So, here I'd like to talk about how dice are rolled in shadowrun. The good, the bad, and ofcourse the trog like...

The basics for rolling dice consists of rolling a number of six sided dice against a target number. The more dice that come up higher then the target number the more successful you are at your attempted action.

There are two ways to modify this basic rolling system. Number one, add or remove a number of dice from the roll. When counting success having less dice means you have less chances to roll successes. The second way is to change the target number. This is more dramatic of a change and much more powerful in this type of system.

The average target number in shadowrun is 4. At that target number, half of your dice should come up as successes. If the average character is rolling 6 dice per roll, then he should get 3 successes.

When you talk about low modifiers, +1 or +2 to the target number, you'll looses successes, on average, accordingly. Target number 5, you'll get 2 successes, target number 6, you'll score 1.

The problem with this comes in when you have large numbers of modifiers. A target number of 15 is near impossible. (1 in 54 I think). These target number modifiers come in mostly during combat and downtime such as learning spells or finding that wizbang toy you always wanted.

I would prefer a system that had a standard target number for all tests. 5. Modifiers would add or reduce the number of dice available for the attempt. Extreme modifiers could increase or reduce the target number by 1.

I'd like to see the rule of six turned into, roll again and if it comes up a success count it, if it comes up a six... repeat.

We could turn the rule of ones into this... If more one's then success come up... its a critical failure. What... it could actually happen! Note... with the average 6 dice on a roll... the chances of the rule of ones coming into effect is 1 in 46656. I'm sure someone has seen it happen... once... maybe.

When talking about streamlining the system, I like this idea because right now you have to add up two things for every test you make. Number one, how many dice do I roll, include skill, attribute, pool, foci, powers, and karma. Then I have to figure out a target number for what I'm attempting to do and add modifiers for that... there are far to many to list here.

If you just change the number of dice... thats the only thing to add up. When your done... roll'm chummer.

Just to get back to downtime quickly. I think some equipment should be hard to get and some spells should be hard to learn. But, I also think that given enough time, NuYen, and determination your character should be able to get the panther cannon or learn that Toxic Wave 14 spell.

Rather then change the target number to accomplish these things, simply specify the number of successes that are required to succeed and the amount of time each roll represents. If you want to make panther cannons hard to get... hey you need 20 successes to find a contact willing to sell you one and perhaps each roll takes you 10 days.

I know many of you are going to read this and think... I'm gonna Frag up this CradleWorm bad... but while I welcome criticism... I'd also like to read some of your ideas. I can only talk from my experience playing the game and what my group of friends does. If you've seen other holes in the BASIC DICE ROLLING rules of the game I'd love to read about them.

Well, you forgot the Matrix in your assessment of TN's. THe matrix goes from sadly easy to 'wow, you made it 3 turns so farwithout a net success, care to keep pushing?' without much inbetween. There needs to be a more logical progression in Systems. It frightens me more to see a Blue-9 14/11/13/12/7 system for a mom and pop store front host. It's insane TN's but perfectly possible in the random host generation rules.

TN 4 doesn't seem to be the average target number in any game I've played in - we almost always seem to be rolling against 8 or more.

The severe effect that TN modifiers have on the difficulty of a task is why I suggested switching to d10s instead of d6s. Trying for a 14 gives you about a 2% chance with one d6, but works out to 14% on a d10 - still tough but much more likely when you start rolling multiple dice.

Hmmm....

Set target numbers....

Rule of ones.....

Using d10s....

This sounds like the old White Wolf system!!!! I think I'd rather play checkers.

You did pretty much describe the Exalted system exactly, just shifted to d6s... I'm not going to get into thoughts on trying to change the dice system, I've spent a fair bit of time playing around with different systems and it's a pain in the neck to create a new dice system. I like the dice system SR has. Some actions simply are nigh impossible, and for those hard to reach downtime target numbers, there are already optional rules for decreasing them with time and or money.

Theres nothing that wrong with the old white wolf systems.
But I can see somthing similar happening with shadowrun as with world of darkness. Only with D6's rather than D10's.

