Variation on Game Mechanics: Dice Pool

[devlin1]

Alright, I don't post much around here-- not lately, anyway-- but I was thinking of running a Wuxia HERO one-shot in the next couple weeks, and I had an idea that I think is pretty nifty. I'm hoping someone can give me some feedback and/or tell me why it wouldn't work.

The idea is a collective Dice Pool (Action Pool? Chi Pool? Fate Pool?) shared by all PCs. For each PC in the party, one die is added to the pool. For each level of Luck present in the party, another die is added. So if you had four PCs and a total of 10 points of Luck between them, that'd be six dice in the pool (note: this is now the only function of Luck). Simple enough.

What the pool is good for:

1. Anytime a player rolls dice, he may exchange one of the dice he's just rolled for one of the dice in the pool. That is, if the pool contains dice of 6, 4, 3, and 2, and the player just rolled two 6s and a 2 to hit, he can take out one of the 6s and trade it for the 2. Now the pool contains 6, 6, 4, and 3. Another example: the next player absolutely needs this RKA to take down the guard in one shot, but he only rolled a 1 and a 3. Trade the 1 for a 6, and now the pool contains 6, 4, 3, and 1. Only one die may be exchanged per Phase (Turn?). Or maybe not.

2. A player may take dice from the pool to add an extra die of damage to an attack-- but the dice are removed permanently. The player actually rolls these bonus dice to determine how much extra damage is dealt.

3. Likewise, a player may take a die from the pool to reduce damage he's taken by an amount equal to that which he rolls on the die. Alternately, think of it as an amount of additional Resistant Defense equal to the die roll. E.g.: The 8 BODY a PC has just taken has put him down for the count. He takes a die from the pool, rolls it, and gets a 4. Now he's only taken 4 BODY.

4. This is the one that will probably meet with the most raised eyebrows. The GM gives out XP a little more generously. Or a lot. And he does it as the session progresses instead of waiting until the end. These mid-scenario XP are called Action Points (Fate Points? Ch'i Points? I dunno), and when a PC has acquired five Action Points, he can immediately spend them to buy a level of Luck-- and add a die to the pool. If he doesn't spend them, they turn into XP at the end of the session/scenario, and can be spent normally.

5. The GM can have his own dice pool as well, although most of the NPCs, being mooks, can't take advantage of it. It's reserved for the major enemies of the campaign/scenario. In addition, to prevent things getting out of hand, the GM's dice pool should be limited to something like 2-4 dice, depending on the number and strength of the primary antagonists.

This is very much geared towards cinematic, not-so-realistic games, obviously, but that's why it occurred to me while considering my wuxia game. But I figure most games tend towards cinematicism and wild action anyway, so I thought I'd throw this out there for consideration. I do see some of the weaknesses of this idea (time spent trying to decide whether or not to use the pool could be spent on the next PC's Phase, the dice pool could get quite large over time, it greatly favors the PCs, etc.), but I also don't consider any of them to be all that problematic for my own game(s).

Thoughts? Comments? Tar/feathers?

[Hugh Neilson]

I'd be inclined to vary the mechanic somewhat so that the extra dice provided by Luck are exclusive to the character with Luck. No one else spent the points on Luck, so why should they get the added advantage?

And, as a group, we should all agree to invest in 1 or 2 dice Luck each to ensure the pool retains lots of choices.

The limitless nature of use of the pool strikes me as being problematic. I can see players looking at the pool and thiniking "The dice are all fairly low. I hit, but maybe I should trade this 5 for that 1 and get some big dice back in the pool".

If the dice in the pool are trending high, I'd definitely swap a 1 from my damage roll for a 5 or 6, not so much to improve my damage but to enhance the pool for the next guy whose to hit (or skill) roll goes poorly. If the game is KA heavy, I'll probably seriously consider swapping my Stun Multiple die to push the numbers up higher. Oh, and I'd expect a lot more head and vitals hits instead if you use hit locations, though that won't be as straightforward to manipulate.

[Trebuchet]

Interesting idea. I think it would be necessary to maintain separate "To Hit/Success" and "Damage/Effect" pools or you'd end up with a steady rotation: Swap out high die for low die to guarantee a hit; then use the high die you just put in to maximize the attack's effect; repeat ad infinitum. Or you could use a combined pool and then used dice are discarded until the entire pool is empty, then the dice pool is restarted from scratch.

A more moderate use of this idea is to use this as your campaign's sole method of Luck. For each die of Luck the character buys he can swap out a single die at any time. You might limit him to one swap per Turn to keep this from totally skewing your combats; or use his number of dice as the total swaps allowed per session.

I like out of the box thinking.

[devlin1]

I had thought of the game-breaking potential of swapping out your own high attack die with a low die from the pool to guarantee success, then taking that high die back for your damage. However, I think that limiting the die-swapping to once per Turn, or even once per Phase, would put the kaibosh on that.

