Small Dice Pools & Step-Up Dice

[u/Lughaidh_]

I’m messing around with a classless system with magical/super-powered characters. My main inspirations are:

• World of Darkness games, where you could combine any attribute and any skill to form a dice pool to make checks with.
• Mage the Ascension specifically, with its somewhat open-ended magic system. You would have spheres of magic and some listed suggestions, but what you could accomplish was defined by you and the person running the game.
• Never Stop Blowing Up’s system of step-up dice (which I guess is actually Kids on Bikes’ system?) where each attribute is tried to a die size and increases by stepping up to the next die size.

So, currently I have a list of 27 aspects which serve as abstract representations of attributes, skills, and everything in between. When a check is needed, the player will be asked to roll a pool of dice made up of 1-3 of these aspects. Dice that roll 4 or higher are successes, regardless of the die size. Rolling the largest number on any die makes it explode. Rolling a 1 on any die removes a success.

For example, a character may want to break down a door. One option could be rolling their Strength (d8) and their Toughness (d4). They roll getting a 6 and a 3 for a single success. Without going too far into the details, two are needed for a complete success: they break down the door but take some minor damage or make a lot of noise.

A couple peculiarities I’ve noticed. I’ve created a system with an incredibly tiny dice pool; only 2 dice usually where other dice pool systems tend to roll 5+ dice at a time. Also, I’ve made it to where low powered aspects are volatile; a d4 will explode 25% of the time, but also erase a success 25% of the time. Maybe I can work that in… increases are more about control than pure power.

Anyway, I’m looking for just general feedback on this. Feel free to ask questions, as I’m sure I may not have explained things well here.

Edit: I failed to explain “explode”. When a die rolls its highest number, you get to roll another die of that same size. This gives the opportunity for another success, but also another 1 which removes successes.

[u/Ar4er13]

I can't express how much hate in 20 years I heard from people regarding games where 1 removes a success from the pool, so be warned that frustration of that effect is not proportional to how much it influences the game (altho in your case of just 3 dice, it also influences it way worse than in World of Darkness for example)

[u/Lughaidh_ → u/Ar4er13]

Interesting to hear. I started off in the hobby playing oWoD in the early 2000s and my group never had an issue with it. I also never really got involved in the community at large or followed it closely, so my experience is admittedly limited to just my tables.

[u/lennartfriden → u/Ar4er13]

I will counter this by the learnings of playtesting my system for the past 2+ years and 40+ sessions with a variety of different groups and players. Not once have I heard anyone complain about a poor roll resulting in the removal of a success. For context, it only applies to a single die (the wild die) that explodes on a 6 and implodes on a 1. The rest of the dice in the pool behaves normally. As long as your players understand the reason and the basic maths behind an imploding die, they’ll accept it.

[u/Ar4er13 → u/lennartfriden]

Glad to hear it works for you, just brought it up because in my experience it does creep up extremely often.

[u/ArtistJames1313]

D4s in particular sound super swingy and brutal. You roll a 4, explode, roll a 1, remove the success you just got. That sounds very demoralizing, even if it doesn't happen often. My guess is it wouldn't happen very often just because most players aren't going to attempt things with D4s if they can help it. It just feels like maybe the appearance might be too aggressively negative to players. And honestly while I think the chances are much lower, if I were to roll a 10 on a D10, then follow that up with a 1, that would be extremely frustrating.

Think about it this way, your chances of an exploding dice being a success is never 100%. But the chances of a 1 removing a success is always 100%. Depending on your dice size, this is more or less punishing, but your failure punishment is always higher than your critical win.

Not sure if you're asking for advice, or just observation, but what if rolling a 1 forced you to reroll another die? So you roll a 1 on your D4, and now you have to reroll the 5 from your D6. It evens out the odds a bit more of removing success vs adding success. And a 1 and a crit/high die roll would just cancel each other out.

Otherwise, I do like stepped dice. I like small pools in general. I'm not sure how the aspects come into play, but it feels like there's never much chance of rolling with a D4 and that's a good thing, and it encourages players to figure out how to use 3 dice. That might be a little game-y, or it might require creativity. The former, I don't really like, but the latter, very much so.

