Dice Pools of Reasonable Size

Simple dice pools are amongst my favorite innovations in RPG rules engineering, especially when the dice have six sides, but there is a downside: adding the results of Big Gobs of Dice. Here I am referring to the standard dice pool made famous with Ghostbusters, Star Wars, and The D6 System, i.e. abilities are represented by a number of six-sided dice that you roll in an effort to equal or exceed a target number or beat the roll of an opponent. Sheer elegance in its simplicity!* The problem, my friends, is that the number of dice one must roll and count becomes unwieldy and — after a while — a tad wearisome. What to do?

One could substitute binary dice or coins in the manner of Prince Valiant or Faery's Tale, which doesn't reduce the number of randomizers, but does increase the speed with which the average player can add them; or one could read the dice normally, but reduce the number of dice rolled. The latter method I call

Dice Pools of Reasonable Size

This method requires a complete rethinking of character abilities and target numbers, but the key is Extreme Simplification. (Enjoying the uppercase shenanigans? Excellent.) Extreme Simplification enables Easy Memorization resulting in Maximum Fluidity of Play. (O.K., enough shenigans.) In other words, we will reduce the number of dice in the pool to the minimum possible that is required. Abilities (characteristics, attributes, etc.) will vary from 1 to 3, with 2 being average. Specialties (skills, talents, etc.) will vary from 1 to 2, with 1 representing competance and 2 representing mastery. At most, a character with the highest possible attribute and mastery in a skill will be rolling 5 dice.

Such a change in the size of dice pools will naturally require a change in target numbers. I propose the following difficulty chart:

• 4 = Low Difficulty
• 8 = Moderate Difficulty
• 12 = High Difficulty
• 16 = Extreme Difficulty

I think this could probably be applied to any D6 role-playing game, but I have not yet playtested any of this. Use at your own risk. And please comment if you do (or if you have any thoughts whatsoever on the topic).

* The Middleman forever!