Dice Bag: The Ruby Dice Rolling Library

Name : Dice Bag Library for Ruby

Author : Randy "syntruth" Carnahan

Version: 3.3.2

License: LGPL OR MIT

The dice library for Ruby is an attempt to bring a standard interface to every gamer's (RPG and otherwise) need to have dice rolled. The centralized concept to this is taking a standard formatted string and parsing it, returning values from that string.

The original inspiration for this library was the 'rolldice' Unix command-line application. Since then, it's been added to to allow additional elements in the dice string.

Note: prior versions of this library allowed for dice strings to be "complex" in that there was more than one dice string, separated by commas, to be parsed and returned. This feature was never really used, so it's been removed to keep this newer version (3.0+) cleaner.

Starting with Version 3.0, this library now uses parslet, the excellent Ruby syntax parser. It's made the internals a bit more complicated, but has allowed greater flexibility in constructing dice strings. For example, previous version, you had to do '4d6 e6 k3' if you wanted the dice to explode (see below) and to keep the 3 highest rolls. Now, the e6 and k3 (and the other options) can be in any order after the xDx part of the string.

Installation

gem install dicebag

Commandline Utility

A dicebag executable is installed as well. It's nothing fancy, as it just simply takes a dice string and prints the result to STDOUT.

If the -n or --notes flag is given, then any notes generated from the parsing of the dice string will be below the result.

$ dicebag "4d6 k3"
16

# 10 is not valid for a reroll value >= 4!
$ dicebag --notes "1d4 r10"
3
For 1d4: Reroll reset to 0.

# 1 is an invalid option for exploding dice!
$ dicebag --notes 1d4e1
1
For 1d4 e: Explode set to 4

# To get the average of a roll
$ dicebag --avg 3d6
10

# To get the maximum of a roll
$ dicebag --max 3d6
18

# To get the minimum of a roll
$ dicebag --min 3d6
3

Commandline Arguments

Usage: dicebag [-n|--notes] [--avg|--max|--min] <string>
    -h                               Displays this help.
        --avg                        Display the average for the roll.
        --max                        Display the maximum for the roll.
        --min                        Display the minimum for the roll.
    -n, --notes                      Display any notes for the roll.

Usage

Dice Strings

A dice string, also called the xDx string, that represents a single group of dice, such as 3d10 or 4d6. Optional parts of the dice string are given below.

A dice string is made up of one or more parts that consist of either:

• an optional label, which must be the first part of the string. Labels are defined within parenthesis.
• an xDx (such as 3d6) definition and options for that definition.
• modifiers that is applied to the current total. These are either static values or additional xDx strings.

The allowed static modifiers are add +, subtract -, multiply *, and divide /. As the library (in the Roll class) iterates over the parsed tree, a total for that roll is kept; the static modifiers are applied in the order they are gotten, which is to say, the standard order of arithmetic calculations do not apply.

For example:

2d6 + 5 * 3 - 6

...would roll the 2d6 for the total, then add 5 to it, then multiply that total by 3, and finally subtract 6. The 5 is not multiplied by 3 for a 15 and then added to the roll result. Just something to keep in mind.

Dice String Options

In the following section, note that # is used to denote the number part of a option.

xDx: denotes how many dice to roll and how many sides the dice should have. This is the standard RPG dice syntax. This must come before any options for a given set of dice.

e#: the explode value. Some game systems call this 'open ended' dice. If the number rolled is greater than or equal to the value given for this option, the die is rolled again and added to the total. If no number is given for this option, it is assumed to be the same as the number of sides on the die. Thus, '1d6 e' is the same as '1d6 e6'.

d#: this denotes how many dice to drop from the tally. These dice are dropped before any dice are kept with k# below. So, '5d6 d2' means roll five 6-sided dice and drop the lowest 2 values. If the given value (combined with how many dice to keep) are greater than the number of dice in the xDx string, this value will be reset to 0.

k#: this denotes how many dice to keep out of the number of dice rolled, keeping the highest values from the roll. Thus, '4d6 k3' means to roll four 6-sided dice and keep the best 3 values. If the given value (combined with how many dice to drop) are greater than the number of dice in the xDx string, this value will be reset to 0.

