What is the maximum number of dices a player can comfortably throw in a single roll?
Thoughts on game that use many dice at once?
Rolling dice
What is the maximum number of dices a player can comfortably throw in a single roll?
Thoughts on game that use many dice at once?
100.
>What is the maximum number of dices a player can comfortably throw in a single roll?
Adding results? Maybe 5.
Checking results? About 20 if it's d6s, half as many with other dice.
>Checking results?
Yes, it would be for checking!
> About 20 if it's d6s, half as many with other dice
That's more optimistic than I expected. I was worried 6~7 was already too much
I'm tinkering with a game's idea that players will roll dice of all kind, but they just need to check if they rolled >=4
Weakling. Mathlet.
>That's more optimistic than I expected. I was worried 6~7 was already too much
Keep in mind that people play Warhammer and that's very much a game of rolling dozens of d6 and checking for results. I still think that rolling more than 12-16 at a time is a bit much, especially if you have multiple steps (like again in warhammer where you roll to hit, then to wound, then to save), but if it's a rpg where you just roll a poll and pick out successes then 20 shouldn't slow you down too much.
>adding five numbers together is the upper limit of comfort
Are your players literally Downies?
Adding up several scores can take a few more seconds than I'd want to be wasted on every single resolution roll, and I've seen educated and intelligent people take embarassingly long to add two odd two-digit numbers together.
>Are your players literally Downies?
This is the kind of question you hear from a gamer who never playtested their own games with casuals
The average player is REALLY dumb in math. It doesn't mean they *can't* do it, but just that it doesn't come intuitively for them and it becomes a hassle. And depending on how much your game relies on that, that might be an off for the player
I had a coop board game where each enemy had a fixed defense (let's say 7), then the player would roll a D10 + their character's ability (+0, +1 or +2), plus equipment bonus (+0 or +2)
Eventually I found out a reasonable amount of players felt that the equation D10+1+2 >= 7 was too cumbersome (where for you and me, that math might be trivial)
I would say a big difference here versus a game like DnD is that on DnD, it is typically only a D20 + bonus (+3 is easier than +1+2). There is no comparison - you roll the die and add a number, then you pass that on to the DM and the DM makes the comparison
So D20+3 is substantially easier than D10+1+2>=7. In fact, a good subset of players would dread the sight of an equation that reads D10+1+2>=7
>D10+1+2 >= 7 was too cumbersome
>(+3 is easier than +1+2)
You're supposed to make them do the 1+2 step ahead of time and have a box on the character sheet to write it in. But yeah making the DM look up the result is smoother a lot of the time, if you design for it.
>(+3 is easier than +1+2)
That was a surprise to me as well
Yes, whenever possible it is good to tell players to do that math ahead of time to make their lives easier. But unfortunately, with board games (instead of tabletop RPG) that is harder, because there is no "character sheet" where they write it all together. There's their character card + the equipment card. You can't combine both ahead of the time because traditionally you don't write on the components of a regular board game
People that deals easily with math will automatically converts D10+1+2>=7 into D10>=4. But many people don't instinctively do that, and then they need to check both numbers every turn. To me it's wild to be that bad at math, but I've ran into SEVERAL people who struggled with this (from different nationalities, worth to say). It IS a thing
So I'm reworking this game to remove all sorts of bonuses and just tell players to roll 1 die and compare with 1 value (and I will find ways to integrate the math in a way that is seamless for the player)
Honestly, I'm a bit iffy on more than 3 dice plus bonuses and such. Aside from that clumsy player who always manages to scatter his dice to the far ends of the table, and the people who take forever to select the dice for their dice pool one-by-one, adding up a handful of dice takes some people entirely too long, and mistakes increase tenfold (even if they are still relatively rare). Truthfully, I'm always focused on keeping things moving as quickly as possible, and if it takes just a few seconds longer to add up dice, that's something I feel. Every bit of streamlining helps.
>What is the maximum number of dices a player can comfortably throw in a single roll?
All of them
>dices
The plural of die is dice. "Dices" isn't a word.
Its like people - peoples
Many sets of different dice are definitely diceS. You wouldn't lump shitty plastic dice from a childish board game and fancy collector edition set of D20 dice into a simple "dice".
>Many sets of different dice are definitely diceS
No, they're still dice. Dices is not a word.
