d10s! (Patreon)

First it was funky dice. Then it was six-siders. Now, the d10 reigns supreme as the core die of the MCDM RPG.

It’s James here with a quick update. Honestly, what I’m about to talk about SEEMS like a much bigger change that it actually is. We’re still keeping the power roll with three tiers of outcomes. We still have heroic resources, victories, and such. All we’ve done is change a bit of math.

As you know from the post introducing the power roll, every power roll was a roll of 2d6 with modifiers. Well, we’ve updated that to 2d10 plus modifiers. It’s pretty simple why. We wanted more wiggle room when it came to bonuses and penalties.

The old range on 2d6 was:

7 or lower (“all right” or “oh no!” depending on the circumstances)

8 to 10 (“noice”)

11 or more (“yay!”)

The odds on those ranges were working pretty well. The issue was bonuses. In a 2d6 system, a +1 bonus is a significant increase in power, especially when you have three different levels of possible outcome. It meant that if you had a bonus of +4 or more to a roll, you could land in the tier 1 before you apply modifiers and then after modifiers are applied, wind up in the tier 3 result. Likewise, you could apply a −4 penalty to a modified tier 3 result and wind up in tier 1. Going from tier 1 to tier 3 because of modifiers isn’t a bad thing, but it probably shouldn’t be achieved so easily.

Sure, we could reduce the bonuses you roll with. A lot of games that use a similar core mechanic, like those that are Powered by the Apocalypse, keep their bonuses and penalties pretty small. In those games, no character is ever applying a characteristic of higher than +3 or lower than −1, and only the player characters roll, which mean their bonuses only need to narratively make sense compared to every other hero. A mage having −1 Might compared to a warrior having +3 Might makes sense. They don’t need to worry about a dragon’s Might in a PbtA game, because the dragon never rolls. That’s not the case in our game, so we need to have a wider array of options to represent the stats of all the different creatures making power rolls. We have a range of −5 to +5 to help judge those differences. That’s a bigger spread of modifiers than many other 2d6 RPGs.

Most 2d6 games keep their circumstantial modifiers to +1 and −1, because those little modifiers can really swing the odds, especially with three levels of outcome. You can’t really get more granular than a bonus or penalty of 1 without getting into fractions, which would make people riot. In many Powered by the Apocalypse games, these bonuses and penalties often come one or maybe two at a time, because they’re not explicitly tactical games.

In a tactical game like ours, there are a lot more opportunities to capitalize on their circumstantial modifiers. Flanking! Conditions! High ground! Cover! Concealment! Environmental effects! You get the idea. That means the chance for circumstantial modifiers. They’re the carrot we can use to encourage dynamic movement on the battlefield. “Hey! If I move up to the high ground, I get a bonus!” “If you push the warg back into the brambles, they’ll take a penalty to attacks.” “If I run around the wall, then this cultist no longer has cover against my attack.”

I’ve already pointed out the power of a single +1 or −1 in this post. I did that in the playtest rules too, but it turns out the carrot of +1 isn’t something that really excites many people. Even though the odds said that a difference of 1 could be a big deal, to many players movement wasn’t worth it as finding something else to do with your maneuver. So things are less dynamic and play is slowed as people search for other ways to use their maneuvers. Turns out that most folks aren’t thinking about the odds on the dice. They see a +2 and think it’s twice as good as a +1, even if the dice change. It’s the same reason why you can’t score points in values of less than 100 in many pinball games. You could start at 1, but people would rather have a score of 10,000 than 100.

There was another problem some testers had with capping bonuses and penalties at two each. It was difficult for them to understand narratively if they rolled low with a lot of bonuses. “Well only two counted, but why can’t these others count? If they did, this would be a tier-2 result!” So bonuses and penalties needed a rethink.

I had mentioned to Matt that we’d have more room for character advancement and for bonuses and penalties to be a little higher if we went to 2d8. He thought about it for a moment and then said, “We should probably go to 2d10. I think that’s where we’re headed. If we’re wrong, we can pull back, but I have a feeling the 2d8 spread isn’t going to be enough.” I agreed. We were off to the races.

With 2d10 our range is currently:

11 or lower

12 to 16

17 or more

The odds are roughly the same as the spread of tiers we had with 2d6, but now a bonus of +1 isn’t as impactful, which means we can have more robust character advancement and give out some higher bonuses, which are more attractive to players (even if they have a similar impact).