r#: this denotes a reroll value. If the die rolls this value or less, then the die is rolled again. Thus, '1d6 r3' will only return a result of 4, 5, or 6. If the given value is larger than the number of sides on the die, then it is reset to 0.

t#: this denotes a target number that each die in the roll must match or exceed to count as a 'success'. That is, the dice in the roll are not added together for a total, but any die that meets or exceeds the target number is added to a total of successes. For example, '5d10 t8' means roll five 10-sided dice and each die that is 8 or higher is a success. (Similar to WhiteWolf games.) If this option is given a 0 value, that is the same as not having the option at all; that is, a normal sum of all dice in the roll is performed instead.

f#: this denotes a failure number that each dice must match or be beneath in order to count against successes. These work as a sort of negitive successes and are totaled together as described above. For example, '5d10 t8 f1' means roll five 10-sided dice and each die that is 8 or higher is a success and subtract each one. (Like in White Wolf games.) Because of this, the total may be negative. If this option is given a 0 value, that is the same as not having the option at all; that is, a normal sum of all dice in the roll is performed instead.

Note: if any value is reset because of a validation failure, a note is attached to the Roll.

Dice String Limitations

Within the dice library itself, simple (xDx) strings are limited to 4 digits for all parts of the string. This is to prevent heckin' chonker numbers that some users abuse to lag out the dice rolling process.

Using the Dice Library

Using the library is rather straight forward:

require 'dicebag'

dstr   = '(Damage) 2d8 + 5 + 1d6'
dice   = DiceBag::Roll.new(dstr)
result = dice.result

puts result

This would output something like the following:

Damage: 15

Or, if your needs are just knowing the results, you can use the shorthand method of DiceBag.roll, which returns a Result:

puts DiceBag.roll('2d8 + 5 + 1d6')

The returned result is an instance of the Result class, which has methods to access the label (if any), the total of the roll, and also each of the sections that made up the roll.

It is possible to get the individual sections values as well:

result.each do |section|
  puts format('%s: %s', section, section.total)
end

For the above given dice string, would print something like this:

2d8: 12
5: 5
1d6: 4

Also, if you are curious to see how the dice string was parsed, you can retrieved the parsed value from the Roll instance using the #tree method:

parsed = dice.tree()

For the above given dice string, this returns a nested array of values:

[[:label, <DiceBag::LabelPart (Damage)>],
 [:start, <DiceBag::RollPart 2d8>],
 [:add, <DiceBag::StaticPart 5>],
 [:add, <DiceBag::RollPart 1d6>]]

Typically, you won't have to deal with the internals of a dice roll if all you want are the results. However, you can dig down into the returned result's classes to obtain pretty much any data you want. Most, if not all, of the instance properties have attr accessors set up.

For example, if you wanted to know the actual dice tally of a '4d6 k3' roll, you could do this, after getting the result from Dice::Roll.result():

result = Dice::Roll.new('4d6 k3').result
tally  = result[0].sections[0].tally

puts format '[%s]', tally.join("][")

All of the classes have to_s and inspect methods that'll work for most cases.

Average, Maximum, and Minimum

If you are curious about what the average of a roll might be, or the maximum or minimum that can be rolled, you can use several convience methods that does the math for you.

Average

Using the average method on a Roll object, will return the average roll for a given dice string. This result might be a Float value, as the results are not rounded. If you always want to assure an Integer, just used to_i as per normal Ruby

roll = DiceBag::Roll.new('3d6 - 1d4')

puts roll.average # => 8.0

Maximum

Using the maximum method will return the highest value that can be rolled for the given dice string, taking into account any math included in the given string. That means subtraction and division are handled correctly.

For example, if you have 3d6 - 1d4 it will always use the value of 1 for the - 1d4 part of the roll.

