Quote from: Jaeger;1095952That is pure personal preference.

I don't think that particular point is very contentious though. I mean, let's make an even more clear-cut comparison: succeeding a test by the narrowest of margins under a system that uses a single d6 isn't special at all. Under d100, that might invite a round of high-fives.

Quote from: Jaeger;1095952In actual play, no one I know will talk about d100 being soooo much better than succeeding by rolling a 6 to a target of 7 on a d20.

"You might not have noticed it, but your brain did."

Quote from: Jaeger;1095952No reason to not use a d20 either, why roll two dice when one will do?

It is all personal preference.

Yes, it's definitely personal preference. That being said, the d100's granularity allows it do things elegantly that the d20 can only do more awkwardly (threat confirmation?). The price is that you occasionally need to calculate 63-15. (Likewise I freely admit that GURPS' 3d6 can have rarer results than d100 - rolls of 3 or 18.)

Quote from: Jaeger;1095952Yes, there are guys like you whose mind gets the extra kick from that seeing the extra 1-2 % points in action...

I don't think I get explicitly a kick from it. It's more that I am aware that it has a subtle impact on the game, as mentioned above.

Quote from: Jaeger;1095952But most of the players I know are very system agnostic - they could care less if it was d100 or d20 roll under. They are very much of the mind; "just tell me what I have to roll..." school of roleplaying.

For example the game system in your sig: (which I think is actually quite clever.)

If you introduced new players to your system with a d20:

No one new to your system would know the difference, especially since you do not use % skills.

Not that is is objectively better in any way - just that the difference would not be enough either way for new players to care.

Experienced role-players do know that there is a difference between d20 and d100 though, even if you never consciously notice it during play. In particular, there's plenty of d20 players who don't like a 5% fumble range and think heroes should have a narrower fumble range. And guess what? It's experienced gamers that buy games, especially more obscure games.

But more importantly you picked on the wrong ruleset here :



How does your d20 KotBL convert that in an elegant matter?

Quote from: Jaeger;1095952Apples and oranges: The RQ scaling crits can easily be ported over to d20 roll under. Yes you lose some granularity, but for people new to the system they would never know the difference.

I'm curious how you easily port over chances lower than 5% with a single d20 roll?

QuoteIt's would be mostly due to system nostalgia.

The mindless repetition of "because nostalgia" tossed at anyone who disagrees with your preference got old back when the 4E players used it against anyone who didn't agree that 4E was a huge improvement over everything that came before it. It's no less tiring when you do it now. We all understand that you don't think that there is any need for anything being less likely than a 1 in 20 chance. But obviously not everyone agrees with you.

QuoteI'm not saying d20 roll under is superior in any way to d100.

It is not. But neither is d100 with its increased granularity. It just doesn't add that much more.

One could say the same for the old d20. It just doesn't add that much vs a d10 or a d8. Continue down that slope and soon everything is just a 50-50 coin toss. Granularity matters, else we wouldn't need or have anything other than a 50-50 coin toss. How much granularity a system has will vary based on what the system is trying to represent and how much the users of the system care about trying to represent that thing.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1095959...
Experienced role-players do know that there is a difference between d20 and d100 though, even if you never consciously notice it during play. In particular, there's plenty of d20 players who don't like a 5% fumble range and think heroes should have a narrower fumble range. And guess what? It's experienced gamers that buy games, especially more obscure games.

Now here is a good point. For me system does matter, but I have learned that for system to matter, first you have to care about systems. And in my experience  the majority of the players I know just don't care.

But, when you are dealing with experienced gamer's, with particular tastes, system does matter.  

So while for me, I see no reason why your TRC chart could not just be d20 based, there are other factors.

You'll be selling your game to established/experienced gamer's who are probably well aware of games like Mythras and RQ which hit on similar points, (although you seem to be going for a bit more of an action-movie cinematic vibe).  So my biases aside, having your game use d100 would be considered a feature, not a bug, for your market, and is objectively the right move.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1095959But more importantly you picked on the wrong ruleset here :

*KoTBL RULE*

How does your d20 KotBL convert that in an elegant matter?

