In this diary, I provide an in-depth look at of the different types of dice, briefly discuss the core mechanic, and provide a downloadable PDF symbol reference. Check out the diary here .

I really enjoyed writing this diary, and am glad to be able to "pop the hood" on the game design a bit more and showcase one of the signature elements of the new edition -- the dice system.

UPDATE: I've added some additional sneak peek content to the end of the diary, providing a look at how dice pools are created, and have inclued an example of assembling a dice pool in the game.

I think I can safely say that we all appreciate the info being shared.

I was very skeptical of the new edition. After watching the videos of the GenCon seminar I had a much better outlook on the game. The biggest concern that I had was the dice. It seemed a bit fiddly and it seemed like a few of the dice, if used solely for storytelling (Blessings, Banes, etc) would be unneccessary for most purposes. After all, Jay went to some length explaining how they 'help tell the story', etc. Thanks to this, it seems like all the symbols *do* have an in-game rules effect. That is a relief, and this diary helps explain quite a bit how the various dice symbols will apply through a purely rules perspective. I think it might actually work out ok. Thanks a bunch!

And for a bit of fun, now that folks are armed with the dice descriptions and symbol references, how would you as a GM interpret the results of Mellerion's Athletics check from the example I provide at the end of the Designer Diary, based on this dice pool:

ynnen said:

I assume that no additional dice has yet been rolled for the Righteous Success on his skill dice, so I'll just count that as rolling a blank for the sake of simplicity.

So...

It takes Mellerion a little while to begin, as he tests the cliff for solid handholds . As he scales the sheer wall of rock, a cascade of dirt and rubble showers down upon him, hindering his progress further and causing him to twist his ankle even as he stops himself slipping entirely. Eventually, in spite of the difficulties, he reaches the top, a little the worse for wear but otherwise triumphant.

Definitely appreciated. Especially the inclusion of the Example of Assembling a Dice Pool at the end. I was a bit on the fence regarding the new dice pool mechanic, but after reading this new Designer Diary I can really see its potential value as a story-telling aid now that I have a better understanding of what all the symbols represent. I really like the idea that a Task can succeed but have a negative aspect tied to it, or fail yet have a positive side. That opens up numerous possibilities that a simple pass/fail system using standard dice can't really provide.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

+1 Fortune Point for noting that Mellerion's Player gets to roll an additional yellow expertise die for generating a Righteous Success on the original roll of the dice pool.

I figured someone would catch that, but wanted to see how quickly someone would notice!

Mellerion powers over the less steep cliff base on strength alone, making good time. At the point where the cliff turns more vertical he pauses to assess his route. The extra moment delays him a bit but it does reveal a nice vertical crevice over to his left which he clambers over to and begins his ascent again. Half way up the crevice, a rain drenched section of shale breaks free above him, casting debris in his eyes (one of the banes, resulting in a possible holdover to be transferred into misfortune dice on his next roll) and forcing him to reevaluate the situation. He notices a section of sturdier roots above the washout, and figures he can possibly make the jump and grab hold to continue. His Athletics serves him well as he propells himself upwards and makes the grab. He successfully mounts the cliff but that last maneuver really taxed his hands, providing an additional bane (again, possibly rolled over into a misfortune die for a future roll where he's utilizing his hands).

That's of course utilizing the chaos star as a bane and not adding a righteous success reroll.

Not sure if the rules will address this or not but I'd probably lean towards letting the player narrate on success while I'd narrate on failure. I would also tend to be open to suggestions from the player as to what he thinks cool banes or boons would be for the situation.

Well, he takes a while and makes it to the top, but that Chaos symbol plus a bane means that he dislodges a large boulder that falls on one of his friends still at the bottom of the cliff. I think it's time for an article on how damage works. : )

I love being the GM.

I continue to like what's been done with this particular dicepool mechanic. Even moreso maybe with the further clarification. As expected, they're not "stealing" the story or diminishing the roleplaying but rather adding to and supporting. However, I will say that I have my reservations about the length of time it may take to compute and put into action.

I think, or hope, that with even a little practice we'll begin to read these very fast. I believe, like anything else, it will become second nature with practice. I think the colors and symbols are absolutely necessary to maximize the speed of reading the rolls and doing what the system is trying to do with them. Like it or hate it, there's just no way you could efficiently achieve what the system is trying to achieve with numbered dice and without the colors. Opinions will vary on whether its worth having the dice do what they're doing (I for one do like it very much), but I think its hard to deny that the symbols are necessary for efficiency.

