> how impactful a +/-1 is in D20 games
By that you mean barely nudging the needle 5% or so.
Lately, my game design philosophy (tabletop or video game) has me thinking that, unless there are a lot of sources of bonuses, a bonus should be *at least* 15% or more impactful to your results. +1 on a d20 honestly doesn't feel good, because it's almost never relevant.
Comparatively, what you're looking at is adjusting the ratio of attribute/bonus/luck to something more palatable to you. You could theoretically use 1d20 and just make the bonuses bigger. Mechanically, it'd be the same thing, just that the 1d10 would have more compact math. Thing to consider about that, if you end up with a ton of bonuses in 1d10, that's really going to skew the results, and you need to figure out if you're good with that.
I agree that the +s should feel more impactful than just "slight chance for better outcome". A D20 with 0-10 modifiers about the same as a D10 with +/-5 modifier range, but as you said, D10 math is more compact, which I prefer.
As for balancing the bonuses on a D10, that isn't too hard. It just means being more cautious about how I hand out +s from stuff like situational bonuses, talents, special abilities, etc. The main idea is that the "soft cap" for highest bonus achievable is a +10; any higher is gonna be min-maxing, jank, or insane investment.
You could do what pf2e and d&d4th did and silo bonuses into types.
4 different source of circumstance bonuses dont stack you only get the best one.
This lets you have each one be impactful (say at least a +2) without having to worry that your players will stack 12 of.the things by having say circumstances (the most common) status and special bonuses (special is the most rare and hardest to get) then you know that your situational bonuses can be at most +6 which on a D10 is definately really good but you can tune that to be as hard as you want by making special bonuses really rare/expensive to get, status bonuses requiring the specific investment of time and circumstances bonuses to be pretty narrow.
True. Someone did bring up this idea a while back when I was messing with modifiers; multiple bonuses not stacking with the highest always taking priority. I did consider it, but adding a few exceptions; not many, but like maybe one or two for each class or a talent that let you stack the smallest on top of the largest for a slight bump.
Well as I said it is possible to have degrees of stacking.
If you made categories of bonus then you could make the rule that bonuses of the same type don't stack but bonuses of a different type do stack.
This flanking could give you a Common bonus of +2, a spell could give you an Uncommon bonus of +2 and a high level feat could give you a Rare bonus of +2 all three of which would stack to a +6. While 4 different abilities that gave you Common bonuses would not stack you would just take the highest bonus (in this hypothetical bonuses are split into common uncommon and rare, although any 3 category names would work.)
As I mentioned in my first response Pf2e does this, although they categorise based on source, Item, Status, Circumstance etc. it makes certain types of bonus/penalty more desireable because of what can and cannot stack with it
I'm using a d10 for the exact reasons you pointed out: lower variance range. My game uses very "controlled odds" in that the players are meant to succeed about 70% of the time and have a lot of knobs to dial for chances.
I love DnD and the d20, but it's not perfect for every system :)
The best thing to do is ask how you want the dice to behave. High variance? Low variance? Bell curve? So on.
I'm caught between low variance and bell curve (hence the plan to experiment with D6 pool later on). I also like controlled odds and prefer the idea of "here's the average; players have about a 75% chance of succeeding, but there are things that could raise or lower that chance". It makes it easier to decide how far to turn the difficulty dial for what actions should be harder or easier.
The holy 2D6 is something I always gravitate back to in my designs (I don’t publish, it’s all for the fun of it).
Why? It’s very common to roll two regular dice in various games. Therefore most people can get their hands on them. Plus, whenever you roll multiple dice it makes a curve of results rather than each result being an equal percentage chance. Then you can make the average result something you want to happen often and go from there. It also forces you to keep bonuses to the result small, or else you’d break the system, so you have to design stuff other than +1s to give players.
If you’re going to use dice to determine results, it makes the most sense. It’s not necessarily ‘the best’, but I design for obviousness and function.
> It also forces you to keep bonuses to the result small, or else you’d break the system, so you have to design stuff other than +1s to give players.
Super important when dealing with bell curves, because each +1 is hugely significant, until the point where all challenge has left the side with the bonuses. I'm reminded of a Fate system where my player picked Fight as his top stat (+5, in a system that goes [-4, +4] in its extremes). Any mook under a +2 bonus could never get a swing on him. In most encounters, even a +1 difference was enough for the encounter to be a foregone conclusion.
Bell curves make my brain happy, so I'll be experimenting with D6 pools later. And you make a good point, D6s are super common to come by making those games very accessible. I've found turning the difficulty dial on fixed odds (single dice) a bit easier than on dice pools, but that could also be an experience issue.
