Quote from: J ArcaneYou are always confined to 3-18 as far as meaningful stat ranges go...

Again, this is not really true, but how the rules are written, there is no explicit and easy information about high end skills and attributes.

Someone with the Archery skill at 35 has an epic mastery of archery. The benefit of doing so is being able to offset all kinds of penalties, making them able to make impossible shots (let's say a called headshot at extreme range after quick readying the weapon and not aiming). The rules never explicitly explain this. One of the problems with Gurps.

I offered some ideas previously in this thread, where Elliot asked what could be done, and we answered, and he said actually he couldn't be bothered doing anything anyway. I hope this will be more productive...

The reason GURPS is a turd has nothing to do with it being roll under vs. roll over.  While roll over is generally more intuitive and additional is generally easier to do as mental math, the reason that GURPS sucks is what someone else posted:

QuoteAlmost Magic Missiles (+650%): Crushing Attack
1D+1 (Cosmic, Ignores DR, +300%; Surprise
Attack, +150%; Very Rapid Fire 5, +80%;
Increased ½ Range x10, +15%; Accurate 23,
+115%; No Knockback, -10%) [50]
Notes: Generates a ball of mystic force in your hand
that is thrust at your opponent, nearly always
hitting. The ball ignores your opponent's armor, and
it gives almost a 100% chance of hitting if you take
time to aim. Based on the D&D spell Magic
Missile. 50 points

What is this shit.  With only a passing familiarity with GURPS, I can see that the spell does 1d6 + 1 damage and has some sort of "cosmic" power source, which I'm guessing is basically arcane magic.  It also appears to ignore armor and cause no knockback.  But then it has a whole bunch of percentages and words that are probably important but I have no idea what they mean, and I'm overwhelmed.  GURPS is just too much work to deal with.  Even in this simple combat setup in the link, the failure is self-evident.  When I play an RPG, I want a simple game that isn't going to give me a headache.  I can tell you right now that GURPS is not that game.

Quote from: B.T.;467610The reason GURPS is a turd has nothing to do with it being roll under vs. roll over.  While roll over is generally more intuitive and additional is generally easier to do as mental math, the reason that GURPS sucks is what someone else posted:

What is this shit.  With only a passing familiarity with GURPS, I can see that the spell does 1d6 + 1 damage and has some sort of "cosmic" power source, which I'm guessing is basically arcane magic.  It also appears to ignore armor and cause no knockback.  But then it has a whole bunch of percentages and words that are probably important but I have no idea what they mean, and I'm overwhelmed.  

Ignore them. They're just system documentation. Well, except the RoF part, which I assume you know what that means.

Fuck 'magic missile'.

 GURPS 4/e doesn't need 'fixing'.

There is nothing wrong with rolling 'under' the target number.

If you got a problem with that - its because you're to some other for years making you think the higher the number is the better so often that its like comparing the size of your manhood.

 Damn! No wonder I see more womenb trying and playing GUREPS thjan other game systems!

It just hit me that D&D and other similiar games are nothing but macho wankfest games more than half the time for stats-happy obsessed people.

GURPS is about the, not how 'hih' you roll or who has the biggest 'sword' in play.


- Ed C.

Ease up Ed I don't know whether to laugh or cringe.

4e fans are prone to over using power modifiers IMO.  Alternately you could go.

Magic Missile: 2d impaling (damage as heavy crossbow) ranged innate attack.  Magical (-20%) 13 points.

Accuraty 23 is absurd and the no knockback thing is ridiculous.  Rate of fire is okay but a weaker mage wouldn't have it.  If you bought it with a single use it'd be even cheaper.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;467504Well, yeah. This isn't the 1980s, and we've kind of moved on from the naive assumptions of early roleplayers that you could make a single perfect system that would do everything.

I agree. Even if I am a big fan of BRP, I wouldn't say that BRP can do every conceivable kind of game.

Quote from: The Butcher;467540Brilliant theory! This probably also explains why BRP/CoC is such an abysmal failure, and why every edition of CoC features such a wildly different system. :rolleyes:

Really, Trollman, I enjoy your posts on game mechanics, man, but this is uninsightful and disappointing.

He has a partial point, I think. I'm guessing that you don't see this as much of a problem playing CoC because usually there are not many modifiers involved in your average BRP roll. Usually you roll against your skill or attribute multiplied by some number, and nothing else.

So, it's easier comparing two numbers than adding them. If you don't use modifiers, BRP may be one of the fastest systems out there. When you use modifiers, BRP can be a bit harder. Also, bear in mind that in many versions you need to calculate fractions of your skill to see if you are rolling a critical hit or something ("Is 13 low enough to be a critical hit?").

Now, it's a question of good enough vs perfect. I can see why BRP could be improved if you change the mechanic from rolling under your % to adding 1d100+skill+modifiers and try to beat 100 as target number, with additional benefits the more you get over 100.

