tl;dr

• Choose your odds:
  • very likely
  • likely
  • unlikely
  • very unlikely.
• Roll 4D6
• Count number of dice showing 4 or higher:
  • Very Likely: 1 or more = Yes
  • Likely: 2 or more = Yes
  • Unlikely: 3 or more = Yes
  • Very Unlikely: All 4 = Yes
• Two or more dice showing 6 = Exceptional Yes
• Two or more dice showing 1 = Exceptional No
• Three matching dice = Interrupted Yes/No
• Four matching dice = Complete Interrupt

Explanation

I've been hopping between oracles recently, from the simple to the complex, and I haven't really been happy with anything. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for but I wanted something quick, but chunky.

I started off with my 3D6 alternative, but that didn't work out as I expected. Suffice to say my stats were wrong and it wasn't anywhere near as fun to play as I'd hoped. But it did help me realize what I wanted.

I wanted an oracle that felt like consulting with the Fates themselves. Something that could quickly be interpreted as a yes or a no, but also had nuance, flexibility and degrees of truth that could be used or ignored based on the circumstances.

To that end I had a couple of rules (or goals rather):

1. Absolutely no summing up. The basic result should be apparent at a glance.

2. A wide array of combinations for each result.

3. Lots of "special" outcomes that can be used or ignored.

Basic Premise

I wrote some quick python to simulate a few million rolls and started changing the requirements and dice used until I settled on the simple starting premise of rolling a number of D6 and counting how many were showing ⚃ or greater. Then using the narrative expectation of the question, we decide how many we need to succeed.

• Very likely, we only need one showing ⚃ or higher

• Likely, we need two dice or more showing ⚃ or higher

• Unlikely, we need to get at least three to show ⚃ or higher

• Very Unlikely, we need all four dice to show ⚃ or higher

This gives us our basic Oracle, with probabilities roughly 94%/68%/32%/6% for each likelihood respectively. Even without going any further, we have room for interpretation—is ⚁⚃⚃⚄ less of a "Yes" than ⚂⚃⚄⚄?

Exceptional Results

These odds on their own are a little extreme, so to even them out we will use any double ⚅ or double ⚀ as instant, and exceptional, "Yes" or "No" respectively. This brings our probabilities to roughly 85%/65%/35%/15% with the added bonus that when the odds are low, that "Yes" is more likely to be an "Exceptional Yes" than a normal "Yes", which feels right.

Chaos and Randomness

We could stop here, but we want to be able to inject some randomness into our campaigns as well. To that end, anytime a result includes three of the same faces we get an "Interrupted Yes" or "Interrupted No". And if all four of the faces are the same, well, that's worthy of a complete redirection or scene change.

All in all, these interrupts will now happen in about 7% of all outcomes, with 0.5% of all outcomes being the extreme complete redirect interrupt. I want to bump this last number a little, so I include any time the dice are the magical combination of 2x ⚅ and 2x ⚀ as well. That doubles the chances of the extreme interrupt to around 1%.

Lets look at the outcomes of a million rolls in each likelihood:

Even more complicated

Again, we could stop here, but I want to over complicate things. Can we add an advantage/disadvantage system to this oracle? What does very likely but with disadvantage look like? What does that even mean narratively? Maybe you imagine it to be very likely to happen, but the gods disagree? Who knows, but lets have a look anyway.

To implement dis/advantage, we roll 5D6 and drop the highest or the lowest respectively. This gives us the following outcomes:

Advantage

Advantage here changes a number of things, but most noticeable is the huge bump for "Exceptional Yes" and dramatic drop for "Exceptional No". I like this, because if the Fates are giving you a boon, it really should be Exceptional.

In addition to this, all interrupts increase, with the extreme interrupt rising from ~1% to ~1.2%. Again, it feels right that the powers-that-be interfering would increase the chance of a chaotic outcome.

Disadvantage

Pretty much what you would expect here, the same as above, but inverted.

More Advantage?

I toyed with the idea of double and triple advantage, rolling 6D6 or 7D6. But really this doesn't change the odds that much. In fact it starts to become less of an advantage and simply increases the chance of getting an interrupt.

Conclusion

Is this over complicated? Probably. Does it do what I set out to do? Likely. Is it fun to run a load of dice simulations and then be overly verbose about the outcomes? Definitely.

I am going to give this oracle a fair run, but in my short play testing so far it has been quite fun and it is much faster than it probably seems.

⚁, ⚂, ⚄, ⚅ = Yes
⚀, ⚂, ⚃, ⚅ = Yes
⚀, ⚂, ⚃, ⚃ = Yes
⚀, ⚀, ⚅, ⚅ = Interrupt
⚁, ⚁, ⚁, ⚄ = Interrupted No
⚁, ⚁, ⚂, ⚅ = No
⚁, ⚄, ⚅, ⚅ = Exceptional Yes
⚃, ⚃, ⚃, ⚃ = Interrupt
⚀, ⚄, ⚄, ⚅ = Yes
⚀, ⚀, ⚃, ⚃ = Exceptional No

(all examples assume Likely)

Extensions

I was trying to think of other ways to extend the Oracle, but again sticking to Rule above. The one I've been most curious about is using four different dice (or five if using advantage). Each could represent a different aspect of your character or world, and what meaning would that give your rolls?

Lets say Red = Heart, Blue = Head, Green = World, Yellow = Luck

If I got an Exceptional Yes and the ⚅'s were Blue and Green, does that mean I used the environment cleverly to my advantage? If it was Exceptional No with ⚀'s on Red and Yellow, does that mean my gut instinct failed me and brought me to a very unlucky sticky situation?

Maybe I'll give that a try and report back, either way, thanks for reading this far and please let me know what you think if you try it out.