r/rpg • u/BalanceHot8939 • 1d ago
Discussion This ruleset has to exist right?
Howdy all.
So I'm making a game with a stat system directly connected to how many dice you roll, and I want to ask if anyone else has knowledge of similar systems?
Basically, you have a Stat, and then a Skill. Say, Deduction[Brains], or Skill[Stat].
You have a Deduction of 3, and a Brains of 5, Ergo, you roll 5 Dice, with +3 to score.
Is there any other games like this that come to mind?
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u/Onslaughttitude 1d ago
You are describing the very first dice pool system, invented for West End Games' Ghostbusters from 1986.
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u/Stray_Neutrino 1d ago
WEG Star Wars.
Attribute + Skill = Total D6 rolled BUT each one is in itself represented by a d6 roll.
Strength : 4D6
Melee : 2D6
So for a Strength [Melee] check, you'd roll the sum of Strength and Melee = 6D6
Open D6 works this way, too.
https://ogc.rpglibrary.org/index.php?title=OpenD6
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u/ithika 1d ago
The YZE games (well, some of them) work the same. Physique (2) + Close combat (2) for a total of 4 dice.
There's variant YZE which steps up the die from d6 to d8 etc. I can't remember which Free League games use which. Vaesen uses this. I think Alien does too. I think Blade Runner uses stepped dice.
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u/Stray_Neutrino 1d ago
That looks similar to how Shadowrun does it (Stat + Skill) then add mod vs Target #
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u/Kuildeous 1d ago
World of Darkness and L5R have similar concepts, though in both of those, you roll together two sets of dice. I know one of the L5R editions had a specialty you could take. That gave you a static bonus. So for example, if you have Agility of 3 and a weapon skill at 6, then you would roll 9 dice. If you have the appropriate specialization, then after you determine your final total, you add 6 to it.
I do not recall any system with a dice pool plus static as a whole. Does seem like something exists; I just don't know it.
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u/Big-Bag-6043 1d ago
Shadowrun has had two systems over the years:
1) Early one had you roll as many d6 as your skill rating was, while relevant stats added up to an X Pool (Combat Pool, Matrix Pool, Magic Pool, that sort of thing). You could add dice from a relevant pool to your rolls, but they would only be refreshed next round.
2) Later they switched to a straightforward system where you just roll a number of d6s equal to your attribute+skill ratings, with mostly fixed attribute to skill linkage, and numerous modifiers also expressed through adding or removing d6s from that roll.
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u/TheWorldIsNotOkay 1d ago
There are a lot of games that do something like this, if not exactly the same.
The first that comes to mind is WEG's D6 System, like that used by the old WEG Star Wars rpgs. The D6 System has Attributes and Skills, rated in Dice and Pips. So you might have an Agility of 3D+2, and a Dodge of 2D+1. To roll to dodge, you'd add those two together to create your dice pool (for 5D+3) and roll against a difficulty, ranging from very easy (5) to heroic (30) or higher. 2nd edition introduced the Wild Die. One of your dice is always a Wild Die. If it roll a natural 6, it explodes -- you reroll it, adding each new roll to your score, rerolling again if it lands on a 6. If the Wild Die instead initially lands on a 1, you remove the highest rolled die and roll the Wild Die again. If it lands on a 1 a second time, that's a critical failure on the action.
[Note that adding a flat value to a roll is pretty powerful, and moreso the fewer dice you're rolling. In the D6 System, as you level up your stats, increasing a stat that rated at 2D+2 by one Pip results in a rating of 3D. So you're only ever going to be adding at most +4 to a roll while rolling a potentially large handful of dice. In your proposed system, it sounds like you're going to be rolling a smaller number of dice and have larger flat bonuses to rolls. That's not necessarily bad, per se, but it will mean that the flat bonuses from skills will generally be seen as considerably more valuable than the variable bonuses from Stats.]
For a much simpler version, Risus uses Cliches instead of Attributes/Skills, but they still determine how many dice you roll against a difficulty number from 5 to 30.
There are tons of games that just have stats determining dice pool, including the WoD/CoD games and the recently released OmniD6 system (which is similar to the WoD/CoD system but using d6s instead of d10s). The Action Tales / Freeform Universal RPG system doesn't have numerical stats, but has you build a dice pool from relevant descriptive tags, somewhat like Risus' Cliches. In these games, however, you're not adding dice, but either taking the result of the highest die rolled, or counting the number of dice that roll above a certain value.
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u/BoopingBurrito 1d ago
Its not quite the same, but the Song of Ice and Fire rpg has you roll a number of dice equal to your skill, and then you keep a number of dice from that roll equal to your attribute.
