Discuss

Where the fuck's d2?

It's perfect for everything.

We like percentiles, but only because our gm built a massive plastic one from a mould. It doubles as an emergency weapon, and can't be rolled on a softwood table.

All three systems I use for gming is D6, I love D6, you can raid your old tabletop game to find them and they are very common
I like D10 to, I tend to dislike system using other dice, it's probably because I don't want to buy more dice

Which has the better distribution, 2d6 or 3d6?

I disagree with OP.
I very much enjoy percentiles dice as it allows for a much easier way to give players incremental growth.

But the distribution is all over the shop.

Rolling a 1 is as likely as rolling 100. Giving players a +1 is practically meaningless, and if you're giving them bonuses in increments of 5 or more, you may as well be using a d20.

Don't be silly, user. Pairing a percentage die with a d10 is literally the best way to do a roll WITHOUT a modifier. You don't go adding modifiers to percentage rolls unless they're situational advantages/disadvantages. You just want to roll below the DC.

Rolling a 1 is as likely as rolling a 20 on a d20 too, you know.

>shit tier
>percentile
>good tier
>d20
Opinion discarded immediately

You don't give players +1/-1 on percentiles. You give them bonus dice or re-rolls.
>Did you just critically succeed on your persuasion roll, rolling a 1 out of 100?
Congratulations! You just realized a subtle but important clue about being persuasive, a permanent +3% chance on your skill to persuade people.
>It's not much but your players will love it.
>it won't happen often enough for people to abuse it.

The d13 is godly for how versitile it is. It can function like a d2, a d3, a d4, and a d6. There could be a system where each die has a level of what "tier" of die you roll it as.

Sadly, that would probably mean using pips or special faces, and Veeky Forums has a hateboner for proprietary dice.

Shit, meant d12. The world isn't ready for the s23 yet.

Are you ok user

>Rolling a 1 is as likely as rolling a 20 on a d20 too, you know.
Er. A 1% chance and a 5% chance are not the same, user.

...

Linear distributions are for plebs.

2d10 vs. d20?

I'm writing a 2d10 system where there are static mods, plus bonuses that give you extra dice but you have to pick 2.

He didn't say that.
On a d20 there is a 5% chance of rolling a 20. There is also a 5% chance of rolling a 1.
>Rolling a 1 is as likely as rolling a 20 on a d20 too.
There are only facts so far.

Depends on what you want. However, static mods become more valuable the more the probability of the dice system curves. In 1d20, +1 is always +5% (Until you go past 20/20 chance to succeed) but in 2d10 how much a +1 is worth is based a lot on how many other +1s you can get.

Oh, I see.

A +1 on a die roll is still pointless when it only accounts for a +1% chance of success.

+5% is more meaningful in an everyday game.

I might be having a stroke, but I'm not getting what you mean.

>A +1 on a die roll is still pointless when it only accounts for a +1% chance of success.
While I don't agree with you, having lost quite the bit of rolls on a 1% difference, I can see from a statistical point of view that 1% doesn't really account for much in an ordinary game.

>+5% is more meaningful
As it is a bigger number than +1%, you are correct.

However, I currently GM 2 games using percentile dice. I enjoy watching my players grow. The incrementalism keeps it so they can get some growth every session, and not only every 3rd or 4th which becomes required when all increases account for at least 5% and sometimes as much as 10-20%.

>I also have a sweet spot for unsymmetrical numbers like 23, 31, 57 and 72.

Best system:
>3d10 for a nice bell curve with many possible states
>Skill is expressed in progressive bonuses of +1, +2...
>Critical successes or fumbles above and below result thresholds, such as 6/27 with 3d10 + bonuses

Each skill point matters and shifts the curve toward better results. Most checks will cluster around the average result. A novice is unlikely to outshine an expert. An expert is unlikely to fail, and even less likely to fail hard.

>d12
>shit tier

Someone doesn't know about Time Wizards!

Just here to remind you that your efforts to turn Anima into D20 break too many core mechanics, screw players even harder than normal on the dice rolls, and were in general a bad idea.
Seconded.

Dragon Age the RP uses a 3d6 core system.
>Bonuses are expressed as +1/+2/+3 bonuses
>Roll 3d6; add skills, stats and bonuses as applicable.
>It's like the 3d10 system, but with only less points to go around, making characters less specialized and more rounded.

D10 and D6 are good. The rest are meh.

They have the same distribution shape.

Platonic solids tier: d4, d6, d8, d12, d20
Fucking imposter tier: d10

This is the only correct ranking

Really? I'd imagine that 3d6 would have a higher median distribution than 2d6.
I don't mean higher numbers, as 3d6 will generate a higher number than 2d6, but since you average the value of 3 instead of 2 dice, the normal distribution would be more nuanced.

No they don't. 2d6 is an angle, while 3d6 makes a nice bell curve.

Because it curves, you don't get a static amount of value for each +1 to the roll. Take a 2d6 bell curve for example.

If you need 10 on 2d6+0, you have a 16% chance of success.
If you get a +1 to that it jumps to 27%
If you get a +2 it jumps to 41%

It means that two characters that are only +1 apart can have a massive gap in success chance, so you need to be careful with the upper boundaries people can get +wise. With a single d20 in comparison, you always know exactly how much +1 helps that character (5%) so the exact bonuses people can get become a little less worrisome as each +1 is just as valuable as the last +1.

Not saying bell curves are not good (They are very good for many games) but they do present design oddities that need to be worked with.

They both have narrow ends and a central peak. As opposed to the flat distribution of a d20, for example.

>d10 and percentile in different tiers

As if the vast majority of people don't do percentiles by rolling 2d10 and actually buy Zocchi's golfball.

D7 is best die, all others are poopy heads.

>d8, reroll any 8s
Easy.

