When
I first came to Roll20 I naturally wanted to know how to represent my
preferred game system. After some research, fiddling about, and the
help of other members and the excellent Dev team, I found the answers
I needed. Maybe this will help you too and save you some time. =)
I
made this to just be a quick reference and introduction to nWoD
systems in the Roll20 Dice Engine. Please feel free to add here any
other thoughts or questions about representing nWoD. In this way we
can best help each other realize nWoD games in Roll20. =)
I
will be slowly building on each component of the rolling formula to
best illustrate it.
1) nWoD uses the d10, so our rolls will revolve around that. To roll in
chat the command is /roll or /r followed by the number of the die
type to be rolled.
/r
5d10 will roll five d10s.
2)
To represent the “10-again” rule (called “Exploding Dice” in
other systems) you add an ! after the die type, like so:
/r
5d10!
The
! symbol denotes the highest result (in this case a 10) as
“Exploding,” or “Again.”
2a)
Sometimes
special rules allow "9-again," where both 9s and 10s
explode, or "8-again," where 8s, 9s and 10s explode.
To represent other Exploding numbers, we use the Greater Than or
Equal To symbol ( > ) after the ! followed by the Exploding number,
like so:
/r
5d10!>8
That
roll represents 8-again, where 8s, 9s and 10s all explode.
3)
nWoD doesn't add up dice rolls, it uses a Target Number system
(usually 8.) Every die that comes up greater than or equal to the
Target Number is considered a success. We represent that by placing
the dice pool roll inside brackets, followed by > and the Target
Number, like so:
/r
{5d10!}>8
This
is 5d10, Ten-Again, with a Target Number of 8. A pretty standard
nWoD roll. The output from the roll will inform you of how many die
results qualified as successes.
Using
what we've learned prior, here's 9-again with a standard Target
Number:
/r
{5d10!>9}>8 4)
In rare instances the game calls for 1s to subtract from successes.
In these cases, follow your Target Number with f1, like so:
/r
{5d10!}>8f1 5) If you want more advanced ways to keep track of character sheets and leverage the Roll20 system, you can try this. nWoD is a dice pool system. For example:
a character has 3 Dexterity and 2 Firearms. He wants to fire a gun,
and the gun gives him +2 dice. It's a foggy night which makes it hard to aim, giving him a -3 penalty. This becomes a dice pool of 3+2+2-3, for
a total of 4 dice.
Make
a character in Roll20. Click on the “Journal” icon in the right
sidebar. Next to “Characters” click on “+ Add.”
Go
to the section labeled “Attributes.” Click on “+ Add.” Give
the Attribute a name and a value. For example, I made a character
with two Attributes: Dexterity, with a value of 3, and Firearms, with
a value of 2.
Add
two more Attributes. I call mine PosMod and NegMod, for positive and negative modifiers. I gave them values of 2 and 3 respectively.
With
Attributes for these four variables, I then created an Ability macro
that lets me roll a Ranged attack.
Go
down to the section labeled “Abilities” and click on “+ Add.”
Click on the pencil to edit the Ability. For this example I named
mine “Ranged,” to represent a ranged attack.
In
the bottom field enter in the macro you want to associate with this
Ability. A macro is just a stored command string that you can easily
activate later without typing it all out.
We
want this Ability to reference the character's Attribute values so it knows how many dice to roll. We do this
by telling it to roll (Attribute)d10 instead
of giving it a set number of dice to roll.
When
typing in your formula, be sure to use the @ symbol to insert your
Attribute, then type your next key, then
go back and remove the space between the two. The system is a
little finnicky and if you don't do it in this manner it may not work. When you're done editing click the green checkmark and then click “Save Changes.”
The
final result should look something like this: /r {(Dexterity+Firearms+PosMod-NegMod)d10!}>8 The end result of this is that it rolls (3+2+2-3)d10, or 4d10, Ten-Again, with a Target Number of 8.
While a little more complicated at first, this system can be greatly beneficial in the long run since you can keep track of character sheets and common rolls will update automatically as the character's traits advance.
There
are a few different ways you can roll this Ability: 5a) You can open the
character sheet of the character by clicking on his name, then
clicking on the die icon next to Ability name. 5b) If you want a
quick button for this Ability to appear on your screen, tick the
“Show in Macro Bar?” box under the Ability. Be sure that "Show macro quick bar?" is also enabled under settings. 5c) Finally, you can roll
the macro directly in chat by typing:
/r
%{Name|Ability}
6) Mods can change frequently. You don't have to constantly open up
and edit the character every time they do.
Instead,
create a token. Associate that token with the character. Associate
one of the three available bars with the PosMod Attribute, and another of the bars with the NegMod Attribute. Now, whenever you
update the values in those bars on the token, you change the Mod values in use for that character.
That's all I know for now! =) Let me know if I've missed anything or if you have ideas you'd like to add about how best to represent nWoD in Roll20! Thanks! =D