A simple dice system I made up. Thoughts?

[MDL]

The PbT (Play-by-trait) System is a very simple dice system that is designed for play-by-post roleplaying where the narrative is the main focus and intent. I know some people hesitate to play dice games, but just follow me here, this is extremely simple.

Why create this system?
The ultra-complex dice systems that are among the most popular today don't (in my opinion) lend themselves well to PbP roleplaying. I'm aware that there are groups that make this complexity work quite well on the forums, but with my personal intention as a GM always being on the writing and collaborative story aspect of PbP, they don't fit me well. With that said, what I do like about dice systems, in general, is the idea of randomness and established character proficiency. Freeform games have a tendency to become less dynamic than I think serves them best and with the addition of this simple system, I will hardcode that dynamism into the roleplaying experience.

How it works
Players pick 5 traits from the trait list during character creation. These are areas of expertise, skill, and/or an innate ability of your character. If you think that there is a trait missing that covers a specific aspect of your character, please send me a PM and I will add it to the list.

Dice are only rolled for tasks that are considered hard for your character. For a character with the Athletic trait, dice will not be rolled when attempting to vault a neck-high fence. But if the same character wants to scale the side of a building and get in through a third-story window, dice are rolled. This removes the need to establish difficulty in rolls and only implements dice at certain times, therefore fulfilling their purpose of adding randomness to unfolding events.

All dice rolls are 1d6. 1-3 is a failure and 4-6 is a success. Traits add +1 or +2 to a dice roll which gives roughly a 33% and 16% chance of success respectively. This does not mean however that dice rolls open up all skillsets for all characters. If your character isn't a hacker, he/she can't hack. That's a non-starter. Most characters could theoretically attempt to climb the side of the building to the second-story window, but the 50% failure chance should be enough to deter players whose characters wouldn't be inclined to attempt such a risky endeavor.

Your thoughts on this? Anything you would add?

 

[official clown business]

Yeah, we can all agree that dice systems like D&D are more for live roleplaying experiences, since they go by at a faster pace and allow for a more reactive style of roleplaying. A text-based roleplay on a forum generally isn't designed to move as quickly, so a simplified system looks like it would work a lot better here.

I remember being in a D6-based roleplay a couple years back, although it was far more luck-based than this one. Are you planning on using this system soon?

 

[MDL]

A text-based roleplay on a forum generally isn't designed to move as quickly, so a simplified system looks like it would work a lot better here.

I remember being in a D6-based roleplay a couple years back, although it was far more luck-based than this one. Are you planning on using this system soon?

Have you played much dice on the forum before? Would love to hear your experience. I'm still in the process of world-building, which I'm roughly half the way through. So within the coming weeks, I guess. But I still haven't ultimately decided whether to go with this kind of light dice system or fully freeform.

 

[official clown business]

No, I haven't really tried any dice roleplays on the forum, and D&D is something I've only watched, but I've had a couple experiences in the past.

Spoiler: I discuss my inspirations and experiences

I had watched a tabletop roleplaying series before which used cards and a greatly simplified D20 system. Rolling 5 or lower was a failure, 1s and 20s were criticals, and some the cards used to build your character could affect what happened as a result of these rolls (ex. one race had the ability to always roll at least 2 dice). There were no proficiencies or traits of any kind, making things simple and relatively easy to keep track of.

The D6-based roleplay I mentioned earlier didn't happen on this forum, but on the one I used before RPN. I didn't think the system was particularly amazing; proficiencies were scarce and there was a flat 50% success chance with 6s causing you to overextend and somehow fail your action anyway. Did I mention the roleplay also had an extremely high lethality rate, starting from the very first post we made?
It was a little impromptu and the guy gave us some quick characters based on the names we came up with, but since he was probably the best writer on the forum the experience was something I would definitely be willing to go through again.

I've thought about trying something similar to these from time to time, but instead I'll probably keep it freeform for the most part and save dice for Quests.

 

[MDL]

I think the percentage chance is what needs to be done right. And also eliminating as many roll situations as possible. So it doesn't bog the pace of the writing experience. But I'm also hesitant at this point. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Winter_Wolf]

In my limited experience of trying to make a Victorian/Civil War battle resolution system on the side, it's far easier to complicate things than make them simple and efficient lol.

In my system, I realized even as I tried to simplify it, that it could still require a number of rolls per battle phase! Sure I could've made it like a 1 phase all out battle where 1 roll determines casualties, but I wanted to make it a bit more realistic. Armies would split into a center, right flank, and left flank, and each group of 5,000 soldiers would be rolled as a Regiment. Assuming the attacker wanted to keep pressing attacks, they'd keep going until the rolls made either their own Regiments or the defender's get up to about 60% casualties, meaning the unit is pretty much broken and fleeing. Ideally a flank could be broken, so that one side could start enveloping the enemy and bring 2 flanks against one of the enemy's. But even the 60% rule is an unrealistic simplification, as a group of conscripts might break way sooner, whereas diehards might stand their ground pretty much to the last. Anyways, you can see how it's easy to snowball more things to roll! lol.

Maybe I'll revisit my project and try to make as simple as possible!