Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 04:08:48 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 05, 2021, 03:14:08 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 12:20:38 PM
...or even treat jump distance as a separate type of roll (much like damage) if you prefer a bell curve just for that...

Well, that was my point.  Occasionally I find that using a particular mechanic leads to unrealistic or immersion-breaking results.  So, rather than use the mechanics present in the rules, I'll use a different die roll that better matches my player's expectations (distances that are relatively consistent, with only occasional outliers, as opposed to a linear probability that leads to short distances equally as often as heroic distances). Hence my original statement that you seem to be repeating in your response...

Yeah, but the end of my response in that same paragraph also asks:

QuoteWhat part of unified mechanics prohibit you from saying "on a successful Jump check, roll 2d6 (or whatever) to determine jump distance"?

The point of unified mechanics is to provide consistent mechanics to handle ability checks, whether action resolution or resistance checks, or any other type of roll where a character's or creature's (or even an object sometimes) ability is being tested. That doesn't mean that other types of rolls can't ever exist for things that aren't directly related to ability checks, such as damage rolls, handling odds for random events happening (such as checking if more enemies show up or if random enemies left treasure), or maybe even determining the outcome of a successful ability check (such as jump distances, or perhaps the value of works of art). So saying that you'd rather use some other type of roll for things that aren't necessarily directly related to ability checks isn't really an argument against unified mechanics.

And your specific argument is against using linear probability for determining jump distances, which fails to account for unified mechanics that use non-linear probabilities, such as rolling 2d6 or 3d6 for ability checks instead of 1d20. So it isn't even an argument regarding unified mechanics in general, but an edge case that applies only when you use linear probabilities as part of you mechanic, and only if we accept your premise that we can't have relatively consistent jump distances with only occasional outliers when using mechanics that have linear probabilities, when I could come up with a few ways we can.

For example, we could have a fixed jump distance (perhaps modified by a related ability, like Strength) as a base that always applies by default on a successful check, and then grant a bonus  (perhaps +50% or +1d6 feet to keep it simple) to it on a "Critical Success" result in the ability check (perhaps on a natural 20, or a result 10+ above needed), or a penalty (perhaps half base distance to keep it simple) on a failed roll. BOOM! Consistent distances with outliers on a linear probability unified mechanic action roll!

And there could be other ways to handle it within a unified mechanic framework using linear probabilities. Point being that just because you can't think of another way or prefer 2d6 (or whatever) regardless that doesn't mean that other options aren't there, and it doesn't make it an argument against unified mechanics, but rather a statement of stylistic preference.

First, the entire point about unified mechanics is that they are intended to resolve most, if not all, game situations using the same dice and rolls.  No kidding, you can change mechanics to suit your tastes.  That's not the point.  The point was that many (if not most) modern games are designed with unified mechanics in mind, and this was pointed to as a way that games have "advanced" to be "better" than older versions.  But they aren't better.  They have advantages (ease of learning, ease of use, etc.) and disadvantages (edge cases result in broken verisimilitude, mechanics shape the fiction instead of vice versa), and individuals have to decide which trade-off works for them.

As for  you suggestion about using success amounts to vary distances jumped, it make do what you want it to, but it is not even close to generating a bell curve like I want.  I don't know if you know the statistics or not, but without fundamentally changing the way bonuses work on a d20 roll, (and changing success from target numbers to ranges), you can't simulate the necessary curve with a linear roll (you could chart out a standard distribution for the d20 values, but at that point why not roll dice that already accomplish it?).

So, back to the main point, unified mechanics have advantages and disadvantages, compared to other ways of structuring game mechanics.  One is not "better" than the other (which was the OP's original contention about modern game mechanics in general).

Who the hell has verisimilitude about how far their rpg character can jump on a bell curve?

Thats not even a thing.

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 06:22:39 PM
Who the hell has verisimilitude about how far their rpg character can jump on a bell curve?

Thats not even a thing.

WHAT?!
Didn't you ever want your dwarf character to be able to slam dunk a basketball through a Green Dragon's nose?!
WTF DO U EVEN PLAY?!!

