Quote from: Brander;731285As with others here, I will immediately say "Unknown Armies" did it best so far, though I have a nostalgic love for WHFRP 1st, despite it's warts.

I think my favourite d100 roll-under implementations would be d00Lite (BareBones Fantasy, Covert ops) and Renaissance/OpenQuest.

Quote from: Brander;731285I have no problem with roll under % as a concept, but I have had almost universal problems with GMs and those systems:  Want to climb up a ladder, on a dry day, in good light?  Roll your unmodified climb skill.... WTF!

This goes for any system and has little to do with the concept of d% roll under, though.

Quote from: Brander;731285Of perhaps a couple dozen GMs using such systems over the years, at best only two seemed to implement them in a remotely fun way for me.  And since I'm kind of a bell-curve snob as a GM, I seldom run d% roll under, though I have considered writing one that was implemented as a bell curve.

A flat probability "curve" leads to swingy results, which emulates a setting that feels uncaring and less predictable. I like using d% roll-under for this.

Some one has a problem with % rolls?  This is news to me.  Not saying it is perfect, but it is one of the best dice rolling systems out there.

Quote from: Brander;731285I have no problem with roll under % as a concept, but I have had almost universal problems with GMs and those systems:  Want to climb up a ladder, on a dry day, in good light?  Roll your unmodified climb skill.... WTF!

No rule or dice system cures stupid.

Quote from: Old Geezer;731292No rule or dice system cures stupid.

Thus the well known and fable truth is told.  No really there is no cure for stupid.

Quote from: 3rik;731289I think my favourite d100 roll-under implementations would be d00Lite (BareBones Fantasy, Covert ops) and Renaissance/OpenQuest.

I'm surprisingly unfamiliar with those, thanks for pointing them out.  Gone are the days when I owned just about everything.  

Quote from: 3rik;731289A flat probability "curve" leads to swingy results, which emulates a setting that feels uncaring and less predictable. I like using d% roll-under for this.

Good point, and might be why the best d% experiences I've had were with Call of Cthulhu.

Quote from: 3rik;731289This goes for any system and has little to do with the concept of d% roll under, though.

Quote from: Old Geezer;731292No rule or dice system cures stupid.

No argument.  Though Unknown Armies did try to idiot proof the concept by stating that the percentages were only for when under stress or the like.

Quote from: Brander;731294No argument.  Though Unknown Armies did try to idiot proof the concept by stating that the percentages were only for when under stress or the like.

Which, as a fan of BRP since RQ2 has ALWAYS been my assumption of how it worked and how I've seen it expressed in the community around those games. Unfortunately it just wasn't spelled out in detail in any of the rulebooks.
Heck, my original AD&D DM didn't make us roll for stuff that wasn't important or under duress.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;731249When someone starts yammering on about "bell curves" and other such nonsense, it signals to me that they really don't get the point of RPGs and should be categorized a "backup" on my player roster. This has proven to be a 100% reliable indicator thus far.

Most of my favorite games percentile-based at the core... but sadly one guy in our Saturday group has issues with such games. He yammered a bunch of reasons at me that sorted down to just being a matter of taste (and a bit of superstition I think).
I suspect that it's just too simple for him... that he prefers the Advanced Numberwang of games like Champions and Earthdawn.
Also, percentiles are not a particularly cute or clever mechanic these days... so it doesn't get any points on the hipster scale either.

Damn, all of this talk is making me want to start a BRP game using the original 16-page booklet.

Multiply Attribute by 1-5 for percentage chance on non-skills and BANG! there you go!

I'm new here and, at the moment, pretty much only play d100 based games (right now Runequest 2nd edition and Call of Cthulhu, though I have played a ton of other games over the years) so I figured this would be a good a thread as any to start posting in.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;731249The number of RL gamers I've met who disliked percentile roll-under enough to actually diminish their enjoyment of a game can be counted on one hand, and none of them are active roleplayers (online discussion / probability wank is a different beast).

When someone starts yammering on about "bell curves" and other such nonsense, it signals to me that they really don't get the point of RPGs and should be categorized a "backup" on my player roster. This has proven to be a 100% reliable indicator thus far.

Not a bad approach.  

The thing about a bell curve is that you still, in the end, have a percentage chance for success equal to the number of successful die results added up.  So if you're rolling 3d6 and need a 11 or better, it's statistically identical to roll under 50% on a d100.  

Quote from: Brander;731285I have no problem with roll under % as a concept, but I have had almost universal problems with GMs and those systems:  Want to climb up a ladder, on a dry day, in good light?  Roll your unmodified climb skill.... WTF!

