from a hat/bag

I'm not really the person to defend dice pools. None of the games that were around when I was young used 'em, so it's possible I'm just xenophobic, but I absolutely hate rolling handfuls of dice. It seems clumsy and takes too long, and I'm not sure that I care for the probability curves they have, when tend to be too steep for my taste. But one thing they're excellent at is giving you varying degrees of success, something that single-die systems tend to do awkwardly, if at all. And I could see somebody thinking that most single-die systems are trash for this reason, if they cut their teeth on dice pool games.

Try the "Cat" method.
Assign values to various parts of the room, wherever the cat ends up is the score used.
For optimal effect, allow each player a number of cat treats to attempt to influence the result!

It's fun to roll a lot of dice.
They have interesting design space, like ORE's height×width.
Using # of dice to represent aptitude feels very natural and tangible.

Use *your* phone for the dice app. Keep it in the center of the table and pass it around when people need to roll. No one's going to try and open up your email app, log you out, log themselves in, and start checking mails.

I really like the idea of shuffling a deck of cards. There's cool stuff you can do like drawing a hand getting to pick and choose and have effects like discarding and re-drawing etc.

I'm super into this and want to design a resolution system that does this with trick taking. Does anyone know of any other RPG's that use a regular deck of cards other than Deadlands?

Sine Requie, italian post-apocalyptic occult undead setting and system with lots of mortality, russian hive cities, italian inquisition and eugenetic german scientists.
Also adds tarots for special interpretative rolls

thanks user that's exactly what I'm looking for

That's a great idea for something with a fantasy/magic element. Have a 'tarot' deck set up that can be called on during important rolls. Have it drawn at the start of the day or the period of action and let it act as a parallel storytelling element.

user, consider this idea stolen.

>666
>Recommends tarot

The Devil lurks among you, anons.

>flipping a coin 2 times has the same probability spread as a d4
This is only true if HT is a different result than TH.

>No one's going to try and open up your email app, log you out, log themselves in, and start checking mails.

Oh, user. Poor, naive user. What makes you think it's safe to hand over your phone while you're still logged into things?

Finding a group on roll 20?

Jabbing a pen/stylus/whatever onto a sheet without looking.
You can get a similar effects with Where's Wally? books for randomly generating NPCs/loot/etc.

Draw chits from a tin or hat.

...

asking her out

>her