Quote from: Benoist;469027Right. That's why CoC is such a horriblibad game, and so many people played it over so many years. And RuneQuest. And Stormbringer. And Hawkmoon. And Nephilim. Etc. Right.

The trouble with that line of reasoning is that it only holds true if there isn't a single game, movie, boy band or other creative endeavor which, despite having a huge following, you still know to be totally worthless in your heart of hearts.

Let me see if I got this straight. Frank is advocating a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. It's very sad.

Quote from: Soylent Green;469051The trouble with that line of reasoning is that it only holds true if there isn't a single game, movie, boy band or other creative endeavor which, despite having a huge following, you still know to be totally worthless in your heart of hearts.

It's beyond that even, since people in the discussion aren't even saying that Roll-Under is bad or that it doesn't work. The proposition is merely that Roll-Over-100 is a better system.

If the proposition is "B is better than A" then the counter argument "A is good!" is not a counterargument at all. The argument "A is good enough!" is also not a counterargument. You haven't addressed the "B is better than A" proposition at all until you've actually shown some positive property that A has that B lacks or some negative property that B has that A lacks.

The "It was good enough in the late 1970s!" argument is simply a non sequitur. It is an incoherent response to the conversation. Blind grognardim in lieu of rational discourse. I'm not challenging the proposition that Roll-Under-Skill was good enough in the 1978. I'm not challenging the proposition that Roll-Under-Skill works at all. Seriously, those aren't being challenged. The challenge is merely that Roll-Over-100 is superior to Roll-Under-Skill. And the Roll-Under proponents haven't addressed that challenge at all.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;469056Roll-Over-100 is superior to Roll-Under-Skill.

Except that it's not.

It is superiour, communication-wise. You remove at least one step, one time back and forth.

Also, several proponents of roll under are already on record in this very thread that they do not care for non-binary results. Now, if your preferences are such, than roll over does not differ from roll under indeed.

QuoteThe most frequent thing you'll be doing is checking binary  success/failure. In this case the ability to make a simple comparison  with no addition involves makes it objectively superior.

Q. to the fucking E. to the motherfucking D.

While I am in agreement that for percentile systems that frequently modify die rolls, roll-over is superior (especially in the case where degrees of success are currently calculated on the number of whole intervals of some value between roll and skill score like in WFRP and DH), there is one portion of conventional BRP-and-variants which would be a bigger hassle with a roll-over system, and that is calculating the roll required for a special success or a critical success.

So far as I can tell, the adaptation to roll-over would be to calculate one tenth (or one fifth) of the skill and then subtract that from 101 to get the roll above which one scores a critical.

This is more complicated than in regular BRP, where it is a straight comparison between the tens digit (or rarely hundreds and tens digits) and the die roll. I am curious if Frank and Sett have a proposal to simplify this.

Easy. make the Margin of succes your new indicator of criticality. Remember, dice tricks with numbers are only there to redeem the negative qualities of roll-under. With roll-over, you are free. Also, you can still do the HM-style multiples of five, so even that is saved.

QuoteQ. to the fucking E. to the motherfucking D.

QuoteEasy. make the Margin of succes your new indicator of criticality. Remember, dice tricks with numbers are only there to redeem the negative qualities of roll-under. With roll-over, you are free. Also, you can still do the HM-style multiples of five, so even that is saved.

You are an annoying cocksucker.  Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;469072While I am in agreement that for percentile systems that frequently modify die rolls, roll-over is superior (especially in the case where degrees of success are currently calculated on the number of whole intervals of some value between roll and skill score like in WFRP and DH), there is one portion of conventional BRP-and-variants which would be a bigger hassle with a roll-over system, and that is calculating the roll required for a special success or a critical success.

So far as I can tell, the adaptation to roll-over would be to calculate one tenth (or one fifth) of the skill and then subtract that from 101 to get the roll above which one scores a critical.

This has already been mentioned, but if you want to do 1/10th of successes or 1/5th of successes for crits like in WFRP or CoC, then you should be using magic numbers on the 1s die. You have one (or in CoC's case, two) numbers on the ones die that are critical numbers, and if you roll one and succeed, it's a critical.

You should be doing this anyway, because it's much faster and more likely to give the correct result than dividing your modified skill and running a second comparison operation.

-Frank

Well, I thought I could chime in and add some actual play experience with Frank's suggestions.

We've been using Frank's roll-over BRP modification in our CoC Delta Green game. for the last two sessions (more on that in another thread). By this I mean that now all rolls are 1d100+skill score vs a TN 100, and a special success is rolled when a successful roll has a 0 or a 5 in the units dice (so, a natural 65, 70, 75, etc). Opposed rolls (Spot Hidden vs Hiding and the like, or opposed characteristic rolls) are simple: highest roll wins for the same category of success. Yo fumble with 01, 01-02 if your skill is under 50%. That's it.

So far, we are liking this more than the usual roll-under. We don't have to do the addition for most rolls, as for simple rolls we usually can eyeball if it's above 100 or not, so it feels no different than a comparison. Critical success calculations are just a breeze, as it is the use of modifiers.

In the last scene yesterday there was a violent combat in a hotel room. In the first round we forgot many modifiers due to darkness and such, but we could easily add them because at my table dice rolls stand until next round in case we need to look them back.

Actually, one of my players said that he saw no reason to go back rolling under, because he hated to re-calculate special success chances due to modifiers (as if you have Gun 60% you make a special success with 01-12, but if something modifies your % you need to re-calculate it again).

Also, several of us are hardcore MERP players One of them said we could use open rolls like in old MERP times

Overall, a very positive experience. We will probably keep using this roll-over variation. It has all the advantages of BRP and none of the disadvantages. You do not have to modify anything else, so you use the stat blocks as they are.

Definitely roll under, its quicker involved no maths and is used in most of may favourite games.

It is objectively NOT quicker. It involves more information that needs to be passed on from player to DM.

Quote from: Settembrini;469128It is objectively NOT quicker. It involves more information that needs to be passed on from player to DM.

In you games, maybe. I have played Rolemaster (roll-over) and RuneQuest (roll-under) and I know which one is quicker from personal experience, thank you very much. Objectively my ass.

Huh? Rolemaster involves tables and high rolls, all adding to length. Nothing to do with roll under.

On another front it bugs the hell out of me when players announce they made their rolls. How would they know? How should the GM interpret the result?

"I search the room!"
"Make a search check."
"I succeeded!"

The GM cannot be telling him the modifiers, as that would already give away too much info, i.e. that something is hidden there at all, as well as how good it is hidden.
Target numbers for the win.