Extended Rolls

Originally published August 13, 2014

Another draft article that I'm clearing out. I'm not sure what I will ultimately do with these thoughts but perhaps other people have ideas along these lines.

I've been increasingly dissatisfied with rolling of dice. I keep wanting every roll of the dice to feel meaningful and full of suspense. Which makes Extended Rolls, rolls where the player rolls again and again adding the results up until they reach some target number, very frustrating to me. My focus for this frustration is the World of Darkness system. This is the game I play the most where this type of dice action occurs, but the principle applies elsewhere.

The question specifically is how can something like a Craft roll, an action which logically requires some time, time determined by a skill roll or rolls, be structured to preserve the tension of making those rolls. It is my opinion that each time the dice come out without direct consequences the game suffers, becoming something purely mechanical.

Clearly it can be done. Combat can be seen as an extended roll with each roll of the dice chipping away at the opponent's health. But the Craft roll equivalent is a slugfest where you just swing again and again at an unflinching opponent. Perhaps the game needs active opposition or alternating tactics or perhaps it should all be collapsed into a single roll.

There are a few ways I see handle the issue. In the absence of a single optimal solution, each might work for a given skill or skill application.

Level of Success

The easiest possibility: roll your dice pool, count successes, if you are happy with the results stop, otherwise roll again. This works best for cases where the desired number of success is low such as Medicine rolls. Once you get past 5 or so, or where you need a specific number, this tends to get back to that problem place for me.

Information Dribble

I first saw this in Intruders: Encounters with the Abyss. Basically every 3 successes yields a clue, interesting tidbit, or piece of background information on a subject of research. It helps to spice up an otherwise dull Academics, Investigation, Medicine, or Science roll.

I still like this method and it tends the make the players wonder if they have gotten all of the available information or if a big secret would have been slipped if they had tried a bit longer.

But...I feel as if there is a better way, some way to turn a research montage into something like a chase. I really need to run some of the alternate investigative systems I have and see if the systems there are better or spark something new for me.

Contests

Now we move into territory that feels more like a combat, if less interesting. Each roll is opposed by another character with one or both of them having a target number of successes to reach to end the conflict. It allows some narrative sliding back and forth but still gets old after more than a few rolls.

This works well of Computer hacking rolls, Drive or Athletics based chases, interrogation style Intimidation, and intense Socialize or Persuasion rolls.

I think with the right twist, something that added more options or choices, this would be fine.

Time Limits

More of a tweak on the existing systems, here we care about the time it takes to hack a computer, research a demon, or patch up some wounds. So we track how many rolls it takes.

This is where things get troublesome however. If time become the sole issue, even if there is a hard deadline the task becomes get X successes in Y rolls. Boring.

Larceny verses a static security system is this. So is lock-picking, black market hunting, Survival rolls, Crafts and Expression rolls, and Meditation rolls.

So the question is how to handle it. obvious if don't care about time, we don't roll. but if we do, I'd like to cut down the system to a single roll. Maybe apply a penalty to account for time pressure or use successes to shave off a percentage of the time.

But the roll also account for quality. Should that suffer under a time crunch? Probably.

Conclusion

So I still don't have a solution. I've outlined the problem, looked at some options but the fundamental issue (one which apparently in the minority for being concerned about) remains. It needs to be simple and quick. I'll have to think on it more.