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 05, 2021, 05:36:06 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 04:08:48 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 05, 2021, 03:14:08 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 12:20:38 PM
...or even treat jump distance as a separate type of roll (much like damage) if you prefer a bell curve just for that...

Well, that was my point.  Occasionally I find that using a particular mechanic leads to unrealistic or immersion-breaking results.  So, rather than use the mechanics present in the rules, I'll use a different die roll that better matches my player's expectations (distances that are relatively consistent, with only occasional outliers, as opposed to a linear probability that leads to short distances equally as often as heroic distances). Hence my original statement that you seem to be repeating in your response...

Yeah, but the end of my response in that same paragraph also asks:

QuoteWhat part of unified mechanics prohibit you from saying "on a successful Jump check, roll 2d6 (or whatever) to determine jump distance"?

The point of unified mechanics is to provide consistent mechanics to handle ability checks, whether action resolution or resistance checks, or any other type of roll where a character's or creature's (or even an object sometimes) ability is being tested. That doesn't mean that other types of rolls can't ever exist for things that aren't directly related to ability checks, such as damage rolls, handling odds for random events happening (such as checking if more enemies show up or if random enemies left treasure), or maybe even determining the outcome of a successful ability check (such as jump distances, or perhaps the value of works of art). So saying that you'd rather use some other type of roll for things that aren't necessarily directly related to ability checks isn't really an argument against unified mechanics.

And your specific argument is against using linear probability for determining jump distances, which fails to account for unified mechanics that use non-linear probabilities, such as rolling 2d6 or 3d6 for ability checks instead of 1d20. So it isn't even an argument regarding unified mechanics in general, but an edge case that applies only when you use linear probabilities as part of you mechanic, and only if we accept your premise that we can't have relatively consistent jump distances with only occasional outliers when using mechanics that have linear probabilities, when I could come up with a few ways we can.

For example, we could have a fixed jump distance (perhaps modified by a related ability, like Strength) as a base that always applies by default on a successful check, and then grant a bonus  (perhaps +50% or +1d6 feet to keep it simple) to it on a "Critical Success" result in the ability check (perhaps on a natural 20, or a result 10+ above needed), or a penalty (perhaps half base distance to keep it simple) on a failed roll. BOOM! Consistent distances with outliers on a linear probability unified mechanic action roll!

And there could be other ways to handle it within a unified mechanic framework using linear probabilities. Point being that just because you can't think of another way or prefer 2d6 (or whatever) regardless that doesn't mean that other options aren't there, and it doesn't make it an argument against unified mechanics, but rather a statement of stylistic preference.

First, the entire point about unified mechanics is that they are intended to resolve most, if not all, game situations using the same dice and rolls.  No kidding, you can change mechanics to suit your tastes.  That's not the point.  The point was that many (if not most) modern games are designed with unified mechanics in mind, and this was pointed to as a way that games have "advanced" to be "better" than older versions.  But they aren't better.  They have advantages (ease of learning, ease of use, etc.) and disadvantages (edge cases result in broken verisimilitude, mechanics shape the fiction instead of vice versa), and individuals have to decide which trade-off works for them.

As for  you suggestion about using success amounts to vary distances jumped, it make do what you want it to, but it is not even close to generating a bell curve like I want.  I don't know if you know the statistics or not, but without fundamentally changing the way bonuses work on a d20 roll, (and changing success from target numbers to ranges), you can't simulate the necessary curve with a linear roll (you could chart out a standard distribution for the d20 values, but at that point why not roll dice that already accomplish it?).

So, back to the main point, unified mechanics have advantages and disadvantages, compared to other ways of structuring game mechanics.  One is not "better" than the other (which was the OP's original contention about modern game mechanics in general).

I still disagree with your main point because the "disadvantages" that you're attributing the unified mechanics still exist in other types of mechanics, but the benefits of unified mechanics still apply for the vast majority of the system with the only exception being those edge cases. So in the aggregate unified mechanics still come out on top in terms of efficiency because their benefits over other types of mechanics still apply the vast majority of the time, and the circumstances where they don't apply (or where you prefer to handle things some other way, even if you could still handle them using unified mechanics) are only minimal and would always exist regardless of what system you use.