For those not familiar with the Whitewolf Changes.
It now uses a standard TN and you gain or lose dice depending on the difficulty.

I don't think this would work well with D6's.
The streamlining of the system is quite worring as to how simplifyed it will get.
It needs to be a happy balance between simplicity and realism.

Just the 2 's worth of a serial gamer.

I thought this thread was going to be about how the SR rulebook should explain to players that picking up a dice and dropping it is NOT rolling. To roll, you must feel the dice roll around inside your palm before letting go. The dice should then CONTINUE to roll, or perhaps bounce with small dice, on the table, to ensure the result is as random as possible.

Many players do not do this and think I don't notice.

One of the thing that annoys me with the current system is the pobability distribution.

It drives me insane that a +2 to TN is a major hurdle when the base TN is 4, but is fairly insignificant when the the base TN is 6... Only to become drastic once more if the TN is 10! Arg! The "blind spot" at TN 6 - 7 is very annoying for me.

Perhaps SR4 could take a page from trinity and have a fixed TN.

Let's say the TN is always 5. If a task is difficult, you require additional successes, for example a 6 meter leap could require 4 sucesses on an athletic test. Or shooting at long range could require 3 sucesses. If you roll a 6 you get a success and roll again so even if you have less die than you need successes, you stand a chance. Not sure how well it would work with D6 but I liked it with D10 in Trinity.

After playing Trinity, my group switched to d10 for SR. We adjusted some TNs and went to using the full force for drain resistance. Despite some problems it's worked out fairly well.

Hey, I actually tried it too. Worked OK.

One thing that would go a long way toward fixing the *current* system, rather than just discarding it completely, is change the Rule of Six to add 5 to your next roll instead of 6. Basically, say you have to roll 1 die for a test, and you get a 6. Then you reroll that die, adding 5 to the result. If you get another 6, then reroll the die, adding 10 to the result. This eliminates the weird artifact of the current system that a TN6 is just as hard to hit as a TN 7. Unfortunately it compresses the probability curve even *more*, in that now a TN 16 is as hard to hit as a TN 18 was before, meaning that TN mods are even more important. This can be somewhat aleviated by switching to d10s as mentioned above, but I imagine that most SR players will be extremely pissed about that kind of a move.

Switching to d10s would make me very sad, as I have a truley stupid number of d6s in large part so I can provide an entire SR gaming group with enough dice to play, no matter how big their skills and dice pools are. I don't have nearly that many d10s (just enough for me to have enough in an Exalted game, which is still a lot).

Which was kinda my point.

One way to even out the probability curve a little and still use d6s would be to have both 5s *and* 6s be open-ended: 6s add 5 to the next roll, while 5s add 4 to the next roll. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I think that would end up flatening the probability curve to comparably the same level as d10s or d12s, although it would still be more locally curved than the d10-d12 system (eg. fewer big jumps in probability at certain transition points).

It'd make the whole thing far too functionally complicated though, as you're basically doubling or even tripling the time it takes to make a single skill roll.

I have yet to see a clear demonstration that 6=7 is a bug, not a feature.

~J

well, since i'm no math whiz, what would adding 5 on a 5 or 6 do?

if we all used electronic dice rollers (which I don't and don't want to), I would say EBs suggestion is great, but when actually rolling dice it does at too much complexity which is exactly what this new edition is trying to limit.

An example of why the 6=7 is a bug, not a feature: Say Johnny Runner has a semi-auto pistol with no recoil comp. In his first phase he take 2 shots, one at a target number 4, the second at 5 due to recoil. Before his next phase he takes a moderate wound, now he fires 2 shots at a 6 and a 7, meaning it is easier for him to deal with recoil because he's wounded. This does not make sense.

Overall I'm not too concerned with this problem though. It is vaguely annoying but not enough so that I think it warrants massively changing the dice system. If the were going to change it anyway for other reasons and happens to fix this, great (assuming the change is for the better), but this problem alone is not enough of a reason to change the system.

