Quote from: Matt;836150It sounds like you mean solely for D&D and D&D-derived games, yes?

Yes.  I mean, most other games don't even have saving throw mechanics, at least not in the same sense.

I don't believe in save throws. So don't use them.

Quote from: Matt;836150It sounds like you mean solely for D&D and D&D-derived games, yes?

Yeah.  It'd probably be helpful if folks started using {D&D} or similar tags around discussions that they intended to refer only to D&D mechanics.

Quote from: nDervish;836199Imagine that you have a baseball gun which can fire a baseball at 90mph ...

I think it's a crappy analogy, actually.  How much material difference do you think that it makes to dodge a missile that'll hit you in about a half-second after it's released?  D&D just never has been granular enough to measure that difference.

IMHO, the OD&D system was another of the many things that Gygax did up because that was the way he felt like doing it up for the stylized wargame he was writing, and trying to justify its common sense after the fact makes little sense.

I like T&T saving throws...basically a stunting mechanic, doubles and roll again. It was Ken St Andre's very early take on how to do out-of-the-ordinary things in RPGs, taking the name from D&D and giving it a new twist. Still holds up well in the context of T&T.

I like a saving throw for each ability score, where ability scores can change a lot (i.e. take damage) during the game. So, a character who has taken DEX damage due to some injury, poison, or intoxicant would have a harder time avoiding a blade trap.

Quote from: The_Shadow;836507I like T&T saving throws...basically a stunting mechanic, doubles and roll again. It was Ken St Andre's very early take on how to do out-of-the-ordinary things in RPGs, taking the name from D&D and giving it a new twist. Still holds up well in the context of T&T.

This, if I'm even using saving throws;).

I find ability score checks to both be the easiest in practice and make the most sense.

Lately, I've grown more and more attached to the one-number Saving Throw value.

Awhile back I wrote The Design History of Saving Throws.

My preferences are:

(1) I want a system with universal coverage and no confusion. 3E accomplishes that. A one-score system also accomplishes that. The ad hoc categories of pre-3E saving throws completely fail to provide that.

(2) Saving throws should be active mechanic (i.e., the target of the effect should roll the dice). The reason saving throws were such an inspired addition to D&D is that they inverted the facing of attack rolls. (When you attack, you roll the dice. When you do something requiring a saving throw, the target rolls.) This disrupts the idea that "you do stuff on your turn and then you stop playing until your next turn".

4E's decision to invert the facing on saving throws and renaming them "defenses" (while creating a new mechanic that they called a saving throw) was bad design born out of the desire for symmetry: Yup, you've made saving throws and AC work the same way. Congrats. Your game is now boring.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;837188(2) Saving throws should be active mechanic (i.e., the target of the effect should roll the dice). The reason saving throws were such an inspired addition to D&D is that they inverted the facing of attack rolls. (When you attack, you roll the dice. When you do something requiring a saving throw, the target rolls.) This disrupts the idea that "you do stuff on your turn and then you stop playing until your next turn".

I do like the active mechanic representing the character actively doing something.  Making a save vs fireball means physically jumping for cover, making a save vs harpy song means mentally concentrating on resisting the song's allure, or whatever.

Quote from: RPGPundit;836114Or the one-number Saving Throw system several OSR games use? (where you have a single number as your 'saving throw' number, and it can be modified by specific bonuses or by ability scores depending on the nature of what you're saving against?)

I find tracking or assigning the modifiers to a "single number" to be no faster than just having three or five fixed numbers written down on a character sheet.  To the extent that it invites conversation before the roll, it's sometimes even slower.

I have no particular preference among the other options.

Quote from: The_Shadow;836507I like T&T saving throws...basically a stunting mechanic, doubles and roll again. It was Ken St Andre's very early take on how to do out-of-the-ordinary things in RPGs, taking the name from D&D and giving it a new twist. Still holds up well in the context of T&T.

Still more complicated than tossing a d20, and needlessly so for the majority of gamers who have the dice these days. It was a makeshift, not some kind of advance.

i like ability based saves. 5e is sort of spot on with its generalized proficiency bonus.

The Castles and Crusades version which 5e more or less copied always seemed neat to me.

4e's concept of defenses worked great because now you could have attacks vs. things other than AC. You still had the 10+ save for death saves and some other actions so players had some die rolling in the mix.

But like so many things in 4e, I found this better implemented in Gamma World. I have not GM'd enough 13th Age to know how well it works there, but for GW, it's been great.

T&T's save system is a lot of fun because of the stunting aspect, and because players got to interject "how" they saved vs. events. AKA, the ceiling is collapsing so make a Dex save. I find that in D&D, that's pretty static player action of just rolling the die. In T&T, my experience has been players more apt to describe their actions.

Perhaps that's just my T&T experience, but I find the Deadly Humorous / Nigh-Freeform aspects of T&T brings out more roleplay.

However, my favorite Save system is the S&W idea of the fixed number that drops each level as the PC becomes more competent. I never enjoyed the mix of numbers from AD&D and the S&W idea has allowed me tremendous flexibility.

Also, the S&W save means there is no esclation. Instead of having to hit DC 20, DC 30, DC 40, etc, your save becomes easier as your become more powerful. FOR ME, this feels more "cinematic" and fits my view of how heroes develop because I like specialization, I prefer general competence. AKA, I like that an 8th level Fighter saves vs. Magic better than a 4th level Wizard, and the 8th level Wizards saves vs. Traps better than a 4th level Thief.

FOR ME, the escalating DC was a huge problem in 3e/4e because as John Wick once quipped, it made D20 the game of rolling over 10 because the DCs rose each level in near lockstep with PC ability so you don't really become better at what you do.