Boons & Banes Dice System
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »So hey I thought I’d talk about the dice system I’ve been working on!
First up, the system is basically;
- Roll one die for things in your favour (these are Boons)
- Roll another die for things against you (these are Banes)
- Whichever die rolls higher decides whether the roll is a success or not.
Which dice you roll are determined by your boons/banes. Put simply, you just double the number and that is the die you use (eg; 3 Boons = d6, 5 Banes = d10), and for 7+ you just roll a d20.
I have been building my RPG DreamSent around this system (the last pdf has a version of it before I had the major “AHA!” moment of rolling boons against banes rather than adding them to some other roll), and I included a trimmed-down version of it in The Chamber.
The system can support more than binary success/failure outcomes too; when you need a scored/quantifiable value you can just subtract the Banes result from the Boons result. And it has the equivelant of critical success/failure if one die’s result is 1, and the other is 4 or more.
That is essentially it, that’s the whole system.
For DreamSent your Boons are the same as whatever character stat is being tested (eg Test of Finesse -> Finesse stat is 2 -> You have 2 Boons), and the GM decides how difficult the task is, specifying how many Banes you have (and they may also grant you extra Boons if something is helping your character).
How I came up with the system:
The system started out as just a “Roll a d10, add your stat” type deal, then I left it alone for a year as I worked on other projects, and when I came back to it last month, I decided I liked d12s more than d10s. Dodecahedra are just pretty OK? Anyway, obviously this is nothing like how the system turned out.
In that year I found Lancer‘s dice system, which I love. I really do. The core rulebook has a free version you can check out (but I also recommend the complete book so you can read the lore which is JUICY AF). Put simply; with that system you have things called Accuracy and Disadvantage, which determine extra dice that you can add to (or subtract from) a d20 roll. I love that more than the classic “Add a stat” approach because… well, I like dice. rolling more dice is cool! (but also not-cool, see below!)
I basically grabbed this system for myself and changed its mechanics a teensy bit so that the theft would be a little less blatent (I changed the terminology and instead of rolling more/less dice, you roll bigger/smaller dice)
At this point my dice system was:
“Roll a d12, add your stat, add Boons OR subtract Banes”.
Honestly it didn’t require any testing to see that it was a huge mess. But I wasn’t looking too hard at it for a while so I think it’s that way in both of the DreamSent pdfs I’ve put up here rn, sorry :p
Anyway eventually I started thinking about how I hate stat modifiers. I really just, I hate them. tbh I hate doing maths at all, it slows me down. So I thought “Stats can determine Boons!” and boom, I got rid of a third of the roll system. Once I did that, I really got into the weeds and went HARD into probabilities and the like by testing things using anydice (wonderful site!), and saw there were significant gaps in the range of likely possible outcomes of one bane vs one boon vs none.
Adding d2s to the system filled the gaps, so the probabilities of increasing boons/banes changed in a more intuitive way – and it had the benefit that doubling the numbers of boons/banes told you which dice you should roll.
After that, I added a fixed difficulty value for rolls to beat in order to succeed (so it was less work for the GM, and everyone knows what number they are aiming for. Fixed difficulty in RPGs is lovely, I hate rolling and not knowing if it was good enough – I see the number so I should know if it was good enough!).
To add fixed difficulty I just picked a number (6, because it’s the generous side of an expected d12 roll) and made it so that Boons/Banes did not cancel out (a vestigial mechanic from stealing Accuracy/Disadvantage mechanics from Lancer) and instead both are rolled. At this point the system was:
“Roll a d12, add the Boons die, then subtract the Banes die”
As soon as I added a fixed difficulty though, I realised it made no sense in terms of like, why is 6 the number to beat? It was a value only determined by the dice and nothing to do with anything that is part of the game world. (A few RPGs do this of course, the average/expected roll sets the standard difficulty/ability. It’s why ~10 is the baseline for any system built around a d20, why ~7 is baseline for 2d6-focused games, etc).
Another issue with my fixed difficulty being 6 is that honestly, it’s different to other RPGs. People are used to 10 being the base, so I started thinking about making the ‘core’ die a d20 instead of a d12, but THAT was when I had my “AHA!” moment – If I was trying different core dice, then why not just go with NO dice? Just roll “Boons – Banes”, the target difficulty is always 0, positive is good and negative is bad – it’s super intuitive!
Mechanically, that was essentially it for the design, but it wasn’t until after a day of rolling one die and subtracting another that I realised 1) I am bad and slow at even simple maths, and 2) I didn’t have to be good, because most tests don’t require a score, you just need to know which number is bigger to decide whether you succeed.
