This is for D&D 5E...

d20 = Yes / No axis

d12 = But / And axis

Your DM sets the Difficulty Challenge as normal.

Roll both dice together. Your d20 is scored as normal. Your d12 is scored as below.

1,2,3 on d12 you get varying degrees of threat where "1" is the worst degree. Scoring a "1" on your d20 and a "1" on your d12 is a DESPAIR!

10,11,12 on d12 you get varying degrees of success where "12" is the best degree. Scoring a "20" on your d20 and a "12" on your d12 is a TRIUMPH!

4 - 9 on d12 are considered "cancelled out" results and mean nothing.

Why the d12? Honestly, to give that particular die some more "face time" in D&D, but also to differentiate it from the d20 a bit better. You could roll 2d20, or another die and make up the same system if you wanted, but I chose the d12 for mine.

You get all of the benefits of the "But / And" axis with using only one extra die instead of a handful.

I like both Star Wars and Genesys, and I like the dice, but this is an option for those who do not and want to play 5E but like the added axis to their game.

Those odds are horrible! a 0.42% chance of only one triumph or despair ? No thanks. I like my 8.3% chance per / .

Heck, a starting character right out of the gate has a 15.97% chance of getting at least one (assuming 2 characteristic and 2 skill ranks) and a 0.69% chance of getting .

You need to really drill down on your maths to get a better idea on the odds of specific outcomes so you can come to at least an approximation of similar results. Here is a dice rolling probability site that can help .

Oh, I think D20 could have something similar, without the need of special dices.

My ideas goes to the side of a set of small tables. They can vary from 6 (d6) to 12 (d12) options. It's possible to create tables to skills, melee attacks, ranged attacks, spells, 20's, 1's and save throws.

Create good and bad effects to everything. Exception to 20's (always nice effects) and 1's (always horrible effects).

So during the roll, the player can roll one or two additional dices (d6 to d12) to check the additional effect in the game. Take care to choose a dice that would not be confused with the other dices, damage dices for example.

I think you can consider that every result 5+ than the DC will have always nice side effects. 5- always bad effects. Results in the between, +4 to -4, could result in something good or bad. To resolve this, just check the tables picking half from good things and half from bad things.

10+ or 10- could add an additional dice to the pool.

Giving an example:

The charater made a Diplomacy check, the CD was 15. He got 20, so he check the result of the additional dice (side = the number of options you have created for the tables) and check the good side effects for Diplomacy. Done.

Oh, he got 14, he check the same additional dice and let's think you are using 6 itens in each table. [123] could be the 456 from the good effects and [456] could be the 123 from the horrible effects, you got?

If you think it's necessary to create an additional table, to add some new effects, unrelated to the check, go on

You're already rolling the second, occasional d20 in 5e due to Adv/Dis. Just get two d20 of different colors, with one color being Primary, the other Secondary. The Primary d20 works as normal. The Secondary d20 is your And/But dice, with the same DC as your Primary.

On youtube, a guy named RUNEHAMMER did a video about incorporating Genesys (and Numenera) And/But dice into d20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTGEfBxAfOg

On 7/14/2018 at 10:10 AM, c__beck said:

Those odds are horrible! a 0.42% chance of only one triumph or despair ? No thanks. I like my 8.3% chance per / .

Heck, a starting character right out of the gate has a 15.97% chance of getting at least one (assuming 2 characteristic and 2 skill ranks) and a 0.69% chance of getting .

You need to really drill down on your maths to get a better idea on the odds of specific outcomes so you can come to at least an approximation of similar results. Here is a dice rolling probability site that can help .

The point is that this (and/but axis) can be accomplished at some level without a dice pool. If you prefer, just use the d12 (in conjunction with the normal d20 for the yes/no axis)and make 12 a Triumph and 1 a Despair, or whatever, however, you want to make it. As I said, it could be different dice (like another d20), etc., too...

On 7/15/2018 at 11:42 AM, lyinggod said:

On youtube, a guy named RUNEHAMMER did a video about incorporating Genesys (and Numenera) And/But dice into d20.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTGEfBxAfOg

Great example of what could be done. He uses a dice pool however. My original idea is steering away from a pool, adding one die at the most.

On 7/14/2018 at 10:26 AM, Bellyon said:

Oh, I think D20 could have something similar, without the need of special dices.

My ideas goes to the side of a set of small tables. They can vary from 6 (d6) to 12 (d12) options. It's possible to create tables to skills, melee attacks, ranged attacks, spells, 20's, 1's and save throws.

Create good and bad effects to everything. Exception to 20's (always nice effects) and 1's (always horrible effects).

So during the roll, the player can roll one or two additional dices (d6 to d12) to check the additional effect in the game. Take care to choose a dice that would not be confused with the other dices, damage dices for example.

I think you can consider that every result 5+ than the DC will have always nice side effects. 5- always bad effects. Results in the between, +4 to -4, could result in something good or bad. To resolve this, just check the tables picking half from good things and half from bad things.

10+ or 10- could add an additional dice to the pool.

Giving an example:

The charater made a Diplomacy check, the CD was 15. He got 20, so he check the result of the additional dice (side = the number of options you have created for the tables) and check the good side effects for Diplomacy. Done.

Oh, he got 14, he check the same additional dice and let's think you are using 6 itens in each table. [123] could be the 456 from the good effects and [456] could be the 123 from the horrible effects, you got?

