A system I personally love is the TinyD6. Basically you succeed if you roll a 5 or 6. You roll 2 dice... If you have skills or any kind of advantage you roll 3 dice, if you have any disadvantage, you only roll 1 die. Its very simple, but works great.
While I do like some very simple systems (I'm loving being part of a Fighting Fantasy campaign at the moment, a game which only has 1 skill, named "Skill", I do like to run systems with a little more complexity. I love a system which is slim enough to get out of the way so I can weave a story, but slow enough to give me time to think as I GM. It's a weird balance I'm looking for.
@@RPGGamer I know what you mean. Each group and each GM likes different things, and thankfully we live in an age filled with interesting and unique RPG rulesets. This is probably why I love your channel so much. I'd probably never play most of the books shown on your channel, but it's fun to see what each one offers and how it does the things it does. :)
I found this video and comments helpful. I've been building out a rules light system based on a d6 dice pool. I didn't realize so many games used them, and now I've got some other games to look into to better understand various mechanics.
A target number of 7 is useful when modifiers move the target number up and down. A 7 target number modified by a -2 is still a 5 while a 6 is modified to 4
I recently backed The D6 System 2e Kickstarter because I was fond of the 90s one and the WEG Star Wars. It put me on a D6 dice pool system rabbit trail. You might like Mythic D6, which is the successor of D6 Legends. It’s the D6 system, but you count successes instead of adding up the dice. I can second the TinyD6 system as a great minimalist d6 pool game. I discovered a few others that might interest you: EZ D6, Tricube Tales, Mini Six, and Far Away Land. I really like these games - especially FAL. Don’t let the Adventure Time-esque aesthetics fool you; there’s a great game there!
I've had TinyD6 and EZ D6 recommended by someone in my gaming group, and he intends to run them sometime soon, so I hope to get some real experience with those soon. I remember the D6 Legends system, which was an interesting variant on the normal D6, and will check the others out, cheers for letting me know about them.
I've been trying to work up a streamlined version of Shadowrun. I too came up with the idea of a 6=2 successes. I do not count ones as failures however. My desire is to keep the math as simple as possible. My group is mostly casual gamers, so the lighter the rules the better. But I love the idea of 6=2
I've had people comment that they prefer the Exploding dice on a 6, but I think the simplicty of just a 6 counting as 2 speeds things up, and I can really see that working in Shadowrun, cheers.
maybe consider a less harsh resolution of 5 and 6 success? A 6 allows an extra dice roll aka "exploding dice" to try and get a chance at more successes. 1's instead of cancelling a success, just add a complication; lock pick breaks, weapon malfunction/dropped, opens door but a hidden alarm sounds, unexpected reinforcements arrive.
I like the way Star Wars D/6 handles failures, where the gamesmaster can introduce a complication if he can think of one, but otherwise just loses you your other highest dice. Allowing the gamesmaster to do interesting things, but not slow things down if he can't instantly come up with something. I'm also torn between making a 6 explode, or just as I suggested, having it count twice.
I'm a huge fan of dice pool systems. Burning Wheel uses the best dice resolution mechanics. You roll d6s equal to your skill, against a variable target number. 4-6 count as successes, and 1-3 as failures. There are also metacurrencies that add dice to your pools and teammates can help by adding dice too.
If 4-6's are successes, and 1-3's are failures, doesn't that essentially make it a flip of the coin, and mean that no matter how high your skill you have an equal chance of success? Actually rereading what you wrote, I was thinking that the failures took away from the successes! I now see that they're just simple failures. I've been thinking since releasing the video that perhaps the success difficulty on each dice should be 4-6, with 6 counting twice, and a 1 taking away from it.
@@RPGGamer yeah there is no taking away from dice. I think subtracting dice is too cumbersome as you are doing two actions (searching for successes as well as pairing up 1s and successes) rather than just counting successes. Rolling 1s is also quite frequent on d6s with a 16%, so it seems unnecessarily punishing for such high probability as compared to rolling a 1 on a d20 with a 5% chance for example. The reason I like Burning Wheels mechanics is aside from the dice system, the metacurrency allows players to manipulate rolls that are really important to them and leads to character investment. The skill leveling system is also like Elder Scrolls games where you only level up the skills you use during play which helps develop characters organically.
The way ones subtract in old world of darkness definitely goes on my list of "worst tabletop mechanics of all time". When it comes to 1s in world of darkness, botching when you fail with 1s is bad enough (and it happens much less often, which is good). It's one of the main reasons I can't play using the old rules anymore. Then again, they don't balance it out with 6s or something like that counting as two. For world of darkness they only added that for exalted (and twos didn't subtract, only counted for botches)
My first Vampire GM used to like high target numbers, so you had to roll 10's to succeed on anything. With 1's taking away from your successes, it meant that no matter how high your skill, you only ever had a 50/50 chance of success. So I can definitely agree with you with the problems of that. But I do like the way 1's work in the Star Wars d6 game, where the gamesmaster can introduce a complication into the storyline, or it just takes away your highest other dice, allowing him to weave interesting problems into his story, or if he just can't come up with something, he can just penalise you there and then. I want to have something like that in this system we're putting together, to give the GM more to work with.