Still, the amount of time needed for each roll could make or break it. I know that I took at least a couple minutes to formulate my reading above, as I clicked back and forth between the pdf and the diary to make sure I was getting the colors and symbols straight. Two minutes is a long time for a dice reading.

donbaloo said:

I would imagine that interpreting the dice may be a bit slow at first, but after a few games it will likely become fairly routine. What I would do is just focus on the more important dice rolls until you become more comfortable reading the dice instead of trying to narrate every single roll. Then once you become accustomed to the dice and the system you can narrate more and more rolls without it slowing the games pacing as much.

I also really like the idea of letting players do the interpreting for some rolls (like character success) and leaving the GM to interpret the rest. This will help make the game feel more like an interactive story where the players are actual participants in the narration rather than just along for the ride. I would even grant bonus xp for exceptional narrations.

ynnen said:

Mellerion starts scaling confidently but, halfway through the climb, a section of wet dirt crambles, loosening the rock he was holding onto. He soon realises he is tumbling down the slope, damaging his clothes and hands before his training allows him to get a hold on another rock. He decides the wet section that gives a quick access to the top is too dangerous and descends a bit to search for a better spot for continuing the climb; after some minutes of more or less horizontal movement, he finds a drier area of the cliff he uses to finish his climb.

As mentioned by other posters, Mellerion still gets to add another Expertise Die, so the results could still change.

As for the Banes, I would make him roll one less Characteristic Die next time he needs to use his hands (Bane result). Also, his actual set of clothing is now ruined so, until he buys a new set of clothing, he'll roll one extra Challenge Dice in social interactions with people that are suspicious of beggar looking types (Chaos Star).

ynnen said:

Thanks a lot for the information. The dice pool mechanic looks great so far and I think it was a corageous and innovative move to apply it to an RPG . I hope the game will be a success: I would like to see more designers seeing here a success and start using dice pools in their RPGs, as I think they make a more interactive story and help interpreting the results.

One question, though, I see you have included the copy of a spell in the article but have not commented anything about the card. The art, as usual in FFG games, is amazing, but I got a bit anxious with the words "Rank 1" and "3 Power". What do they mean? Please don't tell me the magic system is moving in the direction of D&D (meaning "spell levels" and artificial limitation of the number of spells you can do per day), as that would, in my opinion, be a step back in the design of magic systems when compared with the 2nd edition.

In my opinion, the dice mechanics you have designed for 3rd edition would be a perfect match for the sort of Magic mechanics created for the 2nd edition of WFRP. The new magic system does not need to be a copy of the 2nd edition one, of course, but the idea of being able to cast as many spells as you want to but always with a risk was innovative and fell in the mood of the Warhammer universe. WIth pools of dice plus cards for the spells, such a system would rock!

So, thanks again for the info (the game is looking better every day) and I look forward to your next diary entry (hopefully about the Magic systems ).

Nice one. Now I understand how it works. Before this article, I thought you'll add the stance dices to the pool, now I know that you only need to swap ability dices - this means fewer dice rolls, which is always good. By the way, the whole system reminds me a bit of reading runes for divnation... Dou you have runecasters at FFG?

cogollo said:

I think the spells you can cast will be limited by your wizard careers rank (just like in WFRP, or almost like by your magic atrribute in WFRP2), and recharging is also mentioned.

Oh, and Omen is a spell of the Celestial Order. I don't know who asked it, but here's the answer: there will be other orders, not just bright wizards.

I may be wrong, it happens, but I interpreted the Rank # on the spell cards to mean how skilled you are in that particular spell, kind of like the different levels of training with regular skills, allowing for more "skill" dice to be rolled while casting to effect a better outcome.

E

ejacobs said:

I like this interpretation. I prefer it to limiting the caster artificially by having "spell levels". I liked the 2nd edition Magic system because even a newbie wizard could try to cast a powerful spell, though with a lot of risk.

When I saw the first diary entries, I thought that in the new Magic system, to cast a spell, you would need to obtain a certain number of successes and that Banes obtained in the dice would bring with them Tzeentch's curses.

Maybe the "3 power" means the number of successes you need to cast a spell, I would prefer it to your Wizard having x power points per day and "spending" them to cast spells. I always thought of such systems as being extremely artificial and not fun at all (that's also the reason why D&D never was my favourite game).

Anyway, one other thing I would like is if they can provide variant rules. The game could come with 2-3 mechanics to interpret the results for combat and magic specially.

cogollo said:

Surely Tzeentch's Curse would be universally triggered by rolling a Chaos Star when attempting to cast a spell...

cogollo said:

I thought that the 3 power had something to do with the ingredient because it was right next to it. I have a feeling that the "recharge tokens" mean that when you use them all you have to cast the spell again to benifit from it's effect. So I guess they are just for the spell duration.

lordsneek said:

This is also a very interesting interpretation... So the number of successes you rolled could determine the duration of the spell or how powerful its effects... That would make a lot of sense! You could still cast the spell as many times as you want, each time risking the dreaded Bane or Chaos Star appearing!

