07 December 2012

Levi's Double Dice

Just a quickie - On the new G+ Gamecraft community (and communities are brand new) Levi Kornelsen asks the following:
Okay, so, dice mechanic thing; kind of a "little idea" I keep playing with.Consider a character with skills like those in Skyrim - so, ranging generally from 15 - 30 to start, and up to near 100.Now, imagine you roll 2d10, and read them as percentile both ways.  So, 9,2 is 29 AND 92.If you succeed (roll skill or less) one way of reading?  Partial success.  If you do it both ways?  Complete success.How does that hit you, overall?  Gimmicky or good?    #rpg    #roleplaying   #rpggames  

And here is what the cumulative distribution if Partial and Complete success looks like, assuming you need to roll your skill level or less, and "00" is both "0" and "100":

That's it --- I said it was a quickie!
Edit: Maybe the chart title should be "2D10 Double-Dice". Oh well ...

2 comments:

SkilTao said...

A good fast illustration.

The mechanic seems too harsh for beginning characters, but might work as a success / critical success mechanic.

Finding a die mechanic that does more than "margin of success / failure" in a single roll can be tricky business.

With this one, I like how the two lines of success are symmetrical. I mean, it's obvious that they should be symmetrical, but it's still appealing to see.

Dan Eastwood said...

I'm not sure how practical this is, but it is unique and I think that was Levi's point.

Well, nearly unique. This is actually pretty close to the maximum and minimum of two dice. That part shows up pretty clearly in the "stair steps" on the chart.