Actually, that is a question I'd love to see Frank answer How would you go into switching a BRP game (let's say CoC as it is one of the best known) into a roll-over system?

Quote from: Koltar;467618GURPS 4/e doesn't need 'fixing'.

There is nothing wrong with rolling 'under' the target number.

Dude, saying that something is right/wrong without any further explanation is a piss-poor debating technique.

QuoteIf you got a problem with that - its because you're to some other for years making you think the higher the number is the better so often that its like comparing the size of your manhood.

You never let your fans down.

QuoteDamn! No wonder I see more womenb trying and playing GUREPS thjan other game systems!

You cannot explain why most women here in Spain despised GURPS as being boring a sshit and why the line flopped miserably. But as BRP is huge around here, I guess we're not concerned about our dick size.

Quote from: Imperator;467661Actually, that is a question I'd love to see Frank answer How would you go into switching a BRP game (let's say CoC as it is one of the best known) into a roll-over system?

Interestingly, I have an article in Knights of the Dinner Table about doing exactly that. It's in issue #170. I used Eclipse Phase and maybe CoC as examples (sorry, it was published in January and I wrote it months before that, so it's not exactly fresh in my mind).

The quick and dirty is that you just announce that 100 is your new target number all the time. You roll the dice, and you add your skill. And for games like Eclipse Phase that keep track of "degree of success", you just use the last two digits of any successful roll. Any modifier that would raise your skill is added to your roll. Any modifier that would lower your skill is subtracted from your roll.

It's mathematically the same, but it makes degree of success calculations faster and makes calculating multiple modifiers (and especially recalculating modifiers) easier. We're not talking about the merits of dice
pools versus curved random number generators versus d20s here, we're literally just talking about hitting things with the absolute value sign a few times to reduce the number of math steps and required number reporting during play without changing the underlying probabilities.

This really is a no-brainer.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;467662Interestingly, I have an article in Knights of the Dinner Table about doing exactly that. It's in issue #170. I used Eclipse Phase and maybe CoC as examples (sorry, it was published in January and I wrote it months before that, so it's not exactly fresh in my mind).

The quick and dirty is that you just announce that 100 is your new target number all the time. You roll the dice, and you add your skill. And for games like Eclipse Phase that keep track of "degree of success", you just use the last two digits of any successful roll. Any modifier that would raise your skill is added to your roll. Any modifier that would lower your skill is subtracted from your roll.

Cool Many thanks.

So, let's say I'm playing CoC and I want to stab a cultist in the face with my trusted Bowie knife (Knife skill 56%). So I roll 1d100+56 and if I reach 100 or more, I stab him.

What I don't get is how you calculate the chances of an impalinghit. I mean, in standard CoC you 1/5 of your 5 skill of getting a special success or a impalement. So, if I have 56% in Knife, i will get an impaling hit with 01-11. How can I translate that to a roll-over system? I don't see how you would use the last 2 digits of a successful roll.

Thanks for the answers, Frank.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;467504Well, yeahYeah, that's a problem too. We use "roll high" these days because it is fundamentally superior to rolling low. Yes, the absolute values of all the modifiers are the same, but people made that argument for THAC0 too. Addng bonuses to your roll is faster and easier to do after the fact than adding to the target number and re-subtracting. If you are putting out a "roll under" system in the 21st century, I feel sorry for you. If it really doesn't make any difference, get with the fucking program and go to roll-high like everyone else.

Bollocks.

Roll-over and roll-under are mathematically the same. The difference is only psychological.

Quote from: Claudius;467669Bollocks.

Roll-over and roll-under are mathematically the same. The difference is only psychological.

And it's the most important difference there is.

Quote from: David Johansen;467629Ease up Ed I don't know whether to laugh or cringe.

4e fans are prone to over using power modifiers IMO.  Alternately you could go.

Magic Missile: 2d impaling (damage as heavy crossbow) ranged innate attack.  Magical (-20%) 13 points.

Accuraty 23 is absurd and the no knockback thing is ridiculous.  Rate of fire is okay but a weaker mage wouldn't have it.  If you bought it with a single use it'd be even cheaper.

The point of the 50 point Magic Missile is to emulate D&D's magic missile. Which means it effectively hits across it's range and not effected by armor.

Crushing Attack 1D+1
The base innate attack

Cosmic, Ignores DR, +300%
This is allows the crushing attack to ignore DR. But the target still gets a defense roll.

Surprise Attack, +150%;
Target now doesn't get a defense roll.

Very Rapid Fire 5, +80%;
You can fire five of these.

Increased ½ Range x10, +15%;
The Innate Attack now does the full damage out to the max range (100 yards)

Accurate 23, +115%;
Not only negates the -10 range modifier out to a 100 years but give +16 to anybody trying to use this ability. Which means that even people with default skill will only miss on a 17 or 18.