You personally preferring a bell curve to determine random jump distance is not an inherent or unique limitation of unified mechanics (or even exists in unified mechanics that use a bell curve)--that's a limitation for ANY system that doesn't give you 1) randomly generated jump distances and 2) specifically uses a bell curve to generate them.

Personally, I don't care about precise jump distances because in my experience they've never been a factor in actual play. Jumping in-game is always tied to some type of end goal, such as jumping across a chasm to reach the other side, or over some obstacle (like a fence) as part of a move action to attack an enemy on the other side in the same round, or to jump high enough to reach a balcony or something, so they can climb up. And all of those cases can be easily handled by simply assigning a difficulty value for the task and having them make an ability check to see if they managed to do it. I have never encountered a situation where I needed to know the exact distance a character jumped, but if I ever did, there are ways to still determine them using unified mechanics (even if you don't want to) or even using a side mechanic, similar to the way some systems with unified mechanics (such as 3e+ D&D) still roll damage differently than how they handle action resolution.

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 06:22:39 PM
Who the hell has verisimilitude about how far their rpg character can jump on a bell curve?

Thats not even a thing.

It is if you're Eirikrautha and you're fishing for edge cases to claim unified mechanics fail in game play. 

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 06:58:03 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 06:22:39 PM
Who the hell has verisimilitude about how far their rpg character can jump on a bell curve?

Thats not even a thing.

It is if you're Eirikrautha and you're fishing for edge cases to claim unified mechanics fail in game play. 

If you were serious about calculating jumping distance then Weight and Speed would be more important then Strength.

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 06:58:03 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 06:22:39 PM
Who the hell has verisimilitude about how far their rpg character can jump on a bell curve?

Thats not even a thing.

It is if you're Eirikrautha and you're fishing for edge cases to claim unified mechanics fail in game play. 

Nowhere did I claim that.  Since you are apparently talking to yourself anyway, I'll leave you to do so in peace.

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 07:20:13 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 06:58:03 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 06:22:39 PM
Who the hell has verisimilitude about how far their rpg character can jump on a bell curve?

Thats not even a thing.

It is if you're Eirikrautha and you're fishing for edge cases to claim unified mechanics fail in game play. 

If you were serious about calculating jumping distance then Weight and Speed would be more important then Strength.

Standing long jump?  Speed = 0, so distance = 0, eh?  Solves the problem of calculating it, I guess...

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 07:20:13 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 06:58:03 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 06:22:39 PM
Who the hell has verisimilitude about how far their rpg character can jump on a bell curve?

Thats not even a thing.

It is if you're Eirikrautha and you're fishing for edge cases to claim unified mechanics fail in game play. 

If you were serious about calculating jumping distance then Weight and Speed would be more important then Strength.

That would be racist against dwarves.

And orcs. 

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 05, 2021, 09:27:51 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on January 05, 2021, 06:58:03 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 06:22:39 PM
Who the hell has verisimilitude about how far their rpg character can jump on a bell curve?

Thats not even a thing.

It is if you're Eirikrautha and you're fishing for edge cases to claim unified mechanics fail in game play. 

Nowhere did I claim that.  Since you are apparently talking to yourself anyway, I'll leave you to do so in peace.

You have no valid counterarguments. I get it. 

Quote from: Shasarak on January 05, 2021, 03:05:29 PM

Quote from: Thondor on January 04, 2021, 11:57:23 AM
Point #1
I had a very long thread on ENworld once about "why THAC0 rocks." I really do like it. While I can agree that ascending AC is more intuitive, there are some fundamental things that it does that ascending doesn't:
Bounded design -- AC 0 is around the natural maximum, while -10 is the magically enhanced maximum.
You can do the math once against a single foe (it's more intuitive to do so).
Designed so that GM can decide how "player facing" the mechanic is. (in 1e the attack tables were in the DMG!)

Frankly I find it easier with large groups of players and monsters, perhaps that is just because it encourages me to have all the info I need at hand, so I am not waiting for a player to tell me if the monster hit them, I already know.

My real point here is, assumptions that something is "obviously better" may just be overlooking somethings positive qualities.

Going up or going down does not change bounded design.

