Generic dice rolling idea , figured I'd drop it here

#1

I was thinking about magic systems today and had an idea for a dice rolling system and wanted to throw it on here for “documentation” as well as get some general opinions.

The idea was that a magic spell would have a specific target number for maximum efficacy and that each pip away, whether positive or negative, would decrease the efficacy. Maybe have anything that is greater than 10 from the target be a catastrophic failure. Obviously, I haven’t fleshed this out at all so it may be a horrible idea.

If anyone knows of a game/system that uses something like this I’d be interested to know about it.

Thanks!
Chris

#2

DCC has a system where you roll to decide an effect tier. It is not exactly your system since players just strive to roll high, not get a specific number, but mathematically it’s very similar.

#3

This kind of reminds me of the White Wolf game system where you have degrees of success and failure.

the Storyteller sets a Target number, typically 6 or 7, and a minimum number of successes required to succeed at a given task, normally 1-3 potentially more. Then the Player rolls their dice pool of d10s and counts any die over the target number. if they meet the minimum number of successes they do the thing, if they dont they fail. There is a margin built into this that allows for partial success (miss by 1 maybe 2), amazing success (double the required successes), and critical failure (no successes and a nat 1s).

#4

I’ve always loved the Storyteller system but those variable target numbers were rough. Tweak those and the botches and it’s great!