Dice Rolling Suggestions

This thread will contain all ideas related to changes to the rolling system. Be sure you've checked out <a href="http://help.roll20.net/dice-rolling-reference/" rel="nofollow">http://help.roll20.net/dice-rolling-reference/</a> Current dice mechanics we are planning to implement that aren't already done: *Exploding rolls with variable minimum roll to explode (e.g. explode 9's and 10's). If your dice mechanic isn't listed, chime in here. We won't add every dice mechanic out there, but we're hoping to add the major ones that multiple systems use.

I'm intrigued, would this be a measure of failures? What context did you try to use this in?

TwoHourWargames' games all use a roll-under system for 'passing' dice. If a character has a Reputation of 4, then when rolling a Leader Lost test, for instance, that character rolls 2d6, and looks for the number of dice that show up equal to or under their current reputation. In this particular example, passing both dice means the character keeps fighting, passing one d6 leads to the character retreating tactically, while passing no dice means the character routs. So, it's still a measure of successes, it's just that this particular system follows the philosophy of 'higher stats and lower rolls are good', rather then the 'higher stats and higher rolls' of many games.

also some games rely on percentile for skills. For example if you have a 50 in say pistols you need to roll a 50 or less on a d100 in order to succeed at that skill.

Interesting. Noted.

Dungenslayers uses roll-under with a d20 for all throws. Basically you have a target number (skill level adjusted with bonuses) and roll against that. If you stay under or hit the target you have a success and the rolled number is directly taken as damage.

I also just realized that many of their games also have you subtract a success for each "1" you roll on a dice. So maybe rather than an * it could be a + or a - (or both) where the + would double the success of the highest possible die number and - would subtract a success from the lowest possible die number. So for example /roll Nd10+->7 would mean any 10 I rolled would count as double but any "ones" rolled would reduce the successes by that amount. I hope all this makes sense.

Very usefull indead, not only for savage worlds.

Please add the functionality to roll several rolls in the same command line, something like: /roll 1d20+5 attack; /roll 2d6+46 damage to roll in the same command attack and damage, at the same time

plus it saves the creators of this fine program to update the dice system every time we make a suggestion.

I also need something similar. A homebrew system I use, is rolled with d6. 4 and above is successes, 6 is a double success and gives a re-roll, 1 subtract a success. I would be nice if that was possible with Roll20.

I think they are going to have to implement some sort of default die system, and use aliases for the default die rolls. OpenRPG did the basic idea of a die well, but it was ridiculously complex to create your own roller with, and you were limited to one roller at a time. My own idea for my own web-VT project was to allow people to create aliases. So /roll 4d in FATE would be mapped to the general roller like: /generic 4d3.addAll(-2) Or Exalted would be /roll 9d mapped to /generic 9d10.tn(7).tn(10) But 10's don't count twice in Exalted for damage. So you can create die aliases: /damage 8d maps /generic 8d.tn(7) The reason this becomes important is there really are a ridiculously large amount of transforms to be done on die sets L5R 3e /roll 9k4.overRoll(8) maps /generic 9d10k4.explode(10) ...which was a somewhat painful one to code. L5R 3e has some skills where numbers lower than normal will only explode once. But in L5R you may also want to intentionally fail, so you might want to keep the lowest instead of the highest dice. So 9l4 instead of 9k4, for example. But then we get into systems where we want to be able to cancel successes. So one game's default oWoD roller might be /roll 10d Maps /generic 10d10.overRoll(10).tn(6).tnCancel(-1) It's been a long time since I wrote it, I should go through it and post a list of functions.

Re roll values: 1d20+5r(1) Re roll 1's 1d20+5r(1,2,5) Re roll 1's, 2's and 5's Custom Dice: #d{*sides*} ---------- number of dice "d" {list of types} Ex: 1d{left_arm, right_arm, left_leg, right_leg, chest, head} (random body part) 5d{head, tails} (5 coin flips)

Not really new systems but a couple of suggestions. Hit the up key to repeat the last die roll, like you would see in a terminal window. Played with a bunch of web devs and IT people last night and that was by far the biggest request. /r d20 should be the equivalent of /r 1d20. Right now it just gives you the highest result. We kept typing it in error.

