if you have a fight in your RPG, you may like this dice system

this is a dice tug of war to advance enough to take the objective or eliminate enemy

this works for solo play or multiplayer, its easily modified for even more than two players by reducing all enemy sides.

the target distance and combat units can be differrent for each side, roll 10 d6s for target distance, and roll 10 d6s for the number of combat units for each side

example results
your rolls
target distance 37
number of combat units 42

enemy rolls
target distance 41
number of combat units 22


each turn do the following

 roll 3 dice for you and 3 dice for enemy.
 first die is movement towards target,
 second die is cover(shelter from on target hits),
 third die is shots you fire on target.

increase enemy target distance by enemy movement die roll and reduce your target distance by enemy movement die roll
increase your target distance by your movement die roll and reduce the enemy target distance by your movement die roll

reduce your combat units by enemy shots that got past your cover die roll,
reduce enemy combat units by your shots that got past enemy cover die roll,

if a side reaches its objective target distance they win, or if one side loses all its combat units it loses.

if the game is not won yet roll again untill there is a winner.

Without a setting this just seems a dice convention

Though, good on you for trying one out. I've made a few that I've used for or as additions to games.

It's certainly efficient, but it kind of looks like it takes out any strategy at all. More like a boardgame system than an RPG system. Random HP pool based on luck (two random HP pools, really), and then random figures each time. In fact, saying it just now makes me realize it's basically the card game "War." You just keep flipping cards til someone wins.

I can see the appeal in that it simplifies, but it takes out pretty much every reason I'd put or want to participate in a fight in an RPG (or in any game, honestly).

I was thinking of objectives like a chase, and combat units could be replaced by resolve, but I can see your points.

I saw this as a WoD aid for vampire battles of more than one maybe, because stoytelling RPGs like simple stuff.

I designed it for a war/boardgame, but I always come back to RPG play

I also think this would be suitable for a card game
This message was last edited by the user at 13:42, Sun 01 Apr 2018.

I think it's a good starting point however it is entirely random. If you have a purely random system with neither side getting the advantage then you might as well simplify and flip a coin.

What needs to be done is have the ability to add simple modifiers to reduce the RNG and add in some nod to skills or stats while remaining system agnostic, so something like:

+20 for major advantage, +10 for minor advantage etc.

The actual numbers require math to figure out their effects.

praguepride thankyou I am happy for your opinion, I can see mapping it to stats would be better.

I think I have found a use for this completely random system, maybe when you have lots of minions under your control in a fight, like a pack of wolves and a hord of zombies, but as you say critical hits could very much improve things

I'll think on the system tonight. As I said I like the framework but needs more player agency beyond "rolling a bunch of dice"

For example:

You can roll 3d6 and get to chose one die result each to

• Add to your result
• Subtract from your opponent's result
• Attack your opponent

The end result of something like that is still pretty random but players at least feel there is some agency to their decisions.

So if you roll 6,5, and 3...which number do you assign to which stat? Is it better to try and hold your opponent back? Advance your own spot? Outright attack?