Quote from: BedrockBrendan;592021It 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

It'd be a fine fit for me, just a poor fit for this particular project. If things go well, there will be others. Maybe even some that use pools.

Quote from: Omnifray;591911The 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.

I am in the process of developing a dice pool system and running through some of these complexity issues. I don't see how it hampers the game-design process itself. But I do see how transformational aspects of dice pools can be confusing, and that you have to set the bar on how much complexity your target customer will tolerate.

It is important to understand who your customer/user/player is in designing game mechanics. It has been mentioned many times in other threads how critical a game setting is for selling the system; but system complexity, familiarity and elegance count just as much.

If your experience is primarily with Vampire, there are others. The d6 system (WEG Star Wars) is an excellent dice pool system (with a nutso "wild die", worthy of comparison to the problems you bring up).

Quote from: Omnifray;591911The 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.

QuoteBut 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.

I do think you have to be very careful fiddling with Target Number to prevent stuff getting wonky. However, I don't really agree that there's not enough room for graduated differences in ability.

Here's the probability chart for nWoD's Storyteller system (roll d10s, 7+ always equals a succcess, 10s reroll I think - since its giving me results for # successes > # dice). Courtesy of Troll. Behold the Majesty!



By the time you get to 10 dice say, a character has a 97% basic skill (chance of getting one or more successes,) and a 20% or so chance of getting 5+, or radically more than the dude who only has a pool of 1 or 2 (or even 3 or 4). You shouldn't really need to use crazy 30-dice Exalted-style dice pools. +1 dice is actually a fairly big thing, IMHO. Pool sizes have to be judged carefully and probably if the guardsman is rolling 8 dice they're getting too many.

OK well based on Troll's table courtesy of Bloody Stupid Johnson, let's compare 4d to 8d dice-pools in a straight one-roll-each opposed-roll-style contest. I accept that in a drawn-out fight multiple rolls will mean that the margin of difference will in practical terms be greater, but one-roll contests remain relevant.

approx. 6% of the time 8d gets N=0 thus 4d wins 76%x6% of the time
- and draws approx. 6% x 24% of the time;
approx. 18% of the time 8d gets N=1 thus 4d wins approx. 39% x 18% of the time
- and draws approx. 37% x 18% of the time;
approx. 26% of the time 8d gets N=2 thus 4d wins approx. 14% x 26% of the time
- and draws approx. 26% x 25% of the time
approx. 24% of the time 8d gets N=3 thus 4d wins approx. 24% x 4% of the time
- and draws approx. 10% x 24% of the time

I will ignore higher values of N as 4d has little chance of achieving them.

But we already have 4d winning very approximately 16% of the time, and drawing very approximately 17% of the time.

In other words you literally double the number of dice and the guy with the less dice still has almost a 1 in 3 chance of at least equalling you on a one-roll contest and a 1 in 6 chance of actually beating you.

[Are these probabilities of the smaller dice-pool guy winning/drawing a one-roll contest the same whenever 1x-dice are rolled against 2x-dice? I haven't done the maths for that though it *feels* like it ought to work that way. Bear in mind my numbers, above, are VERY approximate.]

I think another issue is people often overlook to ad lib a degree of success in a d20 or d% pass/fail system.

Two common ones are, after a pass or fail check is rolled:
a) using the difference you passed the check (i.e. use the difference or divide difference by two in d20, or use tens place die or divide dif. by 5 in d%)
b) using the ones place digit, higher the greater effect.

Same advantage of roll once to get pass/fail + degree of success that you often associate with dice pools.

However dice pools are fun for rolling lots of dice, explosions, adding or splitting pools, and spending dice from the pool for meta effects. I don't always want or need those effects, but it's nice to know they are there.

Quote from: Opaopajr;592399I think another issue is people often overlook to ad lib a degree of success in a d20 or d% pass/fail system.

Two common ones are, after a pass or fail check is rolled:
a) using the difference you passed the check (i.e. use the difference or divide difference by two in d20, or use tens place die or divide dif. by 5 in d%)
b) using the ones place digit, higher the greater effect.

Same advantage of roll once to get pass/fail + degree of success that you often associate with dice pools.

However dice pools are fun for rolling lots of dice, explosions, adding or splitting pools, and spending dice from the pool for meta effects. I don't always want or need those effects, but it's nice to know they are there.

Oh yes, you totally can just do something based on the margin of  success, its just IMHO more awkward (roll your Dd20, add your bonus,  subtract the DC or opponent's total, divide the remainder).