Ha! Finally!

Easy way out: Just use the same rule for d20! Yes, you are swapping FP back and forth a bit more , but what the hell, it is supposed to be a cinematic game!

My bias: I don't like the +/- nature of the mechanic, and would cut such a thing out of my home game. But...

Your Intent: When thinking of why one would put such a rule in; I would not want it to come up as often as it would on a d20. I would want this to came up every now and then as a kind of special FP flavor that added to the game without making it a relatively routine occurrence. In such case using the d100 actually works in favor of the intent of the rule.

So yes, the rule you outlined is a good example of taking advantage of the d100's granularity with a rule intent that is not readily transferable to another kind of die.

Quote from: Bren;1095990I'm curious how you easily port over chances lower than 5% with a single d20 roll? .

Really? You just round up or down to the nearest 5%. A natural 1 always hits. Done.

Quote from: Bren;1095990The mindless repetition of "because nostalgia" tossed at anyone who disagrees with your preference got old back when the 4E players used it against anyone who didn't agree that 4E was a huge improvement over everything that came before it. It's no less tiring when you do it now. We all understand that you don't think that there is any need for anything being less likely than a 1 in 20 chance. But obviously not everyone agrees with you..

It's ok to disagree with me. Nobody's done any name calling, so it's all good.

And I do recognize the power of nostalgia in the RPG market. From a purely mechanical point of view 4e did do some things better. So objectively speaking, in some cases they were technically right. But what the the 4e fanboys failed to realise was this; that it just didn't matter.

Just like I recognise that RQ players would openly revolt if Chaosium changed to d20 resolution. The 4e fans failed to recognise similar circumstances when it came to D&D.

But in such cases we are dealing with established fanbases,  and experienced players - as noted in my replies above.

Quote from: Bren;1095990One could say the same for the old d20. It just doesn't add that much vs a d10 or a d8. Continue down that slope and soon everything is just a 50-50 coin toss. Granularity matters, else we wouldn't need or have anything other than a 50-50 coin toss. How much granularity a system has will vary based on what the system is trying to represent and how much the users of the system care about trying to represent that thing.

I see where you are going with your reductio ad absurdum. Taken to the extremes why aren't we all just flipping pennies?

But I'm not about the extremes.

All I'm saying is that d20 or d100... it just doesn't matter to most players. Especially new players.

Because if the difference really was that Big of a deal, Pendragon would not have gone on to have 5.2! editions. And be a relatively well known game in the RPG hobby.

Quote from: Jaeger;1096002Really? You just round up or down to the nearest 5%. A natural 1 always hits. Done.

So you get probabilities that are less than 5% by not having probabilities that are less than 5%...right.... You are clearly wrong that this is a change players would not notice. Rounding the chance for a critical down to 0% means that anyone with a skill level less than 50% will have 0% chance to critical. That is something every player is going to notice very quickly.

QuoteAnd I do recognize the power of nostalgia in the RPG market.

:rolleyes: Oh look, yet another repetition of "because nostalgia." .

QuoteBecause if the difference really was that Big of a deal, Pendragon would not have gone on to have 5.2! editions. And be a relatively well known game in the RPG hobby.

That point is highly debatable. For one thing, Pendragon doesn't actually use the same system as does Runequest. Pendragon is a single attack roll rather than an attack and parry roll, and unlike RQ or D20 games rolling lowest is not best. Pendragon uses a highest roll (that is less than or equal to skill level) wins. I suspect one reason that Pendragon went to a d20 was because of the trait system which, like skills, also uses a d20. One could track traits and passions with a d100 (in fact the first published version of traits did exactly that), but it's probably too granular and detailed for easy tracking of the dozen or so traits and passions and too mIt That method (arguably) works better with a d20 than it with a d100. And the using 0-100 instead of 0-20 for traits is probably too granular and too time consuming to track for the 26 traits and 5+ passions that every character will have. The originally published version had fewer traits to track. There's also a design intent to move the focus from a daily or weekly activity for Runequest to an annual time scale where incremental increases that are less than 5% probably don't makes sense given the time scale change or the use of the Winter season activities. I think that the change to 1d20 was not made because the designers thought people wouldn't notice whether d20 or d100 was used. The change was made because the designers wanted the change to be noticeable.

