Quote from: Voros;955880Since we have a couple of threads discussing mechanic preferences I'm wondering is there any appreciable difference between difficulty checks, which I believe were introduced in 3e D&D and carried over into 5e versus ability checks (roll under the ability score) in 2e and earlier versions of D&D.

Not sure when I discovered ability checks, I think they always existed as an alternate rule from the very early days of the game, but once I did I thought they were very elegant and they largely replaced saving throws at our table.

So what say you? Is there any mathematical difference between the methods or is it a tomato/tomatoe thing? Is the advantage of DCs simply that they eliminate the need for bonuses and penalties to the roll or that they are a unified mechanic with attack rolls, etc?

I greatly prefer ability checks (roll equal or under or some variant). Mainly because: (i) players know their rough target number (pre mods) before they even ask, and (ii) your stats actually matter, as opposed to your bonus (Int 8 is extremely different to Int 14, and so on).

Edit: In LFG, which uses this kind of system, having the right skill provides access to a level based Reroll pool. So skills also play a part.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;955907The trouble with difficulty checks is they are usually paired up with a skill system where the PC keeps getting better at doing something... across 20 levels. If the GM is not careful, certain types of verisimilitudinous challenges become too trivial, and they might be tempted to gradually increase the DCs in an arms race with the PC's capabilities, ultimately making their world less realistic and the skill increases pointless.

DM: And you find yourself in front of an adamantine door with locks designed by modrons.
Rogue: Damn, another one? Where were all these adamantine doors with locks designed by modrons three levels ago?
DM:Err, this is the richest part of town.
Rogue: Weird, I feel you sort of implied that about the other part of town we were operating in three levels ago. There the richest people had steel doors with locks designed by gnomes.
DM: Anyway, the DC to pick or break through this is X.
Rogue: *looks at character sheet*. You know, doing a little math, my odds of getting through this door will my supposedly ever increasing skill are roughly the same as the steel doors with locks designed by gnomes three levels ago... and the same again as my odds of getting through the reinforced wood doors with locks designed by human master locksmiths three levels before that.
DM: ... You know what, a patrol of fire salamander sentinels summoned from another plane to guard this place attack you while you're contemplating the door. Roll for initiative. Watch out, these are tougher to face than the ogre sentinels hired from the deadly badlands you were facing in the other part of town three levels ago...

Spot-fucking-on.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;955907I never experienced the ability check, but as I understand it, the PC's odds of overcoming an issue with a roll stayed mostly flat and predictable across the levels, which sounds nice for a GM trying to run a consistent world. For instance, anywhere the party goes, they are likely to face doors that are reliably going to present a certain level of challenge to lock-pick or demolish, with the occasional easy or extra hard one.

I'm a bit surprised how it's possible for you to have never experienced it, but you conclusion is mostly true, IME:).

QuoteThe trouble with difficulty checks is they are usually paired up with a skill system where the PC keeps getting better at doing something... across 20 levels. If the GM is not careful, certain types of verisimilitudinous challenges become too trivial, and they might be tempted to gradually increase the DCs in an arms race with the PC's capabilities, ultimately making their world less realistic and the skill increases pointless.

DM: And you find yourself in front of an adamantine door with locks designed by modrons.
Rogue: Damn, another one? Where were all these adamantine doors with locks designed by modrons three levels ago?
DM:Err, this is the richest part of town.
Rogue: Weird, I feel you sort of implied that about the other part of town we were operating in three levels ago. There the richest people had steel doors with locks designed by gnomes.
DM: Anyway, the DC to pick or break through this is X.
Rogue: *looks at character sheet*. You know, doing a little math, my odds of getting through this door will my supposedly ever increasing skill are roughly the same as the steel doors with locks designed by gnomes three levels ago... and the same again as my odds of getting through the reinforced wood doors with locks designed by human master locksmiths three levels before that.
DM: ... You know what, a patrol of fire salamander sentinels summoned from another plane to guard this place attack you while you're contemplating the door. Roll for initiative. Watch out, these are tougher to face than the ogre sentinels hired from the deadly badlands you were facing in the other part of town three levels ago...

