Quote from: David Johansen on August 09, 2024, 09:56:14 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on August 09, 2024, 06:02:45 PMLargely because Rune Quest wasn't D&D.

So, ducks?

Haaaaaaaa ! Rgr that !

When my girls' Castle & Crusade / Tolkien home brew was winding down and it was time to chose a new game, it was a coin toss between Call of Cthluhu/Delta Green and Ruen Quest. CoC/DG won out when I explained it and then had them watch a few X-Files shows. But it was close.

If RQ had won out, I would have trimmed out A LOT of the craziness like duck people etc and reworked it in a more real(ish) pre-biblical / early Bronze age setting.

That said, I love d20 rules & d100 rules and heck even Traveller's d66 rules. I don't like 'toss lots of dice' games & I HATE games that are toss a lot of dice and only a 6 counts as a success. I played Alien once and was tossing something like 7-8 dice and still getting NO successes .... (Yes my dice un-luck is very well know and the butt of much humor in the game groups I play/run)

I will say that the new trend of advantage/disadvantage - in d20 or d100 games either way - is a rule I always home brew out ! Again with my poor luck, rolling 2 dice for an advantages is worse because you toss the dice and look at 2 dice that are normally failures (talk about rubbing salt in wounds on that) but if you give me a few +s as the bonus (v the advantage) I might actually succeed every once in a while.

Now, a d100 system I'm iffy on. Our Monday Night group is getting ready to start an 'Against the Dark Master' game - I LOVE the setting character creation etc - however, the idea of roll a 100, that can explode in the + or - direction, plus your skill %, and add 10-30 for this situation, but subtract X for the defender's defense and subtract 10-30 for this other situation, might be a little to learn. (Still look forward to trying it though! But, I think I'm going to need a good calculator ... )

If players like d100 systems, but are stuck with a d20 loving group, they can always play a Thief in older edition D&D.  Best of both worlds I guess.

A lot more use of the d100 in the D&D pre-universal mechanic system and all the kids managed to survive somehow and no one really cared much as those were the rules of play.  The d20 may have technical/psychological reasons why it is preferred, but the overwhelming one seems to be the D&D '20 critical' thing is so ingrained it is known by those who don't even play the game and they will feel cheated if they don't get it when trying an RPG.

On an aside, I feel making one of the 10 die a '00' in dice sets was a terrible idea.  Just make two '0' of different colours: everyone knows red is 10's and black is 1's and everyone just seems to read it just fine without debates or confusion.  Anyone who can't figure out '0,0' means 100 probably had their brain already explode when trying to understand THAC0.

Quote from: Lynn on August 12, 2024, 01:27:14 AMI believe Unknown Armies (early versions at least) used d100 and, doubles (11, 22, 33, etc) below Skill level were critical hits, whereas doubles over Skill level were critical fails.

It wouldn't surprise me if the first and largest to market paradigm (d20) had the most impact simply because of that.

I wasn't into Runequest when it appeared, but I played and ran CoC from what it was first available. Players were less keen about starting with low % skills (and many started quite low in CoC) as the assumption was that if you failed the roll, the result was always a functional fail. In D&D, most of the early thief skills that used % were low, and players didn't relish the consequences of those rolls.

This is what bugs me about d100% systems, characters are basically so incredibly incompetent. A surgeon might have a skill of 55% and that means he kills 45% of the people he operates on. You can add difficulties, but it doesn't scale that well compared to the original skill %

The old Buck Rogers RPG used d100% skills and multiplied or divided the score depending on the difficulty, which I thought worked well, but people struggle with subtraction these days, much less multiplication and division of two digit numbers.

Quote from: JeremyR on August 13, 2024, 01:14:40 AM

Quote from: Lynn on August 12, 2024, 01:27:14 AMI wasn't into Runequest when it appeared, but I played and ran CoC from what it was first available. Players were less keen about starting with low % skills (and many started quite low in CoC) as the assumption was that if you failed the roll, the result was always a functional fail. In D&D, most of the early thief skills that used % were low, and players didn't relish the consequences of those rolls.

This is what bugs me about d100% systems, characters are basically so incredibly incompetent. A surgeon might have a skill of 55% and that means he kills 45% of the people he operates on. You can add difficulties, but it doesn't scale that well compared to the original skill %

It just doesn't make any sense. If someone is competent, then performing a task in a 'normal' amount of time, with the 'normal' tools should simply be a success. A risk of failure should happen though, under not normal conditions.