It slices, it dice.
Yes, I'm aware. But as ESL I sometime slip
>Purely physical
Yep, that's the question
Right now I'm tinkering with a game system that players would roll 5~7 die, not exclusively/necessarily d6, but rarely d20
If that doesn't work I will probably have to rework all of the game's math structure to work with fewer dice
Any results?
>vary wildly
Yep, I'm aware. Hence why I didn't use my own hands as a template. I figured that somewhere around /tg/ someone had already done the proper research on the topic... though I guess not?
I'm surprised because I don't think it's that much of an uncommon question/thought
>rule of thumb is think if a 8 year old ca
I do not have a spare 8-yo at my disposal unfortunately
That's for both hands I'm assuming?
I wanted to keep it at 1 hand if possible
20 is okay with one hand, but that's using 12mm d6s. And I have small hands. A lot more for 8mm dice, but they're fiddlier to pick up so mostly better as markers than dice..
But how about other dice (D4, D8, D10, D12)?
From my experience, D6s can be rolled in way more quantity than other dice, D20 being particularly clumsy to roll several together
>both hands (clasp and shake) even when it's just a single die
Really? That's odd lol
Have you tried rolling 10 D20?
With 10 dice I can't close my hand (adult male) , and trying 10 D20 one even fell out before I could roll
I rather have all rolls simultaneously
Right now what I have is:
>Attack: 6~7 dice
>Defense: 5~6 dice
I've found so far that 5 is OK but 6+ starts to get a bit too much
>rolling dozens of d6 and checking for results
D6s are waaay easier, both because there are tiny ones out there as well as the fact that they simply fit more easily in our hands
>you just roll a poll and pick out successes
Yep. The idea would be that - you roll all your dice (5~7), count the number of successes and that is it
>roll more dice for a check
Yep that's possible, but I feel like it's easier/more fun to roll it all at once so I was looking for game mechanics that support that
>6-7 dice, maybe a couple more in some specific cases that you could reach up to a 10
That works for me! Those numbers would actually be perfect;
I'm also tinkering with a mechanic that "upgrade dice" rather than add new ones. For instance, if you are rolling 6d8, you might have a power that turns one of them in a d12 (upgrading the adding an entirely new die). Hopefully that will help keep the total number in check
>Ideally most of your rolls should be 5 or less
Right now I on my system players roll 6 for defense, but I'm considering downgrade to 5. I will need to double-check though the impact of this on the combat mechanics
So far what I gather is that 5 dice is safe, anything beyond starts to become a little clumsier and clumsier
>That's for both hands I'm assuming?
yeah, I roll with both hands (clasp and shake) even when it's just a single die
I tested it a bit and it just confirmed my gut feelings, that your highest rolls should range on 6-7 dice, maybe a couple more in some specific cases that you could reach up to a 10...
Ideally most of your rolls should be 5 or less, it's in a range where anyone can instantly see at a glance how many successes they rolled and you don't risk spilling dice everywhere.
Plus, if it's 16mm dice most people can't comfortably pick, hold and shake more than 5 to 7 with one hand. I had my girlfriend test it with me so I could see different hand sizes, and with her it was really obvious that too many dice are a hassle.
And even for me, because although I can cup like 20 dice in one hand, it is far from ideal.
However many can be fit in a mouth, moved around to sufficiently randomize them and spit forth onto the table.
Wargamesxa get silly with dice numbers like MRM40s in btech. Iirc 40 is the max they go to but it's been a while.
DitV can use a bunch of different polyhedrals for rpgs. I remember that being one of the design ideas
>how can I make a game that uses all these fricking dice I accumulated?
With the advent of digital tabletop gaming, you can roll any number of dice, which makes pool systems like Shadowrun slightly less painful to play and run.
Purely physical, I probably couldn't roll more than 8 or 9 dice at once without dropping a few, though I could probably get up to around 16 if I used both hands and cupped the dice in them, assuming d6s.
good idea
going to test it myself
I hope this isn't going to be a repeat of the "How many glass beads can I fit in my ass" thread
sixteen
Wasn't the end result something crazy like 300?
Ammount of dice that can be comfortably held and thrown is going to vary wildly. People's hands have different sizes.
