When using Olympic dice in combat you can use any appearance of the clear blank side to indicate a "clean" wound of what ever relative degree and the 'blotched" blank side to indicate a "dirty" wound. If no blanks come up or clean and dirty cancel each other out, it's just a normal wound. A clean wound means that with appropriate triage or field care for the wound and appropriate follow-on care, healing will be accelerated since "the sword cut was deep but clean" or the "bullet went cleanly through your shoulder". A dirty wound means that more serious internal (or external) damage was done. An artery was hit or vital organ nicked leading to ongoing bleeding. Or perhaps in a blunt force injury, then bone was not a clean break, but small bone fragments have torn up surrounding tissue. In short, whether a scratch or incapacitated, it is a messy injury and will require greater than normal immediate and follow-on care along with a higher change of complications.

A clean wound will be less susceptible to additional damage if stressed (by say fleeing for your life while injured). Do not apply the same penalties for further injury or for reopening the wound as with a "normal" wound. For clean wounds, set an appropriate acceleration to healing depending upon the Fudge damage and healing system you are using.

A normal wound requires normal treatment and care and heals normally.

A dirty wound requires immediate and significant triage and care. The injured subject risks a greater chance of additional injury or a further damage to existing wounds if care requirements are not met (for example, if they must be moved or handled in haste to escape). Whether a scratch (infection risk increased) or very hurt (major artery cut and the bleeding can't be stopped or slowed through first aid), a "dirty" will complicate character actions even more than normal.

Of course, I'm not eligible for the prize, but there's my mechanic for the new Olympic dice set.

When making opposed rolls, if there's a tie, count the blotches.  The most blotched roll loses the tie.

For each blotch, the GM gets to throw in a "yes, but".

Player: "DUDE!  I totally got a Superb result on my attack!"
GM: "...yes, but, you got a blotch.  So your attack succeeds, but your sword is stuck in the orc's shoulder.  You'll need to make a Good strength roll to free it."

If you roll more than one blank and they're all blotched, one of your "+" results are ignored.  Conversely, if none of the blanks are blotched, one of your "-" results are ignored.

When making a magic use roll, if all the blanks are blotched, the wizard has caught the notice of a dark power.  After being noticed a predetermined amount of times, the dark power will contact the wizard for some nefarious purpose.

Similarly, when making a roll to use miracles, all botched blanks indicates the higher power being petitioned is irritated in some way and will not grant the miracle without the promise of the completion of some minor service or task.

iamtim wrote:

For each blotch, the GM gets to throw in a "yes, but".

Player: "DUDE!  I totally got a Superb result on my attack!"
GM: "...yes, but, you got a blotch.  So your attack succeeds, but your sword is stuck in the orc's shoulder.  You'll need to make a Good strength roll to free it."

My favorite so far!

Monochrome Systems
Varying Randomness Factor
Olympic dice can be used to simulate variation in randomness during an extended scene, particularly a conflict in which there are multiple dice rolls. At the beginning of the conflict, everyone rolls their normal number of dice, each blotch represents an increase in randomness, each blank represents a decrease in randomness. The next roll uses one more die for every blotch, and one less die for every blank.

Building Chaos
Building Chaos is a variation of the VRF subsystem. It removes all of that pathetic "decrease in randomness", and encourages a situation slowly getting more and more out of hand. Each blotch still represents an increase in randomness, but each blank is absolutely and completely pointless. Building Chaos has two variants, one caps the number of dice rolled --double the initial number is advised-- the other does not.*

Trichrome Systems
Dice Ascension
Dice Ascension is the first of the systems that use all three colors of dice. All dice start off bronze, with each + and - representing a +/- 1. Any blotched die ascends a color, first to silver, then to gold. Under Building Chaos this is the complete system, under standard VRF a blank die descends he color scale as well. Silver dice are worth 2+ or 2-, Gold dice are worth 3+ or 3-. Fudge points may be spent to return all dice to bronze, one per character affected.

Rising Power
The Rising Power system is a variation of the Dice Ascension system for a very particular type of game. As with Building Chaos this can only increase dice, however they do not increase randomness. Rather, ascended dice may be spent and returned to a bronze state in a conflict. How the dice may be spent depends on the character in question, a swordsman might be able to reduce 2 silver dice to bronze dice to negate a wound, a caveman survivalist may be able to reduce 1 silver and 1 gold die to bronze to keep a fire alive during an extended contest with a rainstorm. Furthermore, more proactive abilities may also be provided, and items may grant these abilities as well. A magical sword might let one reduce 4 gold to bronze to instantly kill the next foe it touches for instance.

