I never used to like dice pools.

I largely avoided Storyteller during the '90s when it was a thing (I preferred fantasy as a genre), and only played Shadowrun a couple of times, though I did play a short campaign of Aberrant. By the time I'd started fiddling around with designing, I'd given up on dice pools as being workable for various reasons. Too many dice...probabilities that were too funky...results too predictable compared to the good ol' D20...small stat ratings that made it hard to handle ability damage. I just flat-out didn't like the way that no single dice represented any given thing.

At some point I came up with a long list of specific mechanics and looked at which core mechanic suited them (roll and add, roll under, dice pool, table, etc) and decided that a mixed approach was the best way to make a whole bunch of these work at once. But, that turned out to be messy and annoying. Another game I was designing started out mainly table-based, went through various changes including a take-highest dice pool version, then got scrapped.

Recently though, I've started to rethink my opinion. With much mental anguish...I realized my big list of things I want a game system to do more or less all would work better using a pool and I've now accepted Dice Pools as the saviour. I do just hate rolling too many dice, and not knowing WTF the odds are on a given roll, but I have come to realize that
a) even with d20 system, any time you roll more than 1d20 like on an opposed roll, your odds are also mutating into some sort of V-curve with a probability of ?

b) and more importantly, a "count successes" system gives a detailed output of effectiveness, that can replace all sorts of complicated and rules messes/subsystems and even save on dice rolling. A Roper in D&D rolls 10 separate attack rolls for instance, one for each strand: you could handle this in a dice pool system by just saying it rolls a 10dice attack, and then subtracting opponents' Dodge successes (or best opponent's Dodge successes) from the number of strands that hit.
Or, Turn Undead in 3.x is a messy affair which requires a trip through a table to calculate a -3 to +3 level modifier, because a normal D20 attack or save roll would result in vampires exploding on good rolls ridiculously often - however in a dice pool system these aren't hassles and you could quite easily have Turning just be a priests' [Will+Faith] vs. [undead's dice pool]. To make results more or less variable, you just lower or raise the target numbers for both sides.

Of all the core mechanics out there, a dice pool (count successes) is the one which has the most levers to pull, which in turn means a greater range of rules can be implemented more easily. You can for instance (examples for a d10 system):

*adjust target number - this alters average successes and so changing TN (target number) lets you adjust flow-through to the next step. If to-hit is based on Dex and successes on TN 6 add extra damage dice, Dex contributes 50% to damage what Strength does.

*divide up the dice pool. For instance for multiple actions (making these comparatively less awkward than in d20, which needs more dice).Or, you can colour-code specific dice to do different special effects ("I'm using these red ones to see if I get any Speed successes on the task)

*adjust the probability in various other ways; you get different effects depending on if you add extra dice, add automatic successes, reroll failed dice, shift the number of successes needed, reroll 10s or treat them as multiple successes or use them to hit TNs over 10, treat 1s as negative successes, or alter the step of the dice you use (e.g. d8 instead of d10).

You get synergies between different adjustment types that can potentially be exploited by mechanics if you're clever - for instance, changing the 'step' of dice makes the effects of TN shift more extreme, and changes 1s rolled slightly, but doesn't affect situations where all the dice are just automatic successes; A reroll of 1 die adds less to chances of success than an automatic success, but also can be used to lower the number of 1s rolled by rerolling those (if that gives side effects), etc.

You can also generate results slightly more easily than with a d20, where in place of successes you're having to say count each 3 over or each 5 over as a +1 on something.
When it comes to scaling, a dice pool system usually has a damage system that's more advanced than other games, letting Damage flow-through for use in other game subsystems logically (a chance of knockout based on damage successes, or chance of an inn catching fire based on damage).

Different mechanics for different goals. Making dice pools do more things with one roll is where they shine IMO, but I think the trick is that it can't just be odds manipulation. Especially when the odds are somewhat obfuscated (I can give an example out of the older iteration of my own homebrew if you'd like).

I still wouldn't get near dice pools with my current game because the strengths of dice pools are low priority in that game, and because their faults would interact weirdly with the design goals I'm after.

I think I know what you mean by odds manipulation - cases where there are lots of unnecessary (and usually metagame) fiddling going on? (I'm thinking of Marvel Heroic when I say that, although its a lowly take-highest, rather than success-counting, system). An example would be good.

No comment on what's best for your system really; to figure out where/if a dice pool would improve it, I would have to read over it from scratch with that in mind.

I really like BSJ's mechanics posts.

And you should really check out ORE, the system used in Nemesis, Wild Talents and Reign. It's a d10 dice pool that derives a lot of information from a dice pool that's necessarily capped at 10 dice. I really wished I could use it for WoD.