However, there are other problems we need to solve when it comes to bonuses and penalties. First, we want to make tracking them simple. That’s feedback we got in the first round of the Patreon test. The cap of two each is going to remain in place. However, we also want that limit to feel impactful and make sense. I think we’ve done that in the latest iteration. If you have two circumstantial bonuses (which are once again called edges), your result automatically improves one tier. So if you rolled 11 or lower but have a double edge, you get the 12 to 16 result. The same is true in reverse for penalties (back to being called banes). A double bane means you move down one tier. In fact, why don’t I just reprint the current rules for edges and banes here.

Edges and Banes

An archer standing on a castle wall fires down into a throng of enemies, hitting the mark each time thanks to the high ground. A drunken bandit struggles to land blows on sober opponents as alcohol clouds their judgment. There are times when you need more than just a characteristic to represent the advantages and disadvantages heroes, their enemies, and their allies have.

Edge

An edge represents a situational advantage your hero has when making a power roll. For instance, a standing hero who makes a melee attack against a prone creature has an edge on the power roll. A pair of magic gloves that makes your hands sticky might give you an edge when making a power roll to climb walls!

When you make a power roll with a single edge, you add 2 to the roll. If you make a power roll with two or more edges, you have a double edge and the result of your power roll automatically improves one tier (to a maximum of tier 3) instead of adding 2 to the roll.

Bane

A bane represents a situational disadvantage your hero has when making a power roll. For instance, if you make an attack while prone, the power roll you make suffers a bane. A rainstorm might give you a bane on a power roll made to climb an outdoor wall because the weather makes the stone surface extra slick.

When you make a power roll with a single bane, you subtract 2 from the roll. If you make a power roll with two or more banes, you have a double bane and the result of your power roll automatically decreases one tier (to a minimum of tier 1) instead of subtracting 2 from the roll.

Rolling with Edges and Banes

There are times you might have one or more edges and banes on a roll. For instance, you might be weakened by poison while attacking a prone creature. Each of the following situations is resolved differently:

If you have an edge and a bane or a double edge and a double bane, the roll is made normally without any edges or banes.

If you have a double edge and a bane, the roll has one edge.

If you have a double bane and an edge, the roll has one bane.

When to Use Edges and Banes

The rules tell you when to modify a roll with an edge or a bane. The Director can also modify rolls with edges and banes due to narrative or environmental circumstances. For instance, no rule specifically says that rain makes climbing a stone wall harder and therefore imposes a bane on power rolls made to do so, but it makes sense that this would be the case, so a Director should absolutely do it!

Why Cap?

We capped edges and banes at a maximum of 2 each for several reasons. The first is narrative, a creature can only benefit or be hindered by circumstances so much because every little advantage or disadvantage in a heroic story has diminishing returns. For instance, if you’re prone and weakened by poison, becoming restrained by a net doesn’t really make attacking any harder than it already is. The cap represents those diminishing returns. We also liked capping the bonuses at 2, because it keeps play quick. You don’t need to count beyond two bonuses or penalties in a battle with a lot of effects flying around.

Bonus and Penalties

While edges and banes cover most circumstantial effects on power rolls, a few rules add bonus or penalties to power rolls. Bonus and penalties have a numerical value specified in the rules that add them and are calculated independently of and before edges and banes are part of a power roll. There is no limit to the number of bonuses or penalties a power roll can have and they always stack.

While it sounds like the math with bonuses and penalties may get confusing, fear not! Bonuses and penalties are rare, except in the case of skills, which appear on your character sheet.

A Word on d10s

Before I go, I want to make sure you all know that I know that traditional ten-sided dice aren’t platonic solids. While that doesn’t bother me personally, I know some people would rather role a die that is. The good news is that you can find twenty-sided dice that have the results of 1 to 10 repeated on their sides twice. Our newest designer, Djordi, got a bunch when he started working here, and allowed me to share a pic of his bounty:

Discord Reminder

Hey! If you’re a member of the MCDM Discord channel, you should link your Patreon and Discord accounts. You can read about how to do so here. Linking your accounts will give you access to our #mcdm_rpg-patrons channel on Discord. It’s a great place to discuss the MCDM RPG!

—James