[iamfanboy]

I... like Shadowrun 5e. I like it a lot more than I thought I would, and I even like 4e after I actually broke down and actually got past my grognardian impulse of "It's new, and different, so it sucks" natural impulse.

But the one thing that I don't like about 4e still, and 5e now, is the simply gargantuan amounts of dice that a player rolls at any one time. I'm finding it to be somewhat, uh... impractical. At the low end it isn't so bad, with dice pools of 6-10 for skills a character is bad at, but a reasonably well-made character even starting out generally rolls somewhere between fourteen and twenty dice for their primary skills - and those can be rolled over... and over... and over...

I won't lie, the main thing that's vexing me is the tsunami of six-sided dice that wash over my precious miniatures, threatening to destroy them with each roll. Maybe if I didn't use minis, it wouldn't be a thang, because that space could be devoted to dicerolls instead, but dammit, I've paid good money for them, I've spent precious time converting them to be orks and trolls and elves, and I WANT TO USE THEM.

So, I'm thinking of using more of a 3e rule where you only roll the skill or relevant attribute on a Test as your Dice Pool. Requiring 4+ instead of 5+, and glitches/critical glitches occur when 2/3 of the Dice Pool is a 1.

I mean, obviously I'd be changing a lot more than that - I really, really like Edge versus calling it Karma Pool, for example, and the damage system of 4e/5e is a lot cleaner - so whatever I'm putting together WILL require some changes, but mathematically it looks similar, and is much easier on the dice-rolling hands.

Any thoughts on what I should look out for with a system kludged together like this?

[SnowDragon]

Roll your dice in a box >.>

[8-bit]

Well, I wouldn't use miniatures. Shadowrun is a lot more theater of the mind style, and translating some stuff (like movement rates) to a battle map is difficult (12 Agility Elf can go 48 meters in one Combat Turn; which, if one meter = a square, that means they are probably off the table; if a square > one meter, you get stacking issues with multiple people in the same spot).

However, if you can't do that, like SnowDragon said. Roll them in a box. Have a separate little table or pullout table for rolls. Even in DnD, where my group uses miniatures, those things get knocked over all the time, and we are usually only rolling one die! Use the floor if it's not carpeted! If you're table is big, there should be plenty of room. If it's small, then you probably are sitting close together and can use a coffee table or something. There are many ways to get around it, without changing the system so drastically. Personally, as a player, I like seeing all those dice roll on the table.

Finally, it is possible to roll dice and not have them move very far. Granted, it's not as dramatic, and may be less accurate, but that's always an option.

[Imveros]

you can also roll them in smaller groups. MY table's rigger only has 5 dice, and since they are his "lucky" dice he rolls them for everything. So just roll 5 dice three times or whatever the final pool is.

Or of course you can always just play 3rd edition and then just house rule a few things you like better about the new ones!

[Namikaze]

I'd be curious to see your miniatures, actually.  I find them to be interesting, even if miniature combat reveals a LOT of the flaws in movement rates.

But to get to your question: try using a dice roller app, program, or website.  I use random.org a lot on my laptop to help facilitate the larger dice pools.  There are apps for your phone that will automagically count your hits and glitches too.  And if you use Chummer, it comes with a dice roller built in.  I still use my physical dice for the smaller pools though, because there's nothing quite like it.  I use them for initiative, and roll all my NPCs at once.  This freaks out my players something fierce when they roll a few dice for their initiative, and I roll ten. 

[iamfanboy]

I'll try getting a gallery up of 'em - my camera is hit-and-miss sometimes, though. *sigh* The www.hfminis.co.uk has some GREAT stuff, though. Tell me that she isn't a perfect shadowrunner, or that he isn't a great LMG merc. Elves and orks aren't too hard (headswaps onto modern minis and/or painted-on fangs), but dwarves and trolls ARE - so far I've yet to find satisfactory trolls, mine are conversions using heads from Mage Knight trolls and bodies from other sources.

Back to topic. TL;DR version of below post: The dice pool system is awesome, but I don't think the bucket-o-dice is necessary and I'm figuring alternatives, which isn't hard given the clear mathy underpinnings of the system.

And I feel like I need to make it clear that this is for MY table. I'm not advocating rewriting the book with a fresh edition only a year old, and what works for your table can't work for mine. (and I've already decided that Movement is a Simple Action, and you can move up to AGI in meters each time you take it, with Running extending that amount.)

When it comes to game design, there are three types of systems: simple, complicated, and complex. A simple game is good for one thing, and one thing only. A complicated game is something where a myriad of different rules gives the illusion of a deep game, but all those rules only make the game harder to comprehend and longer to play. A complex game is a happy medium, and is the ideal to shoot for.

For example, the original Shadowrun could have used wildly different rules for shamans and mages and made it complicated - they might have chosen from different spells lists, or one used Drain where the other used a D&D style memorization, or...

