ones succeed

[robin of awakening]

Since ones add together in this version I was wondering what would happen if you had enough dice on a roll that you make the DN with all ones. I wonder because all ones is supposed to be especially bad.

For example if you had 4 dice and the DN was 4. If you happen to roll all ones you would hit the difficulty number.

And it isn't like you couldn't fail in the example either... a roll of 3 ones and 1 three would fail to hit the DN.

[Trailblazer57]

page 99
explains this best.

[robin of awakening]

Actually page 99 implies you already failed. I was more asking what would happen if all ones was a success.

[Trailblazer57]

it states that if doubles 6's is the best roll without bonuses. then all ones is the worst.
"This can be true even if
you roll more than two dice, as long as
they all come up one!"
so unless you want to go by a homebrew rule (nothing wrong with that)
then all ones no matter how many should be a failure.
we cant have pcs who can never fail anything. then there would be no reason to roll dice.

[Clay]

I never made an explicit ruling in the text about this because there’s two ways to look at it. You could say you’re exceptionally unlucky that you rolled all those ones, and it should be a failure no matter what.

On the other hand, you could say you’re really lucky to be able to succeed despite rolling all those ones.

Neither way is wrong, so take your pick. But I’d venture to say even a success should be phrased in the story as amazing luck as opposed to an outright success. (For example, missing a gun attack, only to have the bullet ricochet a few times before finding its mark.)

[The Reddest Mage]

I never made an explicit ruling in the text about this because there’s two ways to look at it. You could say you’re exceptionally unlucky that you rolled all those ones, and it should be a failure no matter what.

On the other hand, you could say you’re really lucky to be able to succeed despite rolling all those ones.

Neither way is wrong, so take your pick. But I’d venture to say even a success should be phrased in the story as amazing luck as opposed to an outright success. (For example, missing a gun attack, only to have the bullet ricochet a few times before finding its mark.)

I had been wondering about this myself. I recall the first edition clearly stated that 1s were never added together. However in the revised edition it never specifically says that 1s aren't added together. So basically, in this edition it's left to the GM to choose, is that right?

Personally, I can't decide which is better to use: on one hand, I am leaning more to keep the rule that 1s aren't added together from the first edition so that there is always a chance of getting a critical failure, yet on the other hand since the players I am introducing the game to have never read or played the first edition, due to the text in the revised edition never actually saying that 1s aren't added together I worry it might come off as being an arbitrary houserule on my part to make things harder.

So what do you think Clay? In your own games for example, do you still use the 1s are never added rule, or have you started letting them be added?

[Clay]

I think it’s largely dependent on the kind of game you’re playing. A silly or cinematic kind of game would do just fine with all ones as failure. On the other hand, if you’re playing some sort of grimdark story where characters are low-powered and consequences steep, it might be better to throw a bone and let them succeed with all ones.

...but if you’re asking me what I would do...I would lean to all ones being a failure regardless of the numbers added. For the most part, the times where all ones is also a success are slim to none anyway. (Unless you’re rolling dice for a 2 or 4 difficulty...which most of the time you shouldn’t bother with.)

[robert_wellinghurst]

The way I have read the section, it looked like to me, that it was referring to and unmodified base roll of 2D6 where snake eyes was bad and boxcars are good. To this, with exception to negative dice, that all ones are bad and all sixes are good. With that in mind, rolling 10D6 would mean, a total of 10 is bad and 60 is good, all ones and all sixes. The more skilled you are the less likely for automatic successes and failures. So 9 out of 10 dice rolling ones is not automatic failure, at least that is how I see it, what do you think?

[Clay]

Yes, the description saying “all ones are bad!” is specifically referring to the two dice default.

The old version of the game made ones not combine, but that is no longer the case. Still, a lot of people are more comfortable with that interpretation just because “that’s how it’s always been."

So if you like the idea of all ones being auto-fail even when you roll 20 dice, then there’s no reason you can’t make it work that way. Likewise, if you only want to make all ones apply to the two dice default, that’s also okay.

Or you can ignore the rule entirely. There’s a reason the entire paragraph is worded in a “you can” way and not a “you must!"