@@RPGGamer When you put it like that, the weirdo system they use for FFG star wars starts to make sense [introducing complications on despairs or w/e they are called].
I like the idea of a 6 giving two successes as it would broaden the possibility range of a pc succeeding, eg if I have 4 dice I might still try for a task needing 5 successes if I was desperate. I wonder whether it will make working out difficulty levels / target numbers more challenging.
Cheers. Although obviously it's not been even slightly tested under play conditions, but I can't see any real reason why target numbers would be more of a problem that in something like Shadowrun, where dice explode when you roll a six. If anything it reduces the randomness slightly, so should make it more consistent and easier to predict.
And there was I just waffling away with what felt right and I never even thought about backing up my ideas with research on anydice. Cheers for checking it for me, nice to see my thoughts actually supported by evidence.
It's kind of unfortunate that people (I believe, no actual data to back this claim) want to see high numbers on dice, otherwise you could invert that and count 1s as 1, 2s as 2, and 6s as -1. But either way, I think you should check the probabilities, and see how hard it would be for a weak, average and expert characters to beat a certain difficulty. And the probabilities of botching. Also, how long would it take to count successes and discount 1s from those successes, and how long would be too long for you.
I can totally get that, I'm torn between the 6's just counting twice, or exploding (so rolling again), but I think the 6's counting twice would be simpler once you got used to it. But I could be convinced otherwise. If you find that system complicated, then the rules for d6's in the 2d20 system you'd hate as I've been playing it for around 3 years (Star Trek Adventures) and still can't get used to it. 1's count as 1 success, 2's count as 2. 3's and 4's don't count, and 5's and 6's count as a success but with a special effect (eg armour piercing weapons, might ignore armour on a 5 or 6). I end up rolling dice and I just can't get an easy way of seeing what I got at a glance.
A system I personally love is the TinyD6. Basically you succeed if you roll a 5 or 6. You roll 2 dice... If you have skills or any kind of advantage you roll 3 dice, if you have any disadvantage, you only roll 1 die. Its very simple, but works great.
While I do like some very simple systems (I'm loving being part of a Fighting Fantasy campaign at the moment, a game which only has 1 skill, named "Skill", I do like to run systems with a little more complexity.
I love a system which is slim enough to get out of the way so I can weave a story, but slow enough to give me time to think as I GM. It's a weird balance I'm looking for.
@@RPGGamer I know what you mean. Each group and each GM likes different things, and thankfully we live in an age filled with interesting and unique RPG rulesets. This is probably why I love your channel so much. I'd probably never play most of the books shown on your channel, but it's fun to see what each one offers and how it does the things it does. :)
I found this video and comments helpful. I've been building out a rules light system based on a d6 dice pool. I didn't realize so many games used them, and now I've got some other games to look into to better understand various mechanics.
I'm glad it was useful, and I'm enjoying exploring these rules systems and seeing all the similarities.
A target number of 7 is useful when modifiers move the target number up and down. A 7 target number modified by a -2 is still a 5 while a 6 is modified to 4
Fair point, well made, but it's still a bit of an edge case as modifiers aren't going to be used all the time.
I recently backed The D6 System 2e Kickstarter because I was fond of the 90s one and the WEG Star Wars.
It put me on a D6 dice pool system rabbit trail.
You might like Mythic D6, which is the successor of D6 Legends. It’s the D6 system, but you count successes instead of adding up the dice.
I can second the TinyD6 system as a great minimalist d6 pool game.
I discovered a few others that might interest you: EZ D6, Tricube Tales, Mini Six, and Far Away Land. I really like these games - especially FAL. Don’t let the Adventure Time-esque aesthetics fool you; there’s a great game there!
I've had TinyD6 and EZ D6 recommended by someone in my gaming group, and he intends to run them sometime soon, so I hope to get some real experience with those soon.
I remember the D6 Legends system, which was an interesting variant on the normal D6, and will check the others out, cheers for letting me know about them.
I've been trying to work up a streamlined version of Shadowrun. I too came up with the idea of a 6=2 successes. I do not count ones as failures however. My desire is to keep the math as simple as possible. My group is mostly casual gamers, so the lighter the rules the better.
