@jennkryst said in Dice Mechanics:
Stepping towards a theoretical for a moment, I kiiiiindof want to see a game where your skill level modifies your difficulty. Because someone with 'world class pistol skillz' should be able to shoot a thing at difficulty 3, while 'pistol beginner' would shoot at the same target at difficulty 8 or something. I'm not even sold on the 1-10 scale for this, just numbers I pulled out of thin air.
This is a good idea. Barebones, it might look something like this (pulling from WoD since it's the easiest at the moment)
You have Attributes 1-5. Each rating changes the die you roll. So at 1 you flip a coin (result 1-2), at 2 you have a d4, etc (d6, d8, d12).
Your Skill is your Difficulty Curve. If breaking into a car is a Dexterity / Larceny roll at Base Difficulty 5, and you have Dex 3, Larceny 3, your Modified Difficulty is 5-3=2. You roll just your Attribute (in this case Dex 3, so 1d6, and have to roll OVER a 2.
There should probably be some system here that allows you to briefly boost yourself for MAXIMUM EFFORT so that you can do things you shouldn't be able to (like when your roll is Modified Difficulty 5 but your roll is 1d4 (maybe the equivalent of Willpower points can let you "boost" up to the next die level).
Could probably work out a nice combat system based on this wherein your Evasion / Dodge / whatever is based on a bunch of stats averaged out, etc., and people can dock Difficulty off hitting you based on their combat Skills.
This could be really viable. You could have effects like, "roll 2 die, keep the best result", and supernatural effects that lower your opponent's die levels.
It's pretty neat.
You can go into superhuman levels for Attributes, since from d12 you skip straight to d20 (superhuman) and then from d20 to d100 (godly). Which is pretty cool.
And Skills could go up to whatever number you want to set as the max.
Obviously, reducing a Difficulty to 0 means you automatically succeed. I wonder if maybe Difficulty should only go as low as 1 (so there's still that chance of failure if you roll a 1). That might be a good idea. Like, you can have a Skill at 35, and the Base Difficulty is 5, but if you roll a 1, you still fail.
P.S. extras above the Difficulty (like, say, you roll a 7 on a d8 for a Difficulty 3 Action) allow you to buy Effects at a cost (per effect, some require better rolsl than others).
Like, for example, if you want to break into a car with your Dex / Larceny roll, and you get a 5 on a Difficulty 2 roll, that's 5-2=3. 1 for the base success, and then 2 to buy "Lucky Break"-- BAM, the keys in the overhead visor, you flip it down and they fall into your lap.
This mechanic could be especially cool for combat--knockbacks, knockdowns, stuns, etc., all sorts of effects that you can get just by rolling well.
