Natural 7

Dice

Today's post is about rolling dice and some observations I've made about what they contribute to the games I play.

Randomizer Tools

Dice are not the end-all-be-all of roleplaying games. They are just a tool that generates a set of outcomes from a set of input variables. There are lots of these tools: dice, tarot cards, playing cards, words in a book, the view from your window, your imagination, etc. Dice are the tool that most roleplaying games employ, but I've seen a handful of those other ones used to great effect (see His Majesty the Worm for tarot cards and Seedwords for using books for randomness).

I personally enjoy the feeling of rolling dice and watching the numbers spin around. I have lots of nice dice, so it's a joy getting to use them. I don't really like the clattering sound dice make when they hit the table, so I usually roll onto a cloth mat. When I first started playing roleplaying games I would always look forward to the first time I got to roll dice in a session. I remember getting bored when it had been a while since the last time I got to pick up the d20. Nowadays, my boredom comes less from not getting to roll dice and more from the pacing and context of the game I'm playing. I really like talking to NPCs and other player characters, so when it's been a while since the last time I was able to converse about something interesting, I get bored.

Something that's also new for me is having a fear of rolling dice. This likely comes from the amount of Mythic Bastionland and FIST and Blades in the Dark that I've been playing recently. When I roll dice in those games, I'm substantially more afraid of the bad outcomes than excited for the good outcomes. I really don't want to do poorly on those dice rolls, so I try my best to even the odds with my choices so that I never actually have to roll. These games are also really deadly if you have to make any combat rolls. I don't want my character to die, so I usually lean heavy on the dialogue so that I can negotiate with any bad guys. Just between you and me, this plan usually doesn't work out entirely in my favor, but creates exciting roleplay opportunities nonetheless.

I'm not excited by dice variance. I'm afraid of the alternative realities that they represent and create. This probably comes from an inherent desire to tell my own story and is probably an irrational fear that I should just get over.

Getting the result you didn't exactly expect or want can be fun. Usually it's the most fun when you lean into the randomness and see where the results take you.

Chaos Reigns

Here are some of my recent failed dice rolls:

These all created interesting situations for my character (and the other people around them). In some cases it changed the stakes of the game and everybody was affected. Because I value choices in games, it's worth pointing out that all of these dice rolls happened because of a choice I made that was risky. I get to reap what I have sown, and in several cases with knowledge of what the consequences would be before even making the roll.

Understanding that it was my decisions that put me in a worse situation makes failure more bearable. When GMs foreshadow such consequences of a failed dice roll (or other action) it becomes far easier to make a meaningful decision about whether you follow through on your intentions.

Foreshadowing Doom

Something I see a lot at my tables are players who want to take back their actions. I think this comes from a lack of understanding the consequences of our actions. They can be foreshadowed by the GM in various ways, or even be said outright. My preference, lately, has been to make the risk as clear as possible. It's so much more rewarding to make a decision when you know the general circumstances of your situation.

Take dungeon crawling for example:

You are given two tunnels, left and right. Which do you take?

With that description it's as easy as flipping a coin, but what if we describe the tunnels differently:

To your left you see a path of daggers, sharp and splattered with red; to your right is a wide tunnel with dozens of stone statues carved in moments of pure terror.

Clearly the left tunnel will hurt to walk through, and while the right tunnel could be safe, it's more likely to have some kind of petrifying monster or fear effect. Now your decision has weight and consequence.

Let's expand this example with a component of randomness. You are at the aforementioned intersection and are playing a scout-type character. You ask if you can sneak ahead down the statue tunnel to see if there is actually a monster lurking about. This is a risky action; you could be surprised by the monster, caught by a trap, or maybe even get lost. However, it's also possible that you get away with this action freely, so it's time to consult the oracle (the dice). The results tell us how this instance of scouting goes well or wrong, and helps move the narrative forward to the next decision point.

As a general tip, if you don't think a dice roll is helping to move the story towards a new decision, then the action may not warrant rolling dice at all.

The Oracle

There are generally three types of outcomes for roleplaying games:

I like all three of these from both a player and GM perspective. As a player I know that I have a chance to get what I want two-thirds of the time. As a GM, I know that I get to narrate something no matter what, and I have the freedom to allow the player to succeed without reducing the risk of the situation. This means I can always introduce more threats as a consequence of any dice roll.