Things I like about the system that I will take credit for as if they were intentional:
The system only ever has two dice rolled at a time, I know I might seem like the kind of person who would prefer hundreds of dice rolled all the time (and I ABSOLUTELY AM) but my experience with dice has taught me a lot about rolling groups of dice. Firstly, it is slow to count dice results – not everybody has a world-class dice roller and totalling stuff can slow down an RPG a lot. Secondly, the more dice you roll, the less point there is in rolling – the outcome actually becomes more predictable (it’s a probability thing, probability is WEIRD).
Rolling two dice is IMO the sweet spot for ease of use, having a nice normal distribution of the possible outcomes, and being intuitive for what might happen as a result of your roll.
Also, even though my system has only two dice rolled at a time; YOU GET TO USE ALL THE DICE! ALL OF THEM!
ALLLLLLLL OF THE DICE!
I love different dice shapes, they are great, but you so rarely actually have a justification for having a full set! The B&B system though? You might have to roll anything – who knows what you’re up against! And as a bonus, if you want to roll Boons and Banes at the same time, it’s worthwhile having TWO sets of different colours!
You don’t need two sets of dice, but omg if you want a justification for grabbing two sets of contrasting dice it’s here!
Goodness I love dice so much!
Wrapping Up:
Anyway that’s pretty much it for this sytem, so I’ll stop here and wish you well. Look after yourselves and the people around you! <3
Also, here are some extra tables from my DreamSent manuscript about the dice system
<3
Sophie’s Safecracking Simulator v1.21
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »So this is the “main” release of my Safecracking Simulator, which is to say it now has both steam and itch pages, and I’m going to work on other things!
New things:
- Annotations of lock parts can be viewed in the tutorial
- Fully gamepad controllable (except for message typing), with a new “tool wheel” UI
- SO MANY improvements and fixes – getting these things polished enough I can call them done is A LOT!
I will try to message everyone with steam keys soon, though it might take a few days (or even weeks) to get round to because I am exceptionally tired right now, sorry!
Thanks for your continued support on this even though it’s not really the kind of thing I usually work on (or maybe it’s exactly the kind of thing I usually work on? I’m still figuring that out). I really appreciate it! <3
Skill vs Difficulty Dice System (v0.1)
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »So I’ve posted before about the “Boons & Banes” dice system I have been working out for DreamSent, but figured today that I’d release the dice system as a stand-alone thing, so anyone who wants to use it in their own RPGs is free to do so.
You could make your own RPG with very little work using it tbh, just decide which named Skills all characters must have, give players points to allocate to them, and let them add a few points to Talents also. That’s it.
The .pdf is 9 pages long, but for the most part the system itself is extremely simple and can be described as:
“Roll a die for your Skill, and another die for the Difficulty, if skill meets/beats difficulty then the roll is passed.”
The document is long mostly because I have not edited it, but also because it covers variant rules, roll probabilities, etc. And half of it is stuff that is only ever relevant to GMs anyway. Compared to for example the d20 system of ability scores, ability modifiers, skills, and proficiency… it’s really simple (and you get to roll more interesting dice!).
Anyway, hope you’re having a good day, I am – I had birthday cake! 😀
Drakes & Daggers GDD
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »So at the start of the month I very quickly got the idea for an RPG-style Snakes & Ladders game and came up with the name “Drakes and Daggers” for it, since then I’ve been trying to put together a set of rules for the game that is actually fun to play.
My success in this endevour is… debatable.
What I do have is a game that works, is interesting sometimes, has a lot of potential for shenanigans if a player is in a trecherous mood… but generally I don’t feel like it is as good as its name. If I’m gonna make a Snakes & Ladders game called “Drakes & Daggers” it has to be awesome to be worthwhile for that name, right?
Anyway I think it’s OK. It’s better to play than monopoly, but that isn’t much imo. I’ve tried a few things to make it better but keeping it simple whilst also being interesting AND fun is a balane I’ve not been able to find. So I’m putting this project on the shelf for now, rather than trying to grind at it to find the fun.
Anyway anyway, just thought I’d share a failure with you, to normalise that because I fail a lot and lately I’ve just been on a lucky streak of good ideas that work out right away (Grapball, Lots of Dice things, Dealings in Dungeons, Safecracking Simulator – wow!). I need to be okay with failing or I have trouble trying new things, and “being OK at failing” is a skill I need to invest a lot of time in to remain capable at it, otherwise I crumple.
Anyway anyway anyway, thanks so much for supporting me as I try and fail at a variety of things!
Anyway anyway anyway anyway, the pdf download is here:
Sophie’s Dice v1.41
Posted: August 20, 2021 Filed under: Patreon Leave a comment »I am so tired of working on dice, I’m gonna do something else for a bit!
For now though, here’s an update. There’s lots of new roll expression stuff, and a couple of new dice shapes. Also on most platforms you can now import images right from inside the app.
Anyway I love you, hope you’re doing OK <3