>They both have narrow ends and a central peak.
And aside from that, the distribution is entirely different.

d% aka 1 die for the price of 2.

It sounds like a good idea (Actually not really, but what ever) until you have to roll more than one d%. 1d% only requires 2 different colors, right?

Well 2d% requires 4 different colors, 3d% requires 6 different colors, 10d% requires 20 different colors, and good luck matching each "tens" die to its corresponding "units" die when that happens.

You could roll one d% at a time, but only a noob would ever do that.

Or you could just roll 10d10 and pretend its a percentile because there aren't many situations where rolling a 72 vs. rolling a 73 should actually matter. (It will matter in stuff like Dark Heresy, but it really shouldn't)

Sure, there are very few situations where you would want to roll 10d100, but the fact that you can't easily do it, even if you DID want to, is what makes d% terrible.

My favorite is when a game uses d%, and all modifiers and numbers are rounded to the nearest 5 anyway. Basically making it exactly the same as a d20 but with more dice.

Or you can just use proper d% instead of random d10s you have lying around. Problem fucking solved.

D12 is comfy tier
D10 pools are nice too

d% only requires multiple colors if you don’t buy dice in sets, like a smart person. Here’s 4d% with only 5 colors.

that's why I said shape, you mouthbreather. There's no real difference, 3d6 is just a slightly stretched version of 2d6.

>There's no difference, except for the difference

>this is bigger than that, but they are both triangles.
>this duck is grey, and that duck is green, but they are both ducks.

etc.

Neck yourself.

Dice pools or single die roll: WHICH IS SUPERIOR?

>that's why I said shape, you mouthbreather.
But it is NOT the same shape, retard.

One is two straight lines, the other is a curve. The two don't even remotely resemble each other.

And when neither the shape nor the size matches, they're two different things entirely.

While I have a personal fondness for dice pools, experience shows that most players are retards and single dice run faster.

>Implying "take 1dX and add Y" is faster than "count up total dice with a value of X-Y"
Doubly so if your players are type who don't bother remembering what dice they roll.

I guess you really must like that d100 ball monstrosity then.

10d2s is fundamentally the only way to do things

The probability ratios between the results are entirely different. More dice means it becomes less and less likely to end up with extreme results. By your absurd logic, there's also "no difference" between a flat distribution and a bell curve.

>SHIT TIER: percentiles
Fucking what? How can you have d10 at middle then?

>Dude, like all d100 rolls are either past/before the post percentages or determining something randomly from a table, typically weighted by how serious/common the item is. It's way more intuitive than d20 rolls. "you have a 20% chance of doing this, so roll d100 and if you get more than 20 then you fail"

Breakdown:

D20
Pros:
>Rolls really good since it's closest approximation of sphere from them all
>5% increments are reasonably intuitive for people raised on decimal system
>Culture symbol
Cons:
>Can't be easily combined into non-linear distribution pattern
>Bad side of cultural symbol (association with d20 system, nat 20, and other critical role tier maymays)
>Little faces, little numbers

D12
Pros:
Plato's personal waifu
Big faces
REALLY good base for custom, icon based dice (instead of numeric one)
Rolls quite good
Cons:
>Can't be easily combined into non-linear distribution pattern
>Nondecimal base
>Lack of strong practical advantages

D10
Pros:
>Epithome of decimal
>Can handle nonlinearity without getting awkward
Cons:
Non-platonic and meh looks
Boring

D8
Pros:
Is platonic solid if you need them all
Can be combined for nonlinear effects (but it's pointless since it has no advantages over d10 or d6)
Cons:
Only d4 rolls worse.
Basically pointless

D6
Pros:
Cheap and ubiquous
Everybody is used to it
Easy combined into various forms of nonlinearity, dice pools etc
Rolls quite reasonably
Cons:
Non-decimal
Rather pointless without using multiple dice (so useless for linear distribution)

D4
Pros:
Platonic solid if you need whole batch
Can double as caltorp
Cons:
Can double as caltorp
Everything else

D%
Pros:
Extremely intuitive increments
Good for roll-under % stats
Reading can be reversed for creating another random effect with the same roll (Like hit location in wfrp)
Cons:
Messy to read
You don't reallly need THAT MUCH granularity
Inherently linear

Overall, d6, d20, d10 and d% are only dice you want to use as MAIN dice of the game.
d12 can be valid, if it's not numeric dice but graphical dice (like FFG's) and it excels at that, but outside of that is pointless
d8 is pointless unless you explicitly need to use different kinds of dice within the same system, to fill the blank
d4 is like d8 but even when you need various kinds of dice, it's usefulness is dubious.

That... Would actually make a whole lot of sense. Why would you need a whole lot of dice to represent a broad range when you can narrow that range down for more consistency and use a single dice plus some basic division on the result?

Of course, that would make it kind of bad as a primary rolling die, but it could be much, much better as a bonus die, and depending on skill level rolls a bonus equivalent to one of those divisions, which is added to the primary result.

Discuss polydice all you want, but never, NEVER forget who is king.

What does the math look like when taking the best roll for d20 with additional dice( a la advantage in 5e) and for additional dice in a 2d10 system (your choice of 3,4,or 5 dice)?

I really like how magic is done in WHFRP, where you can pump a roll for extra dice, but drawbacks happen on doubles and triples

strawpoll.me/14121562
strawpoll.me/14121562
strawpoll.me/14121562
strawpoll.me/14121562

Make it a +1 bonus and I'm down.

That's why you use the Carcosa system with asymmetric die rolls. High chance to roll low but still with a significant chance to roll high

D12 IS THICCCC

No.

>Official Dice Heirarchy
3d6 > d100 > d10 >>>>>> every other dice > coin toss > bottle spin > dogfighting > d20