You may be wondering how to introduce a threat after Outcome C (the good outcome). Consider this: Jimmy wants to diffuse a bomb and gets a full success. "Okay," you say, "you diffuse the bomb. Also, you hear rapid footsteps ahead: There is another patrol of bad guys moving nearby, but not in your immediate direction."

Jimmy could try to get the jump on the bad guys or try to sneak past with a distraction. This result doesn't nullify the tension, and the introduction of the threat is a good thing: Jimmy learns about the bad guys before they learn about him. And as a plus we have a new decision to be made. You don't have to do this all the time. It is nice to succeed without any bells and whistles some of the time. However, when you need to, the option is there in your toolbox.

Back to the three outcomes, many GMs won't like Outcome B. It's hard to come up with a good and bad thing to happen, a so-called "partial success". I agree that it can be challenging, but I think we can apply a similar trick that I applied to Jimmy. The way I understand partial successes is to do whatever makes the most sense in order to maintain the same tension. Suppose Jimmy rolled Outcome B when he tried to diffuse the bomb. Maybe he succeeds in diffusing it but the patrol of bad guys knows it's happening: they are charging for his exact position instead of one nearby. Another option would be the defusal doesn't go quite right; it's going to take more time and the bad guys are closing in. Jimmy can decide to finish diffusing and be caught, or try to distract the bad guys and then return to the defusal later.

When in doubt, try to work with the first thing that pops into your head. It's usually the best idea anyway.

I think Outcome A is self explanatory. It's hard to have a problem with success.

The Meat

Why did I want to write this post about dice anyway? Well, over the past six months I've been watching how my players react to dice rolls in the games I run.

I prefer less dice rolling, so I ran many games where very few dice were rolled; I thought hard about each action the players were taking and whether they felt risky or not. In many cases, the actions felt reasonable for the characters to accomplish because those characters were high level or skilled or had the right tools for the job. This was in a D&D game, which I realize meant that players sometimes didn't get to use the skills that they had invested proficiency into.

Maybe it's not a surprise to you, but it was a surprise to me when it seemed like my players were less interested and involved at the table. It felt like there was a disconnect every time I would say, "You don't have to roll, you're able to do this."

Then I binged a season of Fantasy High from Dimension 20. I noticed that Brennan, the GM, called for skill checks all the time. Seriously, there were skill checks for basically any action you take in combat that wasn't hitting somebody, and then skill checks every ten minutes or so when someone attempted something. Sometimes there would be large chains of skill checks when people were investigating an area, and everybody would get to roll something relevant to their character.

I figured that the very act of rolling the dice and using the numbers you wrote on your character sheet might actually be a large contributor to player enjoyment. For the next sequence of game sessions, I tried to implement more and more dice rolls. One strategy was employing skill checks when there really wasn't anything to lose, but something to gain.

I follow the Lazy GMs 8 Steps for session prep, and one of the steps is to create a bunch of secrets and/or clues that help inform player decisions. I decided that I would try to reveal as many of these as possible through dice rolls. This meant that if someone failed a dice roll, I would either give them the information at a cost, or find a way to reveal the information later on with a different dice roll.

I also tried to incorporate dice rolls for even very easy tasks. This let us narrate how well someone performed, even if success was guaranteed. For example, if you are a legendary Bard playing music in a tavern, it is assured that you will do well and get applause. However, to see how many people recognize and love your performance you can make a dice roll. High roll means more people love you. Low roll means that there could be a hater in the audience. Either way, it gives both the player and GM an opportunity to make a decision and narrate the outcome (I'm trying to find more ways to invite players into the narration of their actions, especially failed ones, like in Daggerheart).

After the first session of trying to add more dice rolls to my game, I found that there was a substantial improvement to player interest at the table. More of my players were engaged and excited by the situations that arose during play. This trend has continued throughout all the games I've been running recently: players are more happy when they are rolling dice more often. I'm not sure it even matters if all the dice come up with poor results. The very action of rolling seems to keep folks locked in on the game.

Not Just in D&D

I said I tried this in my D&D game. D&D is designed to have lots of skills and attack rolls and damage rolls and saving throws; in other words, lots of dice rolls. Also, D&D only implements binary outcomes to its dice rolls. Either you succeed or fail. Any type of "partial" success is up to the GM to adjudicate and employ. Maybe I was doing it wrong before by avoiding the dice in less risky situations, since now I get much better player feedback and engagement.

I've also been running other games with different dice mechanics: like FIST, Mythic Bastionland, and Old School Essentials. I'm not talking about damage rolls, but resolving saving throws and other risky actions.

