Favorite Game Mechanics?

[John Michael Crovis]

I'm pretty sure this has been discussed before but....

What is your favorite game mechanic? Cards, Dice, or Bidding? Do you like roll under or roll over, or something else completely? Is there a particular range of numbers that you believe is optimal?

I love a lot of different dice mechanics, but if I had to choose, I would choose a simple 2d6+modifiers, roll over the difficulty number. I think it's clean and efficient. I also like dice pool and dice ranking mechanics (such as featured in the Storyteller system and in EarthDawn, respectively). However, I am always interested in learning about new mechanics... I heard about one that uses a dice pool and measures success by how many dice rolled the same number and how high that number is. Very interesting stuff...

[J.K.Mosher]

I don't get to play much now a days, but when I was gaming I was partial to the
dice mechanics of D&D, and the classic 2d6 + modifier used in Fighting Fantasy.

JH Brennan's "theMonster Horror Show" had a few nice mechanics as well . . . been
awhile since I flipped through it, but I remember mainly a 3d6 mechanic, and I believe
the "Absolutely Anything Table" which was a set of modifiers based on difficulty for adding to your
6d6 roll to beat a target score of 36. (Ranged from Dead Easy +29 to Impossible +0).

In my own games I stick to the 2d6+modifier system, but add in a deck of cards to
use as a randomizer for hazards/locations/monsters, and such.

[vulpinoid]

I actually did a series of posts on my bog about game mechanisms...in 2009 I looked at 52 mechanisms, one per week.

You can find the index .

[vulpinoid]

Actually, if I had to pick my favourite game mechanism at the moment it would have to be Otherkind Dice...because a single roll of the dice determines a degree of success and often manipulates the direction of the story in some way, where the degree of success and the degree of story change can be influenced by the player and the context of the story. A few games use this mechanism, including Vincent Baker's "Otherkind" (from where the mechanism draws it's name), Ghost/Echo and my own game FUBAR...I'l be using variants of this mechanism in a few other upcoming games as well.

[Onix]

There's an interesting article that compares dice mechanics .

The conclusion asks the following questions.

Does a low-stat character still have a chance at exceptionally good result? To what degree?
Does a high-stat characters still have a chance of failure? To what degree?
What should the chances of exceptional or critical failure be compared to normal failure? Does this vary with skill or ability?
What should the chances of exceptional or critical success be compared to normal success? Does this vary with skill or ability?

Other than I don't normally do critical failures (they can be funny for everyone else but tend to make people unhappy) I like the other points. Something else to consider is the speed of the rolling operation. This has to do with that split second math that your brain has to do to tell if you succeed. In this case a comparison die roll is the fastest (where you are simply looking to see if you rolled over or under and there is no adding or subtracting). If speed is a goal that is. I look at games like Technoir and it's dice mechanic and it is very slow, but it's part of the story crafting process so if that's what you want, then have at it.

That's why I like roll under with a d100. It has granularity and it's fast. Normally though, it doesn't lend it's self to the questions in the article which is why I use my Fraction Column system that achieves those goals.

[trodgers]

My mechanic is my favorite. That's why I made it...to do all the things I thought best.

It's 1d20+xd6 where x is the total modifier.

'10' is a success; each '10' is an additional degree of critical success.
Negative numbers is a critical failure.

It provides an interesting curve, makes it so that critical successes are very unlike in normal conditions (1/20) and critical failures don't happen in normal circumstances. Only when you try something very hard.

Modifiers stay low in my game. No player currently has a modifier of +3 or lower than -2.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

This is an interesting question, but I'm not sure if it is the right question. Role playing games are about simulation or verisimilitude, so the query probably should be "what is the best mechanics to emulate a certain genre or concept?"

I am not a particular fan of die pools because they make figuring probability on the design side a bit difficult. Using d6s means there is no such thing as a small modifier;- +1 is a fifteen percent change on a straight d6, and can make a rather noted shift on a bell-curve based on d6s. However, check for target numbers is fairly quick on the table, and d6s are common and cheap. I use them together in D&B to keep the game moving fast, and because characters are more or less expendable.

The stepped die pool used for combat in Dead and Back is something I'm rather proud of. It accounts for armor, penetration, and damage, in one roll. Many other games need at least two operations (To hit/amount of harm) and others even farther (Dodge, save, critical threat, etc.).

Another point of pride is, so far, none of my games have used the same mechanic. I like innovating for each project. Of course, trying to balance the numbers is why at least two of the games haven't made any progress (EdgeKnights and Emperor's Edit if you're wondering)

For more gas on the fire, a third document about .

Returning to the original form of the question, I like things that stand out, and those that make for interesting decisions. I haven't seen too many others use something like Dream Pod Nine's "Silhouette System", but it works quickly and elegantly in their games. Spade vs Indy from the recent contest struck me as doing a good job of dealing with backstabbing and intrigue at the table. For all its controversy, I really do like the old D&D alignment system - it clouds a simple what is the optimal/easiest decision with certain shades of morality. (Poisoning the Orcs in their sleep is safer than an open battle, but not really honorable now is it?) A free game called "" uses cards and a 13x4 tracking sheet to make air combat easy and exciting, though it sacrifices simulation.

[trodgers]

Having it all on one roll is the ultimate goal in terms of simplicity. I had it that way in my combat system, but I actually changed it because I think it's more fun to have people roll for their damage and armor. Combat roll is two phases:

1. Hit/severity: 1d20 + [Attacker's offensive rating minus Defender's defensive rating]
2. Damage resolution: in light of how severe the attack was that landed, the attacker rolls a pool of d6 for damage against the defender's damage.

[Rob Lang]

My favourite mechanic is the Icar close combat one. The fights are fast, players are urged to describe blows and parries, there is a certain skill to choosing a combo, dice are only needed when two combatants are actually trying to do the same thing and the better you get, the more options you have.

[Onix]

I think the consensus is that since all of us are making games, we went with what we either thought gave an interesting feel, or solved a problem that we saw in other games. Unless someone uses different systems in a number of different games, they usually are going to have only one choice.

So maybe the question is better stated "What are you looking to solve with your favorite mechanic?"

Also, we've been talking dice rolls and event resolution, there are plenty of other good mechanics that don't have to do with the core mechanic of a game.