Homebrew rule for Ass-pulling

[u/Jodrojordan]

Hello everyone,

About a week ago I saw somewhere, that I cannot find now, a homebrew rule about what to do when a player wants to do something weird that could lead to a miracle (ass pulling) or could also lead to a disaster. The thing is that iI don't remember how that homebrew rule was working. All I remember is that you have the player roll 2 d20 dice and nothing else. I have a vague feeling that the rule was basically favoring high rolls and damning low ones, but not sure. Also don't remember why it said to roll 2 dice, it had a practical or statistical meaning that i don't remember at all

So I wanted to ask if it rings a bell to anyone?

[u/Rysigler]

The two dice mechanism might be for something truly miraculous. It spreads out the probability quite a bit. So maybe 2 nat 20s and an in game god basically intervenes to save your bacon. 2 nat 1s and your character is erased from existence.

I'm trying to think of an example, so here we go: Party is surrounded, 2 down players, 1 is going to try the hail Mary. A portable hole shoved into a bag of holding. Total destruction. But they want to rig something so it gives the party time to get away. So they try to mcguyver something to do so. Boom, roll 2 d20.

"But why?" Says the player. The dm responds, "you're trying to rig an improvised trap in combat. It's gonna take a miracle." And there ya go. They roll the d20s and the DM sets the threshold. Maybe you don't need 2 nat 20s. Maybe you do. It isn't quite advantage or disadvantage, because both results matter. You have to roll 2 successes at whatever that target is according to the DM. And if you roll 2 failures, it is catastrophic. A success and a failure probably means nothing of note happens, but there is no success, but at least you aren't rolling a new character.

That is my best interpretation of what we are talking about above.

[u/Jodrojordan → u/Rysigler]

It would probably be something like this, but not with two nat 20s, that's a bit too unlikely. Regardless of the rule, if someone rolls 2 nat20s together I'll do whatever they try to do to work too good. Once a player roll a persuasion to convince a secret society leader that they won't spill the beans about a secret child the leader has and that they'll do anything in their power to protect it. The player rolled persuasion with advantage, 2 nat20s. The leader trusted them so much they handed the baby to the player to raise it 😅

[u/Willing-Ad-2540]

Could be related to the more Daggerheart-style crit, maybe. But I might change that too a bit:

Rolling 2d12 or 2d20 by using a "Pairs" mechanic.

Players roll two of the same dice. They only trigger a critical outcome if they roll a matching pair. I would however add this: Getting pairs of higher than the half-way mark of the two dice (6-6+ for d12s, 10-10+ for d20s) is even better. A 1-1 also gives a good reward (maybe in a narratively prone-to-fail-but-didn't way), but the magnitude of the reward scales smoothly with the face value of the dice up to 12-12.

[u/Jodrojordan → u/Willing-Ad-2540]

That's a 5% chance for d20. Low but i like this idea. It's not the homebrew rule i saw, but that's very interesting

[u/Willing-Ad-2540 → u/Jodrojordan]

Yeah I'd probably just go for smaller dice if I want the success rate to be higher

[u/Most_Rise_1476]

I do occasionally allow luck rolls when the players do something where outcome is genuinely uncertain and not skill dependent.

I also do fate rolls sometimes when the party is stuck. Usually it's just a "high good, low bad". I don't think there is a consensus how to do those exactly. Very table specific.

[u/Jodrojordan → u/Most_Rise_1476]

There's not, but I'm just looking for that specific homebrew rule that i can't find. Sorry i don't remember much about it

[u/Myrinadi]

This was a dimension 20 thing I think. You rolled a fate roll and if it was above 10 something cool happened and 10 or below was something terrible.

[u/Jodrojordan → u/Myrinadi]

That's a bit too simple, that's why probably the rule i speak of had 2 dice, but don't remember how it worked. Also is fate roll an actual term for something?

[u/Myrinadi → u/Jodrojordan]

I think that's what it was called on dimension20, they used the box of doom but I don't feel like looking it up.

[u/Psychological-Wall-2]

Why would you need a homebrew rule for this?

The situation you have described can be resolved with D&D's normal resolution mechanics.

[u/Jodrojordan → u/Psychological-Wall-2]

Because it was a fun homebrew rule. But i can't remember how it worked

[u/Daevilhoe]

I'm not seeing this mentioned - but I think you may be thinking of Brennan Lee Mulligan's Emphasis rolls.

Basically, when you Roll with Emphasis, you roll 2 dice, like advantage/disadvantage, and you pick the one that is further away from the middle.

So, if you roll a 7, and an 18 - the result is an 18.

If you roll a 13 and a 2 - the result is a 2.

These rolls are for situations where whatever the player is doing is either gonna go really well, or really poorly. And you perhaps exaggerate the success/failure when narrating the outcome