Quote from: The Butcher;591846And you should really check out ORE, the system used in Nemesis, Wild Talents and Reign.

Agreed.

I enjoy dice pools too, but they have to be capped at 10 dice. Also, if you are designing a RPG with dice pools, definitely call upon some dudes who know statistics and probabilities. You can find them on gaming forums and they are incredibly helpful.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;591841I think I know what you mean by odds manipulation - cases where there are lots of unnecessary (and usually metagame) fiddling going on? (I'm thinking of Marvel Heroic when I say that, although its a lowly take-highest, rather than success-counting, system). An example would be good.

Yeah, that's about what I mean. To give an example, the last iteration of my game was roll under with a variable number of D10s based on difficulty. So for an easy task you'd roll 1d10 under your skill and for a hard task you'd roll 3d10 under your skill. In combat, your attack roll was also your damage roll, and you could choose the number of dice. With few dice, you had high odds of hitting for low damage. With many dice, you had low odds of hitting for high damage. Thing is that few people would be able to calculate on the fly when it would be best to use which. And the game was meant to appeal to a semi-casual audience.

I know it's not properly a dice pool, but it's an example of the kind of low-transparency odds manipulation through dice mechanics thing I'm talking about.

QuoteNo comment on what's best for your system really; to figure out where/if a dice pool would improve it, I would have to read over it from scratch with that in mind.

I'm thinking more on the design goal side of things. I ultimately found other ways to cram more possible outcomes into the parts of the game where I wanted them, but the semi-casual / light-charop thing would mean that the low transparency on odds would be a deal breaker. Never mind that I'm more or less working alone on the math.

Quote from: The Butcher;591846I really like BSJ's mechanics posts.
 
And you should really check out ORE, the system used in Nemesis, Wild Talents and Reign. It's a d10 dice pool that derives a lot of information from a dice pool that's necessarily capped at 10 dice. I really wished I could use it for WoD.

Thanks! I try.
 
Haven't really been following ORE recently but I got some sort of playtest or beta document IIRC with the basic ORE rules ages back (for the WW2 with super powers setting). I did find it fascinating - loved how it handled hit locations in particular.
 
What was odd about it (I thought) was that the core mechanic, although it does give more information that count-successes, also built in a lot of limitations into how other mechanics could work - 10 dice limits, some trouble handling task difficulties, critical failures being impossible (1s are your left foot or something), and raw stat checks being impossibly difficult, so you get some odd niche skills to fill in the gaps.
 
Its probably a quite playable system as-is, but perhaps oddly I would never try to touch the idea for my own dinking around building RPGs; it seemed that within all those limits ORE was designed the only way it could be designed. Can't screw with it without breaking it, really.

Quote from: beejazz;591868Yeah, that's about what I mean. To give an example, the last iteration of my game was roll under with a variable number of D10s based on difficulty. So for an easy task you'd roll 1d10 under your skill and for a hard task you'd roll 3d10 under your skill. In combat, your attack roll was also your damage roll, and you could choose the number of dice. With few dice, you had high odds of hitting for low damage. With many dice, you had low odds of hitting for high damage. Thing is that few people would be able to calculate on the fly when it would be best to use which. And the game was meant to appeal to a semi-casual audience.
 
I know it's not properly a dice pool, but it's an example of the kind of low-transparency odds manipulation through dice mechanics thing I'm talking about.
 

Ah, OK, that makes sense. I'm aware lack of transparency is a problem with dice pools, of course - just that I think the pros outweigh the cons. I can see it would be a particularly problem if you're letting people directly shift their chance of success to get more damage, instead of having to roll the dice and come what may.  
 
One thing perhaps to note would be that in many games, even thought the probabilities might be transparent, the player's might not know the opponent's target number, so they still couldn't work out the odds - e.g. how in 3E you don't know the optimum amount to Power Attack without first knowing the target's AC.

On the probability issue, i think their cloudiness is an advantage for dice pools on the player side. To me it feels more believable to have to eyeball my chances than be able to break them down into and numbers (something i find myself doing at times in single die roll systems). However, the cloudiness can be an issue from a design or GM standpoint. I made a chart for our dice pool with the probabilities mapped out for different pool sizes versus the full range of TNs. Also made some to calculate other things how how damage works. Very helpful to havethose hard numbers from behind the screen.

Personally i like dice pools but not a huge fan of stuff like counting successes. I like to simplify the size and outcomes of them a bit.

The reason I hate dice-pools is that generally speaking there isn't enough room for difference between a 1-dice character and a 10-dice character, and if you're trying to make up for that by varying the target numbers, and then using the number of your successes as a counter for your degree of success, you're going to get all wonky in your probabilities - to the degree that it hampers the game-design process.

