Wild Die

[adamlumina93]

A friend of mine was stating to me this weekend that in the 1st edition of star wars there was no wild dice and others have mentioned the use of die caps. Does anyone play a game where there is no wild die, i have seen some where if you roll a one on the die you have to roll another one for it to be a failure (fair rule IMO it raises failures from 1 in 6 to 1 in 36) but in my games I try to make the rule balanced and was accussed of being a power hungry GM because I told the players if I allow that on ones I would do the same for sixes. Any advice and any tricks or ideas to run the game without the wild die.

[Ankhanu]

Wild die generally works as so:
2-5 - normal die
6 - keep the 6, re-roll and add that roll to the total, if it's a 6 again, keep going until it stops.
1 - take away the highest die, re-roll; 1-5 take the total of the remaining dice; 6 - take total of the remaining dice and suffer some sort of complication.


Taking the wild die out of the game is fine, but it takes away the element of random chance for spectacular success and failure where neither is necessarily likely... it adds a fair bit of fun and frustration (which is also kinda fun) to the game, but it's not necessary. It simply means that chances of failure for the highly skilled pretty much disappear, and the chances of the unskilled pulling of a spectacular feat likewise drop to 0.
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[Orgaloth]

There use to be die caps for scale differences ie character to speeder etc.
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[Darth Ginzain]

The old die caps blow chunks. You don't want them. The scaling rules in R&E are the best system.

As for the wild die I do it the way it's written. I've found no reason to change it.

[garhkal]

For note on how the old dice caps worked, it went like this.

Character shooting at a Walker. His to hit rolls, would have no cap. The Walker's dodge roll would get capped at 4. So any roll over 4 is only counted as a 4 (wild die still rerolls though). The character's damage gets capped at 3 (lets say) while the walker's hull resistance gets no cap..

In essence it is similar to the dice scale diff of 2nd ed revised, but removes the bucket of dice feel.
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[Darth Ginzain]

Oh yea. I forgot about it capping. I was thinking of the old, old die codes where if you rolled over cap the die counted as zero.

[shnar]

Which, IMHO, is the better of the two die-capping systems. If you have a blaster shooting at a walker, then it is guaranteed to get at least 4 dmg. With the 'roll-over-discard' rules, then there's a good chance that it does no damage, which is how small arms to large vehicles should work.

I haven't used the Scaling mechanisms yet (I used to play a lot of 1st Ed Star Wars, and only recently started a 2nd Ed non-revised campaign, and so far I have to say I don't like any of the changes) but reading the rules, I'm not sure I like it over the die-capping method.

As for the Wild Die, I have to agree, I don't honestly like it. The system gives you a chance for a moderate success (i.e. a little extra on the roll) but also a chance for a major complication. It's unbalanced. There's no way to get the opposite of a complication, some kind of major success. All you get is just a little more added to your roll. Yay.

I'm starting to think about maybe incorporating the Criticals system from Rolemaster/Spacemaster, or maybe even picking up Final Redout's Combat Essentials: Critials Matter book and seeing if I can incorporate that (a system-agnostic critical chart http://www.finalredoubt.com/store/index.html). Then if you roll a 6 on the wild die and get another 6, it's a Critical of some kind. Roll a 1 on the wild die and another 1, it's a Fumble/Failure. I'll report back if anything good comes of it.

-shnar

[garhkal]

That depends Shnar. in the sparks campaign which i have been a member of for 11 years, i have seen several instances of people rolling 5-6 times a Six on the wild die, exploding their score massively. Like the one time a medic who took over for our wounded gunner rolled his 2d+2 gunnery +1d fire control and got 54 to hit... Or the time i had a player hit by 4d+2 damage and i got 67 total..
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[shnar]

But still, all it is is extra damage, even if it is a lot more extra damage. So boring. I'd like to see some kind of Complication but for the good (i.e. a real critical, not just extra damage). Something like you break the foe's leg, or you sever a limb (very StarWars-ish that one), or temporary blindness, etc.

-shnar

[Gry Sarth]

Well, that's up to the GM, really. You don't get extraordinary successes only on damage rolls, ANY roll can result in a 45 total with 3D, and it's up to the GM to translate this into the game reality. You might be just landing your ship, but with a roll like that, you do it in such an unbelievably cool and precise way that the hangar crew is awfully impressed and offer to buy you a drink, or it might be a con roll that suddenly manages to open all the doors for you.

I personally LOVE the wild die. Everybody gets so excited when someone starts rolling 6s in a row. Or rolls a 1 on that crucial moment. What it means is that ANYTHING can happen, you shouldn't give up on a task just because your die score is low and you shouldn't think you're unbeatable just because you have a very high die score.
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[Ankhanu]

[Grimace]

I agree with the wild die being an important part of the D6 system that shouldn't be quickly discarded. It adds a lot of flavor to a game that would be rather flat without it.

And the die cap system is hardly a bad scale system. It's actually one of the better versions if you don't want to be rolling ever increasing amounts of dice. The R&E system adds dice, leading to the greater possibility of the "buckets of dice" syndrome that some people complain about. Die caps are simple and only require you to roll the dice that you're SUPPOSED to anyway. No adding or subtracting dice.

And as far as the die cap method always resulting in some damage....that's just not right. In the example, even if the roll was capped at 4, that 4 might not even be able to match up to the uncapped roll of the resist on a couple of dice, let alone the full amount. So a blaster from a person will most likely do pretty much nothing against a walker anyway, unless they were able to get some 6s on the Wild Die (and thus a reason to USE the wild die) and add up enough to beat the uncapped resistance roll.

[Xynar]

To ease the "buckets of dice pain" and the potential Wild Die headache, I don't allow the spent character points act as Wild Dice. This way my players think twice to spend character points and they can't run wild with astromomical rolls.
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Xynar
The Great Adventurer

[garhkal]

They only wild die on a 6.. CPs never wild die a 1 result.
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[shnar]