And that's why I hate the advice to increase the difficulties depending on the characters' abilities:D!
If you're using a system that's going to make some challenges obsolete at some point, just admit it and if you don't want to do it, tell your players that they're doing stuff that's below them, and the reward is going to be below what they expect, too.

Yup. Not every damn door has to be a freaking MAJOR LIFE ALTERING CHALLENGE!!!!!

Quote from: Omega;956050Yup. Not every damn door has to be a freaking MAJOR LIFE ALTERING CHALLENGE!!!!!

Yes - if your 20th level PCs are bumbling around dealing with thieves down at the docks, there's nothing wrong with letting them face trivial challenges - and gain trivial XP. I remember running my 4e D&D Loudwater campaign this happened a couple times. The general result was to discourage the very high level PCs from wasting time with trivial challenges. I did think that 4e with a static home base did eventually break down at Epic levels (21-30) but it worked ok for 20 levels, which is +10 on the attribute checks in that system, more like +15 with bonuses. The PCs went from fighting goblins 1-3 to fighting a frost giant invasion at the end 17-20.

Quote from: Skarg;955959Well that's the general problem with the semi-conflicting goals of wanting:
* a consistent world
* PCs to have heroic abilities
* PCs to improve steadily with adventuring experience
* challenge and some chance of failure
* a campaign to last a long time with some PCs surviving and gaining a lot of experience

It's hard to satisfy all of those requirements, and having more than a couple of them at once require a fair amount of work.

I don't know about having more than a couple at once taking all that much work.  I completely ignore the fourth (maintaining a set level of "challenge") and have no difficulty maintaining all the others.  (Well, aside from the inherent difficulties in getting a campaign to last a long time.  *sigh*)

Quote from: AsenRG;956046I'm a bit surprised how it's possible for you to have never experienced it...

Because I got my start with the Fighting Fantasy tabletop system while living in England. Except for two or three very brief and confusing brushes with 2nd edition (under GMs who in retrospect did things very much their way), I didn't get into D&D until 3rd. I've familiarized myself with older D&D material for fun, but I have almost no at-the-table experience with it.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;956085Because I got my start with the Fighting Fantasy tabletop system while living in England. Except for two or three very brief and confusing brushes with 2nd edition (under GMs who in retrospect did things very much their way), I didn't get into D&D until 3rd. I've familiarized myself with older D&D material for fun, but I have almost no at-the-table experience with it.

OK, that explains it:). I wasn't even thinking about D&D, it's just that the attribute check is such an ubiquitous part of gaming, I was hard-pressed to think of many systems that didn't have it.
And since you never struck me as a GURPS guy, it was kinda unexpected;)!

Quote from: nDervish;956081

Quote from: SkargWell that's the general problem with the semi-conflicting goals of wanting:
* a consistent world
* PCs to have heroic abilities
* PCs to improve steadily with adventuring experience
* challenge and some chance of failure
* a campaign to last a long time with some PCs surviving and gaining a lot of experience

It's hard to satisfy all of those requirements, and having more than a couple of them at once require a fair amount of work.

I don't know about having more than a couple at once taking all that much work.  I completely ignore the fourth (maintaining a set level of "challenge") and have no difficulty maintaining all the others.  (Well, aside from the inherent difficulties in getting a campaign to last a long time.  *sigh*)

The main issue I see with going for all those, is that when PCs survive a long time (5), and the steady experience accumulates (3)  to super-heroic levels (2), then there can be issues with the world making sense (1) and/or providing much risk or challenge (4).

So if your campaigns don't last long enough for the power levels to break things, then you don't see the eventual breakdown.

The main cause of stress is I think wanting characters to keep gaining and gaining power and ability, and expecting that not to cause the world and its challenges to get overpowered and/or have the GM scale difficulty in surreal ways that also mean the power is sort of illusory (i.e. you level up and so do the opponents you meet).

It seems to me that a certain amount of skill/ability/power improvement does make sense (gain experience, get stuff) as does some difficulty increase (make enemies, reputation, choose harder targets), but many games end up with pretty extreme power curves at least after a lot of play. Of course some players don't mind or enjoy becoming superheroes and riding an extreme power curve etc.