Esssentially, subtraction and division are reversed for the Maximum calculations.

roll = DiceBag::Roll.new('3d6 - 1d4')

puts roll.maximum # => 17 (18 - 1)

Minimum

This is just like Maximum above, but with all the math reversed. For the above example of - 1d4, it will always use 4 as the value.

roll = DiceBag::Roll.new('3d6 - 1d4')

puts roll.minimum # => -1 (3 - 4)

Convienence Methods

The main DiceBag object exposes 3 methods to quickly get the average, maximum, and minimum results.

dstr = '3d6 - 1d4'

puts DiceBag.average(dstr)
puts DiceBag.maximum(dstr)
puts DiceBag.minimum(dstr)

Included RPG Systems Dice

There are some pre-built dice libraries based on popular (and some not as popular) RPGs, that are not required by default, but can be loaded via the paths given below.

The following RPG system dice are included:

Dungeons and Dragons

This loads the D20, D20Advantage, and D20Disadvantage classes. The results will return a two item array, consisting of the success result as a symbol and the actual die roll result. Note, for Advantage and Disadvantage, only the die result used is displayed.

Each of the roll calls takes a +/- modifier and a Difficulty Class (which defaults to 10).

require 'dicebag/systems/dnd'

# 1d20 + 5 >= DC 10
D20.roll 5

# 1d20 >= DC 15
D20.roll 0, 15

# 1d20 twice, keep the highest >= DC 10
D20Advantage.roll

# 1d20 twice, keep the lowest >= DC 10
D20Disadvantage.roll

Fudge/FATE

This loads the Fudge (and FATE) usable dice. By default it will roll 4dF and will return a two element array, consisting of the total and a string representation of the dice results.

They can be rolled via the Fudge::Roll class, or the syntactic sugar of either Fudge::DF or Fudge.roll. The last one can take an optional number of dice to roll, but still defaults to 4.

require 'dicebag/systems/fudge'

# Rolls the standard 4dF
result = Fudge.roll

puts result.first # => -1
puts result.last  # => [-][-][+][ ]

GURPS

This models the standard GURPS 3d6 dice pool used for attribute/skill tests.

Use the GURPS.roll(target, mod = 0) method, which will figure the total target number based on the given target value and the mod, calculating the critical success and failure numbers based on that total.

The result will return an array of [status, result] where:

• status is one of: :success, :failure, :critical_success, or :critical_failure
• result is the actual dice roll total.

require 'dicebag/systems/gurps'

GURPS.roll 15 # => [:success, 6]

GURPS.roll 15 # => [:critical_success, 4]

GURPS.roll 15 # => [:failure, 16]

GURPS.roll 16, 3 # => [:critical_success, 6]

Savage Worlds

This loads the standard D4 through D12, plus the additional objects of WildDie, NoTrait, and NoTraitWildDie, each of which are subclasses of DiceBag::Roll so each expose their own roll method to use directly.

Both of the NoTrait and NoTraitWildDie types automatically have the -2 applied.

At this time, each one does not take any additional modifiers to the roll, so you will have to handle that externally.

All of the Savage Worlds dice are keyed to explode ('Ace' in Savage Worlds terminology), so for normal rolls for tables, etc, use the standard dice definitions below.

Each die also has a .half property that will return the half value of the die, useful for Parry and Toughness calculations.

require 'dicebag/systems/savage_worlds'

# Models a 1d4e+2 for a Trait roll.
SavageWorlds::D4.roll.total + 2 # => 8 (It exploaded!)

# Calculate Parry
SavageWorlds::D8.half + 2 # => 6

Standard

They are just that, the standard dice under the Standard module.

require 'dicebag/systems/standard'

> puts Standard.constants
Die
D4
D6
D8
D10
D12
D20
D100

Storyteller

This models the WhiteWolf/World of Darkness systems dice pool mechanics.

This is actually modeling the "Storytelling" system dice, not the older "Storyteller" system dice, but I personally find "Storytelling" kind of a silly name, so I prefer the older name. :D

There is a Storyteller.roll(number, success) method to roll the number of d10s and count how many successes (>= success value) are generated. There is also a Storyteller.chance method that will roll a single 1d10/10 dice.

require 'dicebag/systems/storyteller'