Gotham Nights: The Luck of the Dice

 I've been thinking about how Batman The Roleplaying Game treats luck. Not luck like rabbit’s foot luck. Luck like dice.  The whole city can swing on one roll.  

The book says it straight: 

 “Every time a Character attempts a Dice Action, his or her Player must make an Action Check.”

Gotham is basically an Action Check. You put Batman on a rooftop. You put the Joker in a warehouse.  
Then you roll to see if the batarang hits or if the thug gets away.  It’s a weird feeling.  
You have the smartest detective in the world. A guy who trained for what? 20+ years? And his success still hangs on a pair of ten-sided dice.  The system does try to balance it.  

Batman has Hero Points.

   
He can “push” the roll.  You spend points like gasoline on a fire to make sure the moment lands. But it’s still a game of chance. I keep circling this. Because Gotham in the comics isn’t chance. It’s mood. 

It’s doom. 

It’s a machine grinding toward a panel with a perfect ending. But at the table, the Joker can fall off a fire escape because someone rolled an 18 or he can walk right past the Batmobile because someone rolled a 2.
I kind of love it. It makes the city scary again. The book even lets the dice kill you if you’re not careful.  

You fail a Grapple. You roll double ones. Suddenly the legend is on the floor. It makes me think about Batman as a guy who plans for everything. In this game, that’s not just flavor.  

That’s survival. Every gadget, every skill, every Hero Point is loaded against the moment the dice betray you. I wonder if that’s part of the appeal. You sit in the Batcave, you plan the night, then Gotham flips the table.... And you roll.