Quote from: Lynn on August 12, 2024, 01:27:14 AMI believe Unknown Armies (early versions at least) used d100 and, doubles (11, 22, 33, etc) below Skill level were critical hits, whereas doubles over Skill level were critical fails.

It wouldn't surprise me if the first and largest to market paradigm (d20) had the most impact simply because of that.

I wasn't into Runequest when it appeared, but I played and ran CoC from what it was first available. Players were less keen about starting with low % skills (and many started quite low in CoC) as the assumption was that if you failed the roll, the result was always a functional fail. In D&D, most of the early thief skills that used % were low, and players didn't relish the consequences of those rolls.

Thief skills in AD&D are comically bad. As explained in the book, you're usually better off with a fighter using a 10' pole to poke around. His chance to sneak around isn't much worse either.

Quote from: Lynn on August 13, 2024, 02:15:04 AM

Quote from: JeremyR on August 13, 2024, 01:14:40 AM

Quote from: Lynn on August 12, 2024, 01:27:14 AMI wasn't into Runequest when it appeared, but I played and ran CoC from what it was first available. Players were less keen about starting with low % skills (and many started quite low in CoC) as the assumption was that if you failed the roll, the result was always a functional fail. In D&D, most of the early thief skills that used % were low, and players didn't relish the consequences of those rolls.

This is what bugs me about d100% systems, characters are basically so incredibly incompetent. A surgeon might have a skill of 55% and that means he kills 45% of the people he operates on. You can add difficulties, but it doesn't scale that well compared to the original skill %

It just doesn't make any sense. If someone is competent, then performing a task in a 'normal' amount of time, with the 'normal' tools should simply be a success. A risk of failure should happen though, under not normal conditions.

Sorry, this isn't quite what is being talked about but it made me think of this real-life example.

The interesting part is if you try to model things like a Whipple procedure for Pancreatic Cancer. They take half the pancreas and move all the internal organs away, to delay invasion if it reoccurs.

When done in a hospital that does these all the time (meaning a dozen or more a year), the mortality rate is down to 1-3% from the surgery. If done at a place that doesn't do it a lot, it's more like the rates from thirty years ago, 15%.

Looking forward to Trevor Devall's Broken Empires which will be a simulationist fantasy RPG that is D100 based.  I hope the setting will scratch that itch that Glorantha failed to do.

It sounds like folks are conflating using percentile dice with making checks where the target varies with the skill but not the task.  I'm fine with the former, but not the latter.

Quote from: Mishihari on August 13, 2024, 01:32:03 PMmaking checks where the target varies with the skill but not the task.

I am unaware of any system, d100 or otherwise, that has no difficulty adjustment for dice rolls. Got an example?

There is nothing inherently wrong about a d100 system. As long as you roll it with two icosahedrons marked 0-9 twice. Those weird non-Platonic solids have no place at a gaming table.

Quote from: Theory of Games on August 10, 2024, 12:26:41 PM1% chance of rolling a 100 on 1d100. 5% chance of rolling a 20 on 1d20. Plus d100 always roll off the table  and then ya gotta find em.

.46% chance of rolling an 18 in a 3d6 system.  More granular.
Way too many fumbles and critical hits in d20 system.

Quote from: David Johansen on August 09, 2024, 09:56:14 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on August 09, 2024, 06:02:45 PMLargely because Rune Quest wasn't D&D.

So, ducks?

Ducks are back!

Quote from: Ratman_tf on August 13, 2024, 02:33:21 AMconsequences of those rolls.

Thief skills in AD&D are comically bad. As explained in the book, you're usually better off with a fighter using a 10' pole to poke around. His chance to sneak around isn't much worse either.
[/quote]

The climb skill at 80% and a +20% to backstab attacks (on top of the initial surprise bonus) are the two abilities a new, young thief needs to utilize to survive and gain loot/levels until some of the other skills catch up, or figure out how to enhance abilities sooner..., but yeah, hiding and moving quietly, etc. are very low and are better off ignored until percentages increase. Or shit is desperate. Climbing to escape is sometimes an option in dire circumstances. Which are all the time for the young thief.

Quote from: Hixanthrope on August 13, 2024, 01:46:13 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on August 13, 2024, 01:32:03 PMmaking checks where the target varies with the skill but not the task.

I am unaware of any system, d100 or otherwise, that has no difficulty adjustment for dice rolls. Got an example?

AD&D thief skills, from personal experience.  Various others cited above based on the arguments presented.

"that's a ridiculous idea, who would do that?"
aaaaaand it's adnd.