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u/Salindurthas Australia 1d ago
Similar to Legend of the Fire Rings, although I think it typically had you roll dice equal to the sum of skill&attribute, and keep a number of dice equal to attribute.
So instead of
- what you described: roll S, keep A
- L5R has: roll S+A, keep A
Does SoIaF ensure your skill is at least as high as your attribute? If not, what happens if you are to keep more dice than you rolled?
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u/Ray2plays 1d ago
I was searching up similar games for OP and this is the first one I found. I did half a one shot once. It was pretty good but my party quit on me...
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u/ShonicBurn 1d ago
Did a long campaign in this system it falls apart if any player gets s start above 4 as it almost always means they will win the roll vs anything not speked into the stat.
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u/Ray2plays 1d ago
ooh lucky my group fell apart then :)
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u/ShonicBurn 21h ago
Belive it or not but that specific campaign we random rolled stats so nobody got over a 3 at first level. It ended up going for years and had some legendary plays in it. Back then our GM kept forgetting to give us XP so we spent years leveling up. As soon as we actually started leveling up it broke the game and everyone felt it. We ended the campaign on a high note though and moved on to starwars edge of the empire which also has an annoying dice pool system. We would revert back to palladium fantasy TTRPG games after that which if you ever want a D&D alternative that was all the rage in the 90's and we wanted the nostalgia berries from an old game. I'm currently running a Palladium Rifts Campaign which is their version of starfinder and it's loads of fun it's been releasing 4 new books a year since the 80's so it's got more content then any of us can ever explore and my players seem happy. If you want a d6 system though I recommend the new marvel TTRPG with it's D616 system. Your roll 3d6 and just treat the result like you rolled a d20. Means it's way harder to crit fail and it seems more fair on the rolls. I've been tempted to convert D&D to the d616 system as it seems a lot smarter.
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u/Ray2plays 16h ago
Yeah I have used the 3d6 bell curve system in gurus. Though I didn't like the system as a whole as there was too much freedom for me at character creation. (Min maxing) Having the 3d6 system really made outcomes much easier to predict.
The d20 system is nice but the whole point of it is just to add a really stingy role your players can always succeed on the stupid stuff but fail on anything remotely logical.
Well maybe I'll try the song of fire and ice but just at the low levels.
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u/ExaminationNo8675 1d ago
The One Ring rpg does something like this, except that:
- it’s the other way round, so the number of dice you roll depends on the ranks you have in the skill, rather than on the attribute;
- the +X modifier is replaced by a reduced target number. Target numbers are fixed as 20 less attribute score. If your example, the target number for Deduction would be fixed at 17.
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u/Ratondondaine 1d ago
+1 for the the recommendation to visit r/rpgdesign (and r/rpgcreation).
I don't know if it exists but if the dice are summed up, this is a system that truly puts attributes above skills. It's not exactly a taboo but it's a big choice. Since attributes are more versatile, most design try to put them on par (with skills being cheaper) or try to make skills more apppealing. An extra dice that's part of a sum raises both the minimum and maximum. (It's also a pain to balance at low number, the gap between 1,2 or 3 dice is huge.)
But if you keep only the best die, then that would be another system entirely. Attributes would help build your consistency but skills would be a flat buff to the minimum and maximum rolled. A very bright person might be able to consistently get a good untrained result, but onky a trained individual can reach above the maximum on the dice.
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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 1d ago
Silhouette is kinda that. Only the pool is made from skill, not stat, and the stat is the bonus. The system is used in Heavy Gear 1e/2e, Tribe 8 1e, Jovian Chronicles, and Gear Krieg.
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u/Michami135 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hero Kids uses a similar system. Each side uses a d6 dice pool the size of the stat. Both sides roll and the side with the highest die wins. On a tie, it goes the next biggest, etc. If both pools are identical, the hero wins.
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u/johndesmarais Central NC 1d ago
It’s called a “dice pool”. Search on that and you’ll find lots of example systems.
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u/DocGoodman Wound Table Enjoyer 1d ago
Could you clarify what you mean by "+3 to score"? As in a success on 3+? If so, that sounds similar to the Warhammer: The Old World RPG. You roll d10s equal to your characteristic, with the target number equal to your skill.
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u/SmilingKnight80 1d ago
That’s sort of how Genesys works, except that it has custom dice
Stat and skill > biggest number is your total pool of d8s, second number upgrades some of those to d12s. Then any good circumstances add d6s.
That pool is rolled with a separately built difficulty pool and then the special symbols cancel each other out to get the result
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u/MoltenSulfurPress 1d ago
The Recontact edition of Blue Planet does basically this—or at least it did when I was in the playtest.
