I’m prepping a new RPG campaign set in a fantasy forest (classic!), and when I mentioned to my table that there were weird and strange fish in the waters of the wood, one of my players said he was excited to play the fishing minigame, which caused me to realize I should probably have one beyond “Uh, roll Survival I guess”.
I’m by no means first to the table for fishing minigames (Exhibit 1, Exhibit 2, Exhibit 3), but all the ones I found appear to be designed around physical dexterity. As a primarily online player, these were largely no-goes, so I resolved myself to create a dice-based minigame that would replicate the mostly-random experience of fishing, but still with a bit of strategy involved while preserving that dopamine rush of hitting a lucky strike.
Inspired by Prismatic Wasteland’s cooking minigame and Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow’s gambling minigame, I came up with the following:
Silver Fish
Thanks to Old Gus from the NSR Cauldron Discord for the name!
The player who is fishing collects one of each die (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20) to form their fishing dice pool.
The GM rolls 4d6 to set a target fish number.
Time to cast! One roll at a time, the player removes one die from their pool and rolls it, adding the result to a running total. The player’s goal is to roll a total exactly equal to the target number using as few dice as possible. If the total goes over the target number, or if the player runs out of dice before meeting the target number, the player busts and they get nothing!
Note that with a target number roll of 4d6, some casts might be impossible to catch a rare fish with! Bummer.
If the player has better gear, they may be granted some number of rerolls. The player may spend a reroll to roll their current die again, but they must take the new result. Busts can’t be rerolled!
If the player’s dice total exactly meets the target fish number, they get a catch! The quality of their catch is based on the number of dice they rolled to meet the target number:
1 die: Rare catch! Maybe treasure!
2 dice: Uncommon catch. Great job!
3 or more dice: Common catch. Hey, you caught something!
Additional Rule Options
More gear options! Perhaps certain gear will let you…
Reroll a bust once
Adjust a die +1 or -1 once per cast
Roll twice on the Catch table and pick your result
Add the legendary d2 die to your pool
Ensure a target number never rolls above a specific value
Bad Busts! If you bust by +5/-5, look out! Roll on a mishap table. Maybe you catch junk, or maybe you hook a kraken!
Variant fishing holes! Maybe some lakes and rivers operate by different rules…
Player removes the smallest die from their pool
Subtract 1 from all dice results
Player must roll their second die twice and take the lower result
GM rolls two target numbers
Different target number generation systems! 3d6 for luckier ponds, 5d6 for unluckier ponds? 2d10! 2d6+8! Go nuts.
Skill-based fishing! Maybe you want your RPG system to influence your character’s skill at fishing. In that case, consider modifying the player’s starting dice pool. With no training, they start with just the d20, d12, and d10, but increased training could grant the d8, d6, d4, and possibly the legendary d2!
NOTE: I haven’t actually tried this out beyond a few test rolls, and it seemed fun enough to post about. If you give it a try, let me know how it goes!