Dice Mechanics: Methods. This is the second of three articles discussing common dice-using mechanics used in tabletop RPGs (aka "narrative" or "pencil-and-paper" RPGs).
This articles covers the different types of schemes for designing dice mechanics, and compares their general features. Fixed-die Mechanics A fixed-die mechanic simply means that the same number and type of dice are always rolled, regardless of the character's stats or the task's difficulty. There are two basic choices here: linear roll vs bell-curve, and roll-under vs roll-and-add.
There is also other options: including open-ending, autosuccess/autofailure, and blackjack degree-of-success. Linear vs Bell-Curve Linear rolls are produced by rolling a single die or percentile dice. Although it has the same average and a similar range, the 3d6 roll has a lower variance than the 1d20 roll. The important thing to note is the behavior. What does this mean for RPG play?
Roll-Under vs Roll-and-Add Other Variations Automatic Success/Failure Open-ended Rolls. John Kim's Magic in Roleplaying Pages. This is a collection of articles on magic in role-playing games, mostly independent of any particular game system.
I have some observations on existing magic systems, and some possible magic systems presented in a system-less manner. In general, I am dissatisfied with nearly all of the magic systems that are out there, in that they simply aren't very interesting or "magical" feeling to me. For my own games, I tend to come up with a homebrew system -- but it is rarely quantified enough to present as a rules system for others to use. Breaking Out of Scientific Magic Systems This is a long article which suggests approaches to having a more "mythic" style of magic in RPGs, as opposed to scientific. Magic and Society (Added 4/27/03) This is a general essay on the question of how real, effective magic would change society. The Real-World Meaning of "mana" Some notes on the real-world meaning of the term "mana", which is frequently misconstrued by fantasy RPGs. The Real-World Meaning of "hermetic" Anyway. A Treatise on Different Dice-rolling Mechanics in RPGs - RPG Design.
The aim of this treatise is to develop a method to perform a qualitative analysis of dice-mechanics for role-playing systems, by evaluating how close such mechanics come to an imagined "ideal" system.
In order to accomplish this I will start out by defining such an ideal, trying to encompass all the features such an imaginary perfect roll-playing dice mechanic would contain. As time has proven the perfect role-playing system doesn't exist, and indeed two persons would hardly even be able to agree on the theoretical attributes of such a system, but by limiting myself to examining the dice mechanics I hope to be able to extract a set of common properties that most people would agree are desirable.
A note before I begin: I've strived to use the power of mathematics whereever applicable, but this text is by no means, nor is it intended to be, an attempt to make a precise mathematical formulation of the aim of dice mechanics. That's about as broad and general as I can make it. Alright. 1.