Narrative Dice System

The Narrative Dice System is a unique tabletop roleplaying game mechanic using custom dice. Originally created by Fantasy Flight Games for the third edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and later used for their Star Wars RPG series as well as their generic system Genesys, its bespoke narrative dice give make sure every roll impacts the story. The system uses six types of dice marked with different combinations of symbols. Ability dice represent a character's skill, and are marked with Success and Advantage symbols. Difficulty dice represent the challenge an obstacle or opposition presents and are marked with Failure and Threat symbols. When a player makes a roll, they roll all their dice at once and compare the symbols: if there are more Success symbols than Failure, the action succeeds! But Advantage and Threat throw in a twist: more Advantage symbols mean an additional bonus, even if you failed. More Threat symbols mean a negative side effect or complication arises, even if you succeeded. This way, the result of a roll is rarely binary. You might fail, but find something useful. You might succeed, but learn an unwelcome truth. The other dice types modify these rolls; Boost dice offer extra Advantage and Successes, and represent favorable circumstances that tilt the odds in your favor, while Setback dice have additional Failures and Threats for situations where conditions are against you. Finally, when things are extreme, either your character is completely in their wheelhouse or way out of their depth, their Ability dice might upgrade to Proficiency dice or your Difficulty dice might become dreaded Challenge dice. These dice introduce the Triumph and Despair symbols respectively. A success with a Triumph represents going above and beyond the challenge. A failure with Despair is the worst possible outcome; not only do you not get what you want, things get worse. Player characters get to choose their abilities and areas of expertise to influence how many positive dice they'll get to roll in relevant situations, and hopefully mitigate the Setbacks, Difficulties, and Challenges. The combinations of all these symbols mean every die roll in the Narrative Dice System has a vast array of possible outcomes, not just pass or fail. Every roll becomes meaningful and can change the course of the story, introducing new boons and bonuses, exciting threats and complications, and twists that surprise everyone at the table, even the game master! The dice become contributors to your table's shared collaborative storytelling.