Good evening,

The following was posted on Tumblr on November 30th, 2024 as part of 200 Word RPGs 2024. Please enjoy.

The Fallen Die

For Master(s) and Player(s)
Requirements: Six-sided die, note-taking equipment.

Act I: Game

Players have six skills and six weaknesses.

When a player encounters a problem, a Master determines initial penalty (“difficulty”) based on unskilled success chance. Then, apply +1 for each applicable skill and –1 for each applicable weakness. Finally, player rolls The Fallen Die (Act II) and adds result to penalty. 1 or more is success. 0 or less is failure.

Game ends at participants’ discretion.

If unsure of initial penalty to apply to rolls, consult the chart below.

Initial Penalty VS. Unskilled Chance of Success (%)
+1 = 100.00 = Trivial
0 = 97.22 = Simple
–1 = 74.07 = Advanced
–2 = 50.93 = Difficult
–3 = 27.78 = Challenging
–4 = 4.63 = Ridiculous
–5 = 0.93 = Implausible
–6 = 0.00 = Inconceivable

Act II: Rolling The Fallen Die.

Roll d6.
1-4: Number is result.
5: Go to “B-5”.
6: Go to “B-6”.

B-5: Bad Roll

Roll d6.
1-4: Number is result.
5: Result is 0.
6: Go to “C”.

B-6: Good Roll

Roll d6.
1-5: Number is result.
6: Go to “C”.

C: Best Roll

Roll d6. Number is result.

END

[ The following is written after “Keep reading” ]

I grant permission to archive this post off-site.

My word processor says it’s 200 words.

I’ve been messing around with ways to use 1d6 for chance-based resolution systems that generally produce small numbers in equal measure, but have a slight chance to produce slightly smaller and larger numbers. So, I decided to write one of them down and attach a bare-bones RPG to it.

Here’s what the probability table looks like:

Thank you for reading,
— Clark Padmore