If you think it's necessary to create an additional table, to add some new effects, unrelated to the check, go on

Tables fit with the D&D scheme, especially old-school, and could be used instead of extra dice nicely as you point out.

On 7/15/2018 at 10:20 AM, Zenferno said:

You're already rolling the second, occasional d20 in 5e due to Adv/Dis. Just get two d20 of different colors, with one color being Primary, the other Secondary. The Primary d20 works as normal. The Secondary d20 is your And/But dice, with the same DC as your Primary.

That could work out great too.

Thanks everyone for the views, comments and contributions toward this idea!

No offense, but building the pool to represent the different factors in the roll is exactly the strength of the narrative dice system. It's part of telling the story of the roll itself, and which components made the difference. Trying to actively cut back on the dice is missing much of the point.

That said, your idea still sounds like more fun than just a boring d20 roll, so there's that.

As an interesting side note, d20 is all about static bonuses and penalties and then uses completely random damage rolls, so you can "crit" for minimum damage. NDS is about dice pools and then uses damage values that are primarily static (random only in terms of #successes, which generally contribute much less than the base). If you get hit, and there's more damage coming in than you can soak, it's going to hurt, and a crit is going to hurt a lot.

A lot of random values could be avoided if people just pick the average value of the dice.
I know the average value of any dice with an even major value is X,5, but we can round up without problem.

Anyway, it's important to note that the narrative aspect of the Genesys system isn't based on a dice pool or a dice with a static bonus. It's possible to create a narrative system with a single dice, with or without bonus.

The suggestion I've made isn't a "narrative D20 system", despite the infinite tables. It's just an alternative to create a wide array of result possibilites and more variabilty to the rolls. Isn't narrative cause it's not up to the player invent the consequences of the action. They'd be gave by the final numbers.

This is what make an RPG system narrative, in my perception: the possibility to players create a small piece of the scene. Creating what happens inside few parameters.

18 hours ago, Dragonshadow said:

No offense, but building the pool to represent the different factors in the roll is exactly the strength of the narrative dice system. It's part of telling the story of the roll itself, and which components made the difference. Trying to actively cut back on the dice is missing much of the point.

That said, your idea still sounds like more fun than just a boring d20 roll, so there's that.

As an interesting side note, d20 is all about static bonuses and penalties and then uses completely random damage rolls, so you can "crit" for minimum damage. NDS is about dice pools and then uses damage values that are primarily static (random only in terms of #successes, which generally contribute much less than the base). If you get hit, and there's more damage coming in than you can soak, it's going to hurt, and a crit is going to hurt a lot.

No offense taken. I understand the dice pool, I use it in my Star Wars game, I own Genesys and Terrinoth, along with 14 sets of dice for each Star Wars and Genesys. I also own all specialization decks for Star Wars (129 of them at this point counting the crit decks, etc.) so I am heavily invested in FFG's products regarding this dice pool narrative system. Just pointing out it isn't the only way the but/and axis or magnitude of success or failure, or advantage / disadvantage mechanic could be accomplished more minimally say for a game like 5E. No big deal, just a topic of conversation and idea generation for fans.

Just some thoughts about a dice pool:

I've played few RPG's in my life. AD&D, D&D3.x, Pathfinder, Cyberpunk 2020, Old WoD, Genesys/Star Wars... all of the have a dice pool. Even in D&D, a common tip recommend to roll the attack and damage together just to avoid a second roll and cut some time.

For my taste, it's boring roll several dices to check the damage or the healing. We can use statistic to analyze any dice pool possibilites.

A regular 6d6 has 21 as the average result.
5%: -40% (14-)
15%: -25% (15-17)
60%: the result will be something between 18-24.
15%: +25% (25-27)
5%: +40% (28+)

Well... looks easier to note the average value and use a d20: 1 = the average result x 0,6; 2,3,4 = the average result x 0,75; 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 = the average result; 17, 18, 19 = the average result x 1,25; 20 = the average result x 1,4. Oh noes... maybe we have alredy something ready for 1 and 20 in D&D

Another cool side of Genesys is the pool has much more info than numbers. Eletronic games do math easily, but people around the table lost a lot of time doing it. It's why I don't like a lot of dice pools. In general they're almost useless, adding very few to increase the dramacity of the scene.
I think a cool dice pool (like in Genesys) or a system with less dices and more "average" values or small flat bonus work better. And there are options to add the narrative side to any kind of dice roll.

4 hours ago, Bellyon said:

For my taste, it's boring roll several dices to check the damage or the healing. We can use statistic to analyze any dice pool possibilites.

Rolling a handful of dice and adding them up is boring, but you think running a statistical analysis is not? I'm checking out.

14 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Rolling a handful of dice and adding them up is boring, but you think running a statistical analysis is not? I'm checking out.

No, I'm just showing that in a big roll there are a lot of good results and few bad and nice results.

It's not the point but using a calculator to do a simple multiplication using the already known average value is faster than count a lot of dices. Can do something even easier: a poor result means half the base value and an extraordinary result can be one and a half the average value.

Keep in mind that I'm just saying that are alternatives do find some values without rolling tons of dices of some RPG's. Less dices with a static bonus works better and faster.

By no means am I saying that using mathematical formulas to find out the result of a test is something interesting or feasible for an RPG. We can use Math to understand the numbers behind the games even though.