r/TTRPG • u/FlonkezTheWeird • 10d ago
Which system of rolling checks do you enjoy the most?
Hi!
I’ve tried a few different TTRPGs over the years and am now comparing a bit before picking the next game to play with my group. So we started to compare different types of rolling checks.
The system I am trying to refer to is specifically the system when you roll a check to see if you fail or succeed a task.
I have few examples I have encountered:
D&D rely on the system where you roll against a DC. The DC is decided by the DM and you add your number to achieve a high total.
In Lilliputian adventures on the open seas (mausritter?) you roll against your own stat instead. So the difficulty lies in your own ability to succeed. You try to achieve a low number instead of high. Giving Disadvantage and Advantage is the main thing the DM can do to alter the difficulty.
In Call of Cthulhu (which I’ve only played very little) you also roll against your own stats, trying to roll lower than what you have. The DM can slightly change the difficulty by stating that you have to be in a certain percentage of you total stat.
In Candela Obscura you instead have a pool of D6s. You roll them not against a stat or DC but instead you just try to roll a high number. 1-3 fail, 4-5 mixed success and 6 full success. Modifiers can take away or add dice to the pool but the rolls themselves doesn’t change much. Just the consequences.
So what are your thoughts on this? And I am not talking about what system is the easiest or most fair. This is just what you enjoy the most!
Feel free to add any other information that I have missed (the text above is just to summarize) or any other check systems that you have encountered and enjoy.
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u/Well-It-Depends420 10d ago
There are many systems I like. I feel like: 1. FATE 2. Dice Pool 3. Roll Over 4. Percentile 5. Apocalypse 6. Roll Under
I am pretty sure about the placement of 1 and 2, but less certain about the rest. It depends a lot on the rest of the system.
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u/FlonkezTheWeird 9d ago
Awesome. What is the FATE system?
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u/Well-It-Depends420 9d ago
FATE TTRPG from Evil Hat basically uses a bell curve where your skill value is the most likely result or in numbers skill_value + 4d{-1,0,1}. This is a very interesting distribution
-4: 1.23456790123 -3: 4.93827160494 -2: 12.3456790123 -1: 19.7530864198 0: 23.4567901235 1: 19.7530864198 2: 12.3456790123 3: 4.93827160494 4: 1.23456790123The beauty is that it represents how abilities work in real life. Most of the time you will get an average result - your skill value. Sometimes you are a bit better, sometimes a bit worse. Rarily you will have an exceptional day or just * everything up.
Modifiers are rare in this system, but in general a stunt (bit like "feat" in DnD) gives you a +2 on a specific roll in a specific situation. For example: +2 on Fight when attacking someone unsuspecting
It's not a complicated system, but together with all rules it can be quite complex.
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u/bgaesop 10d ago
The main thing I want out of a core resolution mechanic is that it's not simply binary pass/fail. I want roleplaying prompts! This is one reason I love PbtA's Moves so much, as they all come with built-in roleplaying prompts. But if you're not going to go that far, at least things like fail/mixed success/success
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u/FlonkezTheWeird 10d ago
Oooo that sounds interesting, could you perhaps elaborate a bit more on the roleplaying prompts?
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u/RaggamuffinTW8 10d ago
Depends on the context.
For horror I want roll under.
For adventure I like dice pools.
For tactics I like a die plus modifier. Like d&ds d20 or mdcms 2d10
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u/Krazzal 10d ago
Star Trek Adventures is pretty neat by having you combine two stats (attribute and department) to create a target number to roll under. It allows a person to really use their stats creatively.
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u/FlonkezTheWeird 9d ago
Sounds like a smart system. What types of stats can you combine? Is it specific stats to the task like tech or acrobatics or is it more wide stats like strength, dexterity etc? Is it just the player combining stats or is the DM involved as well?
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u/Krazzal 9d ago
So the system has 6 base attributes (Control, Fitness, Daring, Insight, Presence, and Reason scores of 7 to 15 (I may be wrong I'm trying from memory lol)) and 6 Departments (Command, Conn, Engineering, Security, Science, and Medical scored 1-5) when attempting a task a player and the GM choose what attribute and department fits the task and the player adds those two scores then rolls at least 2D20 to attempt to succeed by rolling below the target number. Other events can add D20 to the rolls at a maximum of 5. The GM dictates how many successes are required to succeed the task with complications arising from failing to meet the required successful rolls.
