I don't think people truly disliked Thac0, at least I didn't. What was awkward wat that 1st and 2nd editions changed what you were looking for with every dice roll. Making a save or ability check? Roll under save value or stat value, making an attack roll high, skill check? Back to rolling low. It added a lot of unnecessary confusion. For myself in particular, I like a singular task for my dice, roll high or low dosnt matter, I just want the system to pick a lane and stick with it. G.u.r.p.s. my group had a lot of fun with, but having a GM who had the time and ability to put in the effort to bring the system to life was integral, and we were fortunate enough to have that.
It's true that you had to factor in a lot of different variables in those editions between certain rolls. The point that I was trying to express was that even though THAC0 and processes like it are simpler in design, nearly all mainline systems today have a core mechanic where you add up bonuses and roll high in order to overcome a large target number. I think one of the reasons for this is because when trying to expand the audience for games, companies, especially WOTC, found that it pleased people more to do it this way. It feels more like you (the roller) are beating the challenge (monster defense, skill test, whatever) with your own character's strengths (various numerical bonuses.) I might be reading too much into it but I think the reason DnD doesn't use the mathematically simpler system is one of psychology. What I find funny is that even today with 5e, I'll be trying to teach new players and they will constantly ask what their spell save DC is. Even though it's printed right on the sheet, many of them can't remember (8 + Attribute + Proficiency.)
THAC0 didn't show up until a fair bit through 1E's run. The assumption was that you were using the tables in the DMG for hit. Those tables had long flat spots of 20 and were not able to be reduced to a simple formula like THAC0. The reality was, though, that many people didn't use them and even module writers started writing THAC0 in the monster stat blocks. (Early modules didn't have stat blocks for monsters; the assumption was you had the Monster Manual in front of you, I guess. At least that's how we played.) As to roll over or roll under, all I can say is that it was annoying but back in the day we were used to it. In addition, most character sheets had an attack matrix on the bottom so if you weren't used to it, you just looked it up, right there on your character sheet. I do agree that there was a mishmash of systems back in the day... thief percentile skills, NWPs as ability checks, attacks, saves, etc.
@@OptionalRules The one contemporary system I can think of these days that's a "roll low" is Modiphius' 2D20 system, which is a die pool. In that case your stat is your target number and those don't change, so roll low makes more sense.
which is why call of cthulhu works, every decission you make you fucking know you could be flopping horribly hard, its not a power fantasy, its a survival fantasy, which is why i love it.
I bought a metal D100 for my one on one WFRP 4e campaign, my player and i liked it because of how Big and Heavy it was, i prepared a table so that the d 100 didnt break anything, seems to be working.
What about games where people aren't having a power fantasy and being a quirked-up shawty killing bad guys for fun? Are people more cool about d100 if they know they're just another cog and death is very possible?
I find a lot of people have a weird aversion to the possibility of failure or death in RP. It's weird imo but there are some that don't like playing someone that is just average. I love it because I feel where that's where the best roleplay happens but I have had some that don't like it.
I think the strength of the percentile roll is the fact that instead of 3 or 4 steps to account for there is only 1 "Did I roll under my skill." I prefer percentile systems with 2 steps though. "Did I roll under my skill" and "Did I roll higher than my opponent"
Roll Under Blackjack does that very nicely. Both people roll against their scores. If one passes and the other fails, the outcome is obvious. Otherwise, the highest roll wins. It's mathematically identical to d100+Score1 vs d100+Score2, but avoids any arithmetic. It's why I like Whitehack so much, as it's d20 RUB for everything.
For sure, think it more if it seems implausible like a warrior missed a sword and gets killed by some silly goblin when directly in front of them and just doesn't make sense.
Wow, I think you did it…convince me that d100 may not be the best after all. I like the idea of not really knowing the odds. I play solo and I think this would work out well in solo play.