Better rule of thumb is think if a 8 year old ca throw that many. if a kid can, then any teenager or adult no matter the gender or hand size can throw it
about 50d6
about 20d20
About tree fiddy
Comfortably?
Probably like 10.
>thoughts
As far as my games go, there's:
>a hit-location roll (unless using focus)
>target's defense roll
>skill's secondary effect(s) roll(s)
>if there's a reaction in the mix, there's the actor vs reactor reflex checks
>plus any relevant rolls associated with follow-ups and/or counters
~3 rolls per resolution is enough for me, thanks. I'm comfortable with one roll per step, as well.
Depends on what you want them to do.
For normal-sized d6, I feel like I'd have trouble properly rolling more than 10, and that assumes I use both hands. Of course, to me, "properly rolling" involves shaking the dice, and letting them bounce around a bit, before I drop them on the table.
That being said, I wouldn't be opposed to having to roll more dice for a check. I'd just feel the need to roll them in batches.
I want a good dice cup.
I find that any more than 8 scatter too much and tend to roll off the table.
Old school World of Darkness stuff threw large pools of d10s - with a Dexterity of 3 and a Security of 4 you were rolling 7d10 on a lockpicking roll. I made it a thing to get a set of 10d10 for each gameline I ran, in appropriate colours, but that quickly escalated from a dice bag to a dice sack. When I switched back to AD&D and needed full sets of polyhedral dice
the problem just compounded.
To paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, "once you get locked into a serious dice collection... the tendency is to push it as far as you can."
Everyone kinda assumes you mean without a cup. But that's the correct answer: Use a cup roll all the dice you want at once.
Or just do the Shadowrun thing of rolling your 18d6 check as a 10d6 plus a 8d6 check.
>Or just do the Shadowrun thing of rolling your 18d6 check as a 10d6 plus a 8d6 check.
Why tho
This is 20 dice in my hand. My hand isn't particularly big either. There's plenty of room to shake them around in just that cupped hand, but even if I wanted to give them an extra thorough shake for the benefit of some autist at the table who didn't grasp the concept of number randomization, I could also cover that hand with my other hand and scramble these frickers like maracas and still roll them very comfortably.
If you're playing a game that requires to roll a lot of dice you just need to not pick the wrong size. 12mm is the perfect size for wargaming dice and dice-pool RPGs, 16mm and above should be reserved for games that just roll a couple dice at a time like D&D.
I still think that rolling more than 10 dice for a single check isn't great, but it's not exactly impractital either, it's just a hassle counting dice and then counting results.
>12mm is the perfect size for wargaming dice and dice-pool RPGs, 16mm and above should be reserved for games that just roll a couple dice
You are objectively correct.
Buuuut we've been playing Shadowrun with the same group since the 4.0 days. Everyone has at least one of those official metal tins or the Sixth World editions blisters with the edge chips. And for whatever reason all the official sets are 16 mm. So it's all sunk cost fallacy I guess.
Ah well, that's understandable.
>you just need to not pick the wrong size
For D6s yes, but I find that for other sizes it is a lot harder to find smaller ones. That is because most of the other dice are sold for DnD & similar purposes and already come in in quite a big size since they are not expecting to be rolled many together
I've seen tons of oversized D20s, but I don't remember last time I saw a tiny one
>10 dice is a good soft cap to keep some variance
I don't know if I will make it a hard cap, but I will definitely try to keep the number of dice limited
One of the mechanics I'm tinkering about is the "upgrade" of dice as a bonus. For instance, if you are rolling 6d8 on an attack, but has a certain bonus from whatever, that can turn maybe one of your D8 into a D12. That way, you roll 5d8+1d12 but the total number stays 6. That also has some interesting mathematical effects, while also work on player's psychology - different than a flat bonus like DnD usually do, by upgrading the dice players will easily see that D12 being great most of the time and will feel good about that ability
At least that's what I hope lol
>straight up static bonus successes
I'm not above doing that as well. Though I want to limit that to more advanced/specific things , as a "sure success" would be quite a powerful thing
>Keep in mind that rerolls, exploding dice and checks for even more specific results
>Looking for things like doubles, tripples, max or significant high or low numbers
I currently don't plan on using any of those. My system checks always only for 1 condition for any die and that is it
Not saying they bad things, but the idea of this game system I'm making is to streamline the use of dice into 1 and only 1 condition. You can get more dice, upgrade your die, etc. But in the end only 1 condition matters
What's much more significant than the number of dice is the amount of time needed to interpret results, even in dicepool games that only check for certain number treshholds.
