Psychic Dice Roller Game

[coronatiger]

What about this: Each player, having characters with some divination abilities, gets a list of pre-rolled dice results. For simplicity's sake, assume a system that only uses one type of die, like GURPS. A player can only see the next result on their list at any time; this may include several dice like 3d6 in GURPS. No player is allowed to reveal their next roll before the GM calls for it, and the GM can't look at the players' lists, and rolls normally.

How would such a game play out?

[Varyon]

Could be interesting, particularly given that the characters explicitly have psychic abilities. There would be oddities, however - using GURPS as an example, if I saw that my next roll was going to be an 18, I'd try to do something relatively inconsequential but that would call for a roll in order to "use up" that bad roll ASAP, while if I saw that my next roll was going to be a 3, you'd best believe I'm going to try to avoid taking action until I can do something really impressive; less extreme rolls would have less extreme (but similar) effects - if I saw my next roll was going to be bad, I'd try to do something either inconsequential or easy (such as using a Telegraphic Attack in combat), while if I saw my next roll was going to be good, I'd do something otherwise difficult (like a Deceptive Targeted Attack).

EDIT: On the other hand, if you're talking about only knowing the result of 1d at a time, that would be quite different, and arguably more interesting.
EDIT2: Optionally, instead of using a pregenerated list, you could have each player make one roll ahead of time (and replace it each time they "spend" it on an action), but have a "player screen" or similar to prevent the GM and other players from seeing it. That does require you to trust your players not to alter their rolls after the fact, but then you already need to trust them not to peek ahead a few rolls on the list. Or, heck, provided it's not an adversarial game, it's probably fine to let your prescient dice roll be visible to everyone.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Could be interesting, particularly given that the characters explicitly have psychic abilities. There would be oddities, however - using GURPS as an example, if I saw that my next roll was going to be an 18, I'd try to do something relatively inconsequential but that would call for a roll in order to "use up" that bad roll ASAP, while if I saw that my next roll was going to be a 3, you'd best believe I'm going to try to avoid taking action until I can do something really impressive

I've met something like this in another RPG, though I can't remember which: as a good/bad side effect of something else, "your next roll" becomes a critical or a fumble.

[dbm]

This power is not dissimilar to the ‘Portent’ ability that Divination Wizards get in D&D 5e - they roll two (or three at higher levels) d20 and keep them to one side. During play, they can use any of the available values (once each) instead of a dice that is about to be rolled. Since this is D&D 5e that could be a skill roll, attack roll or saving throw. And the ability can be applied to pretty much any roll, so you can hamper foes and help friends alike.

It’s a really powerful ability. It becomes interesting when the numbers available to you are in the mid-range (e.g. will forcing a 12 mean you hit or they miss?) where as really high or low values are easier to employ.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Varyon

EDIT2: Optionally, instead of using a pregenerated list, you could have each player make one roll ahead of time (and replace it each time they "spend" it on an action), but have a "player screen" or similar to prevent the GM and other players from seeing it. That does require you to trust your players not to alter their rolls after the fact, but then you already need to trust them not to peek ahead a few rolls on the list. Or, heck, provided it's not an adversarial game, it's probably fine to let your prescient dice roll be visible to everyone.

Rolling one roll ahead is functionally the same and probably easier to do. For the trust issue, there's a simple enough method. The player rolls their roll in advance in a dice tower or dice cup, has a peek at the result then re-covers it until needed. They're not allowed to touch the dice until then.

In a GURPS combat, it could get a bit unwieldy as players sometimes have to make several rolls in a row.