Quote from: Old Geezer;731292No rule or dice system cures stupid.

Yeah, Brander's point literally has nothing to do with what dice you happen to be picking up at the time.

I had some new people in my last RQ session and they found it incredibly straight forward when they saw the percentage on their sheets.  In the edition I'm playing (1980) even after initial training, lots of skills are just terrible, which has actually been great fun as the players concentrate on their relatively few strengths and avoid dangerous situations rather than charge into them blindly.

At the beginning of the session after the new players made their characters, I asked them what their parry skill was (20% & 30%) and then asked them how many hit points they had in their locations (5 or so on average) and then asked them how much damage their weapons did (1d10 and 1d6+2).  You tend to approach things differently when you only have a 30% chance of blocking and an average hit with a typical weapon is going to disable your arm or leg or knock you unconscious and make you bleed out.

So I even consider the tendency of d100 roll-under systems to have really low skill levels (WFRP1&2 are like this as well) to be features as well.  It really forces some careful thinking and a concentration on describing what you're doing rather than just relying on skill rolls to lend some sort of authority to described actions.

And again, this could be just as true with any dice being used.  For example, if you're rolling a d20 + skill and you need a 20, that's 10%, but there's something about seeing 10% on your character sheet that communicates the odds far, far more clearly

Roll under percentile is my preferred mechanic. Quick and easy.
Anyone claiming disdain for it likely never tried it and is just parroting some moron.

55% chance of success. Roll 55 or less. Bout as easy as it gets.

Back in the mid-1990's White Wolf put out a playtest packet for a DUNE-ish space opera game called EXILE. The game never saw fruition.

It had an interesting and clever quick-and-dirty system: It was percentile, with the number on your "Tens" die as your number of successes. That is, if you had a skill of 56% and rolled a 32 =3 successes. Had a skill of 96% and rolled a 76= 7 successes. A "0"=10 and, IIRC, allowed you to re-roll and add and new successes.

Quote from: NathanIW;731302The thing about a bell curve is that you still, in the end, have a percentage chance for success equal to the number of successful die results added up.  So if you're rolling 3d6 and need a 11 or better, it's statistically identical to roll under 50% on a d100.

Exactly, no matter how many dice you cram into your fists, games still come down to a percentage chance of success in the end. It would be fairly trivial to switch Champions from 3d6 to d100 (or d20, or d10). The bell curve isn't what makes it Champions, it's the power-buy system and combat moves. Swap 3d6 for percentiles and it would still be essentially the same game. A few percentile points of variance in the stat array is nothing compared to the effect of a GM's rulings, player choices etc. on the feel of a game.

Quote from: Brander;731285I have no problem with roll under % as a concept, but I have had almost universal problems with GMs and those systems:  Want to climb up a ladder, on a dry day, in good light?  Roll your unmodified climb skill.... WTF!

But, as someone who has failed that roll in real life (I've also fallen walking from one end of the room to the other) while trying to step on the first rung of a ladder... Failure CAN happen...

Quote from: Old Geezer;731292No rule or dice system cures stupid.

Forcing someone in a game to make such rolls is stupid... I make these types of failures in real life all the time... I don't want to play them out in a game...

I really like Roll Under Percentile mechanics. I much prefer them to Dice Pools.

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;731312I really like Roll Under Percentile mechanics. I much prefer them to Dice Pools.

It really depends on the type of dice pool for me.  For counting successes and whatnot?  I agree.  But I prefer the dice pools that are similar to the RISK mechanic than successes.  I.e., a dice pool that may have 2d6 and a d10, and when you roll, take the highest # appearing and compare to the opponent's highest.  That's my favorite mechanic because it has both attackers and defenders active in combat, and when player's are rolling dice when they are attacked as well as when they are attacking, they are involved in the game and not building dice towers.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;731321It really depends on the type of dice pool for me.  For counting successes and whatnot?  I agree.  But I prefer the dice pools that are similar to the RISK mechanic than successes.  I.e., a dice pool that may have 2d6 and a d10, and when you roll, take the highest # appearing and compare to the opponent's highest.  That's my favorite mechanic because it has both attackers and defenders active in combat, and when player's are rolling dice when they are attacked as well as when they are attacking, they are involved in the game and not building dice towers.

Dice Pools has always been the one mechanic I have trouble with the most. I don't know why. The ONLY Dice Pool based system I really love is the Ubiquity system. But honestly, I think that has a lot to do with the Ubiquity Dice.