Yeah, it just moves the 6-7 plateau to 5-6.

Well keep in mind I was talking about combining the "reroll 5s and 6s" rule with the "rerolling means add X-1 to what you rolled before" This means that, while hitting a TN 5 is .333 like you said, hitting a TN 6 is abtually {1/6 + (1/6)*(5/6)} == ..3056. So the probability does dip down there, and it certainly dips down at all other TNs.

Here's a more correct table:

my head hurts.... i think this is why i didnt go into comp sci lol

Heh, sorry, guess I shoulda put a "Warning: Statophiles and masochists only beyond this point" at the top of my post.

As for buying d10s. I have so many d10s and d6s it borders on OCD. Honestly, I can't pass a bin of loose dice without picking up at least 2-3 d10s or d6s (provided they are clear or solid colour.) There are enough dice for 5 players to have seperate colour dice for skills and pools, no player having the same colour.

I don't think SR should switch to d10 but if they do, I'm set.

gah! crazyness! If only I had kept up with my math learning, I might be able to understand why any of these numbers are important. I assume bigger=better, but I can't be sure that's what it's supposed to be. In any case, my groups generally rule that 7=8 and 13=14, so we never have TN7 or 13, etc. You roll a six on a TN8, you roll again and have a 1 in 6 chance of having that 6 remain a 6. Still very good odds to hit that TN8 once you've got that 6, but not perfect.

Each of those is a probability fraction. Basically take any number there, multiply by 100, and you get the percent chance that you'll roll that number with one die roll.

I don't know. It's so simple to understand that ones are always failures and sixes are always more. This would be the last mechanic I'd expect to change.

That doesn't make logical sense to me. How is it that there's an 83% chance of getting a 2, but only a 16% chance of getting a 6? On a single die, all numbers have the same probability of occuring (including 1), in this case, 1 in 6 (17% rounded).

Ah, that makes more sense.

Dice are pretty! Me am like rolling dice! Fun noise and pretty colours!

You know, I don't see much of a problem with the current system at all.

After you play for a while, you are easily able to work out what your TN is, just a bit of simple arithmatic.

Hello, all! Fantastic thread so far, very interesting discussion. The TN6/7 "bug" has always irritated me, too, so I thought I'd throw a bit more math at the problem. The result is a proposed new method of dice-rolling that smooths out the kinks in the probability curve. I'll start with a discussion of the method, then describe the rationale behind it and its derivation, and then finish with a little commentary. Obviously, the new rules will probably make all this obsolete, but what the hell.... By the way, things might get a little hairy as we go along, so if you're math-phobic, you might want to just ignore this post.


Method:

Replace all d6 rolls with a d100 (or d1000 in the case of TNs higher than 12), according to the chart below. Make the same number of rolls that you would have done using d6s.

Most of you are probably hip to d100 rolls. For the uninitiated: roll a ten-sided die twice, counting the first roll as the "tens" digit and the second as the "ones". For a d1000 roll, add a third die: the first is the "hundreds" the second is "tens" the third is "ones."

YARM (Yet Another Rolling Method)

Cap all TNs at 12.
- a TN of 11 means a task is nearly impossible.
- a TN of 12 means a task is impossible without spending karma.
- a TN of 13+ means the task is completely impossible. Nothing short of a Hand of God karma burn is going to change this.

Rule of One: All ones are automatic failures.

Rule of Six: When you roll a 6, and the TN is 7 or higher, roll one more die. Subtract 1 from the result and add it to the original 6. If you roll another 6 you do not roll again. That means the highest natural roll you can make is (6 + (6 - 1) = 11.

Rule of Eleven: When you roll an 11, and the TN is 12, you can pay 1 karma to change that 11 to a 12. There is no other way to roll a 12.

IMHO, anything above 13 using the current rules is just an exercise in mental masterbation for math geeks.

Oh well... just something I thought up as I was falling asleep last night.

I think that the developers need to really run over the relevent statistical probabilities with a fine-toothed comb, and re-factor things like the definition of "average skill level", as well as target numbers. The current system, to me, shows a fundamental lack of understanding of just how much less statistical probability of success there is, with even a +1 to a target number, or how relatively little chance for greater success an extra die or two can provide.