On the other hand Call of Cthulhu went from attributes that were more or less on a 1-20 scale to percentile attributes. Clearly the change to a different measure for attributes was not due to nostalgia. It would seem a similar line of argument to yours would force us to conclude that more players actually prefer d100 to d20? (Since Call of Cthulhu has been around longer and has been played by more players than Pendragon.)

Quote from: Jaeger;1096002So my biases aside, having your game use d100 would be considered a feature, not a bug, for your market, and is objectively the right move.

Maybe but I do what I like here. I am a huge fan of d100, roll-under. Once you understand how a d100 works, it's so transparent - I like that.

Quote from: Jaeger;1096002Ha! Finally!

Easy way out: Just use the same rule for d20! Yes, you are swapping FP back and forth a bit more , but what the hell, it is supposed to be a cinematic game!

That's too much to reflect accurately cinematic combat standards - it doesn't happen that often in movies. It would be whacky! And in the RPG, if you have a fight with 10 combatants, you can easily have 100+ rolls in that fight, given that you use d100 also for damage and armor saves. I even will need to restrict this to not include those two to cut down on the frequency in combat further in the next update.

Anyway, this is a Buck Rogers thread and I just wanted to point that the above mentioned simulationist inaccuracies of the d100 result from flat tests (roll d100 against your skill level) where the skill level range in which the outcome would be at all in doubt (for better or worse) is not properly considered. As an example how it can be done instead, here's how I do it (you use the "Resisted" line to determine which column to roll on):

Quote from: Bren;1096055So you get probabilities that are less than 5% by not having probabilities that are less than 5%...right.... You are clearly wrong that this is a change players would not notice. Rounding the chance for a critical down to 0% means that anyone with a skill level less than 50% will have 0% chance to critical. That is something every player is going to notice very quickly.

See the part on my reply when you always hit on a 1 - make it always crit on a 1 = solved.

Quote from: Bren;1096055:rolleyes: Oh look, yet another repetition of "because nostalgia." .

To deny the effect of nostalgia and legacy systems,(sacred cows), on the RPG hobby is to deny reality.

Quote from: Bren;1096055That point is highly debatable. For one thing, Pendragon doesn't actually use the same system as does Runequest
...Pendragon is a single attack roll rather than an attack and parry roll, and unlike RQ or D20 games rolling lowest is not best. Pendragon uses a highest roll (that is less than or equal to skill level) wins. .

Current editions of RQ/Mythras have the same mechanic using d100% in the rules.

Quote from: Bren;1096055I suspect one reason that Pendragon went to a d20 was because of the trait system which, like skills, also uses a d20. One could track traits and passions with a d100 (in fact the first published version of traits did exactly that), but it's probably too granular and detailed

Current editions of RQ and Mythras have % passions.

So it can obviously work good enough either way.

Will there be some differences due to loss/gain in granularity? For sure, Some system tweaks will be needed.

But during actual play for most players with no d100 experience? d20 will work just fine.

Which is all I'm arguing.

Quote from: Bren;1096055I think that the change to 1d20 was not made because the designers thought people wouldn't notice whether d20 or d100 was used. The change was made because the designers wanted the change to be noticeable.

Maybe your right, maybe they didn't want new players to think RQ in Camelot! A valid reason for the change.

And when making a roll under d20 game, saying that it is "similar to Pendragon RPG!" does not get you very much system recognition. d20 roll under is not the first thing people think about when they think of Pendragon as a game.