In FIST, you roll 2d6 for every risky action. There are no binary outcomes. Every dice roll changes the game's situation and has a good chance of making things worse for you and the other characters. This makes the dice rolls daunting, but exciting. The game also gives players lots of crazy abilities. Some of them can ask for dice rolls while others can give you a one time "I do this and it works" card. Even when you have an ability that doesn't ask for a dice roll, players are more likely to ask to perform stunts that warrant one. They are encouraged to try to succeed with the resources at their disposal, and often in ways that are incredibly risky and dangerous (something like freezing time to kidnap a person in front of a live audience). We make a dice roll because of course that's difficult and has consequences, and the dice surprise us with a partial success. Now the players get to make a decision about a new problem that the GM creates. This stimulates engagement.

When I wasn't asking for lots of dice rolls in FIST, the game felt less risky. It felt like there were far fewer consequences to player actions. The game felt less dangerous because there was less variance.

In Mythic Bastionland, you rarely want to roll dice (outside of combat) because chances are you're going to fail. There are only binary outcomes from those dice. Yes or no, succeed or fail. Except, that is, when you are rolling a luck die. These have the three outcomes described earlier. Those are fun to roll. They create tension and you always have the same probability of success. You know that failure means bad stuff will happen, but there is a chance it won't and even then it means the narrative moves forward with your character making another decision. If death is on the table, then hopefully you know that already.

If you are rolling dice in combat, your capabilities are largely determined at character creation at random. Your probability of success can be as low as 10% (sometimes lower!) or as high as 90%. I found this to be highly demotivating, even when I had a high chance of success. In combat, making those dice rolls (called saves) and failing is extremely bad. Like, so bad that you are putting yourself at a supreme disadvantage by failing. The expected value is highly dependent on how close to dead your opponent is (see my thoughts on the best status condition). You might not get to make another decision because you failed. You might just die. But I guess that's the randomness coming into play, because you could also just hit that 10% every single time and never die. From experience, that can make for a legendary story.

I rarely call for dice rolls in Mythic Bastionland other than luck rolls. I don't like the idea of making those saves outside of combat because they don't feel like they actually measure character capabilities as proportionately as they can be roleplayed. Hopefully this makes more sense if you've played the game.

With less dice rolls I've found that there isn't a noticeable impact on the engagement at the table. Player engagement comes when I introduce an interesting scene, situation, or character to the players that force them to interact and make decisions. They don't need to pick up the dice to feel included so long as they feel like they can use their creativity and resources (property, gear) to solve their problems. My guess is that the game is overall more engaging because the players are included in exploration at almost all times. They need to be thinking about what direction to go and why. They don't have many chances to forget what's happening.

I tried to do the same thing with Old School Essentials. Granted, it was the first and only time I ran the game, but I've run Shadowdark and DURF and other old school games before. My intention was to minimize dice rolls and focus on player actions and intuition to solve problems rather than giving chance a big play. Dice would determine random encounters and loot but not the ability to listen at doors or notice carvings on walls. Some of my players meshed with this and some didn't. It was a near even split. After the game, it sounded like the dungeon exploration wasn't exciting enough on its own.

I asked myself what I could have done differently. Well, it sounded like the players wanted more things to do with their characters. They didn't seem to find good uses for their abilities or spells, and their stats didn't really come into play. If I wanted to add more dice rolls and stat usage, then I could use a rule that is suggested by the book for skill checks (something I had forgotten while running the game): roll under a relevant stat to perform some risky action. Again, a binary outcome, but it would give a measure of how well/poorly someone fails/succeeds by the distance their die rolled from the stat (e.g., rolling a 20 against a 10). Maybe more dice rolls would have improved the experience.

Then again, maybe I just made an unexciting dungeon.

Or, maybe different players have different preferences when they play the game. It could have been the whole old school theme that threw them off, or the minimal character abilities, or the random stat generation.

There are lots of factors that contribute to the enjoyment of roleplaying games. Dice and their associated mechanics are one of many.

Final Thoughts

Kind of a long-winded way to talk about dice and the impact they have on my personal enjoyment of the game. My observations could be completely moot and due to other factors like playing online vs. in-person and the way in which I prepared the sessions ahead of time vs. how I ran them at the table. Mostly I wanted to think about dice and give you a reason to think about dice too.

Things I've been reading this week:

Happy New Year!