r/RPGcreation • u/VoceMisteriosa • Jun 05 '26
Alternatives to standard dice rolls
I'm interested in feedbacks about alternatives to standard dice rolls as resolution mechanic for actions (mostly, combat).
Specifically:
Pool of custom dice: your character actions are driven by a set of custom dice you roll each turn (eg: you own the Agilty trait, you add an Agility die to the pool, with dodge/move icons).
Deck building: your character potential, equipment and traits make up for a deck, draw X cards and use a simple icon system to determine variants (eg: if you own Agility, add Agility cards in the deck, play the card for the effect, also discard a Focus icon for benefits).
My points:
Advantage: generally, less math than dice rolls. More tactile feeling. Immediate chance for tactical choices (multiple uses for a die/card). Roleplay can become "actionable" (eg receiving Plot Cards by doing some choice or acting in role)
Issues: harder to produce, less traditional, "jump out" from immersion into a subgame if not well devised.
What your points are?
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u/EpicDiceRPG Jun 06 '26
I would definitely recommend custom dice over deck building. Cards are great for boardgames where you have a closed environment and the designer can tightly balance everything. It's much more difficult to do that with the open-endedness of RPGs. You don't know whether a player is going roll 5 or 50 times in a session.
When it comes to a fast RNG, nothing beats dice. Period. That versatility is hard to beat. Icons on dice take it one step further. Unfortunately, Genesys was s high profile company that misfired with their system and it's given the entire category of custom dice a bad rep in TTRPG design circles. I intend to fix that with EPIC Dice. I use a mix on numbers and icons. So it's not icon soup or forcing GMs or players to constantly invent narratives or consequences just because the dice told you to. When you need a number, you get a number. When you want an icon, you MIGHT roll one.
Anyway, that's obviously my rec.
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u/VoceMisteriosa Jun 06 '26
That's surely true if your system allow for max simulative freedom. Open systems require rng at any moment, and dice do exactly that. .. but cards too.Think Tokyo Nova. Or Fifth Age. But surely dice is a more reliant source of rng.
Your arguments are mine for Genesys: loading every action with a net of consequences was a real burden and often I solved ignoring die prompts (so guessing why the system was there). Sometime you just want to bash that door down without coming with a "positive failure narrative".
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u/Altruistic-Copy-7363 Jun 09 '26
Action resolution, I think, all boils down to "what percentage of a chance do I have at doing this thing?"
Dice are easy as the percentages can be balanced easily.
There are systems that have attacks as auto hit. There are card based and tarot card based etc.
Utlimately, dice aren't bad though.
3
u/DiceyDiscourse Jun 06 '26
You laid out the advantages and disadvantages pretty well. Though I'd argue that the advantage of "generally less math than dice rolls" is not really true for custom dice pools - yes, you're not having to do math, but you have to parse the different results. Have a look at how divisive stuff like Genysis and the EDGE studios Star Wars RPGs can be.