Rolling the bones
Discussions of GURPS often mention that the game has only "three types of dice rolls": success rolls (made on 3d; roll low to succeed), reaction rolls (made on 3d; roll high to get a good reaction), and damage rolls (roll as many dice as indicated; a higher total is more damage).
To be sure, that's not how the game itself describes things! Both GURPS Basic Set and GURPS LITE note those rolls as "three basic 'game mechanics'", not "three kinds of dice rolls". I suppose that sounds fine to me, depending on what defines "game mechanic". No further comment from me on that!
But about those "three types of dice rolls" mentioned by many a player: Yep, success rolls, reaction rolls, and damage rolls are indeed three kinds of rolls, and they're darned important ones at that. However, I don't think of that trio as making up some "three types of rolls" that define the game – especially when there are so many rolls that they don't cover! Read more...