No Knockback, -10%
Magic missile don't send their target flying backwards.



GURPS Advantages shows the math behind the powers. If I handed this to a player they would go huh? However it can be written up like this.

Magic Missile 1d+2, ROF 5, ACC 26, 1/2 D 100, Max 100, Ignore DR, Target gets no Defense, Target doesn't suffer knockback. Note: At Max Range you get +16 to Skill effectively you only miss on a 17, or critically fail on a 18.

Quote from: David Johansen;467526More over it's floundering becaus SJG doesn't want it to do better.  If they did they'd do some marketing and some good intro sets.

Obviously they would rather GURPS sold better, but there are other products with higher returns on the time and money they'd invest in them... so those products get the time and the money allocated to them. That's basic business sense.

QuoteThe upcoming Disc World might count, we'll see what they do with it.  Even so, silly goof ball fantasy isn't exactly what I'd call a compelling setting.

That's not really an accurate description of current Discworld, the problem it might have in the market is just how far away from generic fantasy it is now.

Quote from: Imperator;467665Cool Many thanks.

So, let's say I'm playing CoC and I want to stab a cultist in the face with my trusted Bowie knife (Knife skill 56%). So I roll 1d100+56 and if I reach 100 or more, I stab him.

What I don't get is how you calculate the chances of an impalinghit. I mean, in standard CoC you 1/5 of your 5 skill of getting a special success or a impalement. So, if I have 56% in Knife, i will get an impaling hit with 01-11. How can I translate that to a roll-over system? I don't see how you would use the last 2 digits of a successful roll.

Thanks for the answers, Frank.

For games that use a percentage of your success chance as a critical chance, it's best to use "magic numbers". Magic numbers are special numbers in the ones place on the percentile dice that make something awesome happen if you are already succeeding. The number of magic numbers you have is determined by what the divisor is supposed to be. So if you are doing a WFRP thing where 1/10th of your success rate is your crit chance, then you have one magic number. If you're doing CoC where 2/10ths of your success rate is your crit chance, then you have two magic numbers.

Which magic numbers you choose depend on how the game is supposed to handle rounding. So you might choose 0 as your magic number to round one way, or 9 as your magic number to round the other. If you round off in some funny way, then you might select something in the middle.

So let's consider our 56% skill character. Using a 01-100 percentile dice set-up with roll equal-or-less, that's a 56% chance of success (some formulations of percentile have a 56% skill granting a 55% or 57% chance of success). But we're doing roll-over, which means that you'll succeed on a literal roll of 45-100 on a 01-100 roll (or you could do it on a 44-99 on a 00-99 roll, different formulations of percentile systems do it differently, and it doesn't matter save that you have to be consistent. Use whatever makes sense to you). You could have it round down by picking 0 and 5 as your magic numbers. That way you'd impale on a literal roll of 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, or 95 - precisely 11% of the time. If you decided that you wanted to calculate it differently and round up instead, you could have the magic numbers be 9 and 4 instead, and then you'd impale 12% of the time. And of course, if you decided that the breakpoint between 11% and 12% impale should be 57 or 58%, you can set the magic numbers accordingly to do that for you automagically.

This sort of thing is actually really convenient, because it means you don't ever have to do division at the table, and even if you get a big temporary modifier to your skill you aren't being asked to recalculate impalement chances.

-Frank

Quote from: Imperator;467665Cool Many thanks.

So, let's say I'm playing CoC and I want to stab a cultist in the face with my trusted Bowie knife (Knife skill 56%). So I roll 1d100+56 and if I reach 100 or more, I stab him.

What I don't get is how you calculate the chances of an impalinghit. I mean, in standard CoC you 1/5 of your 5 skill of getting a special success or a impalement. So, if I have 56% in Knife, i will get an impaling hit with 01-11. How can I translate that to a roll-over system? I don't see how you would use the last 2 digits of a successful roll.

Thanks for the answers, Frank.

Bear in mind it's been a while since I had the BRP rules in my head, so my details might be rusty.

If you're using the last two digits of 1d100+56, then you can use the last two digits in the normal way to determine crit success: rolling 101 - 111 is a crit (This assuming you count 00 as 100, so your target number is 101.).

To prove this works: You have an 11% chance of a crit, 45% of success, 44% of failure. So you roll your dice.

44% of the time, you will roll between 0 and 43. These add up to less than 101, so you fail. 11% of your rolls roll be between 44 and 55, which leave you with 01 through 11; your crit range. 45% of your rolls will be 56 - 100, leaving 12 - 56; your conventional success range.

(I know this makes the result curve slightly unintuitive, as it goes fail - crit - success, but that isn't a huge problem; it's mathematically identical to the standard method, and should work fine during play because you're looking for the same numbers as "normal" BRP.)

I like the magic number thing too, though!