10 dice is a good soft cap to keep some variance, after that you can work with diminishing returns (every 2 bonus dice after 10 would only become 1 actual die to roll etc...) or straight up static bonus successes.
Keep in mind that rerolls, exploding dice and checks for even more specific results (like the highest number for extra successes or bonus rider effects) take extra time both to perform and especially decide wether to activate them (if optional at all).
Especially with increasing pool size they should be kept in check. One reroll per die for whatever reason is a well established rule in many games for a reason.
Lastly, keep the amount of rolling steps to a minimum and instead try to look for maximum info gained per dice roll.
While I just mentioned to keep stuff like that in check, it is still faster than rolling over and over again.
Looking for things like doubles, tripples, max or significant high or low numbers can add some spice to an otherwise bland system.
You can use it to enable hard coded special rules, usually in combat, or grant narrative (dis)advantages during narrative play.
A bad example would be Shadowrun 5e, with pool sizes potentiall bloating far beyond 20, complex rerolling vs exploding dice choices, and three to four rolls needed to resolve a basic attack.
Better examples to crib from would be One Roll Engine, that tries to maximise information gaines from a pool of d10s and 40k Wrath and Glory, which is a very bland game overall but has very streamlined d6 pool mechanics compared to Shadowrun.
FFG Star Wars / Genesys has interesting pool rules and creates ton of information with very small amounts of dice rolled, but there is always the argument about proprietary symbol dice and the increased complexity of assembling the dice pool in general.
There's another consideration with regards to good dice pool size, which is how long it takes to assemble a dice pool. If a player has to count out 16-24 dice every time they roll, then that will become more of a burden than the physical act of rolling.
For that reason, I'd avoid going over about 10-12 dice at most, and ideally keeping the typical dice pools at 2-8. You can go above that, but as someone who has played Shadowrun with its enormous dice pools, having to pool much more than 12 dice repeatedly gets kind of unpleasant, let alone the horrible 30 dice pools that some characters need to roll for things like damage soak.
Rolled 4384079732599816193, 6649697917700455425, 1058363636258923521, 1301928525719211265, 430548476761462977, 2569563260985714177, 5524883555757392897, 1633538106764602881, 3231591802658275841, 6967870571795359745 = 3.3752065587001E+19 (10d100000000000000000000)
check this out
Rolled 150715490464718625, 4950525507374876673, 1148588967495321089, 6307933567536812033, 5312040407439448065, 4737749997629213697, 7653337913019583489, 714788280771860737, 1727927472189394433, 6784030606755208193, 2609277391731203073, 158969153880478945, 1138711294834681217, 2650782460087038465, 1750851009972205057, 1342879126309183233, 3586240384069871105, 5071178344912108545, 3671362469471925761, 1469309783559224065, 4325320438035034113, 5402610791953847297, 7180062360264429569, 6107993658558350337, 867324012988036865 = 8.6820510891304E+19 (25d100000000000000000000)
heh...childs play........
>doing 1st grade arithmetics in your head is not intuitive
tell me you are americans without telling me you are americans
I'm not. I never lived in the US. And again, I actually tested with several nationalities (I used to be part of a playtest group made mostly of internationals)
>Thoughts on game that use many dice at once?
I tried playing the Renegade games GIjoe rpg recently. Its Essense20 system often has you rolling an array of different dice (ex. 1d20+1d2+1d4+1d6+1d8 for a specialized rank 4 skill). You then figure out success based on the d20 + the highest result of one of the other dice. If any of the dice, except the d20, rolls max, then you get a crit, regardless of whether that die figures into the result. Certain feats modify rolls, like you might roll double one of the dice in the pool and the higher figures into the result.
If this all sounds like a chore: it is. In play, players take a bit of time picking out each die they need, roll, then, because the total isn't apparent at a glance, stare at the dice trying to figure out what their result actually is and whether or not they critted or fumbled. Various ability modifiers confuse things further.
I'm not sure how this system survived playtesting.
Give me a single die and a straightforward at-a-glance resolution mechanic any day.