Dice

Dice

A quick and dirty comparison of dice mechanics.

Basic Roleplaying: 1D100 under modified skill.
Burning Wheel: 1D6 where 1-3 fail & 5-6 succeess but this varies with shades. Roll dice equal to skill and need successes equal to the obstacle.
Eclipse Phase: 1D100 under modified skill (+/-10,20, etc.). Both dice same result critical success. Versus winner highest successful roll, but critical success trumphs a higher number.
Fantasy Dice: Roll a number of skill die (D4 to D12) equal to the skill's associated attribute (average 2) with one bonus die for skill speciality. Must roll equal or over target difficulty from easy (2) to insane (12) or beat opponent - only highest die result counts (no addition or subtraction involved). Roll can be scaled up by sacrificing one die for each die type scaled up, or adding a die to the roll for each die type scaled down (example: 3D8 scaled up to 2D10 or even 1D12).
FATE: Same as fudge below or 2D6 where one is designated minus and one plus. Lowest result subtracted/added to skill and if both dice are the same then skill remains unmodified.
Fudge: 4Df, where f is six sided die with two +, - and blank sides. Moves traits (e.g. skills) up or down an adjective scale: Terrible, Poor, Mediocre, Fair, Good, Great, and Superb.
GURPS: 3D6 under modified skill (modifier runs -10 to +10). Has criticial success and failure on low and high rolls.
Hot War: Dice pool where highest roller wins and number of dice that defeat the opponent improves the degree of success.
JAGS: 4D6, where a 6 is treated as zero must be equal or less to the target number.
Mouse Guard: 1D6 where 1-3 fail & 5-6 success. Roll dice equal to skill and need successes equal to the obstacle which is typically 1-4.
One Roll Engine: Pool of D10s equal to Stat+Skill. To succeed must have matches
above set difficulty (1-8). Penalty removes dice from pool. Contest won by having most matches or highest match.
PDQ: Simple situations are resolved with a comparison of Difficulty Rank with the character's Quality Rank (table for this). Complicated situations require a 2D6 roll + Modifier for the Quality Rank to match or beat a Target Number for the Difficulty Rank.
Savage Worlds: Trait (e.g. skill) represented as a die (1D4, 1D4+1, 1D6, etc.). 4 or greater, +/- modifiers, is success. Players and important NPCs get to roll additional 1D6 which if higher than trait die is used instead, but 1-1 is critical failure.
SIEGE: 1D20 + Attribute & Speciality versus 12 if within skill bundle, versus 18 otherwise. Difficulty modifiers adjust this from easy to impossible (-6, 0 +2, +6, +12, +18).
Ubiquity: Binary dice system, even numbers are successes, odds are failures.
Unisystem: Success if Attribute + Skill + 1D10 + Difficulty Modifier is nine or greater. On 10 roll again subtract five and if above zero add to result. On 1 roll again subtract five and if below zero subtract from result. These are open ended.

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