When I say I hate dice-pools, I don't mean that I can't see a dice-pool game being fun.

On the contrary, if you look at the dice-pool system in, say, Tenra Bansho Zero, you can immediately see that it's easy for someone to use who has zero concept of mathematics. [No pun intended.]

I know gamers who can't add up quickly in their heads. And dice-pools do the hard work for them. So, they have merit in that respect.

I don't see the problem with rolling 5 or 10 dice. More than that and maybe I can see how you could think it takes too long.

But the thing I really resent about them is simply that you don't have enough room for gradated differences in ability.

How can you adequately represent say the difference in combat between a peasant and a man-at-arms, but also the difference between a child and a peasant, a man-at-arms and an ogre, and an ogre and a dragon? You're quickly getting into the realms of needing a dice-pool of a hundred dice. It's just silly.

Hence in White Wolf games with dice-pools large numbers of neonate vampires can take down a really powerful ancient vampire, and that's fine, but it would be so clunky to be using the same basic system but remodelling the stats so that that wasn't the case. I haven't expressed that very well but some of you may get my drift.

I think dice pools can grade differences just fine. In my own system, we keep it simply, with ranks between zero and three in everything. For zero you roll 2d10 and take the single lowest result, for all others you roll your rank in d10s and take the single highest result. In all cases you compare to a static target number. We have broken down the probabilities and it gives you a good range, that feels right to me inpractice. Now it isnt for everyone. Some people want more granularity. But for myself that reflects four solid levels of competence in a skill. On top of that you can get three more dice as modifiers from equimpent or conditions. But it always caps at six.

Where it has some difficulty is scaling beyond a believable character to a d&d 20th level type character. For that adding on powes and abilties goes a long way.

Quote from: Omnifray;591911How can you adequately represent say the difference in combat between a peasant and a man-at-arms, but also the difference between a child and a peasant, a man-at-arms and an ogre, and an ogre and a dragon? You're quickly getting into the realms of needing a dice-pool of a hundred dice. It's just silly.
.

The difference here often comes down to the wound system and skill caps. I have found if you give a normal human something like two to three wounds, but an ogre five, that creates a solid base of difference. Then you can cap a human at say 3 muscle, but an ogre at four (you can also do stuff like give the ogre damage bonuses). I have been making monsters for ages using acap of 6d10. Another feature i added to make distinctions in power is open versus closed damage. Most damage in my games is closed (you take your single highest result on a damage roll, which usually means just one wound, plus additional wounds for any ten results). But something like a dragon might do open damage (it counts every success on its damage roll as a wound).

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;591813Recently though, I've started to rethink my opinion. With much mental anguish...I realized my big list of things I want a game system to do more or less all would work better using a pool and I've now accepted Dice Pools as the saviour.

Not sure it counts as a religious conversion if you got there rationally

Quote from: beejazz;591831I still wouldn't get near dice pools with my current game because the strengths of dice pools are low priority in that game, and because their faults would interact weirdly with the design goals I'm after.

What are your design goals beyond clear probabilities?

Quote from: Omnifray;591911But the thing I really resent about them is simply that you don't have enough room for gradated differences in ability.

First, this is not a specific property of dice pools and being terribly short sighted about what dice pools can be used to do. Second, Every system has this problem to some degree. Finally, you can address this issue quite a bit by simply using more qualitative traits instead of quantitative values, which ends up being more interesting to boot.

Quote from: chaosvoyager;591973What are your design goals beyond clear probabilities?

How specific do you want me to get and about what parts of the game?

For the core engine transparency was necessary because I wanted ease of use for novice GMs. I may market this game on the site where I plan to post my (non gaming) webcomic, so I can't assume people have experienced mentors or anything.

Beyond that there was a desire to incorporate my favorite parts of a bunch of sort of disparate play styles. The flexible character generation of 3x, the streamlining and clarity of 4e, the adventure design theory of the OSR, and some of the rough combat aspects of systems like BRP and WFRP 1 and 2.

As for why transparency ties in there, if character generation is going to almost be a game unto itself (as it is with 3x and 4), unnecessary barriers to understanding the odds may make that part of the game less fun.

There are also more than enough fiddly bits before getting into odds manipulation. For my tastes anyway.

It sounds like dicepools are not a good fit for you beejazz. One thing I have learned trying to sell games built around dice pools: some people like them and some people don't and it is all good. Some people like percentile rolls, and some don't. No one likes bing told to like dice pools.

Personally I love them, but I understand why some folks don't