New Year's Resolution (Mechanic) and Milking Your Dice
If I had a dollar for every draft I had of a blog post regarding dice and resolution mechanics, I'd have like 3 maybe 4 dollars...
Unless you've been living under a very large Hasbro-branded icosahedron shaped rock, you're probably familiar with the idea of a "universal resolution system" and the many many forms it can take. Roll over, roll under, roll a bunch of d6s and take the highest etc. Most of them boil down to a pass/fail, some of them give you the ever tantalizing "success with complication" as a middle ground and most of them frankly aren't very interesting to me. They're not bad per-say, but they're painfully utilitarian in what they do (and don't get me started on how a "complication" feels a bit vague). I think it's a reason 50/50 tests are catching on more. If Heads/Tails is all you're finding out, why complicate it?
Sometimes this binary is very intentional and helps build suspense into the system. Cyberpunk 2020 lets you stack tons of bonuses so that you're almost always guaranteed to pass your checks... As long as you're not suffering penalties. Then the system gives you a variety of ways you can suffer penalties, namely taking extra actions on your turn. It's a delightful little push-your-luck-til-you-fail mini-game and it really does work and give you a taste of running the edge! But that was 1988, surely we can branch out a bit more?
Modern problems, require modern solutions. And while I do absolutely adore Ènziramire's take on resolution (tying it deeper to the world,), there's also ways to achieve a degree of depth without a full roll table. And so we arrive at the resolution system for WILD which I'm naming M.A.N.I.F.E.S.T. (The Multifaceted Analog Number Interpreter For Evocative and Suspenseful Tests), or at least that's the WIP name - It's nothing crazy special, but it (paired with other elements) hopefully has enough versatility to be both utilitarian, fast and robust!
But before we get to that a quick aside on Milking Your Dice:
MILKING YOUR DICE
This is one of those drafts I've had on hands for years (hence the art being at-the-ready) but I've never known exactly how to hem it down. The gist is this: The more information you can squeeze into a single dice roll the better. And when you think about rolling dice, there's a lot there! Just to list a few, a dice poll with even just a three dice can provide any of the following:
- Highest / Lowest (ex: 3d6, take the highest, compare that to a success threshold)
- Full Total (ex: 3d6, add them up, compare to a target number)
- Individual Success (ex: 3d6, compare each d6 to a success threshold, count successes)
- All Evens / All Odds (ex: 3d6, get a bonus if all come up as evens, or a different bonus if all are odds)
- Each Even / Each Odd (ex: 3d6, proc a specific repeating effect per Even or per Odd)
- Doubles / Triples (ex: 3d6, fish for sets of matching dice)
- Straights (ex; 3d6, fish for "1,2,3"s, "2,3,4"s, etc)
- Specific Sets or Numbers (ex: 3d6, fish for Snake Eyes or 6s)
What's equally cool about this is we have all kinds of ways we can modify this initial dice roll! From Yahtzee-styled rerolls (if you haven't looked at what Dice Throne is doing with this, it's actually incredibly compelling) to basic +/- bonuses. Each giving our players unique ways to mess with these results. Something, something, fun is a measure of interesting choices over time.
When we Milk Our Dice, we use not just one, but a variety of these divination techniques to get varied data. Ex: Roll 3d6, on each Odd gain a Blessing of Light (can be spent to adjust a dice face by one or boost damage), Each 4+ is a success, a Double allows you to take an immediate follow-up "Combo" action. Mmmmm smells like lactose and interesting rolling to me. What we've also done is packed even more choice and resources into our rolls and used stats to our advantage (ex; You're more likely to get a Blessing on a failed d6). Fiddly? A bit, but it's the kind of "messing with dials" that makes my brain go brrrrrr. [[Hence why Steel Hearts' combat rolls are all about building resources through Evens and fishing for sets]]
A more narrative focused version might be: Roll 3d6, on each 1 gain a Mark of the Mycota (slowly eats at your soul), Each 4+ is a success, a Triple is a critical success allowing you to push beyond human limits. This makes rolling something to be feared. Maybe you hold back rolling more dice depending on the situation. [[Realizing this is actually pretty close to what I did in Burnout Reaper, where you start with a pool of 12 d6s that are also your health pool. You can roll as many dice as you'd like for a check (up to your Health Pool), but every 1 is permanently removed from that pool].
