RPG Annoyances: Dice Dictating Story

The seventh and final point from RPG Annoyances was that the Dice Mechanics unduly dictate much of the outcome of the story, thus affecting the types of stories one can tell. Below I will discuss this further, and how to overcome it.

Dice mechanics are at the very core of most RPGs. (And if not dice, some other form of randomization.) Randomization is used to add a sense of uncertainty and of the story unfolding in time. However, the details of the randomization tend to have characteristics that are not appropriate for all story styles. This is what I think causes people to create their own games, to create a new mechanic that will allow them to tell the story they want.

For example, compare a system that relies on 1d20, vs. 3d6. The former is a uniform distribution (all numbers are equally likely) while the latter is a rough approximation of the bell-curve (values in the middle occur more frequently.) Their numerical range is different: 1 through 20 vs. 3 through 18. There are many other characteristics to look at, such as standard deviation (the spread) and mean (average numerical result.) For this example, the 3d6 is less spread out, thus will comparatively produce more consistent numbers.

The point is that, if a game has a fixed set of dice mechanics, it is very likely that you will be locked into the limitations that come along with those. The wild variability of d20 is fine for a hack & slash fantasy story, but not really appropriate for meticulous spy story. The story requires different results from the underlying dice mechanics, yet most RPGs do not have this flexibility.

(There are many other aspects of a game that must be designed around the dice mechanics, but this is not the point of this article.)

The solution is for a gaming system to provide a flexible dice system. This might sound obvious to those green to RPGs, and laughable to those familiar with them. This is because of history, and an erroneous assumption about what the history implies. No gaming system has had a truly flexible dice system that can conform to changing demands such as numerical range, mean, spread, etc. Thus many people would conclude that this goal is impossible. I simply assert that you don’t know until you really try.

My assertion is that this obstacle can be overcome by design, and the result will be a flexible dice system. It will free RPG designers from needing to design rules around the dice. It will enable GMs and storytellers the freedom to create whatever mood they wish. And most importantly, it will allow dice to transparently serve the game, instead of being in the forefront of the game.