Instead, both of them used the same underlying mechanic, with the only differences being what spirits were summoned and that shamans got totems - differences that are gone now, if you'll notice, making for a more streamlined game without losing anything. That's complex; the differences between a shaman and mage is just in the role-playing.

At its core, the SR4/5 Dice Pool system is complex - it's flexible, it's intuitive, and hell, it's even unique. I can't think of another game out there where the modifiers are to the number of dice you ROLL, rather than the target number TO roll. Closest I know is the advantage/disadvantage of D&D5, but it isn't at the core of the system like the Dice Pool system is for SR4/5.

The complication comes from the simply HUGE number of dice that you can roll for average player actions. The core premise of the Dice Pool system is: "Roll dice pool Z with target number X, each one that comes up is a hit, you need Y hits to succeed."

The nice thing is that you can easily judge what dice pools are meant to succeed at which action by the Thresholds. An Average (2) Action is meant to need a Dice Pool of 6; a Hard (4) Action needs 12, Very Hard (6) needs 18 dice...


I've been trying to decide between one of two methods to cut down on the dice rolling: either have all dice pools be the average of Attribute+Skill (or Attribute+Attribute) and halve the Threshold, or just go back to Skill or Attribute, change it to 4+ instead of 5+, and make a ton of other changes.

First is mathematically identical but lowering dice means 5+ rolls become harder to see - leading to player frustration. For some reason, the idea of 4+ as the TN is viscerally satisfying to me.


Iiii.... think I may stick with the halving method. That way any bonuses or penalties (+2 from Mentor Spirits) are just halved, and it means my friends don't have to remake characters, and that the characters they HAVE are compatible if they choose to travel. Still have to decide between rounding up or down for odd numbers. Probably just go up to keep it simple.

[farothel]

At its core, the SR4/5 Dice Pool system is complex - it's flexible, it's intuitive, and hell, it's even unique. I can't think of another game out there where the modifiers are to the number of dice you ROLL, rather than the target number TO roll. Closest I know is the advantage/disadvantage of D&D5, but it isn't at the core of the system like the Dice Pool system is for SR4/5.

All White Wolf games have this same thing, only they use D10s instead of D6s.

But back to the main issue, make the game at a lower power level so the players simply have less dice to roll.  In 4th edition the maximum number of dice I've ever rolled was 12 and it didn't diminish our fun in any way.  The GM just has to adapt to those power levels and fun can be had by everyone.

And if you think 20 dice is a lot, never play Scion (one of those White Wolf systems I talked about), as the maximum damage output we ever had was 120 dice (rolled in 2 groups of 60).  We never even played as full fledged gods, because there I had managed to device a way to get a damage output of around 800 dice, completely within the rules (the only problem was a backlash of about 400 dice, but since at that time I should be able to have multiple copies of myself, not really a problem).

[Imveros]

And if you think 20 dice is a lot, never play Scion (one of those White Wolf systems I talked about), as the maximum damage output we ever had was 120 dice (rolled in 2 groups of 60).  We never even played as full fledged gods, because there I had managed to device a way to get a damage output of around 800 dice, completely within the rules (the only problem was a backlash of about 400 dice, but since at that time I should be able to have multiple copies of myself, not really a problem).

That's an advertisement for an online dice roller if I've ever seen one ~_~

[Michael Chandra]

If you change the dicepools, you are significantly changing the odds. So it sounds like a bad idea.

As GM, I'd simply preroll with a program. For players, just let them roll in boxes and give them colored sets. I hand my players multiple sets of 9 dice so they can quickly put together their dicepools.

[iamfanboy]

The last incarnation of White Wolf games I played still used target number modifiers - "You have a base TN of 4, with modifiers you need... sevens to succeed. How many successes do you get?" versus the Dice Pool system of, "You have a concentration in Assault Rifles, that's +2 dice, you're trying to call shot, that's -4 dice, you're at medium range, that's -2 dice..." Has it changed?

If you change the dicepools, you are significantly changing the odds. So it sounds like a bad idea.

Did you  glance over that part of the post?

If you halve the dice pool and also halve the Threshold required for success, that's mathestatisticalike the same odds. Is there any other changes that folks can, specifically, say that it makes? It makes Limits/Accuracy less important, increases the value of Edge even more, raises the odds of glitches... anything else?  I'd enjoy specifics, because while I'm good I'm by no means omniscient. Miscalculated in a recent Savage Worlds Sci-Fi game - BADLY.

One of the MAJOR changes it makes is combat becomes less lethal (less hits to raise damage), but since I'm planning to use two time-savers that promised to make combat MORE lethal (One combined damage track of 8+Body+Willpower use WW-style X's and slashes for physical/stun, and making only one defense roll of Dodge and having a static Body+Armor/3 for how much damage you soak), I'm OK with that.