If you (like every other person who's ever played it) had looked at the fact that you actually get varied information out of a single roll in FFG's Edge of the Empire (ex; Pass/Fail, Favorable/Unfavorable, Crits - And this is without getting into how intuitive and fun building the pools is - It's like what BitD's Positioning wants to be... only it has silly proprietary dice...) and were like "Oh neat!" then you get the idea. I also really recommend reading both of these posts by Prismatic Wasteland [In Defense of Ability Scores and My Weird Wizard Show], as they similarly get at the vibe of Milking Dice.
MANIFEST DESTINY
While I'm not really going to go into why WILD has a universal resolution system and the merits / faults of said universality, we do need to talk about MANIFEST, that's part of the challenge after all. This also isn't my milkiest system, but I dig it so far. The gist of a Manifest Check is this;
Characters have 6 Core Stats (the classic STR, DEX, WIS, CON, INT, CHA) with Ranks going from 1-5, the lower the better. These "Ranks" are actually the "Difficulty Rank" (or D. Rank) of getting a success when rolling a d6 for the given Stat. (Ex; a STR D. Rank of 2 means you'd need a 3+ on your d6 for a Success if you're rolling for STR). Lowering your Core Stat's D. Rank is difficult after Character Gen.
Each Core Stat also has a Proficiency level (ranging from 0-3, represented by bubbles next to the D. Rank) - This represents how many d6s you roll when checking for a Stat (Ex; a STR Proficiency of 2 means you'd roll 2d6 then count successes, ex how many were over your STR's D. Rank -Following our previous example, if you rolled a 1 and a 3 you'd have 1 success). A Proficiency of 0 means you roll 2d6 and take the lowest. Ouch. Proficiency is easier to upgrade than D. Rank.
During a Manifest Check you roll the appropriate number of d6s and attempt to gain Successes equal to or higher than the Manifest Value or MV. (Ex; sucking venom from a snake bite might be a 2 MV check). It's not too dissimilar from BOX Engine, which has you matching a Stat's D. Rank to the number of dice you get to roll on a specific item (something which still might show up in WILD when it comes to spells, items, etx).
Getting more Successes than you'd intended allows for a Rolling Success! These can be spent to improve the current situation (1 for a change in environment, 2 for a change in an NPC's attitude, both within what the Liar finds reasonable) or all can be cashed in to add a single success to an ally's next roll. (This would hopefully create a bit of a "Pop-Corn Success" effect). I might change this to adding a die to the ally's next roll if it proves too strong.
The Liar (GM) has the option of either assigning the MV to a specific stat (ex a 2 MV WIS Check) or keeping it open, allowing players to justify how they're using a given Stat to Manifest their success in a situation (ex; a 2 MV Convince Check - STR to intimidate, vs WIS to reason with, vs CHA to smooth talk)... This is also why part of me might really change the 6 Core Stats... But time will tell.
Luck is a 7th (heh) Stat that allows you to adjust the result of a die 1-for-1 per Luck spent. Luck is a bit hard to come by, but is worth spending. An Oppressive Check is one where Luck cannot be used (representing that failure is even more likely).
This system is pretty neat on it's own, but it could use some frothing. We need to really Milk These Dice now that there's multiple dice in play:
First off a boon! Natural 6s on your d6s you have the option to add yet another dice to the pool for the chance at more Successes! We love exploding dice in this house ~ If you chose not to take the extra die, you instead gain 1 Luck once the roll resolves.
Next, something to be wary of: Natural 1s rolled are usually failures (unless you spend Luck), but more importantly they can incur Drain: additional consequences contextual to a given the situation:
- In Stealth, 1s rolled incur Alerts in the area
- In particularly taxing situations 1s may reduce Bleed, Brain or Belly (ex; If you're pulling a rock off someone, 1s may incur Bleed DMG. If you're deciphering an eldritch text that strains your very mind to comprehend, 1s may incur Brain DMG. If you're trying to grin and bear it while trying Uncle Carl's Cool Moonshine, you'll probably take Belly DMG on 1s)
- 1s might lower the reaction roll of a randomly encountered merchant as you try to negotiate, or might drain the Moxy of your Hirelings.
- When working with delicate mechanics 1s may cause jams
- When working with expired dynamite 1s... y'know what, just really avoid working with expired dynamite.
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