# Percentile Systems? Just Say No!



## Dethklok (May 11, 2013)

Hello all; I've been wanting to find a good rpg forum for some time, and generally I've found a good way to see what things are like is to make a controversial statement and see where it goes. (Mods - sorry if I'm posting this in someplace it doesn't belong!)

My position is that any percentile rpg ever designed would be better once converted to d20, d10, 2d6, or some other system using smaller numbers.

I do realize that it may be appealing to have more precision. But there is a difference between genuine and false precision, and the precision found in percentile-based rpgs is always going to be of the false kind. For example, I have yet to see any GM ever take into account humidity, the coriolis effect, or even rain or wind when applying modifiers to long range shooting. There is a clear reason for this - no one knows quite whether shooting a crossbow in the rain should be -10% or -20%, let alone whether it should be -10% or -11%. Once we realize the numbers are abstractions, it becomes clear that any pretense of precision is useless, beyond making us feel good about the idea of being really, really precise. (Even when we aren't, actually, precise at all.)

Now, this isn't to say that big numbers aren't fun on their own. Maybe you feel that dealing 50 hp of damage is much more satisfying than 5 damage. But if so, I'd like to suggest that you still don't want to use percentile dice. What you really want to do is use a d10, and then add a zero to all quantities. Better, add _two_ zeroes. You'll never look back.


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## Serpine (May 11, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> What you really want to do is use a d10, and then add a zero to all quantities. Better, add _two_ zeroes. You'll never look back.



I had an odd conversation like that in reverse with my younger brother once about Yu-Gi-Oh. I asked what made it different from MtG and he started by pointing out how the numbers were so much higher. So I asked "Well, what if you just divided all the numbers by 100". He just sat there stunned for a while and then actually said "Well I guess I wouldn't need the calculator anymore."


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## Morrus (May 11, 2013)

That's always been my impression of MMORPGs. They'll never use a 7 when they could use a 7,000,000 instead.


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## Dethklok (May 12, 2013)

Serpine said:


> I had an odd conversation like that in reverse with my younger brother once about Yu-Gi-Oh. I asked what made it different from MtG and he started by pointing out how the numbers were so much higher. So I asked "Well, what if you just divided all the numbers by 100". He just sat there stunned for a while and then actually said "Well I guess I wouldn't need the calculator anymore."



Hilarious!



Morrus said:


> That's always been my impression of MMORPGs. They'll never use a 7 when they could use a 7,000,000 instead.



Six zeroes? You've got to wonder whether someone will eventually introduce them to scientific notation.


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## Tequila Sunrise (May 12, 2013)

Morrus said:


> That's always been my impression of MMORPGs. They'll never use a 7 when they could use a 7,000,000 instead.



I believe the Yugioh game under discussion is the card game, not an online game.


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## Morrus (May 12, 2013)

Tequila Sunrise said:


> I believe the Yugioh game under discussion is the card game, not an online game.




I'm not familiar with either.  I was just saying that's always been my impression of MMORPGs.


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## Dethklok (May 18, 2013)

Question, then:

If the EN-world crowd generally agrees that percentile systems are bad, are there any settings where a percentile system would be preferable?


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 18, 2013)

I don't know if they do or not- I, for one, liked using percentiles in Chaosium's games.


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## Morrus (May 18, 2013)

I think actual dice can be part of a feel of a game. Percentile dice in a sciency/explorey Star Trek game feels right. In a Bugs Bunny game, not so much.


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## Nagol (May 18, 2013)

It's not so much whether a particular shot might receive a -17 instead of a -16; you'll note most percentile systems use 5 and 10 point adjustments to ease math at the table. 

One of the values of a percentile system is character growth is slowed.  It allows a player to take action to progress a character and makes those adjustments quite small so many of them can be had.  And there will be times when the 46 rolled hit, but would have missed without the last improvement.

Further, there are percentile systems where the determination is either not pass/fail or the roll is used to approximate a bell curve probability.  The extra granularity lends itself to a larger set of potential outcomes with a single roll.


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## TMRose (May 18, 2013)

As a old Runequest player, I do think there nothing wrong with using percentiles.
 And for those who never played any of the Runequest/Basic Role player games, it often possible for some one to have a sword skill of 81%, a spell at 74% etc, as you increase skills at a 1d6 rate.
Runequst and the Basic role playing system problem is not its percentage system, it that most players want to be able to survive catching a hand grenade with their teeth.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 18, 2013)

Actually, in Stormbringer, you could have a skill of over 100%.

It didn't mean you hit every time: there were still penalties due to this or that, and it would affect your criticals.  If your sword skill was 126%, and you were fighting a skilled combatant, your actual chance to hit him might be more like 73%, and your chance to crit him would be 12%.


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## Dethklok (May 18, 2013)

Morrus said:


> I think actual dice can be part of a feel of a game. Percentile dice in a sciency/explorey Star Trek game feels right.



I agree wholeheartedly! I also think percentiles would be ideal for _Paranoia_ - the false precision would not be a disadvantage, but rather an evocative reflection of life in the psychotically bureaucratic Alpha Complex.




Nagol said:


> It's not so much whether a particular shot might receive a -17 instead of a -16; you'll note most percentile systems use 5 and 10 point adjustments to ease math at the table.



