A system mechanic idea-- description dice pools

[Grod_The_Giant]

Just a thought that popped into my head for a very narrative-style action-resolution mechanic.

What if you had a system where everything-- characters, scenes, setting, and suchlike-- were described with a series of rated aspects? A character might be described with Wind Control 4, Fighting 2, and Charm 2. A hurricane might be described with Winds 3, Panic 3, and Flooding 2. And so on.

In game, your rating would constitute a pool of some sort, either tokens or dice. To take an action, you'd spend points from a pool and explain how it applied. Reactions would work the same. Thus, you'd get something like:

Player: I use my Wind Control to try and blow the villain off the roof. <Spends 2 points>
DM: Unfortunately, the villain uses his Super Strength to dig his fingers in an hold himself in place. <Spends 3 points>

This could go back and forth until someone runs out of points to spend ("I rip up the ground he's holding!" "He jumps off it in mid-air!" "I hit him with lightning!" "He tanks it and keeps going!") at which point whoever ran out loses, and suffers some sot of consequence.

...thinking a little more, it'd probably be better to use dice, though, so you could get a bit more random chance-- after all the bidding, roll the resulting dice pool, and whoever has a higher total wins.

To make it work in a group, I think you'd have fairly small pools (maybe a default of 10 dice over all traits), and leave off initiative counts entirely-- the exchange begins, everyone starts acting and spending points, and it ends when everyone's out of dice. Afterwards, everyone glares, dusts themselves off, and a new flurry of action begins.

You might have each character be able to take a very small number of consequences before being knocked out of the fight. Or maybe a set of consequence dice that subtract from your own rolls? And when that pool hits a certain point, you're out?

Opposed difficulties would obviously be based on your opponents aspects. "Unopposed" difficulties would be based on scene aspects.

You might also have some sort of chaos pool, maybe using FUDGE dice. Chaos might get a rating, telling you how many FUDGE dice to add to all rolls-- and since FUDGE dice can give positive or negative results, they add uncertainty... y'know, chaos.

I dunno. Thoughts? Glaring issues? "This is the coolest idea ever!" praise? "This is the stupidest thing I've every heard!" criticism? I don't know if I'll do anything with it, but you never know...

[Grinner]

It sounds like Wushu (http://files.pcode.nl/temp/wushuopen_final.pdf). You have a number of rated traits, each describing the characters' capabilities in very broad terms. Players take turns adding details and receive additional dice into their pools for each detail they add.

Your idea diverges from Wushu in the handling of the dice pool. In Wushu, each player has a flat cap on how many details they can add, and each trait acts as the determinant of whether a given die's result is effective or not. Yours appears to treat the total of all traits as the cap.

Honestly, I do like your narrative resolution mechanic. It's a bit dull mechanically, since you can really only alter your descriptions. Wushu, on the other hand, lets you split up your dice into offense and defense dice pools, adding a hint of strategic risk-taking to the game. However, in Wushu, players tend to focus their descriptions on their highest trait to improve their chances of success. Yours allows for more descriptive flexibility, since every trait is mechanically the same.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Hmm. Never really looked at Wushu, though I've heard the name spoken positively before.


Honestly, I do like your narrative resolution mechanic. It's a bit dull mechanically, since you can really only alter your descriptions. Wushu, on the other hand, lets you split up your dice into offense and defense dice pools, adding a hint of strategic risk-taking to the game. However, in Wushu, players tend to focus their descriptions on their highest trait to improve their chances of success. Yours allows for more descriptive flexibility, since every trait is mechanically the same.
To be fair, the mechanic I propose here would sort of require you to do the same thing, since you'd use the same points/dice/whatever to attack as you do to defend. At the most crunchy level, it would be "figure out which descriptions are applicable and divide the die between attack, defense, and assists."

Organization-wise... it could get messy. :smallannoyed: You'd have dice being stacked against specific targets, dice being used to defend against specific attacks, dice being used to benefit others... OK, step back, abstract.