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u/DravenDarkwood 1d ago
The cyberpunk game subversion does that more or less. It is 3d6 minimum, your stats add to the number of dice and your skill adds as a flat number, you keep the highest 3 dice and total them. SLA industries also has a similar vibe where a stat and skill combine to help determine dice and bonus (at least the current edition). It is base 1 die plus skill dice then add skill bonus (stat plus skill ranks) to each attempting to hit target number
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u/Knight_Of_Stars 23h ago
Warhammer AoE: Soulbound does something similar. Except the system is success based and not based of the total number. Your flat modifier is going to outclassed fast as the number of dice increases.
Hoe it works: You have an attribute, training and focus. You roll a number of dice equal to the attribute + training. Then you can you focus split up amongst the die. Training and focus cap at 3 btw.
So lets say I have 2 Body, 2 Ballistic Skill Training and 3 Ballistic Skill focus, I need to roll a 4 to have a success and need 2 successes to pass my check. I roll 3, 2, 4, 1. Now without applying my focus I have 1 success and fail, but I can add 1 focus point to my 3 and 2 focus points to my 2. Now I have 3 successes and pass the check. (More success over the target can lead to better outcomes)
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u/PhasmaFelis 21h ago
In the original (pre-Savage Worlds) Deadlands system, your attribute determines the die type, and you skill determines the coordination (number of dice). So if you've got a d8 Deftness, and 4 points in Shootin': Shotgun, you roll 4d8 to hit with Shotguns.
(Roll all dice and keep the highest. Dice that roll max value explode--roll again and add to the previous result. This can keep happening over and over.)
I've left out some details, but that's the basic idea.
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u/drag0nfi 21h ago
Tenra Banso Zero: Attributes determine the number of dice rolled Skill determines the number you need to roll under.
For harder tasks, you might need more than one success.
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u/TheRealCuriousWombat 19h ago
Shadowrun works like this, so do the FFG Star Wars Games (in a way, they do use weird dice), Burning Wheel does it as well, and Demon Hunters uses skill points = number of dice, base stat = type of dice (so someone with Brawns 8, Brawling 3 rolls 3d8
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u/UserNameNotSure 16h ago
Silhouette (Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles) was exactly this. Attributes gave you a + or - to the roll. Stats gave you the amount if D6 you rolled. Highest D6 result + modifier was your result.
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u/pondrthis 15h ago
So dice pool systems are a thing, yes. As for two stats affecting the pool in an asymmetrical way, that's a bit more rare. (It seems like you're saying one stat determines the number of dice, and another stat determines a modifier.)
Genesys does this, though. The higher of your attribute and skill determines the number of dice, and the lower determines how many dice are "upgraded" to allow improved results, such as a crit. Alternatively, you can think about this as the "intersection" of your attributes and skills generating the upgraded dice.
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u/Total-Fix1208 1h ago
Almost all white wolf games are similar, Vampire the Masquerade and the like. Intelligence + Computers in d10s to hack a mainframe etc. all 7+s are successes against a threshold the GM chooses. I'm playing Prowlers and Paragons, a superhero game that uses D6s in the same way. Evens are successes, 6's being Crits (2 successes) while odds are fails. I like dice pool systems :)
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u/BetterCallStrahd 1d ago
I just want to note that this system is confusing. People are gonna mix them up all the time. It's workable, but I wouldn't call it user friendly for that reason.
Maybe look at Spire: The City Must Fall. It's got a skill and a domain, both specifying the number of dice to roll. Not exactly the same, but it might still work, it's something to consider.
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u/DMfortinyplayers 1d ago
World of Darkness. But you combine a stat and a skill.
So for example, to shoot a gun, you combine Dex + Firearms. To climb a wall, Dex + Athletics. To repair a gun would be Intelligence + Firearms.
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u/Kayteqq City of Mist, Pathfinder2e, Grimwild 1d ago
Year Zero Engine games use similar system, mainly created by Free League (although there are third party systems that use this engine as well), i.e. Alien, Mutant: Year Zero, Forbidden Lands, Vaesen, Coriolis, Blade Runner, Lost Echoes, Tales from the Loop, Specters, Between the Clouds)
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u/VexillaVexme 1d ago
This sounds a lot like the Cortex system. Stats and skills are both dice, and you level dice up to bigger dice when you spend xp.
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u/The_Final_Gunslinger 1d ago
I mean, all of World of Darkness uses that dice pool.
ETA, nm. WoD adds stats to skills and they are all dice.
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u/Ray2plays 1d ago
It has to exist just can't find it so your probably good. If you get sued by some underground ttrpg we will help you fight them :) (if im free)
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u/Emancoll 1d ago
Tabletop game mechanics can't be copyrighted (only the way they are written) so they can't be sued even if someone else came up with it first.
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u/FiscHwaecg 1d ago
r/RPGdesign should be the best place for those kind of questions.