And yeah, maybe keeping the die added from Luck exclusive to the character who paid for the luck would be good. He'd have his own supplemental pool of dice.

I don't mind some of the more "abusive" aspects of this, like changing the STUN Multiplier for a KA or manipulating the Hit Location, because I'm considering it for a pretty wacky game in which the PCs are supposed to pull off some pretty wacky moves.

[BNakagawa]

I sense a flood of stun lottery wins, head shots and groin hits in your future.

Autofire = death.

[devlin1]

I sense a flood of stun lottery wins, head shots and groin hits in your future.

Yeah, I can accept that. Heroes in wuxia films win a lot of STUN lotteries, and Chinese filmmakers are second only to Americans when it comes to a love of groin hits. USA! USA!

Autofire = death.

I don't see what the problem would be here. It's just--

Oh. Right.

Yeah, that's definitely something to consider. Therefore, I'll consider it.

[Trebuchet]

I had thought of the game-breaking potential of swapping out your own high attack die with a low die from the pool to guarantee success, then taking that high die back for your damage. However, I think that limiting the die-swapping to once per Turn, or even once per Phase, would put the kaibosh on that.

I would suggest you use a once-per-Turn or once-per-combat approach. Once-per-Phase would make this Luck variant far more useful (and thus more valuable) for higher SPD characters.

[Doc Democracy]

The other thing you might do to avoid the swap low damage dice for high to to hit dice and vice versa is to switch the to hit formula so that you need to roll over a number rather than under to hit, making high dice valuable all the time...that makes the pool less valuable...


Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

I had thought of the game-breaking potential of swapping out your own high attack die with a low die from the pool to guarantee success, then taking that high die back for your damage. However, I think that limiting the die-swapping to once per Turn, or even once per Phase, would put the kaibosh on that.

Once per turn would atleast limit it. Once per phase leaves it pretty open.

As I understand your example, each character can call on the dice pool each phase. Working from your example:

That is, if the pool contains dice of 6, 4, 3, and 2, and the player just rolled two 6s and a 2 to hit, he can take out one of the 6s and trade it for the 2. However, he is aware that his opponent's DCV is low enough that a 14 will hit anyway. Nevertheless, he chooses to exchange one of his 6's for the 3. Now the pool contains 6, 6, 4, and 2. The next player absolutely needs this RKA to take down the guard in one shot, but he only rolled a 1 and a 3. He trades the 1 for a 6, and now the pool contains 6, 4, 2, and 1.

The third player rolls a successful to hit roll, and rolls his Martioal Punch damage of 6d6. He is satisfied with his roll, but, glancing at the dice pool, decides to exchange a 6 he has rolled for the 4. The dice pool now contains 6,6,2,1.

The next player will either swap out one of his to hit dice for a 1 or 2, if he misses (or can get a critical in doing so), or can guarantee himself a 5x Stun Multiple, or at least replace a low damage die with a 6.

Thinking on it, this is even more manipulable than I had thought. Don't need to replace damage? Swap a 6 out of your subtraction for knockback roll. Many genre feature battles against mooks, with opposition power steadily increasing until we get to the Big Bad. By that time, the dice pool should have been set to an equal amount of 1's and 6's. Even if the Big Bad has a pool of his own, the players will likely outnumber him, plus he didn't have the opportunity to stack the pool in earlier activities.

And I missed the Autofire issue, but yeah - swap a 6 out and a 2 in and add two shots hitting.

Doc D's siggestion to rejig all rolls so higher is better wouold make it a bit more strategic - can you afford to swap a 6 into the dice pool to get rid of that 1?

[Steve Long]

I don't have any specific comments on the suggested rules, but in playing Shadowrun I have noted that the "Karma Pool" rules for PC groups really seem to create a "team spirit" and sometimes even encourage game attendance. They have a good metagame effect regardless of what they do in-game.

[devlin1]

I don't have any specific comments on the suggested rules, but in playing Shadowrun I have noted that the "Karma Pool" rules for PC groups really seem to create a "team spirit" and sometimes even encourage game attendance. They have a good metagame effect regardless of what they do in-game.

That's the kind of thing I'm really going for, actually. I like the gamist aspect of it. I expect the players to manipulate the pool in potentially imbalancing ways, but I also expect them to have fun with it.

[Supreme Serpent]

I like the basic idea, but I'd probably keep it limited to a certain number of dice instead of constantly refreshing, and make everyone involved. Something like:

*Put one die into the pool for each PC. If the PC's do something fantastic/incredibly heroic/etc. add another die to the pool. If running a multi-stage adventure, consider adding a new die (or more, to taste) to the pool at each new stage.

*Once a player uses a die, they cannot use another die until every other player has done so. This applies to every use.