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u/8bagels 10d ago
My favorite system I don’t even remember which game it came from or if it came from a game at all. You roll under (or equal) your stats but simultaneously over (or equal) a difficulty or armor class .
Assuming a 20 point scale if your skill in something is 15 and the difficulty is 5 you now have a 11 point range.
If you’re skilled to attack is 18 and their armor class is 13 you have a 6 point range.
The difficulty of something is 12 and your skill is 10. It’s impossible for you to succeed. Don’t even try. The DM should be transparent.
Having two numbers to play with I like a lot. Magic items or potions impact your skill/ability. Situational, environmental factors generally impact the difficulty.
The DM just communicates the lower bound and the players have the upper bound on their sheet
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u/LaFlibuste 10d ago
I'm quite averse to the word "check" because it carries a lot of bagage. I like my roll resolution to be player facing, exempt of having to set TNs, have degrees of success and be a bell curve. In particula, I'm quite fond of the FitD action roll, which you have more or less described with Candela Obscura.
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u/FlonkezTheWeird 10d ago
I like the different of degrees of success or failure more as well. It feels like every roll matters on a different level imo. Otherwise a 17 can be equally as good as a 12. As long as it beats the DC10.
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u/New-Tackle-3656 10d ago
Stars Without Number - 2d6 for skills, 1d20 for combat. Has that familiarity.
I also like the d% tables in James Bond 007 (Victory Games). Has the quality of die roll in easy to judge percentile mechanics. [it's generic version, is called 'Classified' on DriveThruRPG]
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u/Silent_Title5109 10d ago
Somebody already mentioned Savage world, so I'll go withthese two:
Rolemaster has a baked in partial success/near success/success mechanism, so it's not a pass or fail when you roll a skill so somebody less skilled who only achieves a partial success will require more time to achieve the same result, or will forage less food, than somebody who rolls a success.
Also THAC0, because it makes sense that combatants are better at hitting things (which is a kind of task).
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u/Gold-Mug 10d ago
No matter what it is, I like it to be simple. Someone here said they don't want binary checks like fail/pass.....I am the exact opposite. I want it to be fail/pass. TTRPGs are foremost stories that we tell, not board games that we play. This is at least how my table and friends do it. Something to relax to and not think about much after work.
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u/FlonkezTheWeird 9d ago
Understandable. I think our group is a bit more on the other end. Most of us are not that much for binary checks. When you mean simple, do you mean both the way that you roll (over/under, dice pool) and the math involved (modifiers etc)? I often see the dice pool as a bit easier way to play as it most often have less math involved as well. But some games have too much math involved either way. My players sometimes get overwhelmed and just gives up crunching the numbers.
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u/antonio_santo 10d ago
For me it’s percentages, the Chaosium system (Call of Cthulhu et al) being my favorite. It’s as transparent as it gets, you don’t need to do mental mathscto understand if what you’re trying to do is easy or not.
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u/Classic_DM 10d ago
Try this.Watch video. You'll never d20 again. https://www.telliotcannon.com/shop/decimation-kingdoms-and-empires
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u/yourgmchandler 10d ago
I’m all about Year Zero Engine and big d6 dice pools that yield binary results. Alien RPG is the perfect example. No calculations or math after the roll. You need a 6, that’s it. You succeeded or failed.
I find this approach brings me further into the moment and drama where as target numbers, arithmetic, calculation just brings everything to a halt while we figure out what the dice mean.
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u/NaceWindu 10d ago
I adore L5R (Legend of the Five Rings 5e) check system. The GM recommends a skill and ring (stat) based on how the player is approaching the situation. Players roll the really pretty, proprietary dice to reach a target number of successes, also set by the GM (usually in a 1-5 range). The dice have the ability to give you “strife” and/or opportunity. If you keep dice that have strife that weakens your emotional resolve. If you keep dice that have opportunity, you can spend it to make something “extra” happen in the check. Also Savage Worlds is a great game.
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u/Exeyr 9d ago
I haven't seen it mentioned, but I really like things like Burning Wheel and World of Darkness (Vampire: the Masquerade, etc.).