Thats not how maths works.

Technically true. But they can feel different. People sometimes suggest that subtraction is "harder" for instance.

Meanwhile, starting at 10 and going down to -10 feels more bounded than starting at 10 and going up to 30 (why not 40?). The first also has a self evident "center point" while it can be less obvious that a 20 is the center.

Math is math, but in games how you get there can have an impact on perceptions.

Rolling a d12 for a 50% chance  vs d100 vs flipping a coin has no meaningful difference, but it feels different at the table.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 05, 2021, 11:19:15 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 05, 2021, 09:19:56 AM
That kind of rule set is fine for an early approach. It's shameful to still be using that approach 30+ years later. A lot has been learned and not utilizing the accumulated experience to make better games out of a sense of nostalgia makes for crap that repeats the flaws of what came before. For this reason, I see no value in the OSR approach or its products.

There's that word again, "better."  I've played later editions of D&D, and non-D&D RPGs, that were in no way "better games" than the ones I played with the cluster**** that is the AD&D ruleset.  I play and run 5e now, mostly, but there are still parts of 5e that I handle more like I would in 1e (I don't need a d20 to resolve every test... sometimes a bell curve makes more sense, like when you are figuring jumping distance, than a linear probability.  But the Holy Book of Modern Design states, "Thou shalt have a unified mechanic," and no one modifies the mechanics when they should).  "Newer" does not mean "better" (any more than "older" does).  I'm all for accumulated experience, which is why I think it's hysterical that even WotC is hearkening back to an "OSR" feel for 5e (and its "rulings, not rules" motto).  Maybe their accumulated experiences have suggested that some things were done "better" in the older editions.

Rejecting out of hand what has been done in the past is just as stupid as refusing to consider what might be improved in the future...

I'm with Eirikrautha here, great post.

Also, It is not about the jumping example specifically.

Having non-unified mechanics can be useful. Maybe you have a very specific type of game in mind, pherhaps there is a dichotomy setup -- at night you fight with x mechanic, but during the day you (mostly) use social skills with y mechanic.

Quote from: Thondor on January 06, 2021, 11:38:49 AM
Having non-unified mechanics can be useful. Maybe you have a very specific type of game in mind, pherhaps there is a dichotomy setup -- at night you fight with x mechanic, but during the day you (mostly) use social skills with y mechanic.

  There's some interesting stuff in the 2E supplement Creative Campaigning about changing up the dice for ability checks to reduce variance, produce more 'believable' results, and the like. Along those lines, I've sometimes toyed with the idea of using the standard D&D scale but varying the dice depending on situation--d20 for high-swing situations like combat or saving throws, 3d6 for more 'routine' skill checks, 2d10 or the link for things that fall in-between. It's never gone beyond mental doodling, though.

One thing about "unified mechanics" is that it is a bit of a fallacy in current D&D.

Rolling d20+mods once to see who "wins" a skill contest is different than rolling d20+mods then 1d8+5 for damage, then rolling again until you run out of HP (or rolling initiative etc.), and also different form rolling nothing but MAYBE letting your enemy roll a saving throw.

D&D has three types of checks: attacks, saves and ability rolls. Not to mention spells. They all work slightly differently. A "natural 20" only matters in combat, for example; this isn't unified.

Also... there are very few games that resolve a 10-minute combat with a single roll, but many will resolve other 10-minute tasks with a single roll.

In practice, this means a 5th-level wizard can never, in a million years, beat a 5th-level fighter in a sword fight, but the fighter will beat the wizard's arcana check about 10% of the time (or something like that).

Many times, "unified mechanics" are a illusion.

With that said, the more truthful feeling of "I like to use the same dice for everything (except damage because we are used to that)" is okay too.

Also, IMO, in practice, a bell curve works best for skills, but it is very boring for combat. I noticed that playing lots of GURPS and D&D. Ultimately, I chose to play modern D&D as written, just distributing lots of automatic successes to circumvent the obvious flaws in using a d20 as outlined above.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 06, 2021, 12:48:15 PM
One thing about "unified mechanics" is that it is a bit of a fallacy in current D&D.

