Roll-under D100 is probably the most intuitive mechanic of all.  In our regular lives we're constantly hearing shit like ·"45% of people will have suffered from a migraine in the past month", "you have a 30% chance of winning", "75% of dentists agree..", etc etc.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;468795Roll-under D100 is probably the most intuitive mechanic of all.  In our regular lives we're constantly hearing shit like ·"45% of people will have suffered from a migraine in the past month", "you have a 30% chance of winning", "75% of dentists agree..", etc etc.

RPGPundit

d100 roll over has the exact same quality. Your modifier is your chance of success, expressed as a percent.

-Frank

The problem with roll-under is thus: it reduces the granularity of the skill roll results to binary. Usually it does that by making the players announce the made their roll or failed. Any further info is lost in many, many cases.

Quote from: Settembrini;468809The problem with roll-under is thus: it reduces the granularity of the skill roll results to binary. Usually it does that by making the players announce the made their roll or failed. Any further info is lost in many, many cases.

Eh? BRP has special and critical successes, fumbles etc. Not binary at all.

Poppycock, in 90% of the cases, the player will announce "I made it/I failed."

Quote from: Settembrini;468819Poppycock, in 90% of the cases, the player will announce "I made it/I failed."

Considering there is usually a 10% chance of a special or critical result, you're right: about 90% of the time using the RQ/BRP system, the roll is going to be success or failure. That pretty much matches my experience in real life when I try something. I usually succeed or fail. Only on very rare occasions do I succeed (or fail) spectacularly.  

RQ/BRP isn't designed to present finely grained success or failure results because such are usually meaningless. I have 33 points of success climbing the cliff versus Joe who has 29 points of success. Geez, his foot must have slipped a couple of times more than mine did on the way up. In 99% of the situations, it doesn't matter at all. When it does, just subtract your die roll from your percent chance of success and you can have your finely grained result. No, it's not in the rules, but it is an obvious way to compare successes or failures at a very granular level on those rare occasions when it actually matters for anything but player ego boosting.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;468806d100 roll over has the exact same quality. Your modifier is your chance of success, expressed as a percent.

-Frank

Hehehe that is quite funny.....

the arguemtn being as pundit says you have a 45% chance of sucess so you roll under 45% and you succeed, the lower you get the better you suceeded.

Then Frank says but roll over is simple 'Your modifier is your chance of success, expressed as a percent' which still fails to tell us what you need to roll in any case.... so we can deduce that the target number is always 100% but its a deduction and i might be wrong and ask any person you like how best to express a 45 % change of doign it and they will say roll under 45....

Quote from: FrankTrollman;468806d100 roll over has the exact same quality. Your modifier is your chance of success, expressed as a percent.

-Frank

If the target number is 101, then yes, it has the same quality. If the target number is not 101, then no. For example, in Rolemaster, 101 is not the target number.

Quote from: Settembrini;468809The problem with roll-under is thus: it reduces the granularity of the skill roll results to binary. Usually it does that by making the players announce the made their roll or failed. Any further info is lost in many, many cases.

Except for those games that use a version of the BRP system, in which you have several categories of success. For example, in RQ3 you have critical success, special success, normal success, failure, and fumble. Not binary, I'm afraid.

Quote from: Settembrini;468819Poppycock, in 90% of the cases, the player will announce "I made it/I failed."

Except when the player gets a critical success, a special success, of a fumble.

So, according to you, roll-under is binary, except when it's not. :rolleyes:

It is obvious that mathematically there is no difference. In actual play practice, the difference is huge.

The cirticals are not margin of success and they are not modifier based. As both are mathematically equivalent, there is no reson to choose the roll under, as it is, communication-wise, inferior.

In roll-high (see what I did?), the player announces the number he achieved.

The dichotomy between roll under and roll over is false, as the true power of roll-high is to break out from the binary nature. Even with criticals, like in Harnmaster, roll under still reduced the dimension of results to 4, whereas roll-high is continous.

Ultimately the question comes down to the GMing practices of modifiers, and some roll-under proponents in this very thread have shown their colors there already.

Roll-under for me as well... intuitive and quick.

Quote from: Settembrini;468853As both are mathematically equivalent, there is no reson to choose the roll under, as it is, communication-wise, inferior.

Explain that bit please...

Rolemaster, BRP... I take both. They serve different purposes at the game table.

Quote from: Settembrini;468854Ultimately the question comes down to the GMing practices of modifiers, and some roll-under proponents in this very thread have shown their colors there already.

To me, the question comes down to why the heck should designers and players be forced to use "roll over" because you (and Frank) declare it "better"?

I prefer "roll under" for D100 system like RQ as it works better for me and most if the players I've played with. I don't care what works best for you and Frank. Neither of you play at my table.

IMHO, designers should be free to design as they and their target audience want -- not feel forced to use what someone has decided to decree as "best." Changing RQ to roll over would probably alienate as a large a percentage of RQ players as the changes in 4e alienated WOTC D&D players. Why should the RQ designers what to do this just to make the "roll over is always better" crowd happy?

Quote from: Simlasa;468875Explain that bit please...

Add degree of success or variable modifiers to the equation. You don't need to care about communication when you have a simple case, you need to worry about communication when you have a complex case.

When I succeed in Roll Over, I declare "134" and that means both that I succeeded and that I succeeded by 34 points. When I success in Blackjack, I declare "62, success", which tells the other players that my degree of success was 62, and that I succeeded. But I already gave two distinct pieces of information to get that across, and the information isn't even complete. Suppose that the GM suddenly remembers that the floor is covered in grease or something and I am operating at a -5 penalty.

In the Roll Over case, I've already given the GM the complete information. He just reduces 134 to 129 and says "Oh yeah, the floor is still greasy, so that's only a 29." But in the Blackjack setup he actually doesn't have complete information and has to ask more questions. "Oh yeah, the floor is still greasy, so you have an extra -5 penalty. Does a 62 still succeed?"

Do you get it now? You say more things and impart less information. And that actually matters once you engage in actions complex enough that you care about all the information.

-Frank