I have a player in my group that likes the games I run but has a issue with the dice. One of which was number of dice rolled (he likes to roll lots). That one was discussed and actually he rolls similar number he was looking for another issue. There is one I don’t have a good answer for him. What do you do when it’s a no result on attack rolls? We don’t have it come up often and it only happens in skill checks really which are easy to figure out. If I am firing a gun and it’s a no result I can’t tell them they missed but it can’t let them hit either. Do I let them do half damage as a graze or nothing. I need some help

No success = failure.

per RAW

advantage/disadvantage have three states. 1 or more advantage (more matters), 1 or more disadvantage(more matters), natural.

this is unlike success and failure as there are only two states. 1 or more is a success. extra success is counted for degrees of success. 0 or less is a failure. it does not matter what number is it all failures are just failures, there is no such thing as degrees of failure.

what you decide to do in a home game is up to you but miss with a graze I think would be more on the side of advantage.

It's a miss. You can tell them they missed. You need to net at least one success. It's not like in d20 when you hit by matching (or exceeding) a target number. A complete neutral result is just boring. The shot misses and leaves town, never to be heard from again. It didn't do anything interesting, nor did their attack attempt itself.

As an odd offshoot of this, a weapon will never do base damage on an initial hit, because even one success is base + 1. I have to keep reminding myself of that when I look at weapon stats. The only time base damage alone is a factor is on the burn effect.

Edit: if the "graze" is non-damaging (it probably will be if the target has soak) then narratively I agree with adairhammer that you could interpret an advantage that way (although I'd hope the shooter has a better way to spend it), but a true neutral roll isn't even a graze. It completely missed everything. If the shooter is normally pretty competent, I'd narrate that to say they were close if that makes them feel a little better about themselves. Poor little Stormtrooper...

I think that is was is bothering him. It’s the no result. Seeing blanks especially is like you didn’t roll at all.

His problem is that he's uncomfortable with blanks on dice?

Actually yes.

First, to confirm, the lack of net successes does mean the action failed (so an attack missed, the king was not swayed by your argument, you did not see the pit trap you are falling into).

Still, my group (or at least I) find this boring. As house rule of ours, if a dice pool result ends up as net blank (no despairs/triumphs, no net advantage/threat, no net success/failures), then the dice pool is rerolled with both sides upgraded.

Gotcha.

To me, it's just a failure without consequences.

That's an interesting approach that @Kommissar suggests (re-rolls with both sides upgraded). Depending on the actual check being made, another less impactful approach would be to award a boost for the PC's next attempt (they didn't succeed, but perhaps they learned a little about the situation/challenge) that will help them with the next check.

alternatively, and this would likely drastically change the odds of a given check, is to make each blank either a threat or advantage depending on whether the blank die was positive or negative. It would still count as a fail, but it would likely be fail with either advantage or threat.

does the player feel similarly about canceled things? What if there are no blanks but there's equivalent numbers of success/fail and threat/advantage?

I had a similar issue with blank dice and a new player. I told them that number of dice represented innate (G) or trained (Y) skills, the negative dice are the total influences of the opponents skills and other factors. The actual symbols are the small actions and effects, positive and negative, known and unknown, that are working to or against the player which ultimately culminate in a net success or failure. A when the dice are blank then those minor issue are exerting any immediate influence. Circumstances and events of the moment neither "come together" for the character in any way or fall apart in any way.

I think I can get him on board with the boost dice. That is simple and doesn’t break anything

Possible House rule: A blank roll can result in a free flip of a destiny point in the roller's favor (or declaration of fact as if a DP was spent) with a reasonable explanation.

All blanks never bothered me, but I've seen others bring up this issue enough that RAW isn't for everyone.

As far as I remember, only boost and setback dices has blank sides, and cause they are circunstancial dices, don't bother me to see sometimes the blank side.

But if you'ra talking about a "nothing happens" result, like no sucess, no advantages or threats, no triumphs or despairs, it's just a simple failure. He tried. He failed. Nothing more happens that deserve any mention.

Sometimes this can help, what we can do? Nothing. Just try again and again.

But just to give an example of why I don't care about blank results: let's think we are fighting and there are something thing making the things more stressfull, like hostages. The tests would have 1 or 2 setbacks, which means, this CAN be a problem to the character, but sometimes, with blank sides from the setbacks, it won't compromise the character. This is good, more meaningful and deep than a regular dX check.

And I remember that in a page from the Edge of the Empire, there are something talking about to see the result and the kind of dice rolled and try to figure out what happened based on the kind of dice. Sometimes you pick the success from the green dice, sometimes you pick the success from the boost dice. Which this can mean? Well, in one check you did well cause you have a good thing like strenght or intelligence. Sometimes you did cause you got lucky or was under a positive morale bonus, meaning your inner strenght was decisive in that check.

A blank face on a die means that particular element of the check did not contribute to your success or failure this time.

Perhaps a blank on a Setback means the enemies armour was easy for you to bypass and it didn’t hinder you in any way.

A blank on your proficiency die means all those years of training didn’t help against the Far East martial arts training of your enemies.

A blank is a part of the story, and if you look at each dice not only in what it gives you but where it came from then understanding its narrative explanation is easier

4 hours ago, Dragonshadow said:

It's a miss. You can tell them they missed. You need to net at least one success. It's not like in d20 when you hit by matching (or exceeding) a target number. A complete neutral result is just boring. The shot misses and leaves town, never to be heard from again. It didn't do anything interesting, nor did their attack attempt itself.

...

There is a target number in this game. In fact, it never changes. It is 1. if you get 1 or more successes, you succeed. If you get 0 or less successes, you fail. Rolling no successes is the same as rolling a 9 against a DC 10 in D&D.

I concur, all blanks is a miss. Without any advantageous circumstances, or threatening ones. While it seems totally boring, it might as well be that long, drawn-out, close range firefight where one combatant pops up, shoots at the general direction of his enemy, and ducks back behind cover, after which the enemy steps out from behind the corner, shoots back and misses, and then steps back into cover. No advantages to "hit" a gas pipe and flush the enemy out of his cover, no threats to indicate you slipped and fell out of your own. No successes, so no actual hit on the enemy.

Because simply rolling all blanks doesn't mean nothing at all happens.

19 hours ago, Bellyon said:

As far as I remember, only boost and setback dices has blank sides, and cause they are circunstancial dices, don't bother me to see sometimes the blank side.

…

2

Each die has one blank face. Except for boost and setback dice, which both have two blank faces.