I, frankly, dislike too many dice rolls in a game. Going diceless isn't for me,  because dice are essential randomizers and help create drama and excitement, but too many dice rolls and too much math slows the pace of the game and create boredom where there should be interest.

Example: I recently gave D&D 4e a fair try as a player (in my newfound open-mindedness about gaming), and rejected it once I realized that it boiled down to Sesson 1: Get to boss(4-6 hours), Session 2: Fight boss(2-4 hours), rinse repeat, and most boss fights boiled down to beating on him with nothing but at-will powers for the last half of their hitpoints.

When an ENTIRE TABLE only looks up from their computer/book/painting project when it's their turn to roll dice, then the game session is lost, and if that happens every time during what's supposed to be the adventure's CLIMAX the game itself is terrible.

As a game-master, your job is to do more than just tell a story, it's to make the players want to be a part of the story you're telling and change it with their participation. Anything and everything is extraneous to that, and after one session of Shadowrun 5e I was pleased with everything BUT the amount of dice that needed to be rolled. I felt as though it were interfering with my storytelling AND their enjoyment of the story, and that dog won't hunt monsignor.

[ZeConster]

If you change the dicepools, you are significantly changing the odds. So it sounds like a bad idea.

Did you  glance over that part of the post?

If you halve the dice pool and also halve the Threshold required for success, that's mathestatisticalike the same odds.

It isn't, actually: if you roll 12 dice with a threshold of 4, you have a 60.69% chance of success, but if you roll 6 dice with a threshold of 2, you have a 64.88% of success. As a more extreme example, threshold 6 for 12 dice is 17.77%, but threshold 3 for 6 dice is 31.96%.
Halving everything doesn't change the average, but it increases the relative spread, so you're more likely to fail if your average is higher than what you need, but more likely to succeed if your average is lower than what you need.

[Mirikon]

There's a couple pieces of old wisdom that are pertinent to this discussion. First, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Second, the more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain. These two points are what most people who start making house rules tend to forget. As has been shown, small changes can dramatically affect the odds, which can lead to game-breaking conclusions in a hurry.

My advice to the OP echoes the others when I say that the best solution is not to try modding the system for reduced dice pools or changing target numbers, but rather, if you insist on using minifigures and battle maps, then to have a box for players to roll in. Also, playing around a larger table helps with such things. A player in my weekly D&D game seems to have a d20 that is magnetically drawn to the minis, hitting them at least four times a game session. And that's with a single die, so dice pools aren't the problem here.

[Michael Chandra]

If you change the dicepools, you are significantly changing the odds. So it sounds like a bad idea.

Did you  glance over that part of the post?

If you halve the dice pool and also halve the Threshold required for success, that's mathestatisticalike the same odds.

No it is not. Averages, sure, but hit/miss chances change significantly with different pool numbers versus different thresholds. Standard deviation goes rooted compared to the average, so higher pools roll relatively near their average more, but absolutely less. So no, I did not glance over it, I simply knew it was wrong. Thanks for having faith in me not knowing what I am talking about after tons of math debates.

[iamfanboy]

If you change the dicepools, you are significantly changing the odds. So it sounds like a bad idea.

Did you  glance over that part of the post?

If you halve the dice pool and also halve the Threshold required for success, that's mathestatisticalike the same odds.

No it is not. Averages, sure, but hit/miss chances change significantly with different pool numbers versus different thresholds. Standard deviation goes rooted compared to the average, so higher pools roll relatively near their average more, but absolutely less. So no, I did not glance over it, I simply knew it was wrong. Thanks for having faith in me not knowing what I am talking about after tons of math debates.

I do apologize; I was doing the math in my head after (and during) a nine-hour drive and discarded any deviation around 5% as unimportant - and I did screw up on some of the math, too. *sigh* I somehow came up with Threshold 6/12 dice as 20% and Threshold 3/6 dice as 25%, not 18% and 32%... within my margin of error, though I was WRONG.

Still, I... am not too sure I care, even now that I know the odds - and since I found that handy-dandy table from the SimAntics blog that lets me see the odds more clearly. In the end, I don't mind if a task is easier for a PC to accomplish, as long as the same odds apply to NPCs.

Dice are there to create drama and tension, not directly simulate the correct odds that a desperate ork ganger with a cyberarm will throw his kunai into the eye of a crazed cockatrice - no part of that idea is grounded in reality.

Though now that I have that table, it does help me visualize the odds more and how I  should do thresholds... I'll probably have it on the inside of my GM Screen.

[Michael Chandra]

It will also significantly impact opposed rolls, if you reduce those too. And if so it greatly impacts skill-versus-attribute balances. So any balancing SR5 is based on would no longer exist if you do this around the board.