So on my rant about dice pools sucking, I briefly talked about dice pools being lame. Now this is still true, but I want to go a step further. I want to say the dice pools are for lazy designers who don't give a shit about math or in any way playtesting their system. Yes, above and beyond the usual "designers not playtesting their system". And I've noticed a pattern since either Apocalypse Hurled (PbtA) or Farts in the Dark (FitD). I sincerely don't give a shit which. One of them flew a flag bringing every mediocre person with a mediocre idea and absolutely zero game design potential and less than zero work ethic. Are you ready? Here it is:
1-3: Fail
4-5: Half Succeed (or something stupid that's functionally identical to half-success)
6: Full Success
Now there's a variant of this for 2d6:
2-6: Fail
7-9: Half Succeed (or something stupid that's functionally identical to half-success)
10-12: Full Success
Now, the first listing is for a die pool system too, so maybe the culprit is potentially Burning Wheel, as it's older and puts a lot more effort into it's stupid. Both of these are cues to "drop this game and run away". They are trash made by morons who have zero game design skill and decided it would be better to just regurgitate some shit they saw in another game and pretend it's good, useful, or worthwhile in any way.
Dice pools generally indicate a failure of proper game design, but this specific set of mechanics has been roaming around recently and infecting a lot of silly games. I recommend that if you can't easily discern the risk of a given action in a game system, that game system is not worth your time or money.