But saying "it's like CoC, RQ, or Mythras" - and experienced RPG people usually know exactly what you are talking about: A d100% game.

Quote from: Bren;1096055On the other hand Call of Cthulhu went from attributes that were more or less on a 1-20 scale to percentile attributes. Clearly the change to a different measure for attributes was not due to nostalgia.

The attributes were not a sacred cow of the system - and the designers could get away with the change because it brought attributes into line with skill levels, and it made things easier during actual play.

Quote from: Bren;1096055It would seem a similar line of argument to yours would force us to conclude that more players actually prefer d100 to d20? (Since Call of Cthulhu has been around longer and has been played by more players than Pendragon.)

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!  The first out of the gate, sets the standard and expectations for system and genre.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1096167Maybe but I do what I like here....]

Doing what you like is also a perfectly valid reason.

Quote from: Jaeger;1096177See the part on my reply when you always hit on a 1 - make it always crit on a 1 = solved.

It is "solved" only if you think that 5 also equals 1, 2, 3, and 4.

QuoteCurrent editions of RQ/Mythras have the same mechanic using d100% in the rules.

QuoteCurrent editions of RQ and Mythras have % passions.

It is odd how so many game designers over so many decades have chosen to use D100 instead of the original, nostalgic, D&D inspired d20. It might even lead one to conclude that there is a perceptible difference to the player between a d20 and a d100.

QuoteBut during actual play for most players with no d100 experience? d20 will work just fine.

You were arguing more than that a d20 will work. You were arguing that the difference for most players was imperceptible. The difference between odds of 1 in 20 and 1 in 100 has been obvious to every player I have ever encountered.

QuoteBut saying "it's like CoC, RQ, or Mythras" - and experienced RPG people usually know exactly what you are talking about

I question whether Mythras is better known than Pendragon - an award winning game that introduced the paired trait and passion mechanic. Obviously my experience is just one data point, but I have yet to encounter anyone in person, as opposed to a handful of people on RPG forums, who even know what Mythras is, whereas I have met multiple people who are familiar with or have even played Pendragon.

Quote from: Bren;1096561It is "solved" only if you think that 5 also equals 1, 2, 3, and 4. .

Yes, you lose some granularity. So What. Easy enough to do conversions that get you in more or less the same place.

Like I said earlier, if the loss of 1-4% depending on the roll rubs you the wrong way, obviously you care more about what system you are using than most of the players I know!

I care about system a lot. But with one exception of 5, my players could really give a shit.

And talking to other GM's in my area, that general attitude among players is kinda par for the course.

Quote from: Bren;1096561It is odd how so many game designers over so many decades have chosen to use D100 instead of the original, nostalgic, D&D inspired d20. It might even lead one to conclude that there is a perceptible difference to the player between a d20 and a d100. .

Never said that there wasn't a difference. Just that when it comes to system that most players are far more forgiving.

Yes, you and players you know would bemoan a conversion of d100 to a d20. But most player in the hobby couldn't get less exited if they never played the game before and have no preconceptions.

I mean there is a reason no one is bemoaning the fact that Pendragon was never upgraded to a d100 % in its 5.5 edition. Because objectively; it wouldn't make a difference in actual play.

Quote from: Bren;1096561You were arguing more than that a d20 will work. You were arguing that the difference for most players was imperceptible. The difference between odds of 1 in 20 and 1 in 100 has been obvious to every player I have ever encountered..

I said in actual play most payers won't really notice the difference.

Will some players notice? Sure. So What?

If your players would care. good for you! You have a group that is willing to invest in the nuances of the system you are running.

Most of the players I know are pretty system agnostic and simply won't care if it is d100 or d20, so long as the system is good enough, and they get their roleplaying fix.

Quote from: Bren;1096561I question whether Mythras is better known than Pendragon - an award winning game that introduced the paired trait and passion mechanic. Obviously my experience is just one data point, but I have yet to encounter anyone in person, as opposed to a handful of people on RPG forums, who even know what Mythras is, whereas I have met multiple people who are familiar with or have even played Pendragon.

