Originally posted Patreon-only in early 2019, now free for all to read.
That’s right, I’m still on my dice magic nonsense! It’s an interesting bit of worldbuilding and I can’t get enough of it.
At the place now where I’m deciding between the aesthetic of dice magic and the actuality of dice magic. Although possibly both would be possible?
I talked a lot about aesthetics in the last post. The idea of a world where spectral dice are rolled or drawn to cast spells. I think that’s still a possibility.
But I’m really being taken by what it means to have a world that runs on dice. I’m not keen on a Discworld-like Lady Luck situation where the gods are rolling dice and taking bets. I’m thinking more of the idea that the universe itself runs on probabilities, and that the magic users etc of this world understand this through dice. A sliding scale of success across 1-20, understanding power level/damage through eight or six or twelve sided dice.
I don’t know. It’s interesting! It has detail and character but still room for there to be lots of unknowns still to be discovered about how magic actually works, which I rather like. I suppose the thing I’m most unsure of is the way in which this reacts with ‘hit points’ — how much health a character has — which I’m undecided on as an actual mechanic in a world. I guess we’ll see?
My plan is still (as always) to feel my way through this. I have a concept in mind, and I’m going to see how it plays out with the actual story and characters. Once I’m actually sitting in the story, it’ll be a lot clearer whether this is going to work thematically or whether it’s a hopeless system that breaks immersion.
But it’s been fun to think about, nonetheless.
Anyway, just a few more thoughts. Once I bring in some of the dice mechanics into the story, I might share some snippets to see what you think.