I made a thread about this, but to consolidate dice rules, I'll mention and explain the Ironclaw system to perhaps work out how it could be implemented: Basics - Mixed Dice Pool (d4,d6,d8,d10,d12), counting successes based on either: Fixed Value (usually 4s or better, but sometimes higher depending on circumstance) Contests (Two sides rolling a set of dice, with the winning side counting successes that beat the losing side's score, or highest showing value across all dice) Bonuses and Penalties come in the form of just adding more dice, so if you have a bonus, you typically get an extra d8 or d12, and if you have a penalty, either the opposing character or GM gets a penalty die they add to their roll. If I currently want to do a check for climbing a wall, have a d12 granted from my character's body attribute, a d10, 2d8, and a d6 granted from ranks and synergy in my climbing skill, the roll would have to be typed out as follows: - /r 1d12>4,1d10>4,2d8>4,1d6>4 So for the time being, I suppose if there were ways to get a faster entry of mixed dice poo, and be able to more easily set a single success counter across a mixed array, that would be real useful.

Aside from actual rolling mechanics, what about keeping track of dice pools? Right now I'm thinking you could use one of the token "health" trackers, but some implementation to support a number of distinct sets of dice would be helpful.

I'll re-post this here since it didn't get merged. I'm not technically inclined enough to describe this mechanically, but I can describe what I'd like to see implemented; A menu which lets you create your own dice, kind of like making a deck of cards. It should let you determine # of sides, and then either a numerical value and/or an image for each side. Finally, a checkbox for explosion or other features. This will cover things like dicepool systems, FATE dice, a variety of homebrew systems, the new The One Ring dice, and others, without putting the onus on you guys to hard-code each one. We can already approximate this with the deck system, it'd just be an improvement if it were in the chat box and the sum of the numerical values appeared plus the images rolled.

Sorry if I missed merges. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to navigate this whole jungle. Feel free to slap me around as needed, folks.

In the Hero System, for 'normal' damage and a few other things, you roll sometimes a bucket of d6 (I had a character once who used to dish out 27 dice when he put his mind to it, so counting pips was not trivial) and then count the result in two ways. The "stun" is the total showing on the dice, and the "body" is zero for each '1' rolled, plus two for each '6', plus one for each other result. I have come across games in which each '10' rolled counts as ten, and you re-roll the die and add. Also variants in which each '10' rolled counts as nine and you re-roll and add. And variants in which a '1' rolled counts as two, but you re-roll and subtract. I've seen games in which you roll dice and count rolls equal to or over as successes, with variants in which '1's are counted as taking away successes to a minimum of minus one total successes, in which '10's count as two successes, or in which '10's count as successes that can't be cancelled by '1's. In "James Bond 007" and my favourite games "ForeSight" and "HindSight" you roll a d100 and compare it to your Success Chance. One-tenth or less is "quality rating 1", one-fifth or less is "quality rating 2", half or less is "quality rating 3", SC or under is a "quality rating 4". A roll over SC is a failure or "quality rating 7", unless it is divisible by 10 (roll ends in "0") in which case it is a botch or "quality rating 10". Exception: a roll of '99' is never better that QR4, and a roll of '00' is never better than QR7. "James Bond 007" rounds the targets up, the other games don't round.

"James Bond 007" rounds the targets up, the other games don't round.

Any chance we can get secret rolls implemented? So that the GM can ask someone for a roll behind the scenes and get it rolled in game back to the GM in a whisper? Would make it easier for some sneakier gameplay.

Pretty sure that is what /gmroll is for, Jon.

@Jonathan doesn't /gmroll /gr already do that? Only the GM and the person who made the roll can see it - or am I thinking of something else?

Kenzerco's Hackmaster "penetrating" dice. Like exploding, but at 1 less value. i.e. 1d6p: rolling 6, 6, 1 tallies to 11. 6 (face value), 5 (6-less-1), 0 (1-less-1).

Oh man! I'm dumb. See, I just missed something... Thanks for the reminder!

I believe Storytelller (or, at least, Cthulhutech) is weird on its dice rolls - you take the highest value, highest multiples added together or highest streak added together if you have 3 or more. If you roll 1, 3, 5, you take 5. If you roll 1, 3, 3, you take 6. If you get, 1, 2, 3, you take 6. Its probably too fiddly to code for though and the game lets you spend points to add additional dice to roll, so its probably best kept as rolling individual dice.

You should allow either d or D for rolls- only lower case works currently.

Kenzerco's Hackmaster "penetrating" dice. Like exploding, but at 1 less value. i.e. 1d6p: rolling 6, 6, 1 tallies to 11. 6 (face value), 5 (6-less-1), 0 (1-less-1). I came in here looking for this mechanic as well

A menu which lets you create your own dice, kind of like making a deck of cards. It should let you determine # of sides, and then either a numerical value and/or an image for each side. Finally, a checkbox for explosion or other features. I suggested something along these lines (although not a "dice creator") when the Kickstarter was still going. I think a UI to build rolls, or just to execute them, would be way cool - maybe to create macros, or maybe just to have it remember recent rolls (like the most recent 5 you've done?). I did a mockup of how I pictured it (note that the dice images are from MapTool's "default" dice image set; I just didn't have any others handy). I think this would improve "user friendliness" in terms of dice rolling, basically (and of course for the "pros," there's always chat commands). Edited to add: should probably say "Recent Rolls" instead of "Last 5 Rolls," but I'm sure you get the point. And, it wouldn't even require images, though they're pretty - a big fat D6 would get the point across too.