Each character would have two pools (gah, names), attack and defense. When dice are bid, they're added either to the target's attack pool (if it's a attack) or the appropriate defense pool (yours if you're defending yourself, an ally's if you're trying to help them). At the end of the exchange, all the dice in both pools are rolled. If the attack pool's result is larger than the defense pool's... Bad Things.

Also, as an alternate to each trait having its own pool, it might be a plausible alternate to have one pool, based on character "level," with trait/descriptor rating determining how many of those dice you may commit with a single declaration. I almost like that better, in some ways-- it also means that points in, say, non-combat skills aren't a direct handicap when in combat. On the other hand, given that everything just gets summed up in the end, without some limit on the number of declarations per round, doing so would also erase a lot of the distinction between different rankings. Hmm...

[Grinner]

Also, as an alternate to each trait having its own pool, it might be a plausible alternate to have one pool, based on character "level," with trait/descriptor rating determining how many of those dice you may commit with a single declaration. I almost like that better, in some ways-- it also means that points in, say, non-combat skills aren't a direct handicap when in combat. On the other hand, given that everything just gets summed up in the end, without some limit on the number of declarations per round, doing so would also erase a lot of the distinction between different rankings. Hmm...

Assuming each character can make an indefinite number of declarations/bids in each turn of combat (like in Wushu), how will limiting just a single declaration serve to constrain the character's overall efficacy?

Or are you trying to make turn-based combat, like that of D&D, narrative by abstracting character traits and abilities into descriptions?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Assuming each character can make an indefinite number of declarations/bids in each turn of combat (like in Wushu), how will limiting just a single declaration serve to constrain the character's overall efficacy?

Or are you trying to make turn-based combat, like that of D&D, narrative by abstracting character traits and abilities into descriptions?

Yeah, true. I don't really want pure turn-based at the moment. Maybe we'll go with dice pools per ability, with a limit of no more than 1/2 the pool in one declaration? Just to make sure there is a bit more back-and-forth going on.

Or, as an alternate/supplemental idea... the chaos pool is equal to the size of the largest bid. So it starts at 0 dice. Someone uses a 2-die superspeed defense, it jumps to 2 dice. Someone else bids 3 dice for a telepathic attack, and it goes up to three. Chaos dice would be something like FUDGE dice, or "evens add, odds subtract" or something, and would get added to both damage and defense pools, so the more chaos flying around, the less predictable things get. Maybe? Not sure about the math there.

For damage, I'm thinking that for each exchange you lose adds a damage die that gets automatically added to your damage. Above some certain threshold, you're KO'd. Either when you fail by a certain amount, or when you accumulate a certain number of damage dice.

[Grinner]

I hate that I keep going back to Wushu, but I think there's one more mechanic that should be drawn from it.

Wushu has two types of enemies: Elites and Mooks (I don't those are the actual names).

Elites are handled by the GM exactly like how the PCs are handled by the players.

Mooks are quite different. Instead of handling each one separately, with all of the overhead that entails, Mooks are treated as a mob, and they collectively are assumed to have so many successes per round. The number of successes they get in turn correlates to the encounter's difficulty. Additionally, the players must score so many successes before the Mooks are defeated.

I'm thinking that the cannon fodder NPCs in this system could be handled as Mooks are in Wushu. Otherwise, you're looking at two dice pools for each NPC. That's a ton of overhead for one person to handle.


Or, as an alternate/supplemental idea... the chaos pool is equal to the size of the largest bid. So it starts at 0 dice. Someone uses a 2-die superspeed defense, it jumps to 2 dice. Someone else bids 3 dice for a telepathic attack, and it goes up to three. Chaos dice would be something like FUDGE dice, or "evens add, odds subtract" or something, and would get added to both damage and defense pools, so the more chaos flying around, the less predictable things get. Maybe? Not sure about the math there.

Definitely keep this.

It does have just one problem, however. If you're improving both the attack and defense pools with the chaos dice, doesn't that create a net result of zero? Or is damage another thing altogether?


For damage, I'm thinking that for each exchange you lose adds a damage die that gets automatically added to your damage. Above some certain threshold, you're KO'd. Either when you fail by a certain amount, or when you accumulate a certain number of damage dice.