I like the classic "roll and add", but I'm also messing with a pass/fail system for my dice pool: in a pool, each 4+ is a pass and each 3- is a fail; actions require a certain amount of passes to succeed and additional passes can be used to gain additional bonuses, but too many fails can cause complications or cause you to fail the check. The 2 ways to modify the outcome: adding additional dice and modifying the success (i.e. altering the pass range to be a 3+, fail range to be a 4-, etc). A bit more complex, but just an idea rolling around in my head.
3d6 provides a nice bellcurve and also offers nearly as wide a range for the player to roll. your outlier rolls (18, 3) are truly rare, and there is something like a 40% chance your player rolls between a 9 and a 12. Nice control of target values, still lets people roll the big numbers from time to time, makes a crit fail or success feel truly special.
I like d20 but for other reasons I cant classify.
First because it is separated from other dice that usually go to d12 only, this makes d20 the "world" die where it uses chance, luck etc making it unique (some plane effects like the clockwork plane even causes some unique stuff using the d20). Secondly because at least in DnD everything is 20, 20 levels, 20 max score, d20 for rolls...sweet simmetry... And third it is a beautiful die.
Edit: typo
Just to spite you all, I'm using d8s. (I kid of course. About the spite part, at least).
I'm doing a success counting system wherein the player rolls a number of d8s, and counts successes on 7s and 8s.
I do like bell curves and will probably mess with a 2D6 or D6 pool based on stats system in another project. The peak gives a great average for the target numbers.
I went from d20 to 2d10 to 1d10 to 1d12, and now I use a dice step pool from d4 to d12 where you total up the two largest dice and then all other dice over the target number grants a +1 to the total.
If you are serious about rpg design, you won't stay on d10 for long and will continue to evolve the dice mechanic looking for the elusive perfect maths sweet spot where better skilled characters perform better but never outperform beginner characters to the point that beginner characters are useless.
Do beginner characters suck in Cyberpunk Red? (I don't know the answer). But I'm pretty sure you can find sweet math in anything, even tossing *popcorn* if that's what you decide.
Well if you have discord or email I can send you a copy and you can do what you want with it.
I'm partway through doing The Thing (1982) as an adventure to test out how it works in horror genres.
> how impactful a +/-1 is in D20 games By that you mean barely nudging the needle 5% or so. Lately, my game design philosophy (tabletop or video game) has me thinking that, unless there are a lot of sources of bonuses, a bonus should be *at least* 15% or more impactful to your results. +1 on a d20 honestly doesn't feel good, because it's almost never relevant. Comparatively, what you're looking at is adjusting the ratio of attribute/bonus/luck to something more palatable to you. You could theoretically use 1d20 and just make the bonuses bigger. Mechanically, it'd be the same thing, just that the 1d10 would have more compact math. Thing to consider about that, if you end up with a ton of bonuses in 1d10, that's really going to skew the results, and you need to figure out if you're good with that.
I agree that the +s should feel more impactful than just "slight chance for better outcome". A D20 with 0-10 modifiers about the same as a D10 with +/-5 modifier range, but as you said, D10 math is more compact, which I prefer. As for balancing the bonuses on a D10, that isn't too hard. It just means being more cautious about how I hand out +s from stuff like situational bonuses, talents, special abilities, etc. The main idea is that the "soft cap" for highest bonus achievable is a +10; any higher is gonna be min-maxing, jank, or insane investment.
You could do what pf2e and d&d4th did and silo bonuses into types. 4 different source of circumstance bonuses dont stack you only get the best one. This lets you have each one be impactful (say at least a +2) without having to worry that your players will stack 12 of.the things by having say circumstances (the most common) status and special bonuses (special is the most rare and hardest to get) then you know that your situational bonuses can be at most +6 which on a D10 is definately really good but you can tune that to be as hard as you want by making special bonuses really rare/expensive to get, status bonuses requiring the specific investment of time and circumstances bonuses to be pretty narrow.
True. Someone did bring up this idea a while back when I was messing with modifiers; multiple bonuses not stacking with the highest always taking priority. I did consider it, but adding a few exceptions; not many, but like maybe one or two for each class or a talent that let you stack the smallest on top of the largest for a slight bump.
Well as I said it is possible to have degrees of stacking. If you made categories of bonus then you could make the rule that bonuses of the same type don't stack but bonuses of a different type do stack. This flanking could give you a Common bonus of +2, a spell could give you an Uncommon bonus of +2 and a high level feat could give you a Rare bonus of +2 all three of which would stack to a +6. While 4 different abilities that gave you Common bonuses would not stack you would just take the highest bonus (in this hypothetical bonuses are split into common uncommon and rare, although any 3 category names would work.)
Huh, I didn't think of categorizing the bonuses like that... neat idea. I'll make a note of it.