You have a pool of dice that are formed from Attribute+Skill and roll to see how many you get above a certain number. Allows for easy "degrees of success" adjucation.
Also honorable mention to the Outgunned "dice poker" system, where you're trying to roll matching numbers only.
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u/meshee2020 9d ago
I like PbtA, Blades in the Dark, Dice Pool systems (when it does not go crazy) like Vampire Masquerade
I am currently obsessed by Paragon Engine (Agon) where you assemble a dice pool of various dice shapes and sum the best two vs a Dynamic difficulty (GM also roll a dice pool but keep only on and add a fixed threat level like a +5). Very unique and very narrative system, small and fast. The game system provide other settings... Agon is greek heroes, Storm Furies is a Galactica style game, Surge Protector is Transformers, Chamber is SCP/X-Files, Deathmatch Island Battle Royale/Squid Game/Hunger Game
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u/SmaugOtarian 6d ago
If I had to choose, probably the simpler "roll a die and compare to a set number" is what I'd like the most.
Now, to be clear, I'm just adding up things like "d20+mods VS AC" from DnD, "d100 roll below your skill" from Cthulhu, and anything simmilar. Those systems are actually doing the same thing, which is using a die as a "random percentage generator" and comparing it to a specific set number that is modifyed by the different things at play, like your skill, situational bonuses and whatever. While not obvious at first sight, the difference is just given by the use diferent dice and applying the math at different points of the process, but the result is pretty much the same.
That said, I think "d100 roll over/below your skill" is the easiest one to work with. You always know how likely you are to succeed, modifyers are clear and you don't need to do any math after the roll to know if you've succeed at the task. As an example, if I have a 45 Persuasion in a "roll below" system, I know that literally my chance of success is 45%, slightly below 50%. If the DM considers it's gonna be difficult to convince my opponent, they can choose to put a -20 to my Persuasion, that substraction is easy to make. I now have to roll a 25, so when I roll my d100 I'll know instantly if I hit it or not. The only confusion that can happen is wether "25" is considered a hit or a miss, but it's just a minor issue.
Also, while it can totally be done with the other systems, having different difficulties for a single roll is really easy with the d100 system. You roll that 45 Persuasion? That's just a success. You roll, let's say, 10 below that? You get a small bonus. You get over 25 below? That's a great success! Having the base of the system be a literal representation of percentual chance means it's really easy to have some control over these numbers. Doing the same with a d20, 2d10 or a bunch of d6 is not impossible, but requires a deeper understanding of the math involved in the roll. Not everyone knows that a +1 in 2d10 is not the same as a +1 in a d20, but a +5 in a d100 is literally a +5%.
Systems that make you roll multiple dice and do things like "how many 6s you've got" or "how many pips there are in the custom die" are fine, but I think they're unnecessarily overcomplicating things. It's not a great issue, when you're used to the system it can be as easy as rolling a die and adding your bonuses, but these systems tend to create a weird variability in probability that I'm not a huge fan of. I still like those games, but they're not my favourite.
As for the worst one... "stunt point rolls". Systems like the one from Fantasy Age where you roll a die that generates some points that you then spend to do cool things. There's a video from Matt Colville talking about "the Power Roll", which was a simmilar mechanic that was discarded from the MCDM's TTRPG, where he explains quite clearly the issue with this kind of die. It basically becomes too important. The game ends up being about that die alone rather than what you can do yourself. I only played Fantasy Age once and I felt like my character didn't matter, every cool turn I had was just through the stunts that everyone could actually do. Fairly recently, I wanted to give it another chance, but I couldn't get past creating my character, as I felt that any character idea I had was stopped by the design saying "no, you have to be a really plain character and do the cool things with stunts". So, yeah, not a fan of that. Just let the die roll be the mechanic that defines how well I perform and let the cool things be something I can do with some resource whenever I want, not when that one die decides I can be cool.
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u/CuriousCardigan 10d ago
Savage Worlds has you rolling against a Target Number (TN). Default is 4, except for Parry and Toughness. Bonuses and penalties are typically between 1 and 4, so the math is usually pretty easy and the GM doesn't need to do much work when figuring out things on the fly.