Now I'm really itching for the next developer's diary entry! The more I read about the game, the more I like it (I have already agreed with some friends to start a campaign after Christmas).

ynnen said:

ynnen said:

Hi Ynnen,
I would interpret the results very slowly indeed. Maybe I'm a bit stupid, or my heads wired up the wrong way, but I find this pictorial display more of a riddle than an aid. Sure, with practice I can get familiar with their meaning but I'm still looking at a time consuming process. For every task resolution one must take into account stance and all manner of effects to construct a dice pool unique to any given situation, from there the dice are rolled and in some cases extra dice are rolled again, then comes the task of giving these symbols meaning by consulting all manner of charts depicted on bits of card that may cause other effects that may result in the to-ing and fro-ing of tokens on said bits of card then the GM must finally make up a story that he thinks the dice represent (and as we are now dealing with interpretation rather than absolutes the player may see things very differently.).
The sheer unwieldiness of this task resolution system will destroy the flow of the narrative, the building of tension, take up a lot more time and probably test the patience and goodwill of the players involved. Previous editions of WHRP presented a quick and easy way of task resolution (although combat can be clunky) with elaboration being the Provence of GM and Player as befitting the context and mood at that time. From Call of Cthulhu to 4thEd D&D it’s all about rules that resolve quickly and keep the pace, whether it’s slow burning terror or high-octane God-bashing. This new edition boldly eschews these tried and tested methods which makes it quite a gamble for the $100 price tag.
Maybe I've been too harsh, maybe playtesting tells a different story, but I feel that there are enough facts now to form a concern that there is too much emphasis on the dice and the cardboard tools and charts that come with them. So sorry Ynnen but when it comes to my custom.... No dice.

Gruuber said:

Right on.

In addition, what is occur to me, is that in the end we have: success of failure. As always.

Gruuber said:

You say this as if it is a universal certainty, when it is in fact far from certain. I have played a lot of RPGs in the nearly 30 years I've been playing games, and this was no more time consuming than adding up a series of dice. No, it is not as fast as a simple percentage under/over roll, but neither did the percentages give the players or GM hooks into the story. As always, you can take them or leave them; you can ignore or use the cards relying on the symbols and merely focus on the successes versus the failures.

Maybe this new iteration is not your thing; maybe it doesn't work for a lot of people, but I absolutely dispute the claim that this dice mechanic destroys the narrative. I read through the symbol sheet once, and it took me a handful of seconds to read that result, but the dice gave me several very quick ideas on how to add narrative to the interpretation beyond a mere success.

Gruuber said:

1. You've got to be kidding saying interpreting this result is slow...

There are 3 hammers (successes) and 1 crossed swords (failures)... 3-1=2 successes, so the action is a success... you don't need to be Einstein to interpret the basics of that pool of dice...

WFRP 2nd edition and/or D&D have a lot of bonuses/penalties you have to take into account, so at the end you end up spending more time than what you think deciding whether the action was a success or not...

plus you got a lot of extra details you can decide to use or not (these details were not in WFRP 2nd edition, so adding them to the maths is comparing pears and apples).

2.You also say "...then the GM must finally make up a story that he thinks the dice represent... the player may see things very differently"...

I thought we were talking about roleplaying here, not about algebrae or Tide of Iron. I thought the GM interpreted a lot of things in RPGs but maybe my gaming club is full of even freakier people than I thought.

Gruuber said:

"The sheer unwieldiness...."!!!!

Have you ever really played D&D 3.5 or 4th edition? How much time do you need to calculate all your bonuses/penalties when the heroes are 5th level or more?... the Wizard casts Haste, the Priest Bless, the Druid casts Barkskin on your Fighter and you decide to give yourself a -2 to your attacks for a +2 to your Damage... then you charge the Hobgoblin and roll 1d20 +7 (Str+basic attack + weapon focus) +1(charging)+1(haste)+1(bless)-2(Power Attack) against the AC 18 of the Hobgoblin... wait, your Rogue colleague is flanking the Hobgoblin, so you get an extra +2 to the attack...

and that's only to decide whether you have hit or not! And WFRP 2nd edition was not so messy only because the combat system was simple and, sorry to say, a bit clunky (though I liked it and only created a couple of house rules for my campaign).

Anybody who has played Descent can tell you that interpreting the results of a pool of dice takes a few seconds at maximum...

now, the time wasting part of pools of dice is indeed grabbing the correct dice, so that's why I bought 3 extra sets of dice for my Descent game, then I let the players have only the dice they need to roll 90% of the time... so you can do the same with WFRP 3rd edition...

"sacrilege!!" - say some people in this forum- "FFG wants to get rich selling us weird-looking dice"... exactly what my grandpa said when he saw me opening the D&D Basic Red box 20 years ago... the irony.