Using the  1s place can work for d100s, but you may as well be rolling a separate  d10.
Typically, games using the 1s place have a qualitative method of  using the 1s e.g. how in Amazing Engine if you roll under the lethality  margin a shot is 'body damage' instead of just hit points, or how  Warhammer reverses a to-hit roll number to also get hit location.  These  can be OK, but IMHO working without exact numbers (of successes) you need lots of  specific rules to interpret what's going on. Or a group happy to have just some guidelines, with leeway to interpret them, I guess.

Quote from: Omnifray;592250OK well based on Troll's table courtesy of Bloody Stupid Johnson, let's compare 4d to 8d dice-pools in a straight one-roll-each opposed-roll-style contest. I accept that in a drawn-out fight multiple rolls will mean that the margin of difference will in practical terms be greater, but one-roll contests remain relevant.

approx. 6% of the time 8d gets N=0 thus 4d wins 76%x6% of the time
- and draws approx. 6% x 24% of the time;
approx. 18% of the time 8d gets N=1 thus 4d wins approx. 39% x 18% of the time
- and draws approx. 37% x 18% of the time;
approx. 26% of the time 8d gets N=2 thus 4d wins approx. 14% x 26% of the time
- and draws approx. 26% x 25% of the time
approx. 24% of the time 8d gets N=3 thus 4d wins approx. 24% x 4% of the time
- and draws approx. 10% x 24% of the time

I will ignore higher values of N as 4d has little chance of achieving them.

But we already have 4d winning very approximately 16% of the time, and drawing very approximately 17% of the time.

In other words you literally double the number of dice and the guy with the less dice still has almost a 1 in 3 chance of at least equalling you on a one-roll contest and a 1 in 6 chance of actually beating you.

[Are these probabilities of the smaller dice-pool guy winning/drawing a one-roll contest the same whenever 1x-dice are rolled against 2x-dice? I haven't done the maths for that though it *feels* like it ought to work that way. Bear in mind my numbers, above, are VERY approximate.]

No idea really if this holds up at higher pools. I think the gap may widen as the pools grow, but not sure.

Thanks for calculating it out - the difference is less than I thought it would be (ah well).

I see what you're saying though personally, I'm still not too displeased with how those numbers work out.

Consider that:
*a tie in many cases will mean a re-match by default (i.e. most  arm wrestles would just continue for 2 rounds - a tie on round 1 just  means keep going).

*66% chance of winning isn't too bad for the 8d guy, since a a 'mirror match' between two 4d opponents isn't as you might intuitively exact 50% - there'd be a quite substantial chance of a tie (I haven't worked out the exact odds).

*for attacks at least, defenders normally win ties. So if 2d is a peasant (2d Dex), 4d is the city guardsman (2d Dex + 2d Melee) and 8d is the expert swordsman (say 4d Dex +4d Melee), the guardsman has a 16% chance of landing a blow, while the hero has a 66% chance of getting them back. Doesn't look too bad, particularly considering that aside from raw hit probability, a hero could well have other special abilities that give them an edge in combat aside from raw to-hit bonus - on initiative, or more attacks, whatever.  

(The ogre and the dragon in your earlier example I probably wouldn't give a much higher raw to-hit dice pool to...its not like they go to the dojo and train day after day...though they would have major Strength or damage pools, so if they do hit you its going to hurt)

If you wanted as an easy fix, you could also add a blanket rule for other situations that ties in other circumstances go to the character with the higher pool, or are immediately re-rolled.

Strength can be a massive advantage for landing blows. In classic D&D it was/is the main ability score modifier to hit-rolls.

Presumably you can work out the chance of a tie for 4d v 4d as the sum of the squares of the different percentages for different N-values for 4d.

[Ed.:- for 4d v. 4d, on that basis my calculator makes it about 27%.]

As I previously conceded, multiple rolls may change the odds dramatically in favour of the stronger guy. If it's 66% v 16% but it takes say 4 successful hits to down a target, perhaps the odds of the 66% guy winning are much better than 66% or even 66/(66+16). He has around an 18% chance of getting 4 successful hits in a row, whereas the other guy has a negligible chance (far less than 1%). [There is far more to working out the odds of who wins than that, but it's a start.] But to me it's important to get it to work for one-roll contests if possible.

OK cool...on the 4d vs. 4d if tie chance is 27%, chance of either side winning should be equal so for a particular side its (100-27)/2 = 36.5%.
 
Usually prefer Dex to hit here...Not that I have any experience SCA fighting or anything but it makes more sense to me..
 I think D&D uses Strength mainly because armour adds to AC (so it represents cutting through that).

Anyway, thanks everyone for your replies.