As someone who loves percentile systems and uses them exclusively (because I'm literally an autist), I was ready to shit on this video because it's just kinda harsh, but it's important to look at the big picture. I've got a few points and they're all kinda... against d100 systems, actually. The real problem is that GMs don't realize they should be modifying their DCs, so failure is way more likely than it should be. In a d20 system, GMs intuitively settle on 10 as an average DC, and that's a 50 / 50 chance *before* modifiers. In a d100 system, a lot of GMs go "oh, you have a 30 in that? Roll under 30" and it sucks. A D100 system forces GMs to do math, and that sucks. You can't ignore easy difficulty grades, if a player has a 50 in something they should really be rolling under 75 a good chunk of the time, or "rolling under 100", i.e. not rolling at all. d100 systems attract the wrong sort of people (like me). They thrive when you fail forward on "close" rolls rather than going "well, looks like you can't pick that lock now" or whatever. Maybe you pick it but the pick breaks. Maybe you pick it but it's clunky and loud. Totally failing when you're so close sucks and with d100 there's just more "close but no cigar" moments. And again I think a lot of people just roll too much. An OSR style "rolling happens when you screw up" mindset is helpful, encourage your players to find ways to avoid rolling because rolling is tempting failure. --- I *personally* can't stand d20 systems because they feel swingy somehow. I like knowing exactly what my chances are. Randomly failing at something I'm supposed to be good at feels worse there to me, for some reason. But I get it. People hate % chances when they know what they are. I mean god just look at XCOM. Also, just an aside, but stuff like slippery Goblins suuuucks and that's why my preferred game *also* uses a parry system. You'll always "hit", but sometimes the Goblin parries. And you might hurt the goblin anyways because their teeny axe isn't stopping your warhammer from flinging them around.
The beautiful thing about RPGs is that there are enough systems out there that everyone can find one they like. I also dislike the D20, even though it has a lot of points in favor of it. It is too swingy, even though it's just statistical. To discuss the topic at hand, yes percentile systems tell you to grade tests and adjust target numbers accordingly. An "easy" test could add 25 or double your score or something but I found that most players I play with just got confused and angry because that's an extrapolation of their abilities that THEY have to keep in mind and players are the ones that don't like doing math. I've had people tell me before to adjust the values in d100 systems this way but I've never had it win over anyone who already didn't like d100 to begin with. Interestingly, Call of Cthulhu, which is the system that comes to mind when I think of d100, considers base values as the "regular" difficulty. The other two difficulties are "hard" which cuts your value in half, and "expert" which divides it by 5. But I think the intention is to hold you ability to complete tasks hostage to try and build worry and dread. I never found this to work well but someone had to try it.
@Colby Boucher I’m curious, why do you think you get a swingy feel from d20 and not d100, since they’re both a single die and therefore a flat probability distribution?
@@LuckyImplingI know for me it's just a personal thing even though it makes no sense. I think it comes from the feeling of rolling a d20 and adding bonuses to match a target number. you're just hoping you roll enough dice points every time to get a desired total, but if I was trying to roll equal to or under a TN that was out of 20, I probably wouldn't feel that way. There isn't any logic to the reasoning it's just personal feel.
2d6 is the best dice, statistically, things happen on a bell curve of likely outcomes, modifiers, hard facts consistently matter towards where the middle of this curve is in relation to your success. also they're cheap and blind people can read their tactile surface. I'm ok enough at maths to know the statistical truth behind each dice system, it's annoying as frick to do with cortex prime, and it has ugly statistics, but it is possible.
Did you seriously said that DnD is a good for beginners cuz it has fee numbers to keep track of.....? That's ridiculous. Sure. There are more crunchy systems than DnD, but I find DnD clunky and annoying PRECISELY cuz there's to much math and numbers to keep track of. Like what. "I recommend DnD because there's lot of recourses for it" or "I think it's very fun" would be so much more accurate statement to say. Also binary outcome of the dice is also not true. Getting mixed results is so much more interesting than just binary fail-success states. But maybe I'm just playing to much Apocalypse World :P
I think both have merit, however I disagree. I actually do like I have about a 60% chance to understand a middle English book, and not actually adding up to roughly the same percentage.
I think a lot of systems are learning that the d20/d100 lends us too much linearity. Getting another +1 in d20 fantasy pretty much only means 5% more accuracy, which rewards specialists and generalists the same. New ttrpgs like Daggerheart and the MCDM RPG use 2d12 or similar dice instead. This simple change leads to each +1 bonus being more impactful than the last, until the middle of the bell curve. Then you still get diminishing returns instead.
Yeah in low level dnd if you have 5 skill thats only 5/25 decided by your character the rest is random, only above level 8 will your skill matter much and then the campaign is over.
That opening line is very underrated. I'll steal it and use it as a quote.
I don't think people truly disliked Thac0, at least I didn't. What was awkward wat that 1st and 2nd editions changed what you were looking for with every dice roll. Making a save or ability check? Roll under save value or stat value, making an attack roll high, skill check? Back to rolling low. It added a lot of unnecessary confusion. For myself in particular, I like a singular task for my dice, roll high or low dosnt matter, I just want the system to pick a lane and stick with it. G.u.r.p.s. my group had a lot of fun with, but having a GM who had the time and ability to put in the effort to bring the system to life was integral, and we were fortunate enough to have that.