Pendantry. In my quote I specifically said experienced role players. You knew what I was referencing.

If you get a blank stare when you say Mythras... just follow up with "it's the knockoff version of RQ6".

And they'll think: "Oh another d100 system" so it'll clear any confusion right up!

You can't roll a 66 on a d20.  Game, set, match!

Quote from: Jaeger;1097127Yes, you lose some granularity. So What.

So players notice such things, at least they do if they aren't comatose when they play. I've seen more than one casual player complain about a 1/20 chance of extreme events like their fumbles and their opponent's critical successes and that's without those players having experienced a system, like 1D100, where such events occur less frequently.

You continue to maintain that there is no appreciable difference for most players between 1D20 and 1D100 while at the same time accepting that there is some noticeable difference between 1D20 and 1D6. Given that the change in granularity is of the same order of magnitude, I find that curious.

QuotePendantry. In my quote I specifically said experienced role players. You knew what I was referencing.

I thought you were referencing Mythras fans. I see them on forums with some frequency, just not in person.

Quote from: Bren;1097212So players notice such things, at least they do if they aren't comatose when they play. I've seen more than one casual player complain about a 1/20 chance of extreme events like their fumbles and their opponent's critical successes and that's without those players having experienced a system, like 1D100, where such events occur less frequently. .

So what?

People have been complaining about the swingy d20 in D&D since forever.

Yet most are just fine continuing to use a d20. And D&D continues to use a d20.

One could make an argument that going to 2d10 would make for a technically better system.

But not enough people care for WOTC to give a fuck what they think. So D&D will be d20 forever.

Note the part in bold; that is the only argument I'm making. People in the RPG hobby like you and me are outliers - we actually care about system.

And you can always say "but I've ran across x number of people who..." So what.

Compared to the rest of the hobby they are outliers too.

Most players in the hobby are D&D only. They could give a fuck about your non-D&D RPG.

And most players are fairly system agnostic outside of that.

Constantly bringing up "but what about..." exceptions, does not disprove the general rule.

Quote from: Bren;1097212while at the same time accepting that there is some noticeable difference between 1D20 and 1D6. Given that the change in granularity is of the same order of magnitude, I find that curious..

A rewording of your reductio ad absurdum argument from post 31, which I answered in post 32.

Quote from: Bren;1097212You continue to maintain that there is no appreciable difference for most players between 1D20 and 1D100 .....

Look in the Paladin, Warriors of Charlemagne thread...

Do you see how many posters are lamenting the fact that the developers missed a golden opportunity to make the game x5 times better by scaling up to use d100% dice?

Surely, someone has pointed out in the past what an improvement d100 would be over d20 roll under? Surely they would notice the difference? Right?

But lo, gaze upon the Paladin, Warriors of Charlemagne thread, and behold; Zero laments are given.

Well we could have saved a lot of time if you had clearly stated your argument, which is as follows.

Short Version
A large majority D&D players like D20 well enough not to prefer another method of random number generation and that unsupportted claim proves that a large majority of all players of all TTRPGs like D20 well enough not to prefer another method, like D100, for some games they play.

Long Version
   Fact: D&D is D20

   Your Claim 1: This one fact proves that WotC will never change D&D from D20.
(That WotC would never change D&D from D20 is an unsupported claim, but probably not an unreasonable claim for reasons other than player preferences for random numer generation method.)

   Your Claim 2: Claim 1 (if true) proves that not enough people who would play D&D care about issues (such as lack of granularity) with D20 or desire some other random generation method to motivate WotC to change to something other than D20.

   Your Claim 3: Claim 2 (if true) proves that not enough people, including people who play games other than D&D that don't use D20, care about issues with D20 to justify any game using anything other than D20, e.g. D100, instead.

