Quote from: deadDMwalking;731942I personally like consistently applied formulas (I think they're easy to remember), and I think that most skilled people should usually do 'about as well as average' on most things they do.

Unless it's something like auditioning for a movie role or selling a screenplay, in which case results will be clustered more towards total failures and total successes than "average" results. That would be more like a U-Curve than a bell-curve.

I don't know if I agree.

If I'm an actor, most of my audtions will be 'about as well as I can do'.  If I'm a mediocre actor, I'm not going to do extraordinarily good at my tryout.  

On the other hand, if we're talking about evaluation of the tryouts, 'average' is 'bad'.  

It's like when you roll 3d6.  You know that only 1/216 of your rolls are going to be 18, but if we have all rolls between 12-14 (which is really good, all things considered) we'll still say we 'have sucky stats'.  People expect things to be 'really good', even when statistically they're unlikely.  

I guess, even when something is uncommon, we can still be exposed to it so often that it seems more common than it is.

I suspect the more "all-or-nothing" a task, the more likely it will tend towards a U-curve rather than a bell-curve. If "mediocre" simply isn't good enough, the person will push until they either fail or succeed completely.

Perhaps gamers with 9-5 office jobs are more likely to view performance as a bell-curve, whereas freelancers and artists tend more towards U-curve or "hockey stick" thinking.

Quote from: Warthur;731910This is reasonably easy to work out:

0-10%: No chance of critical success, 10% chance of critical failure.

11-21%: 1% chance of critical success, 9% chance of critical failure.

22-32%: 2% chance of critical success, 8% chance of critical failure.

33-43%: 3% chance of critical success, 7% chance of critical failure.

44-54%: 4% chance of critical success, 6% chance of critical failure.

55-65%: 5% chance of critical success, 5% chance of critical failure.

66-76%: 6% chance of critical success, 4% chance of critical failure.

77-87%: 7% chance of critical success, 3% chance of critical failure.

88-98%: 8% chance of critical success, 2% chance of critical failure.

99%: 9% chance of critical success, 1% chance of critical failure.

100%: 10% chance of critical success, 0% chance of critical failure.

Note that it takes 22% in a skill before you raise the chance of critical success to 2% or more, whereas the chance of critical failure doesn't go below 2% until you're at 99%. Grim and perilous indeed!

While I lamented the math when I came up with the match mechanic, it's a particularly easy way to conjugate bad (or great) results, rather than determining Degrees of Success using WFRP 2E standards. But players seem to like it, and there are ways to avoid Critical Failures (or guarantee Critical Success) in particular cases through Talents and Traits.

I don't like rolling under in my games. Percentile dice games have never went over too well with my group, even well designed ones like Bare Bones Fantasy which use the roll under D100 mechanic. Our gaming group wants to equal or exceed DNs when we roll.

There is a reason Earthdawn and Savage Worlds (roll up systems) are our favorites. Its about big numbers and dice explosions. No one ever forgets that time the Troll Cavalryman on foot rolled Step 14 and scored 104 damage by rolling up the 20 multiple times to kill a bloatform outright. The excitement just is missing in systems that do not have a roll up mechanic for us.

For epic Dice Explosions...Rolemaster.

Quote from: slayride35;731970I don't like rolling under in my games. Percentile dice games have never went over too well with my group, even well designed ones like Bare Bones Fantasy which use the roll under D100 mechanic. Our gaming group wants to equal or exceed DNs when we roll.

There is a reason Earthdawn and Savage Worlds (roll up systems) are our favorites. Its about big numbers and dice explosions. No one ever forgets that time the Troll Cavalryman on foot rolled Step 14 and scored 104 damage by rolling up the 20 multiple times to kill a bloatform outright. The excitement just is missing in systems that do not have a roll up mechanic for us.

If your group's idea of a memorable adventure is based on somebody's dice rolling, I pity you all.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;731914OK, so we're back to the topic of situational modifier effects being diminished for extreme values on a bell curve, as discussed earlier. From a gameplay perspective I can understand why some players (e.g. Brander) might prefer their ultra-skilled sniper PC not have to worry about stuff like wind, moving targets etc., although from a realism perspective there are many examples to the contrary (e.g. an average hockey player won't notice the difference between a wood and a composite stick, whereas an NHL players does).

Since others have done a good job of continuing the bell curve thing, I will leave it to them, but I do want to address the equipment issue.  I'm largely convinced that in "reality" equipment is largely irrelevant to anyone but those with higher skill, as long as it's not bad and it's the right kind (don't bring a cricket stick to a hockey match, except for the fights maybe).   I suspect a very similar situation for most other equipment as well (where it matters).