It's true that you had to factor in a lot of different variables in those editions between certain rolls. The point that I was trying to express was that even though THAC0 and processes like it are simpler in design, nearly all mainline systems today have a core mechanic where you add up bonuses and roll high in order to overcome a large target number. I think one of the reasons for this is because when trying to expand the audience for games, companies, especially WOTC, found that it pleased people more to do it this way. It feels more like you (the roller) are beating the challenge (monster defense, skill test, whatever) with your own character's strengths (various numerical bonuses.) I might be reading too much into it but I think the reason DnD doesn't use the mathematically simpler system is one of psychology.
What I find funny is that even today with 5e, I'll be trying to teach new players and they will constantly ask what their spell save DC is. Even though it's printed right on the sheet, many of them can't remember (8 + Attribute + Proficiency.)
@@OptionalRules oh yeah I totally agree.
THAC0 didn't show up until a fair bit through 1E's run. The assumption was that you were using the tables in the DMG for hit. Those tables had long flat spots of 20 and were not able to be reduced to a simple formula like THAC0. The reality was, though, that many people didn't use them and even module writers started writing THAC0 in the monster stat blocks. (Early modules didn't have stat blocks for monsters; the assumption was you had the Monster Manual in front of you, I guess. At least that's how we played.)
As to roll over or roll under, all I can say is that it was annoying but back in the day we were used to it. In addition, most character sheets had an attack matrix on the bottom so if you weren't used to it, you just looked it up, right there on your character sheet.
I do agree that there was a mishmash of systems back in the day... thief percentile skills, NWPs as ability checks, attacks, saves, etc.
@@OptionalRules The one contemporary system I can think of these days that's a "roll low" is Modiphius' 2D20 system, which is a die pool. In that case your stat is your target number and those don't change, so roll low makes more sense.
huh, didn't know Birdperson had a TH-camchannel. Cool stuff mate!
And yet Call of Cthulhu is one of the most famous and played rpg...
Dark Heresy was also good, but neither held up to the relevance D&D and its many derivatives.
which is why call of cthulhu works, every decission you make you fucking know you could be flopping horribly hard, its not a power fantasy, its a survival fantasy, which is why i love it.
I bought a metal D100 for my one on one WFRP 4e campaign, my player and i liked it because of how Big and Heavy it was, i prepared a table so that the d 100 didnt break anything, seems to be working.
What about games where people aren't having a power fantasy and being a quirked-up shawty killing bad guys for fun? Are people more cool about d100 if they know they're just another cog and death is very possible?
I find a lot of people have a weird aversion to the possibility of failure or death in RP. It's weird imo but there are some that don't like playing someone that is just average. I love it because I feel where that's where the best roleplay happens but I have had some that don't like it.
Call of Cathulu uses the D100 almost exclusively, it's very fitting
I think the strength of the percentile roll is the fact that instead of 3 or 4 steps to account for there is only 1 "Did I roll under my skill."
I prefer percentile systems with 2 steps though. "Did I roll under my skill" and "Did I roll higher than my opponent"
Roll Under Blackjack does that very nicely. Both people roll against their scores. If one passes and the other fails, the outcome is obvious. Otherwise, the highest roll wins.
It's mathematically identical to d100+Score1 vs d100+Score2, but avoids any arithmetic. It's why I like Whitehack so much, as it's d20 RUB for everything.
For sure, think it more if it seems implausible like a warrior missed a sword and gets killed by some silly goblin when directly in front of them and just doesn't make sense.
0:55 that’s a D 55 and a d2
interesting
Dude, awesome video. It was funny and insightful.
Wow, I think you did it…convince me that d100 may not be the best after all. I like the idea of not really knowing the odds. I play solo and I think this would work out well in solo play.
As someone who loves percentile systems and uses them exclusively (because I'm literally an autist), I was ready to shit on this video because it's just kinda harsh, but it's important to look at the big picture. I've got a few points and they're all kinda... against d100 systems, actually.
The real problem is that GMs don't realize they should be modifying their DCs, so failure is way more likely than it should be.
In a d20 system, GMs intuitively settle on 10 as an average DC, and that's a 50 / 50 chance *before* modifiers.
In a d100 system, a lot of GMs go "oh, you have a 30 in that? Roll under 30" and it sucks.