   Your Claim 4: Claim 3 (if true) proves that the only reason any significant number of people play games that use D100 (or any non-D20 method of randomization) instead of D20 is due to some sort of nostalgia.

Since nostalgia can't be the reason anyone first started to play a game that didn't use D20, your Claim 4 leaves unexplained and mysterious why any significant number of players ever started to play any game that didn't use D20. This indicates that Claim 4 is false.

Claim 3 is doubtful since preferences of D&D players are a poor guide to preferences of people who play other games. So we shouldn't rely on D&D's continuation of D20 as proof of anything about other games. If D&D preferences were a good guide for other games, all TTRPGs would be both level-based and class-based, which clearly they are not.

Claim 2 ignores the other reasons e.g. branding, backwards compatibility, why WotC might choose not to change D&D from D20 to some other method of randomization. We know that branding is supremely important to WotC parent company, so it is likely that branding would be pretty important to WotC. Branding alone might be sufficient motivation for WotC not to change it's basic randomization mechanic. Do we have any evidence that WotC knows or has even asked players of D&D what they think about D20 as opposed to some other mechanic like D100?

I'm with Bren on this one. I know you can swap d100 for a d20 system, but sometimes it feels like it does matter. If you say that 1 is always a critical when you are only hitting on ones - then all your hits will be criticals. There won't be many of them, but they will all be criticals. That will be noticeable. If you're happy with that, cool. I don't think I would be though.

That said, the BRXXV system sounds interesting. I wonder if any of the FFG people who did rogue trader/deathwatch/dark heresy played it.

Quote from: Bren;1097998Well we could have saved a lot of time if you had clearly stated your argument, which is as follows. ...

Nope.

Reading way too much into it dude. It's clear we are talking past each other at this point.

Quote from: spon;1098005I'm with Bren on this one. I know you can swap d100 for a d20 system, but sometimes it feels like it does matter. If you say that 1 is always a critical when you are only hitting on ones - then all your hits will be criticals. There won't be many of them, but they will all be criticals. That will be noticeable. If you're happy with that, cool. I don't think I would be though.
....

It's cool if you are not happy with that and prefer d100.

I'm sure there's plenty of players out there like you who care about system,  like exploring the differences, and may prefer certain mechanics over others.

All I'm saying is that in my experience; the majority of players I meet don't care about that stuff... d100? d20? whatever. They are the : "tell me what I need to roll" types. Especially if they have no previous experience with a given system.

Quote from: Jaeger;1098367And all I'm saying is that in my experience; the majority of player I meet, don't care about that stuff... d100? d20? whatever. They are the : "tell me what I need to roll" types. Especially if they have no previous experience with a given system.

RPGs never were designed for those players. Originally RPGs were designed for wargamers. The players who "don't care about that stuff" rarely if ever GM. They rarely if ever buy rules. They just were not and are not the target market for RPG systems.

That said, unless the GM rolls all the dice for the players, even the most casual of players will  easily detect the difference between a system where they have a 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, or 80% chance to hit and yet in each case they always have a 5% chance to critical and a system where that is not the case.

• If your players never notice that difference, they seem unduly unobservant compared to causal gamers I've played with.
• If your players notice the difference and just don't care at all that there is a difference, they seem strangely atypical to the casual gamers I've played with.
  
• If you are saying they notice the difference, care about the difference, but just don't care about it enough to demand the GM changes to a different system. OK. I believe that. What bugs people about systems is to a large extent a matter of taste and everyone puts up with some stuff in any system they use that they don't like for some reason or another. And people who aren't the GM will usually put up with more stuff they don't much like.
  
• If you are saying they have never seen any other system or way to play an RPG. OK. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone who has never been exposed to or even imagined a flavor of ice cream other than vanilla is willing to eat vanilla ice cream. If they only knew, they might prefer chocolate, or strawberry, or Cherry Garcia ice cream. But until they are exposed they will live with just plain, old vanilla ice cream. It's better than having no ice cream at all.