A menu which lets you create your own dice, kind of like making a deck of cards. It should let you determine # of sides, and then either a numerical value and/or an image for each side. Finally, a checkbox for explosion or other features. I suggested something along these lines (although not a "dice creator") when the Kickstarter was still going. I think a UI to build rolls, or just to execute them, would be way cool - maybe to create macros, or maybe just to have it remember recent rolls (like the most recent 5 you've done?). I did a mockup of how I pictured it (note that the dice images are from MapTool's "default" dice image set; I just didn't have any others handy). I think this would improve "user friendliness" in terms of dice rolling, basically (and of course for the "pros," there's always chat commands). Edited to add: should probably say "Recent Rolls" instead of "Last 5 Rolls," but I'm sure you get the point. And, it wouldn't even require images, though they're pretty - a big fat D6 would get the point across too. Something like this would be great (well, with something to have dice explode after they reach a certain number added). Very much seconded. It would probably work even better if you didn't HAVE to make it a macro but COULD - so you could either enter your numbers and hit "roll now" or something and/or say "okay, store this as macro #athletics".

Yep, just adding another field with a checkbox that says "Save this as a macro called __________" would give the option to remember that roll for chat us, or not.

What I think would be useful is if you could link dice macro's to tokens, so you have a sub menu on the token and can click the macros you already created from there.

What I think would be useful is if you could link dice macro's to tokens, so you have a sub menu on the token and can click the macros you already created from there. This would make it more akin to how a number of my friends deal with macros in MapTool...it's also useful for NPCing as someone's character when the player isn't around, and their macros are on the token itself.

Is it possible to link a macro to a button that can be but on the character sheet/token/etc...? Would simplify rolling/attacking/etc...

I suggested something along these lines (although not a "dice creator") when the Kickstarter was still going. I think a UI to build rolls, or just to execute them, would be way cool - maybe to create macros, or maybe just to have it remember recent rolls (like the most recent 5 you've done?). This. Please. And on a possibly slightly tangential note perhaps we could see a more "interactive" dice roller instead of writing code. Maybe you could have a dice cup image, and click on the dice you want -- which would add them on the cup. When you had the proper amount of dice, click on the cup and have it roll -- and kudos if you could actually make images of the dice appear on the virtual table itself.

Linking macros to tokens and character sheets (which as of yet are not a feature and we're still debating what form they might take) is a bit beyond the scope of the dice discussion at the moment.

Hi there! I think this is a little OT, but it feels a little unnecessary to start a whole new thread, so hopefully someone will either explain what I'm doing wrong or take into consideration that it would be nice to be able to have this feature. I want to be able to have multiple actions per macro. So, for example, if I have an ability in 4e (which my group is playing right now), it does an attack, but it also has an effect. Now granted, as the DM I like to do descriptions of what's going on, but I also would love to see a macro that would allow me to do this: #charge: /r 1d20+8 /em EAT MY HAMMER, SCUM! Or whatever it is that you want to do. Having up to three or 4 "slots" per macro for actions would make it move more quickly and would be a nice little feature.

Unisystem (All Flesh Must Be Eaten, et al.) uses exploding d10s, but the exploded ones have different shifted values. A 10 followed by a 4 is still a 10. A 10 followed by a 7 is a 13. A 10, followed by a 10 followed by a 7 is 17. It similarly "explodes down" on 1s, possibly creating negative numbers. Dragon Age rolls multiple d6 together and sums its results, but one of those dice is a special die that's used for various things -- so make sure that Roll20 doesn't switch to sorting the XdY results. I'm fine with Roll20 not implementing them, but there was a call for "tell us about dice you know!" Also, I'd love for a "roll a die onto the table" that rolls a die and creates a token with the result on the table. Useful for Fiasco. /rolltable 12d6

Ars Magica has exploding d10s, on a 1 you re-roll and double the next roll. If you roll another 1, you re-roll and quadruple the next roll. If you roll another 1, you re-roll and octuple the roll, etc. Is this something that could be implemented?

FFRPG tends to use multiples like 1.5, .75, etc. We can mimic the results currently by dividing by 10 or 100 in there, but if we do something like (20+2d12)*1.5 it gives us (20+2d12)*15 instead. Our current method is simply to go with (20+2d12)*15/10, and it works fine as a workaround for the moment, and I highly doubt many other users will run up against this issue, so I'm expecting it to fall pretty low on your priority list (if at all), but still thought you would want to know.

