Question for you all.

Question for you all.

Question for you all.

First, I LOVE this book. I’m thinking of borrowing some of the items for other games. Like the clock idea… brilliant.

The only question I have here comes from the dice rolling. The book says:

The most common result is 4/5: partial success. is means that your character will tend to succeed, but at a cost—you’ll rarely get away clean. Blades in the Dark is a game about underdog characters who are in over their heads.

Just doing my basic odds, a 4 or 5 should come through 1/3 of the time. You succeed 1/2 the time. I didn’t see anything about modifiers, looks like you add more dice to your roll which wouldn’t necessarily raise the odds. Am I missing something like a boost that would normally improve these dice rolls? I’m not that far through the book yet, so if that’s later, I apologize.

9 thoughts on “Question for you all.”

  1. You take the best result out of however many dice you roll, so increasing the number of dice does actually improve your odds. The probability distribution for each die is the same, but the increased number of trials means a higher probability that at least one of them will 4 or greater.

    More dice also increases the likelihood of a 6, but those are less likely on a single trial than a 4-5, so the probability doesn’t rise as fast as you increase your pool. So, the 4-5 stays the most likely result for most rolls.

    For more information, look up binomial distributions. Or just the probability curves for dice pools, there are a few sites for that floating around.

  2. I agree with that. But I guess I’m just reading into how it’s worded. So with getting a 4/5, it starts with 33% chance for one die, 55% two, 70% three, and 80% with four. Still you’re more likely to roll a 1,2,3 or 6 than a 4 or 5, but I guess they meant, the more dice you roll, your chance of success increases, because getting a 4,5 or 6 is 50% one, 75% two, 88% three, and a whopping 94% with four. Better to say, the more you roll the better your chance at some success would be.

    Caveat. I haven’t taken statistics in a long time, so I’m doing the

    1 – (4/6)^n where n is number of dice rolled. 🙂

  3. I think when it says the most common result is a 4/5, it means in actual play most tests will result in a 4/5 as players will rarely be rolling just a single die and at every die pool above 1 the 4/5 becomes very likely.

  4. The dice pools have diminishing returns when you add dice. The 4-5 result is favored over the rest which means the game has a lot of success with complication.

    I think you are on to something, with the idea that more attempts means you’re more likely to get a success but there will be a lot of complications along the way.

  5. For the record, here’s an anydice program with probability distribution for zero to four dice, with 2 or 3 dice the points where a partial success is the most likely result. But as Nathan said, the “most common” depends on which size dice pools the players are rolling the most.

    anydice.com – AnyDice

  8. Remember that the point of rolling is not just making a success: the game is designed so the MC gives inputs with the complications from a partial success (4,5). The more you have dices, the more you have chances to have a success instead of a failure. But the system works with complications. Partial success is a good thing here. This is by design. Don’t worry with that.

  9. I did the numbers for result probabilities and included in my roll reference sheet (https://www.dropbox.com/s/l6jq2ovvqik9asg/BitD-Roll%20Flow.pdf?dl=0).

    The brilliant design from John makes that while the probability of “success” in general improves with more dice, the probability of “success with consequences” remains very similar (30-40%), so even for high pools there will be always interesting problems for the crew. 🙂

    dropbox.com – BitD-Roll Flow.pdf

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