On Thu, 28 Dec 2000, William Olander wrote:
> Right now I'm leaning towards a Dice Pool based system. This is based
> on the simple fact that both projects currently up run the other
> version. In a universe where the numbers just get bigger and bigger I
> find a single die roll to be hard to conceive. The d20 system is well
> balanced for fantasy.. but in a system where some characters can throw
> buildings around and some have trouble lifting their lunch a d20 is
> going to start becoming innacurate. Roll 1d20 and add your +65 bonus
> for strength? Basicly you always have a 1 in 20 chance of failing.
> How are you really stronger than the other guy with a +40 Strength bonus?
You are assuming that the Difficulty is down around 20 for
a d20 system, but this needn't be so. i.e. Suppose Superman (Strength
bonus +65) and Spiderman (Strength bonus +40) both can always lift a
car (Difficulty Class 30). However, Superman has even odds to lift a
battleship (DC 75) while that is impossible for Spiderman.
In general, I would say that dice pool systems *fail* to scale
as well as fixed-die systems. Here by "dice pool" I mean systems where
the number of dice you roll changes with your stat(s), and "fixed die"
you always roll the same die (like 1d20).
At the low end dice pools run into the wall that they can't
represent less than one die. For example, in the Storyteller system
two dice is human average, so there is only one step below that.
However, a fixed-die system like D&D3 you can have negative stats:
so you can differentiate between a human weakling (Strength bonus -3)
and a mouse (Strength bonus -20).
At the high end, dice pool systems simply become unwieldy.
It is a little more difficult to calculate (1d20 + 65) than (1d20 + 10),
but not enormously so. However, throwing 25 dice and counting them
is impractical for real games.
- John
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