I'm not sure if it's appropriate for this game, but I once saw a damage mechanic a bit like this.

There was a damage chart with six possible results. When an attack hit, a single d6 would be rolled, and the character's Armor rating (a value of 1-3) would be subtracted. A result of four, five, or six meant defeat, and a result of one, two, or three would impart an effect, either Staggered or Weakened. Staggered would allow the attacker another attack roll, and Weakened would reduce the character's Armor rating and a few core attributes, causing a slow spiral into eventual defeat.

What I liked about this mechanic was its ability to allow the game's high action to end in a single stroke. (And now that I'm thinking, it would be great for a Highlander-themed game. :smallcool:)

[Grod_The_Giant]

Wushu has two types of enemies: Elites and Mooks (I don't those are the actual names).

Elites are handled by the GM exactly like how the PCs are handled by the players.

Mooks are quite different. Instead of handling each one separately, with all of the overhead that entails, Mooks are treated as a mob, and they collectively are assumed to have so many successes per round. The number of successes they get in turn correlates to the encounter's difficulty. Additionally, the players must score so many successes before the Mooks are defeated.

I'm thinking that the cannon fodder NPCs in this system could be handled as Mooks are in Wushu. Otherwise, you're looking at two dice pools for each NPC. That's a ton of overhead for one person to handle.
I was thinking that mobs of little guys would be treated as one unit-- "The Hordes of Hydra" would be statted out as if they were one character. For lesser minions-- the nameless-but-still-a-threat-- perhaps they would simply require X dice to be committed to take them out? Or X>Y, where X=damage pool and Y=defense pool.

Any way you handle this, there are going to be a lot of dice flying around. You're probably going to need whole piles of d6s or d10s and a bunch of little cups or bowls or something for dice pools.


Definitely keep this.

It does have just one problem, however. If you're improving both the attack and defense pools with the chaos dice, doesn't that create a net result of zero? Or is damage another thing altogether?
Dang. Stupid math. Something like that might still work if you bid tokens instead of dice, but... hmm. I can see adding them to damage only, but that seems too brutal. Maybe the dice in the chaos pool get split up between random pools at the end of the exchange?


I'm not sure if it's appropriate for this game, but I once saw a damage mechanic a bit like this.

There was a damage chart with six possible results. When an attack hit, a single d6 would be rolled, and the character's Armor rating (a value of 1-3) would be subtracted. A result of four, five, or six meant defeat, and a result of one, two, or three would impart an effect, either Staggered or Weakened. Staggered would allow the attacker another attack roll, and Weakened would reduce the character's Armor rating and a few core attributes, causing a slow spiral into eventual defeat.

What I liked about this mechanic was its ability to allow the game's high action to end in a single stroke. (And now that I'm thinking, it would be great for a Highlander-themed game. :smallcool:)
It's interesting. I do like systems where damage starts you on a downwards spiral (M&M, for example), though I'm not such a huge fan of one-shot-kills.

I'm thinking that for every 3 (if using d6) or 5 (if using d10)* points the damage pool's roll exceeds the defense pool's, you get a damage die**. Three damage dice and you're out, no questions asked-- extra toughness would come from an "Invulnerability 4" effect or something. You could get multiple damage dice on a single exchange.

Also, possibly doing something where you can add damage dice to the chaos pool instead.

*I should probably decide that at some point.
**Numbers extremely tentative. It might be better to go 5 or 8, 6 or 10, or even 10 or 15; it all depends on how much difference there winds up being between damage and defense pools at the end of an exchange. 3/5 is a single die, meaning that you'd better split pretty evenly. 5/8 gives you a bit more leeway for chance. 6/10 is about two dice of difference, and might be fairest, now that I think about it. Hmm...

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Diceless FATE, huh? You...you actually may want to have a gander at Blood & Honor (http://johnwickpresents.com/honor/) (the PDF is only $5)--it's a samurai tragedy game that John Wick (behind the L5R 1st Edition book) wrote up.

It uses a system very similar to what you describe, because it's a derivative of FATE that changes some things up. In particular, the "wagers" system is particularly ingenious.

I like the main concept of this system.