The classic example of this is walking autofire, which essentially allows one to add dice, at cost of increased TN#, at a virtually 1:1 basis. Certain martial arts situations are similar. Whoever was in charge of figuring out how this would work out didn't really stop to consider (at least, I hope that's the case) the fact that adding another die, or even two dice, is not worth even a +1 to the TN#, unless the TN# is in some way so far modified that it remains 2 even with penalties applied.

But these are just ways in which the system is interpreted. I like Shadowrun's system, with degree of success, the ability to influence luck through experience, and other such nuances. I wouldn't change the system itself for the world, I'd only ask that people consider how the system works before they go about modeling situations with it.

I completely agree with Wireknight.

It doesn't matter how complex the underpinnings are, though. Whether you're rolling those six dice against a TN# of 4 because the writer thought that sounded kinda like it might work out like the real world (BAD!) or because extensive analysis of systems of multivariate quanta suggest that is the most proper means of expressing chance and probability given the factors involved (GOOD!), it's still 6d6 versus TN# 4, for the player. Ultimately, it abstracts to how exacting the creators of the system were in its implementation. It's all the same to the person scanning the tables of dice and TN# progressions.

Agreed. Let the designers be staticians; let the players be players.

Hi there ! this is my first post here, so ... nice to meet you all.

Probabilities of the SR3 dice rolling system has been bugging me for quite some time, so I'm happy to read this thread here. I've seen some ideas here that i had for some other projects, and maybe i have a few additions to it.

Someone proposed to roll all dices against TN 5, with 6 beeing "recursively" rerolled against TN5 until it's not 6. The difficulty of the action beeing expressed as a minimal number of successes to achieve.

Moreover, it was said that modifiers would add or remove dices from the dice pool rolled on the action. Finally, critical failure would be seen as "no successes, all dices to one".

It was then argued that with such a system, lots of modifiers would increase the risks of critical failure, no matter what the skill of the character is.

okay, so here are my two cents :

instead of taking from the pool, why not simply increasing the number of successes to acheive ? The botch could be represented by, say half the rolled dices to "one".

a friend said "but with this, increasing the difficulty by one means you statistically have to roll 3 more dices, as you have 1/3 odds to win". Okay, so lets get this basic to 4, in order to smoothen the progression. If you want to get it even smoother, you could put it down to 3. This would raise a bit the average difficulty, in order to be balanced with the average skill.

Let's say average skill is 3, and we are rolling against TN3
You would usually get two success on this (well, probability is a bit higher as there is the rule of six).
If you consider someone with average skill against an average difficulty should have 50% odds to win, that would put our average difficulty to 3.

To me this system has a few interesting aspects :

1. if you are really skilled, no matter what the difficulty is, you probably won't get a critical failure.

2. if you have a low skill, it will be really hard to surpass what you can usually achieve : because you don't roll so much dices, your odds to roll a 6 and therefore "add" one dice to your pool are extremely low. A beginner don't have the experience to cope with harder than expected situations.
On the contrary, if you have a high level skill, your odds to roll some 6 are far greater. So when the difficulty is raising, you still have some power to give - the higher your skill, the slower the probability curve goes down. This represents the fact that you master the skill, almost recreating it each time you use it.

A last point. It could be possible to combine the two (taking dices from the pool and raising the number of successes to achieve) : If a part of your means are taken by something else, you roll less dices.

This can simply be applied to this :
- physical condition : the injuries are represented as dice taken from all your rolls.
- multiple actions : if you do something else at the very moment of your action, even if it doesn't require a roll, part of your means are dedicated to something else.

Those modifiers will raise your odds to roll a critical failure, but it seems to be fair to me.

That's it ! Hope you found this interesting ... I'm waiting for your thoughts on the subject. And please avoid replies such as "SR dice system should not change" ...

(PS : sorry if my english is not SOTA )

[EDIT : bad probabilities]