I once had an idea for an open log(ish) system using d8s...

Basically:
1-4: 0
5-6: +1
7: +2
8: +3 and roll again


My players laughed at me when I suggested this. Though they played Torg, which does something similar just with a d20 and lookup tables. mutter

Quote from: S'mon;786355I certainly think "All rolls are made on a d20, no matter how inappropriate" feels dated to me, very "d20 era" - the previous decade.

I do have to ask what the big difference between rolling a d20 and rolling percentile is to people. In my mind it's just a percentile in chunks of five, which I rarely have need to go much deeper detail in.

If you want a more consistent result bell curves are the way to go, but I'm missing the significant difference in the flat roles(d20 or percentile) other than granularity.

Quote from: Simlasa;786115I wonder. If you were to take some old 'dated' game (as long as it doesn't have charts, kids hate charts)... change its name to protect the innocent... give it a fresh coat of paint... give the writing a gloss... redo the layout with some zippy new graphic design program... put it out in a fresh new hardcover with glossy pages laden with top notch full color artwork... but keep the core mechanics the same... should probably add in some fiction to fluff up the page count because most old rules I know weren't very long compared to modern ones.
Would anyone scream about how 'stale' the rules were?

Probably.

Probably not.  Likely a bunch of folks would blather on about this snazzy new retro game, at least until a tipping point of reviewers did a compare-and-contrast.

That being said, I'm a strong partisan of the "rules don't age" camp.  Any RPG does exactly what it does, as well as it ever did, from the time it was published on forward.  A hundred years from now, RPG historians are going to laugh themselves groggy at the blinding speed at which ephemeral design fads came and went and the importance their adherents placed on them; it's almost as bad as Parisian hem lines.

Beyond that, going through this thread, it strikes me that a whopping lot of people seem to work by the definition of "rules that have aged" = "rules I don't like."

Quote from: Will;786335Um, lots of funky tables and random stuff, unlike 5e's corporate blandness...
... What?
There's a table of random trinkets.
There's a table of wild magic, including entry 41-42, in which the caster turns into a potted plant for a round.
Wtf, guys?

Take a look at DCC if you can, or an Arduin book if you want to know what "lots of funky tables and random stuff" looks like.

I was around for original D&D. I know what lots of tables looks like, and, at least in, say, AD&D, they were often in the DMG (which isn't out yet).

But my point is that if I were going to rail against corporate blandness, 5e is the LEAST bland of the last few editions.

It has lots of flavor, a lot of stuff that's there for fun rather than mathy fiddly stupid crap.

I mean, hell, complain about skills all you want, but 5e skills are just about the most minimal implementation. They're more like Proficiencies in AD&D than anything else.

Quote from: MrHurst;786381I do have to ask what the big difference between rolling a d20 and rolling percentile is to people. In my mind it's just a percentile in chunks of five, which I rarely have need to go much deeper detail in.

If you want a more consistent result bell curves are the way to go, but I'm missing the significant difference in the flat roles(d20 or percentile) other than granularity.

I mentioned this earlier, but some games do clever things with %ile or need the 'room' for various things.

For example, UA has a rule that lets you flip the digits, also melee = two digits added, guns = roll.

BRP has advancement of 'roll checked skills at end of session, add random amount (I forget if it was d6, d10, whatever) if you fail the roll. A smaller range of numbers, you'd end up getting 0 advancement more frequently, or less variation.


Otherwise, you often find people who like %ile because 'more numbers is better' is taken as an article of faith.

Quote from: Will;786388Otherwise, you often find people who like %ile because 'more numbers is better' is taken as an article of faith.

As opposed to people who don't like %ile because 'less numbers is better' is taken as an article of faith?

Article of Faith? :rolleyes:

No, some game design has the weight of gamer psychology behind it. Like addition being generally better than subtraction or multiplication.

I don't feel threatened by someone pointing out tea is better for me than coffee. I shrug and keep drinking coffee.


I also didn't say I disliked %ile, for the record.

Quote from: MrHurst;786381I do have to ask what the big difference between rolling a d20 and rolling percentile is to people. In my mind it's just a percentile in chunks of five, which I rarely have need to go much deeper detail in.

If you want a more consistent result bell curves are the way to go, but I'm missing the significant difference in the flat roles(d20 or percentile) other than granularity.

Percentile systems are usually roll low under a threshold.  D20 systems are usually roll high over a threshold.

Most of the time difficulty in percentile systems is represented as subtracting from the percentage needed rather than as a modifier to the roll.  D20 systems split the difference.  Pure difficulty is often represented as adding to the target number while situational factors are applied as modifiers to the roll itself.  In the broadest sense percentile systems use a lot of subtraction operations while D20 systems are more often additive.  Addition is a simpler operation than subtraction.  Also, percentile systems involve subtracting larger numbers which adds complexity.

D20 systems are usually easier when comparing the abilities of two separate characters.  The two characters roll and their totals are compared.  The one with the high roll wins.  To do the same thing in a percentile system, both parties roll, their die rolls are subtracted from their skill totals, and the higher result of this calculation wins.  That's assuming the percentile system even uses the concept of graded success, which may not be a given.  In any event, it's an extra awkward step.

A lot often gets made of roll under systems being closed systems, but that's sometimes overstated.  As long as percentile skill ratings can go above 100, it isn't a closed system, and is functionally identical to roll high systems.  It just has the other awkward bits previously mentioned.  It's because of those awkward bits that I feel percentile systems are "obsolete tech."  Yes, you can do things like graded competitions in percentile systems, but it's just easier to do them in roll high systems.