A D100 system forces GMs to do math, and that sucks. You can't ignore easy difficulty grades, if a player has a 50 in something they should really be rolling under 75 a good chunk of the time, or "rolling under 100", i.e. not rolling at all.
d100 systems attract the wrong sort of people (like me). They thrive when you fail forward on "close" rolls rather than going "well, looks like you can't pick that lock now" or whatever. Maybe you pick it but the pick breaks. Maybe you pick it but it's clunky and loud. Totally failing when you're so close sucks and with d100 there's just more "close but no cigar" moments.
And again I think a lot of people just roll too much. An OSR style "rolling happens when you screw up" mindset is helpful, encourage your players to find ways to avoid rolling because rolling is tempting failure.
---
I *personally* can't stand d20 systems because they feel swingy somehow. I like knowing exactly what my chances are. Randomly failing at something I'm supposed to be good at feels worse there to me, for some reason.
But I get it. People hate % chances when they know what they are. I mean god just look at XCOM.
Also, just an aside, but stuff like slippery Goblins suuuucks and that's why my preferred game *also* uses a parry system. You'll always "hit", but sometimes the Goblin parries. And you might hurt the goblin anyways because their teeny axe isn't stopping your warhammer from flinging them around.
The beautiful thing about RPGs is that there are enough systems out there that everyone can find one they like. I also dislike the D20, even though it has a lot of points in favor of it. It is too swingy, even though it's just statistical. To discuss the topic at hand, yes percentile systems tell you to grade tests and adjust target numbers accordingly. An "easy" test could add 25 or double your score or something but I found that most players I play with just got confused and angry because that's an extrapolation of their abilities that THEY have to keep in mind and players are the ones that don't like doing math. I've had people tell me before to adjust the values in d100 systems this way but I've never had it win over anyone who already didn't like d100 to begin with.
Interestingly, Call of Cthulhu, which is the system that comes to mind when I think of d100, considers base values as the "regular" difficulty. The other two difficulties are "hard" which cuts your value in half, and "expert" which divides it by 5. But I think the intention is to hold you ability to complete tasks hostage to try and build worry and dread. I never found this to work well but someone had to try it.
@Colby Boucher I’m curious, why do you think you get a swingy feel from d20 and not d100, since they’re both a single die and therefore a flat probability distribution?
@@LuckyImplingI know for me it's just a personal thing even though it makes no sense. I think it comes from the feeling of rolling a d20 and adding bonuses to match a target number. you're just hoping you roll enough dice points every time to get a desired total, but if I was trying to roll equal to or under a TN that was out of 20, I probably wouldn't feel that way. There isn't any logic to the reasoning it's just personal feel.
I couldn't tell if you were serious about any of the points you made in this video
Get ready and buckle up because the d400 is on its way (not the d100, the D400)
2d6 is the best dice, statistically, things happen on a bell curve of likely outcomes, modifiers, hard facts consistently matter towards where the middle of this curve is in relation to your success.
also they're cheap and blind people can read their tactile surface.
I'm ok enough at maths to know the statistical truth behind each dice system, it's annoying as frick to do with cortex prime, and it has ugly statistics, but it is possible.
Did you seriously said that DnD is a good for beginners cuz it has fee numbers to keep track of.....? That's ridiculous. Sure. There are more crunchy systems than DnD, but I find DnD clunky and annoying PRECISELY cuz there's to much math and numbers to keep track of.
Like what. "I recommend DnD because there's lot of recourses for it" or "I think it's very fun" would be so much more accurate statement to say.
Also binary outcome of the dice is also not true. Getting mixed results is so much more interesting than just binary fail-success states. But maybe I'm just playing to much Apocalypse World :P
You sir
Are
Insightful
👍
I think both have merit, however I disagree. I actually do like I have about a 60% chance to understand a middle English book, and not actually adding up to roughly the same percentage.
The problem with D100 is that you roll 2 dice but in 90% of the time only one of them counts.
fair assessment
I think a lot of systems are learning that the d20/d100 lends us too much linearity. Getting another +1 in d20 fantasy pretty much only means 5% more accuracy, which rewards specialists and generalists the same.
New ttrpgs like Daggerheart and the MCDM RPG use 2d12 or similar dice instead. This simple change leads to each +1 bonus being more impactful than the last, until the middle of the bell curve. Then you still get diminishing returns instead.
Yeah in low level dnd if you have 5 skill thats only 5/25 decided by your character the rest is random, only above level 8 will your skill matter much and then the campaign is over.
guy acts like quantum states dont exist
The best die is of couse d1, why this video even exist wtf.
gg
dice is the plural of die
Yeah but dice is a more algorithm friendly word.
@@OptionalRules that's fair
you're the plural of loser
d100 is also comprised of two dice so it's technically correct
the best kind of correct