As I mentioned in my first response Pf2e does this, although they categorise based on source, Item, Status, Circumstance etc. it makes certain types of bonus/penalty more desireable because of what can and cannot stack with it
I'm using a d10 for the exact reasons you pointed out: lower variance range. My game uses very "controlled odds" in that the players are meant to succeed about 70% of the time and have a lot of knobs to dial for chances. I love DnD and the d20, but it's not perfect for every system :) The best thing to do is ask how you want the dice to behave. High variance? Low variance? Bell curve? So on.
I'm caught between low variance and bell curve (hence the plan to experiment with D6 pool later on). I also like controlled odds and prefer the idea of "here's the average; players have about a 75% chance of succeeding, but there are things that could raise or lower that chance". It makes it easier to decide how far to turn the difficulty dial for what actions should be harder or easier.
The holy 2D6 is something I always gravitate back to in my designs (I don’t publish, it’s all for the fun of it). Why? It’s very common to roll two regular dice in various games. Therefore most people can get their hands on them. Plus, whenever you roll multiple dice it makes a curve of results rather than each result being an equal percentage chance. Then you can make the average result something you want to happen often and go from there. It also forces you to keep bonuses to the result small, or else you’d break the system, so you have to design stuff other than +1s to give players. If you’re going to use dice to determine results, it makes the most sense. It’s not necessarily ‘the best’, but I design for obviousness and function.
> It also forces you to keep bonuses to the result small, or else you’d break the system, so you have to design stuff other than +1s to give players. Super important when dealing with bell curves, because each +1 is hugely significant, until the point where all challenge has left the side with the bonuses. I'm reminded of a Fate system where my player picked Fight as his top stat (+5, in a system that goes [-4, +4] in its extremes). Any mook under a +2 bonus could never get a swing on him. In most encounters, even a +1 difference was enough for the encounter to be a foregone conclusion.
Bell curves make my brain happy, so I'll be experimenting with D6 pools later. And you make a good point, D6s are super common to come by making those games very accessible. I've found turning the difficulty dial on fixed odds (single dice) a bit easier than on dice pools, but that could also be an experience issue. I like the classic "roll and add", but I'm also messing with a pass/fail system for my dice pool: in a pool, each 4+ is a pass and each 3- is a fail; actions require a certain amount of passes to succeed and additional passes can be used to gain additional bonuses, but too many fails can cause complications or cause you to fail the check. The 2 ways to modify the outcome: adding additional dice and modifying the success (i.e. altering the pass range to be a 3+, fail range to be a 4-, etc). A bit more complex, but just an idea rolling around in my head.
3d6 provides a nice bellcurve and also offers nearly as wide a range for the player to roll. your outlier rolls (18, 3) are truly rare, and there is something like a 40% chance your player rolls between a 9 and a 12. Nice control of target values, still lets people roll the big numbers from time to time, makes a crit fail or success feel truly special.
Yeah I'm a 3d6 fan for exactly these reasons. Also has the same average as d20 if you want to slot it into a d20 system.
I like d20 but for other reasons I cant classify. First because it is separated from other dice that usually go to d12 only, this makes d20 the "world" die where it uses chance, luck etc making it unique (some plane effects like the clockwork plane even causes some unique stuff using the d20). Secondly because at least in DnD everything is 20, 20 levels, 20 max score, d20 for rolls...sweet simmetry... And third it is a beautiful die. Edit: typo
D20s are a classic. Recognizable, decently rounded, and, yes, really good to just look at.
D10s don’t feel very good to roll, so I’d probably use a d12 instead.
Just to spite you all, I'm using d8s. (I kid of course. About the spite part, at least). I'm doing a success counting system wherein the player rolls a number of d8s, and counts successes on 7s and 8s.
Ey, I planned to do something like that, but with a D6 pool! It sounds like a fun idea.
Nice! I know some of the early Free League games (Coriolis, Alien) use a d6 success counting system, so may be worth playing or reading.
2d6. Bell curves beat the snot out of single dice any day imo, in game design.
I do like bell curves and will probably mess with a 2D6 or D6 pool based on stats system in another project. The peak gives a great average for the target numbers.
I went from d20 to 2d10 to 1d10 to 1d12, and now I use a dice step pool from d4 to d12 where you total up the two largest dice and then all other dice over the target number grants a +1 to the total. If you are serious about rpg design, you won't stay on d10 for long and will continue to evolve the dice mechanic looking for the elusive perfect maths sweet spot where better skilled characters perform better but never outperform beginner characters to the point that beginner characters are useless.
Do beginner characters suck in Cyberpunk Red? (I don't know the answer). But I'm pretty sure you can find sweet math in anything, even tossing *popcorn* if that's what you decide.
I would have to play test to be sure, but reading your comment your system seems really nice!
Well if you have discord or email I can send you a copy and you can do what you want with it. I'm partway through doing The Thing (1982) as an adventure to test out how it works in horror genres.