Category: Optional Rules

Savage Worlds has its “Bennies” that allow characters (and non-player characters) to re-roll unfavourable dice throws (or receive other ad hoc benefits) when things are going against them.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition has its (overly-complicated in my opinion) currencies of “Fortune”, “Fate”, “Resilience” and “Resolve” that characters can draw upon to re-roll dice, overcome adverse psychological effects and even avoid certain death.

Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition has its “Push” mechanic that allows failed skill tests to be re-rolled with the risk of additional consequences. It also offers an optional pool of Luck Points that characters can draw upon to tweak failed rolls.

Although these various mechanics all work in slightly different ways, they all have the same objective – to soften the consequences of unfavourable dice rolls on player characters.

In recent role-playing games, a popular mechanic for making task rolls easier or more difficult is the concept of “Advantage and Disadvantage“. It is also sometimes known as “Bonus Dice and Penalty Dice“.

The idea is simple. When a character tries to perform an action that, due to the prevailing circumstances, is either easier or more difficult than usual, instead of rolling a single die they instead roll multiple dice. If the task is easier, they take the best result from the dice pool. If the task is more difficult, they take the worst. In d100 systems that use this mechanic (e.g. Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition), this typically only applies to the “tens” die; the “units” die is rolled normally.