The RPG Disco Elysium uses a skill system based around the old pen and paper RPGs, dice. Two six-sided dice to be specific. While these dice are the main contributing factor to how a player will make their way through the game, it isn't everything.
Unlike lots of newer games that either rely on the player character's stats or a percentage that is completely behind the scenes of a game's programming, these dice are at the forefront. Much like in pen and paper RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, they determine whether or not a skill check has succeeded or failed. How does this work exactly? Let's find out.
How the Dice Work in Disco Elysium
This RPG relies heavily on a player knowing their character inside and out. One of the key factors in this is knowing the player character's stats. There are four main stats called Intelligence, Psyche, Physique, and Motorics. Each of these stats affects six skills under them.
Intelligence, for example, affects a player character's ability to reason. The six skills under that stat are Logic, Encyclopedia, Rhetoric, Drama, Conceptualization, and Visual Calculous. This stat and its skills are important to a player who wants to puzzle through the game as a sort of Sherlock Holmes type character. Depending on how high a player's stat is in this, it will either make these types of checks easier or harder.
This isn't the only aspect that affects the player's ability to pass a check, however. The player character will also gain different positive and negative stats from their clothing. This can affect the probability of a skill check enough that checking on these items is well worth the player's time.
Each of the checks a player faces will pop up with the probability of the player passing the check. Some checks are repeatable once the character has leveled up and increased that skill, but others can have heavy consequences for failure that can never be done again. Each skill check will have a percentage chance that the check will be passed alongside a difficulty rating.
The difficulty ratings range from Trivial to Impossible:
- Trivial - Requires a roll of six or higher.
- Easy - Requires a roll of eight or higher
- Medium - Requires a roll of 10 or higher.
- Challenging - Requires a roll of 12 or higher.
- Formidable - Requires a roll of 13 or higher.
- Legendary - Requires a roll of 14 or higher.
- Heroic - Requires a roll of 15 or higher.
- Godly - Requires a roll of 16 or higher.
- Impossible - Requires a roll of 18 or higher.
With two six-sided dice, this may seem like an impossible task to get anything beyond a Challenging rating. However, this dice roll is always added to the player character's attribute score. Which will help these rolls to become easier. Players should also take note of the natural failure and natural success. If a player rolls snake eyes or two ones, they automatically fail the check. If a player rolls two sixes, they will automatically succeed even if the skill check is way beyond the player character's abilities.
Disco Elysium is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Mac OS, and PC.