Moment of Truth Probabilties & Target Numbers

This will be somewhat of a throwaway post. Someone can easily just look up this information on their own (or, more impressively, do the math themselves). In case that someone who reads this blog plays Moment of Truth (MoT RPG) and is trying to determine whether they'd want to use one or two hits as the Target Number (TN) for a success roll, I'm providing the probabilities below. For all of these, the target number of each die is 5 or higher. If you want to know the probabilities for an unskilled test, look them up yourself maybe, pester me to add them, or just know "they're lower than getting a 5 on a d6."

Dice	1 hit	2 hits
1d6	33.33%	0%
2d6	55.56%	11.11%
3d6	70.37%	25.92%
4d6	80.25%	40.74%
5d6	86.83%	53.91%
6d6	91.22%	64.88%
7d6	94.15%	73.66%
8d6	96.10%	80.49%
9d6	97.39%	85.69%
10d6	98.26%	89.59%
11d6	98.84%	92.48%
12d6	99.22%	94.60%
13d6	99.48%	96.14%
14d6	99.65%	97.25%
15d6	99.77%	98.05%

Along with the table, I will also provide a handy graphic, because that's helpful sometimes. When I wonder whether a game should have a default 1- or 2-hit TN, I look at this table to help me decide. A 1-hit TN campaign (cinematic) will, as Stu Venable suggests in the rulebook, allow for a more cinematic game as even a character with an abysmal stat who's familiar with a skill has a chance at accomplishing something. Meanwhile, a 2-hit TN campaign (gritty or default MoT RPG) will require an average stat and be trained in the relevant skill to accomplish the same task (with a slightly higher chance of success). It all depends on how wide a variety of tasks you'd want your group to accomplish.

I brought this up because I've been working on a Moment of Truth campaign setting that I'm probably going to share on this blog. It's a Martian planetary romance type setting, but it's also got alternate history to provide some antagonism between the humans who come to Mars. It's pulp scifi, but I wasn't sure that I wanted the game to be so cinematic that any character can be a virtual swiss army knife with a 1-hit TN. So I decided that the pulp would be the setting -- you fly rockets, land the rockets on mars, operate rovers with sails, Mars has an atmosphere, and RAY GUNS are a thing (better to stay away from them, though). The system itself, though, wouldn't be as cinematic. As I develop the setting, I'll post more (hopefully all the material I have for the setting) and also give some more thoughts on Moment of Truth.