Rolling d20+mods once to see who "wins" a skill contest is different than rolling d20+mods then 1d8+5 for damage, then rolling again until you run out of HP (or rolling initiative etc.), and also different form rolling nothing but MAYBE letting your enemy roll a saving throw.

D&D has three types of checks: attacks, saves and ability rolls. Not to mention spells. They all work slightly differently. A "natural 20" only matters in combat, for example; this isn't unified.

Also... there are very few games that resolve a 10-minute combat with a single roll, but many will resolve other 10-minute tasks with a single roll.

In practice, this means a 5th-level wizard can never, in a million years, beat a 5th-level fighter in a sword fight, but the fighter will beat the wizard's arcana check about 10% of the time (or something like that).

Many times, "unified mechanics" are a illusion.

With that said, the more truthful feeling of "I like to use the same dice for everything (except damage because we are used to that)" is okay too.

Also, IMO, in practice, a bell curve works best for skills, but it is very boring for combat. I noticed that playing lots of GURPS and D&D. Ultimately, I chose to play modern D&D as written, just distributing lots of automatic successes to circumvent the obvious flaws in using a d20 as outlined above.

The thing is that even the idea that in unified mechanics every single roll in the game has to be made in 100% the exact identical way 100% of the time is itself a fallacy. It places an extreme standard on what can be discussed as "unified mechanics" and I've never seen anyone argue in favor of that, other than people arguing against unified mechanics or making some criticism of them. So it's basically a sort of straw man and reductio ad absurdum, because it argues against something nobody is arguing in favor of and attempts to dismiss or at least find flaws in the method by appealing to extremes rather refute the mechanics on their merits.

And in all of the types of checks used in D&D, the resolution method is still basically identical (at least in 5e), and all of the differences are superficial and either D&D conceits (D&D has used different damage dice for weapons and critical hits for most of its history, and saving throws in response to spells, and critical skill rolls do exist in other games--the designers simply opted to not include them in D&D) or circumstantial differences that arise naturally in the situations they're implemented (you don't need to hack away at an enemy's HP or "life meter" or whatever in a crafting skill check--because they deal with completely different circumstances that have different end goals and obstacles). But because I'm not hacking away at an enemy's HP when making non-combat skill rolls I can't talk about how attack rolls and skill checks are rolled in 100% the same way anymore?

In D&D 3e they introduced the idea of handling all rolls involving some type of ability tests using a d20 + Modifier mechanic, but they used different methods to determine the modifier for different resolution rolls (combat vs saving throws vs skills) and kept weapon damage rolls, rather than ditching that staple of D&D in favor of automatically determining damage based on your attack roll result. Does that mean I can no longer recognize the elements of mechanical unification that are there compared to earlier D&D?

Even if you want to argue that unified mechanics exist only in degrees the elements of unification are still there.

Three thoughts:

1. A major advantage of "rules as guidelines" is dramatic pace at the table.  If a scene is meant to be slow and building, you can adapt the rules to match the scene.  Alternately, and more importantly, if the action is flying fast, things don't slow to a crawl (or stop entirely) if a rule can not be remembered.  No need to look it up or argue it, the pace keeps up.


2. Some game mechanics add a great deal of feel and flavor to the game itself.  Take 1st edition Deadlands as an example; the game used dice, cards, and poker chips.  Drawing poker hands and placing bets really added to the Old West feel.  When they switched to D20 (with it's "unified" mechanic), it was a completely different experience at the table.  IMO, the change was horrible.

3. In my view, the more clear and expansive the rules, the more the players will only select actions within those rules.  That isn't to say no one will ever try anything different, but it encourages less creativity simply by creating less resistance. 
Example: How often do players actually ask the DM about creating a new spell they have an idea for these days?  This used to be a fairly common occurence.

Please add my name to the group that feels "better rules" is a statement of opinion with no factual bearing on the discussion what-so-ever.  My definition of a "better rule" is a rule that makes the game more fun.

P.S. When did people start disagreeing over what the OSR was? Publishers trying to cash in by using the label on other product?  I'm seeing all sorts of stuff using that label now.

When it started, it was an attempt to get back to pre-3e D&D.  That was pretty much it.