Ways To Manipulate Dice Pools

Ways To Manipulate Dice Pools
Photo by Nic Rosenau / Unsplash

I've been pondering mechanics for the magical girl game I'm designing. Lots of success-counting dice pool games use a mostly very simple mechanic – +/- dice to your pool. This is a good mechanic because it's very easy to grasp. However, I've been inspired by Dicey Dungeons and the unique class mechanics in the game Nimble, I think there's interesting room even in a relatively narrative game for pool manipulation mechanics. So, here are some of the mechanics I've brainstormed. This is not an exhaustive list, and certainly many of the ideas are bad, of course. Hopefully this can be useful to anyone else searching for dice pool inspiration.

Default Assumption: Roll a number of dice; count a Hit at or above Threshold (usually 4+); compare Hits to Target Number

  1. Explode 6’s
  2. Increase Threshold by N
  3. Decrease Threshold by N
  4. Add N dice
  5. Subtract N dice
  6. Reroll N dice
  7. Reroll 1’s
  8. Reroll failures
  9. Reroll successes
  10. Reroll all and take the new result
  11. Reroll all and take the higher # of hits
  12. Reroll all and take the lower # of hits
  13. Count only highest N dice for hits
  14. Count only lowest N dice for hits
  15. Add N dice and drop lowest N dice after rolling
  16. Add N dice and drop lowest N dice after rolling
  17. Choose N dice to change to desired face
  18. Use two colors & compare, cancel, add, or subtract
  19. Upgrade die size by N before rolling
  20. Downgrade die size by N before rolling
  21. Change how many Hits are counted on a certain face
  22. Divide Hits between multiple Target Numbers
  23. Use excess Hits for extra success
  24. Use highest die result to determine extra success
  25. Use lowest die result to determine extra failure
  26. Use pairs of a certain face to determine extra success/failure
  27. Count certain face for extra success/failure
  28. Increase the Target Number
  29. Decrease the Target Number
  30. Roll Target Number (usually 2xTN dice)
  31. Roll a portion of of the Target Number
  32. Convert the Target Number to dice subtracted from pool
  33. Convert N dice to flat Hits
  34. Add N Hits
  35. Subtract N Hits
  36. Split pool into multiple smaller pools (resolve separately)
  37. Roll in stages (first roll determines how many dice are rolled next)
  38. Set aside dice for later use before rolling
  39. Set aside hits for later use
  40. Vary die sizes within the same pool
  41. Manipulate/determine extra success/failure by the die in a certain position
  42. Cap maximum # of hits
  43. Floor minimum # of hits
  44. 1’s cancel Hits
  45. Count distinct values only (duplicates don’t add hits)
  46. Count sequences of hits/straights for extra success
  47. Botch if no hits and ≥ N failures
  48. Botch if double 1’s
  49. Critical if all hits
  50. Accumulate 1’s or failures for later penalties
  51. Reroll lowest die for each pair
  52. Merge dice of certain faces
  53. Merge pairs of dice
  54. Replace results instead of rerolling
  55. Roll, then assign dice to certain abilities/powers (a la Dicey Dungeons)