Case 1
Player: I have a THACO of 14
GM: The monster has a AC of -2
Player: Hmm.  14 minus negative 2, which means plus 2.  I need a 16 to hit.  I rolled a 16.  I hit!

Case 2
Player: I have a +6 to hit
GM: The monster has an AC of 22.
Player: I rolled a 16 on the die, plus 6.  I rolled 22 total.  I hit!

I've seen players get hung up for multiple minutes on that calculation step of Case 1.  Is it complicated?  No.  Do they produce different results?  No, they are functionally identical.  Is Case 1 the result of prototypical methods which were needlessly obfuscating and non-intuitive.  Yep.  But over time the idea was polished and the implementation evolved and improved.  Case 1 is an example of obsolete role playing technology.

Interestingly, Gabriel, UA hit on an analogous solution to percentile, which is 'roll as high as you can without going over your skill.'

Which... produces EXACTLY the same results as subtraction, but is way easier -- 'is 50 higher than 40? yes? OK, he wins'

(I know this is the third or fourth time I've mentioned it in the thread, but, to me, it's one of those satori moments in game design that should make everyone who did subtraction go '... oh crap, DUH.')

((And it's a perfect example of someone coming up with a truly new way to handle the SAME EXACT RULES, but demonstrably better))

Quote from: Gabriel2;786398Case 1
Player: I have a THACO of 14
GM: The monster has a AC of -2
Player: Hmm.  14 minus negative 2, which means plus 2.  I need a 16 to hit.  I rolled a 16.  I hit!

Case 2
Player: I have a +6 to hit
GM: The monster has an AC of 22.
Player: I rolled a 16 on the die, plus 6.  I rolled 22 total.  I hit!

I've seen players get hung up for multiple minutes on that calculation step of Case 1.  Is it complicated?  No.  Do they produce different results?  No, they are functionally identical.  Is Case 1 the result of prototypical methods which were needlessly obfuscating and non-intuitive.  Yep.  But over time the idea was polished and the implementation evolved and improved.  Case 1 is an example of obsolete role playing technology.

Understanding the above difference is helpful for when you are designing new games with no legacy behind them.

However what you are missing is the fact that RPGs are a form of entertainment. That table lookup, THACO, and now D20+mod >= AC are wrapped up in the feel of a game. Part of what makes AD&D 1st what it is, along with AD&D 2nd and D&D 3.X.

Some may not care about it. Some care very much. Having played under both systems my opinion is that this particular point is not a crucial difference compared to other issues.

It takes a lot of bad design decision before mechanical efficiency really makes a difference beyond taste. Now bad presentation of complex rules that is a very common problem. Many detailed and complex RPGs are not bad design but suffer from bad presentations.

I had out several 1970s-80s products last night: TSR's Metamorphosis Alpha, FGU's Villains & Vigilantes, GDW's Traveller, and some from Chaosium's line (Worlds of Wonder being my main focus).

The little black books of Traveller don't strike me as dated at all, from the rules set to the classic elegance of the book design.

MA is strikingly of its time graphically. That it employs a variety of tailored mechanisms, rather than a "universal mechanic," is less notable than the brevity and simplicity of the rules. The emphasis is on presenting a rich broth of imaginative ideas, rather than on reams of dry abstraction.

V&V and WoW are dated in the sense that - as is always the case - there was more development to do. It seems usual that when Chaosium has a game with bows, they give no price for arrows; but matters such as inconstency as to calculation of damage bonus (one example of how Magic World seemed the least polished of the trilogy) would seem likely to have been addressed with a few more weeks, never mind decades!

Now, there is a much more recent edition of V&V. I have not seen it, but I expect that a number of rough edges have been polished.

Does it fit the latest fashion as well as M&M or Icons? Probably not, but that kind of "dated" hits everything, sometimes in cycles.

Quote from: Gabriel2;786398Case 1 is an example of obsolete role playing technology.

Nah, more a case of you being too insecure to realize a subjective preference for what it is, and thus psychologically needing to attach objective value to your preference.

The specific case of Increasing vs. Decreasing AC, Pros and Cons of each are a different thread, but the TL;DR version - it's which one you like better.

Quote from: talysman;786124Mechanics -- the actual physical actions and math procedures - don't age. Rolling dice and adding them together to beat a score doesn't suddenly stop working, although maybe it will go out of fashion... but may come back into fashion again.

Some other things, like layout and artistic styles, may go out of fashion as well. Arguing that this is example of "aging badly" may be argued over without reaching an agreement one way or the other, but it's not really "the game" or "the rules".

The ideas in the prose itself, though, especially ideas attached to the conditional rules surrounding mechanics, may be out of date. For example, the gender-based ability caps or modifiers in AD&D 1e and a couple other games are based on outmoded, sexist ideas that were already going out of fashion even in the '70s. Game books that mention a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union are also out of date, although they're more laughable than uncomfortable. Many cyberpunk RPGs have gone out of print and stayed that way because their tech and cultural details are way out of date.

I'd argue that it's only in this last sense, of ideas showing their age, that an RPG can really "age poorly". Everything else is just preferences and fashion trends. However, it's important to emphasis it's not the mechanics attached to an out-of-date idea that is wrong, it's only the idea that the mechanics are designed to implement.

But this really boils down to personal preference. Magic swords, elves and dragons are about as old-fashioned as you can get, ancient compared with Doc Smith's Lensmen and their vacuum tubes and cams. So, is any D&D-ish game more "dated" than GURPS Lensman, and if so then to what era?

I don't see why Twilight: 2000 or Cyberpunk should be any different in that respect from Space: 1889 or Castle Falkenstein.

And I for one find the still-present danger of nuclear war far from a laughing matter.