One Roll Engine The One Roll Engine rolls pools of d10's (actually, this could be any die type, really, but in ORE games it's d10's) and counts sets of the same number. So a pool of 6d10 that yields 2,2,2,3,5,5 means that you've rolled two sets, 3x2 and 2x5. The first number is the "width" of the set (how many dice are in the set), the second number is the "height" (what the matched number was). Dice that aren't matches are called "waste dice," and they are used in some ORE games and ignored in others. This mechanic is pretty simple to implement - just requires a couple arrays. There are additional "more powerful" dice of varying types but it's more complicated to account for them, so personally I'd offload that to the group. Ubiquity Ubiquity uses any die type, and even results count as successes. So it's really simply a dice pool, but you have to be able to see each die to count successes (so Roll20 covers it already). If you want to implement a specific Ubiquity roll command, though, it's just a binary outcome. You might make a roll command like: /roll Xu where X is the number of dice rolled and the assumed die is a d2. FURPG This one uses a d6, where evens are good, and odds are negative results. The results are listed by indicating how the GM answers the question "Do I succeed?" For example: Good Outcomes: 6: Yes, and... 4: Yes. 2: Yes, but... Bad Outcomes: 5: No, but... 3: No. 1: No, and.... Note that you can also instead use 1, 2, and 3 as the negatives, and 4, 5, and 6 as the positives, but that's not the default for the game (though frankly, it is more intuitive to me!)

Oh, and one random suggestion that is game specific. In Barabarians of Lemuria, you sometimes roll 3d6 and keep the highest 2, and sometimes 3d6 and keep the lowest 2, depending on whether you have a "boon" or "flaw" regarding the situation. It doesn't look like I can specify dropping the highest N dice, or keeping the lowest N (right now it's assumed to always keep the high numbers and drop the lows, I think). If you ever get around to it, it would be handy, but it's not high priority.

Kenzerco's Hackmaster "penetrating" dice. Like exploding, but at 1 less value. i.e. 1d6p: rolling 6, 6, 1 tallies to 11. 6 (face value), 5 (6-less-1), 0 (1-less-1). I came in here looking for this mechanic as well Me too. I actually discussed this at length with Riley before backing Roll20, since I can't find a single dice roller that supports penetration, and he assured me they would do it. But I expect it's probably on a long list of tasks so I'm playtesting with GURPS 4e while I wait to be able to host my HM 5e campaign here. One Roll Engine So a pool of 6d10 that yields 2,2,2,3,5,5 means that you've rolled two sets, 3x2 and 2x5. The first number is the "width" of the set (how many dice are in the set), the second number is the "height" (what the matched number was). FURPG [Ask a yes/no question and roll Xd6. X starts as 1, but various things can increase or decrease it.] Good Outcomes: 6: Yes, and... 4: Yes. 2: Yes, but... Bad Outcomes: 5: No, but... 3: No. 1: No, and.... I'm quite familiar with FURPG but not ORE, but it strikes me that both are already covered with standard dice rolls. For FURPG, just roll Xd6 and pick the best (or worst, in the case of negative dice) just like you would with real dice. For ORE, I could see it being useful to have the roll results sorted since I can see most people grouping real dice together. For instance, in your given example, instead of displaying the dice in the order rolled (like this perhaps: 3,2,2,5,3,5), they could be grouped together in ascending order. That might actually be nice as the standard display unless there there any games where the order in which the dice are rolled matters – I'm not aware of any, but that doesn't disprove their existence. How hard would it be to automatically sort the individual die results before displaying them?

Sorting the rolls before displaying them will prevent users from adopting a convention in which the first (or the last) listed roll is the special die with particular effects.

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I had an idea. A couple of hours ago. We don't we use a somewhat more complete macro language? Then anyone can develop any possible dice rolling schemes and share them with others. I went ahead and developed a prototype. Actually it is quite usable, it has dice, variables, basic expressions (+-*/), logic expressions (and/or/not/==/!=/...), if(), while(), for(), return(), and print(). I used the PEG.js ( <a href="http://pegjs.majda.cz" rel="nofollow">http://pegjs.majda.cz</a> ) parser generator, so it even is easy to maintain and extend.

@Riley: Please have a look at this. It should be very easy to plug this into the existing macro framework. In addition to the current, simple macros! Start at test.html, this is what you need to recreate in roll20. The other files are static. If you are interested, I will continue to develop the diceScript and add all the missing features (comments, more functions, ...).