I have to confess, though I've played systems that use "degree of success" mechanics* extensively in their core rules, I often forget about them. I don't mind the occasional special ability / spell that asks for such a check, but when a majority of rolls are asking you to track certain thresholds it kind of slips off my brain. Is it really so wrong to use binary pass / fail rolls and have the GM make a call as to what happens?

What do you think of these rules? Do you feel they are necessary, realistic, gritty, nuanced, etc.?

* How much your roll exceeds or fails the target number has a specific, quantified mechanical or in-universe effect.

I am fine with them but these days prefer it when they are more intuitive rather than chart based. Also don't mind if the system allows for eye-balling it.

I'm fine with them. I usually like it if it's just counting over a certain difficulty number and if it's certain degrees (five over, ten over, etc.)

I dislike the fiddly counting that such systems require. As a GM, eyeballing is kind of better as it doesn't require counting per se, but it also adds an extra level of uncertainty from the player side about what results mean and subjectivity from the GM side and that combination is overall a bit negative.

I'm happier with a critical hit system of some kind. Runequest did this best with the odds of Special success, Critical success, and Fumbles scaling with the chance to succeed. I'm not too fond of systems where say a 20 on a D20 is always a critical and a 1 is always a fumble as that gives the exact same probablity of criticals and fumbles regardless of the chance of success.

You mean like rolling damage? Or something a little less common, like critting mechanics? I definitely prefer to know the degree of success I have in chopping off some monster's head. Is there some question about this?

-clash

I tend to use them in non-binary situations, for ex, when running Microlite and Wizard makes a Knowledge check related to magical runes, I automatically assume he knows SOMETHING. I then grant additional information for 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and so on. Produced a crazy, funny moment when group came upon what I thought was a VERY obscure piece of info, and wizard totalled out at, like, 32 or something, so I ruled he had met the person who wrote the tome at some party, "and he told me [], which led to a brief internship..." It was pretty funny.

Anyways, I think such things as degree of success/failure allow for more interesting results, including "fail forward," if the failure degree is minimal. Boons & Consequences are interesting, imho.

I like a certain degree (hur hur) of it, in the range of 'somewhat successful/successful/very successful,' though I suppose I'd be fine with 'just barely made it/regular success/crit' or something.

More fiddly than that and actually requiring more involved math, meh.

D&D 3e's 'success by 5s' worked reasonably well for a number of things, like knowledge checks to identify monsters. I liked having a sense of varying information to give someone.

While I'm normally not a fan of dice pool systems, this is one area where they do well -- degree of success is easy when it's 'how many of these dice are over TN.'

They work fine. Depending on how the system is designed, they can make skilled characters feel highly skilled, in a way that binary systems can't.

I guess from a GM point of view, it adds another layer of complexity (You have to manage information and narration slightly differently to take them into account, sometimes), but that's the GM's job, so... no sympathy.

They need to be done in such a way that calculating them doesn't slow down the game, though. I'm personally pretty fond of blackjack methods.

One of my least favorite things about Call of Cthulhu BRP system was that degrees of success were very clunky, if you used them at all.

I find that in a system where characters are doing a lot of things OTHER than combat, having some range of results makes for a more interesting game (obviously liberally IMO).

I haven't played too many Rpgs that include DoS mechanics (or in other words, margin-of-success/margin-of-failure). Or at least I'm drawing a blank on remembering many.

The Silhouette system, as used in Heavy Gear, is one that I enjoyed running (10 years ago). MoS influences the damage dealt - the value acting as a multiplier for a static weapon damage value - which is set based on weapon type. IIRC, the MoS of the defensive roll made by the target reduced the MoS of the firer. The final, multiplied value is compared to 3 health level values (flesh wound, major wound, instant death) to determine damage sustained.

Quote from: Will;815590One of my least favorite things about Call of Cthulhu BRP system was that degrees of success were very clunky, if you used them at all.

I find that in a system where characters are doing a lot of things OTHER than combat, having some range of results makes for a more interesting game (obviously liberally IMO).

Are you referring to the Critical (5%) and Special (20%) success rates in CoC?

In CoC5e/6e you had Impales as a default rule (basically, a special success), and Criticals as an optional rule. There were also optional rules for Special results for other skills (which is something that I use as a house rule, but don't go overboard on). But, it a fairly 'light' mechanic - far less detailed than its use in RuneQuest BRP and Elric!/Stormbringer BRP.

CoC7e... well, I won't even go there. That's even more defined (and definitely "clunky").

Quote from: flyingmice;815572You mean like rolling damage? Or something a little less common, like critting mechanics? I definitely prefer to know the degree of success I have in chopping off some monster's head. Is there some question about this?

-clash

Hit results are a usual application  "of course," but other thigs can also vary - and a lot of people like to base that on a single roll. At the same time, some prefer to "eyeball" it and improvise, while others want more formalism. Specific rules can add up to a lot of data, and tabulated presentation can make that easier to manage; but some folks don't like tables!

Peterson: yes. But it means you have to list skill/20%/5% values for the several dozen skills you might have, or do that math each time you roll.

I realize to some people that's about as much of an extra load as breathing, but end of week/late in the session/clumsy mathy folks can find it annoying.

It also goes toward order of operations fatigue: adding is easier than multiplication is simpler than subtraction is easier than division. I think that's the order.

Quote from: Will;815605Peterson: yes. But it means you have to list skill/20%/5% values for the several dozen skills you might have, or do that math each time you roll.

I realize to some people that's about as much of an extra load as breathing, but end of week/late in the session/clumsy mathy folks can find it annoying.

It also goes toward order of operations fatigue: adding is easier than multiplication is simpler than subtraction is easier than division. I think that's the order.

Chaosium's RQ had a table (using different formulas between 1st and 2nd ed.).

You can let the second digit give rounded-off probabilities down to 1/10 - but I don't find another die toss much more effort. I prefer that to poring over dice to parse them (which the desigers of Godlike seemed to think quite lovely).

Let the dice do the math! I say.

Quote from: Will;815605But it means you have to list skill/20%/5% values for the several dozen skills you might have...

That's the approach that CoC7e takes. All of those values are listed out on the charsheet, which makes it looks busy as hell, IMO. Be prepared to write down a lot of tiny numbers...

Quoteor do that math each time you roll.

I realize to some people that's about as much of an extra load as breathing, but end of week/late in the session/clumsy mathy folks can find it annoying.

I can understand that. After playing BRP for decades, it's fairly internalized for me. And many of the gamers I've played with over the years have been math-heads, or engineer-heads. Such that BRP is a step-down in arithmetic complexity, compared to their favorite systems.

For CoC-newbs, I've often handled the math for them as the Keeper. Having an Investigator 'log' handy with many of their skill levels written down, and having them just roll the dice. I perform the  [skill*.2] calculation, look at what they get, and narrate a failure, standard success, or special success result. (I don't use Crits in CoC).