In shooting circles I've heard it phrased as "A 1 MOA (Minute of Angle) gun is wasted on a 3 MOA shooter.*"  And actually in this case, I think if you model equipment as bonuses, a percentile system would be better (though still not good) than a bell curve, though the best solution for "realism" would be to NOT model equipment as a static bonus, though a static bonus is simple and might be best for ease of play in some games.

*In this layman's terms (I shoot, but not competitively) MOA is a measure of the cone where a the bullet can go after exiting the barrel before the shooter is involved.  Like when the gun is bolted to a table.  The point being that if the shooter can't consistently get shots within a 1 MOA cone, then the gun is wasted on that shooter.  Yes the 1 MOA gun will make the resulting cone very slightly smaller than a 3 MOA gun, the shooters skill is much more a component than the quality of the gun.

Quote from: Brander;731989I'm largely convinced that in "reality" equipment is largely irrelevant to anyone but those with higher skill, as long as it's not bad and it's the right kind (don't bring a cricket stick to a hockey match, except for the fights maybe).   I suspect a very similar situation for most other equipment as well (where it matters).

Totally depends on the equipment IMO. A walking stick will benefit someone of poor conditioning more than it will benefit a limber Sherpa, whereas spiked shoes might actually impede a clumsy person's mobility meanwhile aiding an experienced hiker. It's really case-by-case.

Quote from: Old Geezer;731980If your group's idea of a memorable adventure is based on somebody's dice rolling, I pity you all.

Oh, come on you old curmudgeon, you don't recall a game or two where someone throwing "20" when they needed it doesn't bring back fond memories?


Regardless (and the rest is more in general than a direct reply to Old Geezer), I do wonder if the odds of rolling "best" might impact some people's liking of a given dice system,  20 on a d20 occurs (all statistically speaking) 1 out 20 rolls, 12 on 2d6 is 1/36 rolls,  100 (or 99 if 0=0) on d% is 1/100 rolls, whereas on as small as a 3d6 an 18 is only seen (again statistically) 1 in 216 rolls.

A part of this is a bell curve allows for modeling much rarer events (that would require using 3 or more d10s or a reroll to model) once you get into more dice of higher values.  Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to the system designer and the players, but it's there.

copy/paste the following into anydice.com and you can see the exact details if you desire (1d20 is just there for fun and maybe reference):
output 1d6 named "1d6"
output 2d6 named "2d6"
output 3d6 named "3d6"
output 4d6 named "4d6"
output 1d20 named "1d20"

I think rolls can be memorable, but its also the surrounding situation that gives them context that is what is great.

For instance, I was playing a Paladin in one game, and a rock troll type thing was kicking all our asses. And I told everyone to run and I would hold it off while they got away. I was pretty much expecting to lose the character, but it just seemed right that the pally would sacrifice himself for the others' survival.

Anyway, this was followed by 3 rounds of it missing me (with two attacks each round that would hit me on a 7 or more), and 3 rounds of me critting (3.x, I was using a 19-20 crit weapon and for some reason I was just ridiculously lucky), and it went down. I was heavily injured (I was injured before everyone ran), but I limped off to meet up with everyone else and it was awesome.

Now, the situation was memorable anyway, a paladin staying behind to save everyone, but the fact that I then seemed to be blessed by the dice gods made it MORE memorable.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;731854Yeah it's really just the 75% calculation that can require some brainpower, but jumping straight to 50% might be too big a leap. I think straight-up -10% stacking penalties are good enough for me, although the occasional arithmetic doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the game (as long as the GM doesn't make every test a skill x 75% challenge.

Honestly, if this is an issue for any players, they or the GM should just make a quick lookup chart, and the character sheet should have space to write in the fractional values. Job done, minimal fuss, and I don't care about removing the arithmetic because game night is not maths night.

Quote from: Old Geezer;731980If your group's idea of a memorable adventure is based on somebody's dice rolling, I pity you all.

Memorable adventures: no; memorable scenes: yes

Quote from: Ladybird;731998Honestly, if this is an issue for any players, they or the GM should just make a quick lookup chart, and the character sheet should have space to write in the fractional values. Job done, minimal fuss, and I don't care about removing the arithmetic because game night is not maths night.

Sometimes it's a matter of pride too. Nobody wants to be that lone player who can't calculate 62 x 75% in their head.

Quote from: Vonn;731999Memorable adventures: no; memorable scenes: yes

Yeah, I agree.  A couple years back I was playing WFRP1e and ended up in a ring fighting a minotaur (some circus or something).  I punched him and kept rolling 6s.  Took him out in one punch.  Very memorable scene.  And one totally dependent on die rolls.  (well, either that, or play a storygame and just narrate the whole thing, but I doubt OG does that