Saturday, July 30, 2016

Tunnels and Trolls: 6d6 Max System

Thinking about the "lots of dice" issue with Tunnels and Trolls, especially in regards to MR and possibly rolling dozens of dice, I came up with this system:

If you roll 6d6 or less, roll that.
If you roll more than 6d6, use this chart:


Dice # White Dice White Damage # Red Dice Red Damage
7d6 5 x1 1 x2
8d6 4 x1 2 x2
9d6 3 x1 3 x2
10d6 2 x1 4 x2
11d6 1 x1 5 x2
12d6 6 x2 - -
13d6 5 x2 1 x3
14d6 4 x2 2 x3

You need two colors of dice here, six white and six red. You see the pattern, for every die above six, replace one of the dice with a doubled up die. When the number is divisible by six, replace them all with multiplied dice.

So a roll of 10d6 would be two white dice, counted as-is; and four red dice, counted double. Remember to double things like spite damage as well when applying a multiplier. So if you rolled:
white 3, white 6, red 1, red 6, red 2 and red 5 this would equal
3 + 6 + (1 x 2) + (6 x 2) + (2 x 2) + (5 x  2) = 37 damage, and 3 spite damage
If the total dice throw is divisible by 6, just throw white dice with a multiplier equal to the number of dice thrown divided by 6. For example:
60d6 = 6 white dice with a multiplier of x10
If you have a remainder after dividing by 6, roll that many red dice and take that many white dice away. Make the red multiplier one higher than the white multiplier:
62d6 = 4 white dice with a multiplier of x10, and two red dice with multipliers of x11

The 10d6 System

Now, I am using six dice, but if you wanted to roll a maximum of 10d6 this system works just as well, you will need ten dice of each color (red and white), and the number you divide by becomes 10 instead of 6. For example:
60d6 = 10 white dice with a multiplier of x6
67d6 = 3 white dice with a multiplier of x6, and seven red dice with a multiplier of x7.
The more dice you throw, the smoother your bell curve will be. The less dice, the steeper and more random the result. The system uses multiplication to make up for not rolling dice, but the numbers generated should fall roughly in the same range, and save you a lot of time counting and adding. If you don't have 60d6 this may also save you from rolling a lot of dice over and over again and adding them up.

I think 10d6 is easier math-wise, since the one's digit is the number of red dice and then you just fill to ten dice with leftover white dice. The white die multiplier is the tens digit, and the red die multiplier is the white die's multiplier plus one. If you have ten dice of two colors this may be the faster way to do the math, although you are adding 10d6 instead of 6d6. More dice is easier math, but more adding.

Everybody Must Agree!

As with all speed of play systems and changes, make sure your group knows you are using them and agrees to them before play. This is more of a house-rule on how many dice are thrown at the table than a real change to the rules, but it does have the potential to create more extreme results due to less dice being thrown.

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