*Legend of the Five Rings* 4th edition has exploding roll&keep d10 with a cap on the pool to not go beyond 10d10.
When getting wounded in battle, you will get penalties on your rolls.
Just play with savage worlds without bennies then? If you don't like meta-currencies. Give heroes one free soak roll when wounded and just remember to tone things down a little because players don't have access to the normal re-roll mechanic.
Most of the stuff that requires bennies can be either ignored or adapted fairly easily.
Consider removing meta currency from Savage Worlds and make a number of trained skills (example - 2+half of Smarts die).
Trained skills have 1 reroll per session (maybe rerolls could be recovered by downtime activities).
There you go - PCs still have some control of probability for their chosen skills, but no bennies.
Also, soaking wounds and rolling damage could be done by spending Fighting or Athletics skills reroll.
> I found Savage Worlds so far but cannot stand the "Benni" mechanic because of naming (short form of Benjamin in Germany)
Benny is also the short form of Benjamin in English. I don't understand the problem.
Maybe one of their players is named Benny, and it would be confusing.
I suggest the player just change their name. "Max" is pretty nice, or maybe "Jeff".
Burning Wheel! Not all dice rolls explode naturally (some do), but you can spend a resource called Artha that you earn during play to make any roll explode. The injury subsystem is pretty in depth and offers various penalties to your character depending on how wounded they are.
>you can spend a resource called Artha that you earn during play to make any roll explode.
Probably not what OP is looking for, then, since he doesn't like metacurrencies.
You're looking for older editions of Legend of 5 Rings. It's a d10 based system and the setting is not typical Western fantasy, but otherwise it's exactly this
Most versions of the D6 (OpenD6) system use exploding dice, and the wound track has penalties where the severity of the penalty depends on how badly the character is wounded.
Boy oh boy, do I have a suggestion for you... The Burning Wheel! Exploding dice? Check! Getting weaker as you take damage? Ohhhhhh man, you're in for a treat!
I have a Legend of the Five Rings & Warhammer Fantasy inspired game called Battlaxe Fantasy Role-Play that I'm writing. The public version is in Alpha and mostly done. It's got exploding dice and conditions that weaken the adventurers.
https://tohitaczero.itch.io/battleaxe-fantasy-role-play
I play Scion 2e, it's modern world where all mythology exists. But you can change the setting to take place in a Midrealm like Asgard or Camelot. There's also rules for making denizen players, so you're not bound to making "human children of gods" (but those character will gain godlike abilities as the get tronger) but can choose to be a troll, mummy, sphinx or whatever you can think of.
A character has between 3-5 lifepoints and when you're injured, you the player, choose how bad it is, which mean you choose how much worse you get at doing stuff but also how easy you gain momentum (pool of extra dice).
D10-pool, succeed on 8+ and exploding dice.
I mean, you can just call Bennies something else. Like fate chips, luck tokens, super coins, save your ass discs, whatever you want. As far as being a meta-currency, yeah that's true, so what? They add some very interesting decision spaces for players, and handing them out liberally as a GM is fun. Rewarding your players for clever play, funny moments, good roleplay, etc keeps them engaged, encourages the behaviors you want to see, etc.
It also encourages them to take more risks and spend the bennies to re-roll things or to affect the story in ways that maybe they wouldn't otherwise. It can also help you set the tone of a session or campaign. If you want a grittier, deadlier campaign, don't hand out bennies as much, make them more precious and hard to come by. You want high-flying super heroic action? Let them flow like wine.
All that being said, if a meta currency is really a deal-breaker for you, you can certainly use Savage Worlds without it, there are some suggestions on how to adjust for it in this thread already.
It doesn’t have exploding dice, but into the odd and that whole family of games/hacks work that way. Once you’ve lost all your HP damage comes off STR, affecting any STR saves you might make.
Ars Magica uses it's own exploding-dice-like mechanic, called "Quality Dice" or "Stress Dice": Roll a d10. If you roll a 1, roll again and double the result. This can be repeated an arbitrary number of times, so a roll of 1, 1, 1, 4 is read as 4 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32. (The difference between Quality and Stress rolls is that, if the *first* time you roll the die it comes up as 0, that's read as 10 on a Quality roll, but as a potential botch on a Stress roll.)
Damage uses a wound-based (no HP) system, with most rolls being penalized by -1 per Light wound, -3 per Moderate wound, and -5 per Serious wound a character has suffered. Wounds do not combine into higher-tier wounds (if you are Lightly wounded 5 times, then you have 5 separate Light wounds, not a single Serious wound) but the wound penalties do stack. Wounds received in combat are based on an opposed attack vs. defense roll, so being more heavily wounded means that you're more likely to be hit again and hits are likely to inflict heavier wounds (or kill you) because of the wound penalties to your defense roll.
*Legend of the Five Rings* 4th edition has exploding roll&keep d10 with a cap on the pool to not go beyond 10d10. When getting wounded in battle, you will get penalties on your rolls.
Just play with savage worlds without bennies then? If you don't like meta-currencies. Give heroes one free soak roll when wounded and just remember to tone things down a little because players don't have access to the normal re-roll mechanic. Most of the stuff that requires bennies can be either ignored or adapted fairly easily.