But I love the idea of 6=2
I've had people comment that they prefer the Exploding dice on a 6, but I think the simplicty of just a 6 counting as 2 speeds things up, and I can really see that working in Shadowrun, cheers.
maybe consider a less harsh resolution of 5 and 6 success? A 6 allows an extra dice roll aka "exploding dice" to try and get a chance at more successes. 1's instead of cancelling a success, just add a complication; lock pick breaks, weapon malfunction/dropped, opens door but a hidden alarm sounds, unexpected reinforcements arrive.
I like the way Star Wars D/6 handles failures, where the gamesmaster can introduce a complication if he can think of one, but otherwise just loses you your other highest dice. Allowing the gamesmaster to do interesting things, but not slow things down if he can't instantly come up with something.
I'm also torn between making a 6 explode, or just as I suggested, having it count twice.
I'm a huge fan of dice pool systems. Burning Wheel uses the best dice resolution mechanics. You roll d6s equal to your skill, against a variable target number. 4-6 count as successes, and 1-3 as failures. There are also metacurrencies that add dice to your pools and teammates can help by adding dice too.
If 4-6's are successes, and 1-3's are failures, doesn't that essentially make it a flip of the coin, and mean that no matter how high your skill you have an equal chance of success?
Actually rereading what you wrote, I was thinking that the failures took away from the successes! I now see that they're just simple failures. I've been thinking since releasing the video that perhaps the success difficulty on each dice should be 4-6, with 6 counting twice, and a 1 taking away from it.
@@RPGGamer yeah there is no taking away from dice. I think subtracting dice is too cumbersome as you are doing two actions (searching for successes as well as pairing up 1s and successes) rather than just counting successes. Rolling 1s is also quite frequent on d6s with a 16%, so it seems unnecessarily punishing for such high probability as compared to rolling a 1 on a d20 with a 5% chance for example. The reason I like Burning Wheels mechanics is aside from the dice system, the metacurrency allows players to manipulate rolls that are really important to them and leads to character investment. The skill leveling system is also like Elder Scrolls games where you only level up the skills you use during play which helps develop characters organically.
The way ones subtract in old world of darkness definitely goes on my list of "worst tabletop mechanics of all time". When it comes to 1s in world of darkness, botching when you fail with 1s is bad enough (and it happens much less often, which is good). It's one of the main reasons I can't play using the old rules anymore. Then again, they don't balance it out with 6s or something like that counting as two. For world of darkness they only added that for exalted (and twos didn't subtract, only counted for botches)
My first Vampire GM used to like high target numbers, so you had to roll 10's to succeed on anything. With 1's taking away from your successes, it meant that no matter how high your skill, you only ever had a 50/50 chance of success. So I can definitely agree with you with the problems of that.
But I do like the way 1's work in the Star Wars d6 game, where the gamesmaster can introduce a complication into the storyline, or it just takes away your highest other dice, allowing him to weave interesting problems into his story, or if he just can't come up with something, he can just penalise you there and then.
I want to have something like that in this system we're putting together, to give the GM more to work with.
@@RPGGamer When you put it like that, the weirdo system they use for FFG star wars starts to make sense [introducing complications on despairs or w/e they are called].
I like the idea of a 6 giving two successes as it would broaden the possibility range of a pc succeeding, eg if I have 4 dice I might still try for a task needing 5 successes if I was desperate. I wonder whether it will make working out difficulty levels / target numbers more challenging.
Cheers. Although obviously it's not been even slightly tested under play conditions, but I can't see any real reason why target numbers would be more of a problem that in something like Shadowrun, where dice explode when you roll a six. If anything it reduces the randomness slightly, so should make it more consistent and easier to predict.
Looking at the odds of this on anydice. It looks really nice.
And there was I just waffling away with what felt right and I never even thought about backing up my ideas with research on anydice. Cheers for checking it for me, nice to see my thoughts actually supported by evidence.
It's kind of unfortunate that people (I believe, no actual data to back this claim) want to see high numbers on dice, otherwise you could invert that and count 1s as 1, 2s as 2, and 6s as -1.
But either way, I think you should check the probabilities, and see how hard it would be for a weak, average and expert characters to beat a certain difficulty. And the probabilities of botching.
Also, how long would it take to count successes and discount 1s from those successes, and how long would be too long for you.
Interesting talk, but I think your idea is too complicated for me.
I can totally get that, I'm torn between the 6's just counting twice, or exploding (so rolling again), but I think the 6's counting twice would be simpler once you got used to it. But I could be convinced otherwise.
If you find that system complicated, then the rules for d6's in the 2d20 system you'd hate as I've been playing it for around 3 years (Star Trek Adventures) and still can't get used to it. 1's count as 1 success, 2's count as 2. 3's and 4's don't count, and 5's and 6's count as a success but with a special effect (eg armour piercing weapons, might ignore armour on a 5 or 6). I end up rolling dice and I just can't get an easy way of seeing what I got at a glance.