w00t

Seems a good spot to post about my imprint, w00t games. I seem to have a problem with not being able to stop making games. My blog w00tgames.wordpress.com is the depository for all of them.
I continually make more and work on the ones I have I am hoping to run a few using them here.
Dicechucker was the first real rpg I designed. It began anout 15 or so years ago. When I say "real" I mean putting serious effort into it. It is now on its 4th Ed and still not complete. I don't think a designer is ever truly done tinkering with their work.
So what is Dicechucker?
Well first and foremost its an rpg created to have fun. The system is designed for interaction between players. One of the best parts of gaming for me in my youthful days was the fun at the table. The side jokes about cursed dice. The lowly kobold that just won't die. The d6 landing in the guacamole...these are what brought people back just as much as good story.
DC tries to capture that.
The mechanics. Work like this every character has a character pool and attributes. The character pool is like your potential and to all rolled into one. Attributes are skills and stuff your character knows they are rated numerical 2 to 5. When your character does something. You roll all the dice currently in your pool. You figure which attribute fits the situation and use its numerical value to pick dice from the pool roll. If the attribute is 3 and you rolled 6 dice you pick any 3 dice rolled
..this is called drafting in DC. You add the scores of the drafted dice together and if the beat the Toughness Number(TN) set bybthe dicemonger...gamemaster in DC...then your character is successful. Your character pool can be reduced by damage altering how many dice you have available to draft. What makes DC special though is Power Dice.
Power dice are denoted by colors each power die has special rules that can affect the game. Like arcane dice can be rerolled if drafted and being used for an arcane related task. Some dice have really strange and fun rules like rage dice when used in combat they begin as a d6 and when drafted and the rage die scores its maximum all rage dice in that character's pool morph into the next highest die type up to d12.
Power dice add a whole new metagame dynamic to the game.
In DC 4ed there are also a bunch new meta game options to add fun to play.

It sounds like a fairly simple and interesting system

I had an observation after skimming the rulebook.

So I noticed that the default TN is 6. When I put numbers into Anydice, it shows that the chance of success is a bit screwy. For example, a CP of 3 and an attribute of 1 has about a 42% chance of success against the default TN, if you assume a pool of d6s and that you're picking the highest one. For a CP of 3 and an attribute of 2, there's about an 89% chance of success against the default TN under the same assumptions, which is a huge leap. A CP of 3 and an attribute of 3 puts it at about a 95% chance of success, which shows that you get diminishing returns the higher attribute you have.

So, for an Average Joe game, the three ranks of attributes are Terrible, Good, Gooder, with nothing between Terrible and Good. Considering that this is the lowest level of play, and that it goes up to 8+ dice in the CP, I'm wondering about how often someone actually fails a TN of 6 in this system, and whether or not the default TN should be somehow be readjusted.

A slight errata is in the works. Making attributes begin at 2. The system...if you come at it from a view point of mathematics is screwy.. When it is played with power dice the whole game takes on a different dynamic. Many PDs cannot be easily put into a formula to determine their value. I usually just warn people that if you are wanting a balanced probability system this not it..if you want something quirky fun and engaging in a way you may not have had before then try DC

Quique...
Another system originally developed for playing when play by email and play by post first became popular. Lack of dice rollers for such platforms inspired this simple priceless system. The system is based on the idea that the GM and the player performing the test each pick a number between 1 and 20. The closer the player's number is to the GM's the more successful they are. A character has 3 traits and 9 Attributes rated 1 to 5. Use the appropriate trait/attribute combo for a task to create the character's Reach for that task...so trait 1 attribute 2 means a Reach of +/-3 for this task. Now if the player chosen number was 10 the player could reach as high as 13 and as low as 7. If the GM's number was between 7 and 13 the task was successful by the player. The exact difference is the margin of success.
That's basically how the system works. Its not meant to be in-depth robust system. When designed my goal was to streamline as much as I thought neccasary to reduce posting. So combat is really simplified. The whole basic rules are only one page long with an additional one page for advanced rules. The idea also spurred me to work on creating some ideas for one page settings which I still tot with on occasions

Chi
Chi was born one day out of the basic idea of Dice Chucker and a drive for oneness spurred by tai chi too much time on my hands and wanting to create yet anothwr system. A simple rule set with some relation to traditional rpgs but less crunchy. So chi.. A character is simply a name a few adjectives that describe them and an occupation(...and sometimes a race if needed.) The character has a pool that reflects potential, life, hp, energy all rolled in one like with Dice Chucker. Here however their are not any other attributes. The character description on the form of a few adjectives and occupation is your guiding star for checks. A player may roll any number of dice from their pool to attempt to succeed at a check. So long as the character has beneficial "skills" to aid them in the task. That is determined by the player and GM based on the character adjectives. If yes roll and sum the dice and beat the GM's difficulty number. If not....the player may not use more than half their dice for the action. Damage, exhuastion, and action attempts all reduce the pool. Aside from action attempts their are no hard rules when dice loss occurs. As well it is GM's discretion what occurs when a character hits zero and how they regenerate.
I have found chi is great when I am really trying to tell a story. It allows for character flexibility when they dont fit archtypical molds. It has become a go to as well for developing settings. Which I play around with setting ideas alot.

Say, out of curiosity, are you the same w00t who worked on a Bestiary for Barebones Fantasy?