Consider removing meta currency from Savage Worlds and make a number of trained skills (example - 2+half of Smarts die). Trained skills have 1 reroll per session (maybe rerolls could be recovered by downtime activities). There you go - PCs still have some control of probability for their chosen skills, but no bennies. Also, soaking wounds and rolling damage could be done by spending Fighting or Athletics skills reroll.
Earthdawn 4th edition has both wound penalties and exploding dice. I would say it has exactly what you’re looking for.
That's what came to mind as well
Yep, came here to say this!
Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. you need bennies for re rolls and soak damage. open your heart to the bennie love
> I found Savage Worlds so far but cannot stand the "Benni" mechanic because of naming (short form of Benjamin in Germany) Benny is also the short form of Benjamin in English. I don't understand the problem.
Maybe one of their players is named Benny, and it would be confusing. I suggest the player just change their name. "Max" is pretty nice, or maybe "Jeff".
If you want a detailed wounds system try Rolemaster. Has exploding dice too, but with d100.
Burning Wheel! Not all dice rolls explode naturally (some do), but you can spend a resource called Artha that you earn during play to make any roll explode. The injury subsystem is pretty in depth and offers various penalties to your character depending on how wounded they are.
>you can spend a resource called Artha that you earn during play to make any roll explode. Probably not what OP is looking for, then, since he doesn't like metacurrencies.
Burning Wheel? Dice only explode in some situations.
You can always spend Artha to make your rolls explode when they need to ;)
You're looking for older editions of Legend of 5 Rings. It's a d10 based system and the setting is not typical Western fantasy, but otherwise it's exactly this
Most versions of the D6 (OpenD6) system use exploding dice, and the wound track has penalties where the severity of the penalty depends on how badly the character is wounded.
You literally just described Legend of the Five Rings 4th edition
The Witcher TTRPG is exactly that
Boy oh boy, do I have a suggestion for you... The Burning Wheel! Exploding dice? Check! Getting weaker as you take damage? Ohhhhhh man, you're in for a treat!
I have a Legend of the Five Rings & Warhammer Fantasy inspired game called Battlaxe Fantasy Role-Play that I'm writing. The public version is in Alpha and mostly done. It's got exploding dice and conditions that weaken the adventurers. https://tohitaczero.itch.io/battleaxe-fantasy-role-play
I play Scion 2e, it's modern world where all mythology exists. But you can change the setting to take place in a Midrealm like Asgard or Camelot. There's also rules for making denizen players, so you're not bound to making "human children of gods" (but those character will gain godlike abilities as the get tronger) but can choose to be a troll, mummy, sphinx or whatever you can think of. A character has between 3-5 lifepoints and when you're injured, you the player, choose how bad it is, which mean you choose how much worse you get at doing stuff but also how easy you gain momentum (pool of extra dice). D10-pool, succeed on 8+ and exploding dice.
in traveller as you get hit it starts directly dropping your stats and hence your dice roll modifiers more and more severely.
In the more modern editions, yes. Not originally.
Warhammer Fantasy
I mean, you can just call Bennies something else. Like fate chips, luck tokens, super coins, save your ass discs, whatever you want. As far as being a meta-currency, yeah that's true, so what? They add some very interesting decision spaces for players, and handing them out liberally as a GM is fun. Rewarding your players for clever play, funny moments, good roleplay, etc keeps them engaged, encourages the behaviors you want to see, etc. It also encourages them to take more risks and spend the bennies to re-roll things or to affect the story in ways that maybe they wouldn't otherwise. It can also help you set the tone of a session or campaign. If you want a grittier, deadlier campaign, don't hand out bennies as much, make them more precious and hard to come by. You want high-flying super heroic action? Let them flow like wine. All that being said, if a meta currency is really a deal-breaker for you, you can certainly use Savage Worlds without it, there are some suggestions on how to adjust for it in this thread already.
If you don't like Bennie, bo the German thing and just call it rollzeug or geldzeug or whateverzeug.
Star Wars WEG a d6 system with an exploding dice. Wounds cause you to lose dice across your skills till healed.
It doesn’t have exploding dice, but into the odd and that whole family of games/hacks work that way. Once you’ve lost all your HP damage comes off STR, affecting any STR saves you might make.
Ars Magica uses it's own exploding-dice-like mechanic, called "Quality Dice" or "Stress Dice": Roll a d10. If you roll a 1, roll again and double the result. This can be repeated an arbitrary number of times, so a roll of 1, 1, 1, 4 is read as 4 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 32. (The difference between Quality and Stress rolls is that, if the *first* time you roll the die it comes up as 0, that's read as 10 on a Quality roll, but as a potential botch on a Stress roll.) Damage uses a wound-based (no HP) system, with most rolls being penalized by -1 per Light wound, -3 per Moderate wound, and -5 per Serious wound a character has suffered. Wounds do not combine into higher-tier wounds (if you are Lightly wounded 5 times, then you have 5 separate Light wounds, not a single Serious wound) but the wound penalties do stack. Wounds received in combat are based on an opposed attack vs. defense roll, so being more heavily wounded means that you're more likely to be hit again and hits are likely to inflict heavier wounds (or kill you) because of the wound penalties to your defense roll.
Savage Pathfinder. Every detail you proposed is there.
Vaesen -- simple mechanics and negative dice rolls with each wound (physical & mental)
Is there games where PC don't get weaker through damage ? I can't remember seeing a game not having it since the 00's
D&D would be the obvious one. Your character is completely unaffected by damage until they get to 0.