When I first posted this I wasn’t expecting to get answers that would completely change how I’m going to design PBTA from now on, but if you can roll more dice why wouldn’t you?? Thanks @BrianAshford and @William_Nichols for all this work (and you guys did it so fast?!?!) I think having a dice pool also makes advantage/disadvantage easier to keep track of if you do one 5+ to succeed with advantage and three 5+'s to succeed with disadvantage. I am really enjoying this discourse 
Advantage and Disadvantage in PBTA games
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I’m happy to help!
Applying Advantage and Disadvantage to this dice pool system in that way could be problematic. If Advantage means that you only need one 5+ for a full success then you won’t get any complications on Advantage. If you are asking for three dice rolling 5+ when you have disadvantage then the opposite happens and basically all successful rolls with be pass with complications. That might be OK for some games but if Advantage and Disadvantage are basically handed out as the GM sees fit it might start to feel like the GM is just choosing if you should have a full or partial success this time.
If it were me, I think I would just have Advantage add another dice to the pool and Disadvantage remove one. It might seem a little less interesting but it’s easier to understand and it’s closer to what those terms generally mean.
An other option would be to change the target for each dice. Advantage could be 4+, Disadvantage 6+. This would be a pretty huge effect though. Probably worth as much as +2/-2.
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Personally, I’m a fan of things being as simple as possible, but no simpler.
Having a single system - Increasing and decreasing the dice pool – seems pretty simple. With the additional rule of with 1 dice you have a chance to get a second chance, and that if you need less than one dice you change the success target number, I think we’ve got something pretty simple.
Yes, I think so. The two exceptions are both only going to be used occasionally, and they can both be pitched as bonuses to help the player so that so make their addition more welcome. Also any fiddlyness would be more than compensated for by the fact that there is no maths required.
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Thanks!
Brian enjoyed doing the math, and I enjoy seeing projects get done. This is essentially my solution to any problem: find someone who wants to do it, and support then until we have a solution.
Most of my adult life has been figuring out new ways to support people.
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Currently, I have pondered quite a bit over combinations of modifiers and similar difficulty tools. I prefer either one or the other, implemented as simple as possible. The big questions one should ask oneself, I think, is why a certain mechanic is used, and what the player takeaway is from using it. There are trends coming and going, surely, but what is the design goal? Is it to create a more nuanced range of outcomes? A more unpredictable outcome? A smoother resolution process?
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There’s also the question of how opaque multiple types of roll modifiers get. As an example: I love the Marvel Heroic RPG, but some of the ways it allowed you to manipulate rolls left me unsure of why or when to use them. I didn’t have a feel for how they affected the probabilities, particularly when multiple mods were used on one roll.
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I kind of prefer the approach of good old AW, where if you had it easier, you didn’t even have to roll, and if you had it too hard, you didn’t trigger the move and had to reposition to find another way. And in the middle, when you rolled dice, it felt risky enough and a failure meant I could land a hard move without holding my hand.
Consider that in BitD, the 3 positions don’t affect the odds of success and failure, they only controll what happened in each case.
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In the science fiction-themed PBTA I am working on now, I have a few mechanics that let players roll 3 dice and use the best two. They are always for “super human” effects such as cybernetic upgrades or alien powers. The extra die only comes in during certain carefully prescribed instances such as “when you rely upon your brute strength.” Yes, the player can make sure they rely upon their brute strength a great deal in order to get the extra die, but I am OK with this, since super strong characters often do rely upon their strength. The GM does act as a backstop however, and has the ability to say “I don’t think this is a brute strength move,” so in a way, it does still come down to the GM granting it. Food for thought.
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I think there’s a key difference between the “superhuman effects” situation you describe, and the kind of advantage/disadvantage scenarios described in the OP. In your game, the extra die comes from something the player does. In that sense the trigger is consistent with typical PbtA moves (and very similar to the extra question each PdlP playbook has). Whereas in the OP, disadvantage or advantage is being given by the GM for external conditions – i.e. things the GM controls, such as aid/hindrance by an NPC or weather conditions.
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Yes, completely! They are different. I don’t know how I feel about the GM just deciding to grant it or take it away. It doesn’t seem in the spirit of PBTA to me.
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Yeah, it seems like the general consensus is that advantage is good when it’s player-driven and has clear conditions in which to gain advantage. It seems like any time the GM is just making judgement calls in pbta is sub-optimal. A way to improve the example in the OP might be lists of conditions that would call for advantage that players would need to trigger.
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What is wigging me out now though is the deeper underlying philosophical side of it. If the GM needs to consent that the conditions were met in order to trigger the mechanic, what is the practical difference between that and the GM assigning the bonus?
You could say the same thing of every move. They trigger when the GM decides they trigger, ultimately. It’s just generally pretty easy to come to a consensus between the players at the table.
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I would probably say that it doesn’t really matter if the gm is consenting or not, because if the gm is being a fan of the characters (and as long as it makes sense in the established fiction) every time a player triggers an advantage condition it should basically be granted.
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Here’s another idea that I’ve been toying with: You could take a little inspiration from Trophy (from Codex Dark 2) and have the other players offer advantage with a specific cost if they fail. Chances are that someone at the table has a better idea than you and it takes some pressure off of the gm, also if players know what they’re going to lose beforehand it might dissuade them from triggering advantage every turn.
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So last night I tested an Advantage/Disadvantage system and it worked really well! Basically, in Mysthea the Aid move works by giving someone you have a bond with one of your dice, to roll alongside their own. They pick the highest two, as per Advantage, but you also check where your dice fell in the pool - if it’s the highest you strengthen your bond, but if it’s lowest it weakens the bond. This turns Aid into something that moves the fiction of your relationship forward, and does that without calling for extra rolls - just adding an extra dimension to an existing roll. It also means multiple characters can aid another without being so overpowering that it robs the moment of drama.
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Yeah, I played in this game, and I really loved how it actually made an Aid move not boring 
Often I find players fictionally positioning to help out another character, but the move is pointless unless the active player rolls a 6 or 9, so it rarely seems worth using it. Whereas even if mathematically it doesn’t make a difference, the assisting player rolling the dice makes it feel more impactful. And the fact it fictionally adds some weight to the assisting players action too is really fun. (I loved the moment in our game last night where my character “helped” Angel’s legion commander to navigate, but made her job more difficult - but still successful. It was a real fun character moment)
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Oh I like that idea of having the extra die a simple but effective extra feedback into the fiction!
However, that the result is purely random is a bit off putting for me. What about the following:
If you use the extra die from the other player in your final two, it strengthens the bond, if you don’t use it, the bond is weakened. Which would mean that you could prefer failing on a roll than failing on your friend. Or if it wouldn’t matter on the result stating something about your relationship by consciously taking or leaving the extra die out.
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Huh! That’s a pretty cool twist on it. I’ll have to chat about that with my co-designer 
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My only reservation on that is that currently it being the lowest dice triggers another move (Test a Covenant) which is a really cool move So I don’t think I’d want to give the the chance of opting out of this? I also think that succeeding despite someone’s mistakes is more interesting than failing because of them, or at least less commonly covered in RPGs.
(Not to distract too far from the main theme of the thread, but in short the Test a Covenant move makes you roll with the strength of the bond - on a hit, you say how your bond remains strong, with a 10+ increasing it, and failure makes it drop. It’s a really good move, and I love it a lot )
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