Quote from: AsenRG;956091OK, that explains it:). I wasn't even thinking about D&D, it's just that the attribute check is such an ubiquitous part of gaming, I was hard-pressed to think of many systems that didn't have it.
And since you never struck me as a GURPS guy, it was kinda unexpected;)!

The Steve Jackson of Fighting Fantasy is a different, British, game designer from the American Steve Jackson of TFT & GURPS.

Fighting Fantasy is I think mostly solo programmed adventures with a rather simple rule set that involves a few attributes with low numbers that indicate the number of d6 you roll to see if you manage to do something or not.

Quote from: Voros;955880Since we have a couple of threads discussing mechanic preferences I'm wondering is there any appreciable difference between difficulty checks, which I believe were introduced in 3e D&D and carried over into 5e versus ability checks (roll under the ability score) in 2e and earlier versions of D&D.

Not sure when I discovered ability checks, I think they always existed as an alternate rule from the very early days of the game, but once I did I thought they were very elegant and they largely replaced saving throws at our table.

So what say you? Is there any mathematical difference between the methods or is it a tomato/tomatoe thing? Is the advantage of DCs simply that they eliminate the need for bonuses and penalties to the roll or that they are a unified mechanic with attack rolls, etc?

Unified mechanic. Last time I ran 2nd edition- one of the house rules was changing the proficiency system into a DC system. I also changed all the thief skills into the prof system, which works wonders to make the rogue abilities worth a spit at low levels.

All the commentary about the DC treaddmill are valid, and something to keep an eye on. I don't think it's too bad with a more bounded system like 2nd, but 4th edition's treadmill was awful.

Quote from: Skarg;956122The Steve Jackson of Fighting Fantasy is a different, British, game designer from the American Steve Jackson of TFT & GURPS.

Fighting Fantasy is I think mostly solo programmed adventures with a rather simple rule set that involves a few attributes with low numbers that indicate the number of d6 you roll to see if you manage to do something or not.

I know, but my first reaction after seeing that someone isn't used to attribute rolls, before he had mentioned Fighting Fantasy, was "that's most likely a d20 or GURPS guy". Based on what he has mentioned in other threads about his age, d20 in the sense of 3.0 and later, was right out of the realm of possible starting games:).

And his other replies made me surprised that he might be a GURPS guy;).

Quote from: Skarg;956122The Steve Jackson of Fighting Fantasy is a different, British, game designer from the American Steve Jackson of TFT & GURPS.

Fighting Fantasy is I think mostly solo programmed adventures with a rather simple rule set that involves a few attributes with low numbers that indicate the number of d6 you roll to see if you manage to do something or not.

The FF RPG is a bit different from the gamebooks, but uses the same system. I had them way back but lost them along with a chunk of my gamebooks.

You had one all encompasing Skill stat. This covered alot of things like combat, problem solving, physical feats, and so on. The higher the better.
As with D&D it was up to the DM to decide if the check was normal, or if to apply a bonus or penalty based on circumstances. But the use of the stat could vary. You might roll 2d6 and add your skill vs an opposed roll, or you might have to roll 2d6 and get under your skill. etc. Or occasionally a check was determined with a simple d6 roll instead of a stat check.

I used to dislike the ability score = skill system in 1e OA and B/X and BECMI D&D. I liked systems where ability and skill are basically equal.

But then I realized that mathmatically, it kinda is that if you just use ability score. It's essentially 50% +/- 5% for every ability point above or below 10.

Quote from: AsenRG;956091I wasn't even thinking about D&D, it's just that the attribute check is such an ubiquitous part of gaming, I was hard-pressed to think of many systems that didn't have it.

Oh no, I specifically meant in D&D, which is what I think of when I hear 'ability check' as opposed to 'roll under' or the like. As Omega said, Fighting Fantasy definitely had a roll under mechanic, among others. However, crucially for this discussion the game was not a class-and-level system, so it did not face the sort of task tailoring and escalation issues D&D can. In fact, the first version of their tabletop game (the one I provided a picture of) had no character advancement at all.

Now that you mention it though, my primary formative experiences between Fighting Fantasy and 3e were "Difficulty Check" games, most notably World of Darkness, Legend of the Five Rings, and a whole lot of home-brews.