Introducing 4 Dice SF RPG (two versions!)

Introduction

I have been tinkering of and off for 8 years on solo RPGs with the aim to run through the Classic Traveller adventures.  After building a number of complex assistance spreadsheets I have created one (well, two) based on a SF variants of the 3 Dice rule.  I tend to play with the more complex version (4 Dice SF PPS RPG) but both are fun.

The SF RPG are available on this blog page.

Background

I have been trimming down my solo RPG spreadsheet to have less and less skills and attributes.  I was down to 8 attributes (no skills as skill level incorporated into a character’s attributes) and then 4.  When I was moving the spreadsheet to 4 attributes I also had a keenness to rope in many of the sprawling supporting tables to all be d6 based.  I started on that path and also looked around at d6 based games.  While doing so re-discovered 3 Dice (an RPG) that I remember looking at a few years ago. I went down a rabbit hole for a week downloading and reading everything on 3 Dice and variants – especially 3 Dice Dungeon and the SF exploration-based version Hex Rangers (archive.org).

The other variants did not really seem to add what I needed so I used 3 Dice. It seemed like a simple enough system so coded it up in a spreadsheet. What I likes it I managed to do it without macros, buttons etc. to drive the game (which is what my previous spreadsheet had grown into). Each row in the spreadsheets had the same formula, based of values in the previous row.  So could play a game just by entering one value (to select the adventurer to use) in each row.  So much simpler to run!  I then quickly moved onto an SF version.

# Dice, And 3 Dice are really good for pulp type adventures.  The idea is not that each scene is very difficult to complete nor equal to the adventuring party in skill/weapons, but that the party need to succeed over a number of scenes ad gradually are worn down as they progress.  Like in pulp movies – how else do the heroes manage to dodge and shoot their way through so much opposition J

4 Dice SF RPG

4 Dice SF takes 3 Dice and makes it more SF-ish.  The main changes are:

• The three attributes (Mind, Body, Spirit) become three or four adventurers, each adventurer having a single stat.  Each adventurer can have and use gear, weapons or blast.
• Each task is 4 rolls – location, class, opposition level and reward. Class is the type of opposition – Citizens, Professionals, Achievers, Criminals, Obstacle or Hazard.  Opposition level is the difficulty that the adventurers need to roll against. One reward is now a clue.
• To provide some adventurer differentiation, each adventurer has a hindrance that gives them a -1 modifier against one particular class.
• Added in acts: defaulting to four acts, each act takes place in a zone (each has 6 locations).  There are 6 random act goals (e.g. obtain a clue, visit a certain location, encounter a particular class, gain XP).
• A roll of 6 is a critical failure with the adventurer also having a 50% chance of losing an item.  A roll of 1 is a critical success inflicting two hits instead of 1.
• There are also options for races, location effects on the game and an end of adventure scene. The rules were designed to run Classic Traveller so the races are all Traveller but could easily be modified.

The non-optional rules fit onto one page, and options another page.  So still quite short. I found that with hindrances, I missed the concept of skills (a positive to the dice roll) and also that gear and weapons could be used against any opposition class.   So I moved to creating a new version.

The 4 Dice SF RPG are available on this blog page.

4 Dice PPS SFRPG

4 Dice PPS SFRPG (PPS is short for Pulp Pure and Simple) adds the concept of skill.  There are three skills and each adventurer may excel at one skill.  Each skill assists with tasks against certain classes.  I also added in restrictions on gear and weapons use to only particular opposition classes.  Skills and gear/weapon restrictions (and skills) do slightly increase complexity but this is offset with an improved narrative (in my opinion).  Other changes:

• There is a possibility that an adventurer with a stat of 0 may die rather than recover.
• With an adventurer having a skill, the hindrances are now optional.
• Changing skills mid scene (e.g. interacting with Citizens then decide to fight (survival skill).
• On a critical failure (a 6) a adventurer will go out of the fight (ran away, fell unconscious, decides to give up) 50%% of the time or lose an item for the other 50%.  An out of the fight adventurer is not available for the rest of the scene but is Ok for the next scene.

Due to the way I have coded up the spreadsheet, the only entry required is to select an adventurer for a task roll, all the rest can be random.  I did some automation so that optionally each task could select the adventurer with the highest stat (not necessarily the best chance – I kept it simple and ignored skills, gear and weapons for the calculation of “best” adventurer).  I have run this automation about 100 times and the party succeed about a third of the time.  By selecting the best adventurer, I think this would increase to about two thirds.  So the game engine is likely performing ok – not too hard, but not easy.  And a string of bad dice rolls will derail you regardless!  I actually take to time to read the narrative generated automatically (I have a simple translation of the numbers into sentences) as a good way to pass the time.

The 4 Dice SF PPS RPG are available on this blog page.

Where to from here?

Well, I have replayed Annic Nova with 3 Dice SF and also with 4 Dice SFRPG.  My next goal is to programme up the steps for Twilight’s Peak and give it a run through. Or just run some adventures.

I would also like to be able to convert some of the scenes to quickly run them with miniatures using rules such as the Two Hour Wargames Chain Reaction-type rules, and/or expand 4 Dice SFRPG with Possibly some mechanisms from the Four Against Darkness series.  Alas, I fear that may be too time-consuming for me with so many other projects and so will continue to just use 4 Dice SFRPG.