Tide of Luck
Much like Dice Ascension, Tide of Luck uses the dice colors. In this case, silvers represent neutral dice, bronzes represent flawed dice, and golds represent improved dice. All dice start off silver**, where all sides represent what they normally do. Blotched dice ascend one layer, initially to gold, Gold dice count the blotched side as +1. Blank dice descend one layer, initially to bronze. Bronze dice count the blank side as a -1. A Fudge Point may be spent to turn all dice gold.

Exhaustion
Exhaustion is a combat modification that provides a simple fatigue system. All dice start at gold, and rolling a blank reduces a die to silver, then to bronze. Silver dice are just like gold dice, however bronze dice count the blank as if it were a -1. These revert to gold at the end of combat. This simple system allows for several modifications.

Armor
Armor is very much a good thing in many cases, but more cinematic genres may want to reward the unarmored. Thus, under this system, armor works as it normally does, either providing a bonus or in more complex combat rules DDF or similar, but also has an initial fatigue rating from 1 to 4, dropping that many dice to silver. This represents armored people wearing out faster in combat.

Persistent Fatigue
Persistent Fatigue adds another thing to track, however as this is a combat option only it can be tracked simply by keeping the right dice in front of one. It operates much like the standard fatigue system, however bronze dice at the end of combat only revert to silvers, which revert to golds only once actual rest has been had. In addition to this, fatigue from non combat sources may exist as well, if someone has to make any rolls to get into combat (swimming streams, climbing cliffs, etc.), all blotched dice on the roll start as silvers instead of golds.

Willing Exhaustion
Dice may also be downgraded a color to represent willing exhaustion over a period, pressing a particularly aggressive attack, charging, magic, or similar may all downgrade dice. Whenever any of these actions are taken, roll a number of dice dictated by the action --1 for charging, 2 for an aggressive attack, 3 or more for spells***-- to resolve fatigue after the action is taken. Each blank downgrades one die.

Polychrome Systems
Magical Reserves-Shallow Graves/Glyphs specific
The Magical Reserves system is a simple method of modeling magic in the Shallow Graves and Glyphs settings, neither of which shall be detailed here. It presumably can be imported elsewhere. In both settings, Magic comes from particular sources, and can only be used by particular people. Olympic dice are used only for magic. Shallow Graves has three different classes of magic users, Mages, Reborn Mages, and Magical Beings. Mages are garden variety magic users, drawing power from the afterlives just as all do. They get one bronze die to use for magic, which is rolled with all the others whenever using magic, if it is a blank it is expended, and is replaced by a normal die. Reborn Mages are those among both magic users and people who died and came back, and are more powerful as a result of greater after life connection, they get a single silver die, that degrades to bronze, then vanishes. Magical Beings are actually created at least in part from the truly dead and magic itself, and get a gold die. Gold dice degrade to silver.

These dice can be recovered over time, simply by gradually drawing upon the underworlds. It takes one day to return a die to its normal color. In addition to these dice, more can be gleaned from magical foci, which are simply containers of magical material. A ring sized foci yields one additional die, a bracer sized foci yields two additional dice, and a foci the size of a suit of armor yields three additional dice. Note that this merely represents capacity, it takes a week to charge a ring sized foci, a month to charge a bracer sized foci, and a year to charge an armor sized foci. Only foci made of mercury can store gold dice; mercury, silver, and jade can all store silver dice; mercury, silver, jade, brass, and quartz can all store bronze dice.

It is much easier to charge magical items for those with less magic than the one charging it. A reborn mage can charge two bronze dice in a day, and all three in only a week. A magical being can charge three bronze dice in a day, two silver dice in a day, and all three silver dice in only a week.

Footnotes
* The mathematics behind this indicate asymptotic behavior, the addition of each die adds less randomness than the previous. A rough model would be a geometric sum, but this is not accurate.

** Note that there is possible variation in this regard. Those with an inclination to mechanical representation of luck could have lucky characters start with at least one gold, and unlucky characters start with at least one bronze.

***Untested recommended values, nothing more.

All are great, but Building Chaos and Tide of Luck are awesome! Arrgh - we're less than a half-day into the contest and choosing is going to be really hard!

The environment changes: If you're outside then it could start raining, or the wind might pick up, or perhaps you not only make a successful thrust but the sun is now peeping out from behind a cloud and is in your opponent's eyes; if it's already raining then perhaps the ground is starting to get slippery; indoors, your brawling bumps the desk and knocks over the lamp, or your shot sets off the sprinkler system.