Ways To Manipulate Dice Pools
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
- Explode 6’s
- Increase Threshold by N
- Decrease Threshold by N
- Add N dice
- Subtract N dice
- Reroll N dice
- Reroll 1’s
- Reroll failures
- Reroll successes
- Reroll all and take the new result
- Reroll all and take the higher # of hits
- Reroll all and take the lower # of hits
- Count only highest N dice for hits
- Count only lowest N dice for hits
- Add N dice and drop lowest N dice after rolling
- Add N dice and drop lowest N dice after rolling
- Choose N dice to change to desired face
- Use two colors & compare, cancel, add, or subtract
- Upgrade die size by N before rolling
- Downgrade die size by N before rolling
- Change how many Hits are counted on a certain face
- Divide Hits between multiple Target Numbers
- Use excess Hits for extra success
- Use highest die result to determine extra success
- Use lowest die result to determine extra failure
- Use pairs of a certain face to determine extra success/failure
- Count certain face for extra success/failure
- Increase the Target Number
- Decrease the Target Number
- Roll Target Number (usually 2xTN dice)
- Roll a portion of of the Target Number
- Convert the Target Number to dice subtracted from pool
- Convert N dice to flat Hits
- Add N Hits
- Subtract N Hits
- Split pool into multiple smaller pools (resolve separately)
- Roll in stages (first roll determines how many dice are rolled next)
- Set aside dice for later use before rolling
- Set aside hits for later use
- Vary die sizes within the same pool
- Manipulate/determine extra success/failure by the die in a certain position
- Cap maximum # of hits
- Floor minimum # of hits
- 1’s cancel Hits
- Count distinct values only (duplicates don’t add hits)
- Count sequences of hits/straights for extra success
- Botch if no hits and ≥ N failures
- Botch if double 1’s
- Critical if all hits
- Accumulate 1’s or failures for later penalties
- Reroll lowest die for each pair
- Merge dice of certain faces
- Merge pairs of dice
- Replace results instead of rerolling
- Roll, then assign dice to certain abilities/powers (a la Dicey Dungeons)