How Much Would You Risk? - D&D with only 3d6

[tibbius]

Goodness ... I'm a fount of house rules I guess.

Here's the idea for a really easy way to run adventures. Adapted from Tiny D6 and Ray Otus' There and Back Again rules.

Roll up / build characters and NPCs and monsters as usual.

Then, every challenge or conflict is resolved simply by the players rolling 3d6.

If their character is at a disadvantage in the situation, take only the [1d6] closest to the DM (e.g., the first of [1d6][1d6][1d6]). If that's a 5 or 6, the character succeeds.

If their character is at an advantage, take all three d6. If any is a 5 or 6, they succeed.

If it's basically even odds, take the two closest / first two d6. Again, any 5 or 6 succeeds.

Multiple 5s or 6s give a bonus to the success.

All 1s means a significant setback.

The DM advises the players (before they roll) whether the situation is (dis)advantageous for the character. Then the player and the DM agree on what the character will risk on a failure / gain on a success. Then the player rolls.

In combat, the typical risk would be a bet of hit points. Lose them on failure, take them on success. This would replace rolled damage.

Thoughts?

[Leitz]

While the mechanic is interesting, it would seem to bog down the story. I don't want to spend a lot of time in combat round risk analysis. I'd much prefer to mentally generalize and act. For example, if the lycanthropes were to attack, Bran would have found. Analysis is that Bran would have been hurt, maybe critically so, but the action of protecting his people was worth that risk.

Higher level, or more equipped, characters can have more options during a fight, but the simpler the mechanic the better. If the opponent has a two handed sword, the risk is greater than if they have a broomstick. Accept the risk or not?

[beniliusbob]

This reminds me of the Blades in the Dark action die system. I haven't played it, but on paper it's a very robust system that uses concepts such as position (controlled, risky, desperate), effect (limited, standard, great), and a pushing mechanic (bonus dice if you take "stress," of which your character has a limited pool) to determine the fictional results that flow from the rolls. 6's are unqualified successes, 4's and 5's are a partial success (you succeed, but suffer some kind of consequence), and 1's through 3's mean failure. Multiple 6's are "crits," meaning success with some additional benefit.

Blades is based on World of Dungeons, which I don't know at all, but ostensibly uses this same sort of system for dungeon crawling games (Blades is a thieves guild/heist theme).

They both flow from Apocalypse World and fall into the "Powered by the Apocalypse" genre of games. I have reservations about the PbtA system - I get the impression it is founded on a backlash against the GM role, specifically bad GMs who run as "masters" rather than as "judges" or "adjudicators" - but, on paper anyway, it's a very cool system.