I love Fortune Rolls
I use a modified version of the Blades in the Dark fortune roll constantly when GMing. It's really handy. If you've played BitD it's the same but it can go into the negatives.
To build your dice pool:
- Decide what high and low mean
- (yes and no, Faction A wins or Faction B wins, etc.)
- start with 1d6 for pure luck (+0D)
- place 1d6 on its left for each disadvantage (-1D)
- place 1d6 on its right for each advantage (+1D)
- Pair off advantages and disadvantages until you have your final pool.
- Roll and take the lowest if D is negative, or take the highest if D is positive.
- Multiple 1s or 6s are rare and extreme outcomes. the more there are, the more extreme it is.
- Extraordinarily rare outcomes may need multiple 1s or 6s to happen at all.
For example, the player asks "Is this wall climbable?". I don't know the answer off the top of my head so I start building a fortune roll:
- I start with +0D (1 die for pure luck)
- I list advantages and disadvantages out loud "Well the weather's dry (+1D), and I believe I said this was a cobble wall (+1D), and I was imagining something fairly craggy (+1D) but it's really high (-1D)"
- I pair off the disadvantage with an advantage and end up with a total pool of +2D, so I roll the 3 dice left on the table and take the highest.
- If I get a 1 the wall definitely isn't climbable, if I get a 3 the wall isn't climbable without special equipment. If I get multiple 6es the wall isn't just climbable, seemingly somebody climbs it regularly and has carved out footholds.
- I may realise the answer while building the pool or I may still want to roll to see the outcome.
I like doing it this way because it's kind of a summation of a whole heap of simulation I wasn't expecting to need to do. Normally you get what you expect but sometimes you don't and I feel like that makes the world feel more nuanced than every vaguely climbable wall being climbable.