*A player can take one die out of the pool to also take one die out of their roll. So, you're making a critical demolitions roll (11-) and roll 6, 5, 3. You take a die from the pool and also remove the 6 so you ended up rolling 8 instead of 14 and scattering yourself over the room. You can choose to use the die after the roll.

*Players can use a die to help another player, but they must either a) be the direct beneficiary of the action ("I use a die to help his Paramedics roll on me.") or must make an appropriate soliloquiy (sp) ("Keep hammering him Thor! He's almost finished!" - "I'm using a die to make sure Thor hits."). Note - in both these cases, the use of the die must be declared *before* the other player rolls.

*A player can use a die to force the GM to add a die to a villain's roll. ("No way am I letting Grond hit me when I'm at 3 STUN. I'm pulling a die out to add to his 'to hit' roll.")

[Dust Raven]

That's the kind of thing I'm really going for, actually. I like the gamist aspect of it. I expect the players to manipulate the pool in potentially imbalancing ways, but I also expect them to have fun with it.

The way I see it, if each player can use the pool once per Phase, it will increase team play. The dice in the pool, all put there by the players, will act as a guide to their actions. You'll get players saying "okay, if I exchance these dice, you'll be able to perform your Maneuver of Death on your Phase by exchanging a bad roll for this one..." The end result is the entire group working together. Granted, they're working together to manipulate their rolls and "fix" the rules in their favor, but it's still working together. Chances are that this will carry over into other aspects of the game as well, with players choosing actions complimentary to each other.

Now, if you push it back to once per Turn, this lessens the entire effect, but makes it more important. Once per Turn, the entire group can juggle the dice pool for an astounding group effect (instead of every phase). It might encourage them to plan their maneuvers in advance and work more tightly as a group throughout the turn. It may also lessen the importants of the dice pool in the players mind as just a slight edge they have individually. As it only happens once per Turn, it might not occur to the players to use it in conjunction with each other. A clever group would catch on eventually though.

For this effect, I'd suggest pooling the groups Luck instead of having them keep if for themselves. This would reinforce the teamwork aspect of the pool and make it more useful to the group in general.

[bigdamnhero]

Seems like there's the potential for some equity issues (real or perceived) between players: "How come I spent 20 character points on luck, but everyone gets the same benefit from them I do?" Probably easily addressed, but worth considering. With the right players this could, as Steve suggests, really foster team spirit; with the wrong players, it could lead to endless bickering over "Dude, I wanted those ones!" You know your players better than I do, obviously.

Overall, it's a bit too aggressively-wacky for my tastes, but it sounds like that's what you're dialing for. I'll be curious to hear how it works out.

4. This is the one that will probably meet with the most raised eyebrows. The GM gives out XP a little more generously. Or a lot. And he does it as the session progresses instead of waiting until the end. These mid-scenario XP are called Action Points (Fate Points? Ch'i Points? I dunno), and when a PC has acquired five Action Points, he can immediately spend them to buy a level of Luck-- and add a die to the pool. If he doesn't spend them, they turn into XP at the end of the session/scenario, and can be spent normally.

Ironically, this is the part I have the least trouble with. Personally I'm hesitant to let players purchase new anythings in mid-game, if only from a book-keeping standpoint. But I like the idea of handing out additional luck dice (or whatever they're called) in mid-game, which if unused can be cashed in for XP at the end of the game. If nothing else it makes it easier for the GM to reward good role-playing without having to remember at the end of the session who did something worth rewarding. Maybe this is just a nomeclature difference: rather than handing out XP in mid-game (which players can use to buy additional luck dice), I would hand out additional luck dice in mid-game (which players can cash in at the end for XP).


bigdamnhero
“See how I’m not punching him? I think I’ve grown.”

[Dust Raven]

Seems like there's the potential for some equity issues (real or perceived) between players: "How come I spent 20 character points on luck, but everyone gets the same benefit from them I do?" Probably easily addressed, but worth considering. With the right players this could, as Steve suggests, really foster team spirit; with the wrong players, it could lead to endless bickering over "Dude, I wanted those ones!" You know your players better than I do, obviously.

That is a potential problem, regardless of the player type. If all but one player buys 2d6 of Luck, but that one buys 6d6, he's gonna eventually feel shortchanged if he goes to dip into the pool and finds nothing worthwhile.

This isn't likely to happen. With so many dice in the pool, plus extra dice from the player who spend more on Luck, the chances of the pool being useless at any given time is very low.

One way to even things out a bit that might make it fair to all players, is to limit the number of dips per Turn to the number of dice of Luck they individually bought. That way, everyone who only bought 2d6 can dip in twice a turn, but the guy who bought 6d6 can dip in 6 times. He paid for more luck after all, and he should be able to use it more often than the others.