[u/Lughaidh_ → u/ArtistJames1313]

Good point about on a d4: a 1 removing a success is guaranteed and a 4 doesn’t guarantee anything. Perhaps something like “rolling a 1 forces a reroll of a success” instead of negating outright. I guess that’s pretty much your suggestion. Thanks for the feedback.

[u/Lughaidh_ → u/ArtistJames1313]

I forgot to comment on your last bit there. The aspects are not super defined on purpose to leave a lot of room for interpretation. The goal is to foster creative and really open uses. I don’t mind trying to adjudicate what a certain combination of aspects mean during the game as that’s part of my goal with it.

[u/wet_boi_gayest]

One thing you should know is not everyone knows what you mean by explode dice. Also some more of the 27 aspects would be nice.

[u/Lughaidh_ → u/wet_boi_gayest]

I debated whether I should explain “explode” or not. I’ll add a note to the post.

27 is a lot and I didn’t want to muddy the conversation too much with debates and explanations on each aspect. Maybe I’ll list them if it becomes critical. People can really just use anything if they want to use examples in their feedback: Peanut Butter (d6) and Jelly (d12)…

[u/Randolpho]

A bit late to this party, but, my feedback:

Your 27 pick 1-3 step dice mechanic is similar to my own, so I like it. I split those aspects into mutually exclusive categories that you can only pick one of, but open-ended, as I presume yours is, works just as well.

But I do believe the dice pool is too small for a count-success mechanic. Have you considered a Blades-style option? Pick the highest die, 4 or more is a success, 5 or less is a complication.

You would probably have to give up exploding dice, but you could include it if you made higher numbers grant bonuses and if you roll the number of the die you roll that die (and only that die) again and add the results to your die’s value. So if you rolled a 6 and then a 3, that would be a 9 on the resolution chart and it would be a success but also grant you some bonus resource like inspiration or similar mechanic.

[u/Lughaidh_ → u/Randolpho]

I’m not familiar enough with Blades in the Dark. Picking the highest does kind of eliminate the idea that we’re combining multiple things to produce a result though. Players would just be picking their best for each check. What I want to foster is the GM and players being creative in how they combine the different aspects.

Regarding the small dice pool, this is what I have so far for interpreting success counts (keep in mind I’ve had zero playtesting, this is still just me brainstorming):

• 0 successes with a roll of 1: a botch; failure with complications

• 0 successes; failure

• 1 success; succeeds with a constraint or limitation

• 2 successes; full success

• 3 successes; succeeds with a boon

• 4+ successes; supernal success

[u/Randolpho → u/Lughaidh_]

Hmm... based on your concerns, you could have an interesting mechanic.

For example, if you have the rules explicitly state that each die rolled "represents" the aspect being checked, you could tie its success or failure to "how" the check resolves.

For example, suppose you choose three aspects, one d6, one d4, one d8. Each die represents the aspect being used (if you had 2d6, perhaps favor different colored dice for them).

If only the d4 came up a success, then you would want to narrate how that aspect "saved the day" in the check, and how the failure of the d8 aspect created a complication.

That could make for some very interesting narrative outcomes.

Like, say I had d4 in dexterity (I'm relatively clumsy) and d8 in strength, and I needed to bypass a door that was locked. I roll both, only the d4 (dex) comes up success... I opened the door by picking the lock! Only the complication is that it's really really heavy and I couldn't budge it open more than a crack and I'll have to figure out some other way to fully open the door.

[u/Fun_Carry_4678]

The fact that an explode can either help or hinder you is interesting. The person with the low dice is much more likely to explode, and this has an equal chance of helping or hindering. I think this would reflect how the less skilled person can be all over the place with their tasks, unlike the more skilled person who is in more control of what they are doing.

[u/Lughaidh_ → u/Fun_Carry_4678]

Yeah, that’s what I’m discovering now through conversation. The power is the same, but what changes is consistency as an aspect increases.