This is my point. If you like step sizes of 5%, you don't want d100. You want d20. Because d20 allows you to manipulate numbers like "13," and "+5," while percentile systems give you numbers like "87" and "+25."



Nagol said:


> One of the values of a percentile system is character growth is slowed.



No. Character growth can be set to any rate, including frustratingly slow _or even zero_, in a game that uses dice of any size.



> It allows a player to take action to progress a character and makes those adjustments quite small so many of them can be had.



I see! Then I have a question for you: Would you rather give your child five dollars allowance at the end of the week, or, would you rather pay out 1 cent every 20 minutes?



> And there will be times when the 46 rolled hit, but would have missed without the last improvement.



Yes. And there would also be times when the imperfections in the dice rolled will skew the chances for rolling under _vs._ above 46 will be greater than 5%.



> Further, there are percentile systems where... the roll is used to approximate a bell curve probability.



Please explain how d100 is used to approximate a Gaussian distribution, and why this would be preferable to generating a Gaussian distribution using 3dX.



TMRose said:


> Runequst and the Basic role playing system problem is not its percentage system, it that most players want to be able to survive catching a hand grenade with their teeth.



That there are other complaints about RQ does nothing to change the fact that RQ would be much better always treating the ones die as a 0, or, (for those who can't live without pushing the upper limit on what one might be able to squint and _pretend_ is genuine rather than false precision), with all values divided by 5 and then converted to d20.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 18, 2013)

> I see! Then I have a question for you: Would you rather give your child five dollars allowance at the end of the week, or, would you rather pay out 1 cent every 20 minutes?




Apples and oranges.

In a percentile sysem, your PC imposes at N% per progression event, just like in a non-percentile sysem.  IOW, the choice- using your analogy- is between $5 allowance per week and N¢ per week- you don't change the pay period just because you changed the denomination of the payment.


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## Mishihari Lord (May 18, 2013)

There's really not a compelling reason to use one over the other.  Percentiles are a bit more intuitive, especially for non gamers.  d20s are traditional.  I don't think percentiles are any slower for anyone who's had high school math or above.  In games where there are a lot of small modifiers percentiles make sense.  Looks like Nagol hit most of the good points.

My actual preference is bell or triangular distributions: 3d6 in GURPS or d10-d10 in my homebrew.


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## JoshDemers (May 18, 2013)

I've always wanted to see some kind of system that uses percentile in its literal terms: 100% equals 100%, you've completely accomplished your goal. I don't know if it's possible, but if someone said they had put something like that together, I would want to check it out.


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## Nagol (May 18, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> <snip>
> 
> I see! Then I have a question for you: Would you rather give your child five dollars allowance at the end of the week, or, would you rather pay out 1 cent every 20 minutes?




Would you rather get your whole salary on Dec 31 or be paid installments throughout the year?  See I can do it too!  Dannyalcatrazz has a better answer though -- it slows advancement while letting the player take some positive action to improve.



> <snip>
> Please explain how d100 is used to approximate a Gaussian distribution, and why this would be preferable to generating a Gaussian distribution using 3dX.




Typically, a table lookup is used.  As for why not to use XdY?  Because you can skew a table more simply to meet the distribution desired.


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## Stormonu (May 18, 2013)

One game I found that had an inventive use for d% was Chronicles of Ramlar.  All skills were in %, but in combat, the "1"s die also determined the hit location.


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## delericho (May 18, 2013)

Eh, it's all just probability and algebra - any d% system can be converted to d20 (and vice versa) with a bit of care, though you might lose some resolution in the shift. Beyond that, it's mostly just a matter of taste.

IMO, percentile systems are at their best when there aren't any modifiers - if your sheet says you have a 70% chance to hit, then you _always_ have a 70% chance to hit. This can work, although it does require that any modifiers instead get shifted to the _results_ of a successful action.


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## Mike Eagling (May 19, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> This is my point. If you like step sizes of 5%, you don't want d100. You want d20. Because d20 allows you to manipulate numbers like "13," and "+5," while percentile systems give you numbers like "87" and "+25."
> 
> ...
> 
> No. Character growth can be set to any rate, including frustratingly slow _or even zero_, in a game that uses dice of any size.




The d% systems I can think of (i.e. the ones I've played) all seem to be ones without levels or classes. I'd argue the additional granularity is important in such cases because of the way skills improve little and often rather than in defined jumps.

Are there any d% systems that also have levels?


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## Mike Eagling (May 19, 2013)

Mike Eagling said:


> Are there any d% systems that also have levels?




I've just realised Rolemaster/MeRP has both levels and d%-based mechanics and is arguably the biggest advert for the OP's point!


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## JoshDemers (May 19, 2013)

MERP uses d% and has both classes and levels. I assume Rolemaster does, too since that is what MERP is based on.


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## JoshDemers (May 19, 2013)

And I just realized I shouldn't read these posts on my phone because sometimes I miss what people are saying and repeat them. HOURS LATER.


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## pogre (May 19, 2013)

Stormonu said:


> One game I found that had an inventive use for d% was Chronicles of Ramlar.  All skills were in %, but in combat, the "1"s die also determined the hit location.




I always liked how it works in WFRP 1e & 2e. Reverse the % to determine hit location.


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## jonesy (May 19, 2013)

I like the percentile system in Top Secret, but the stuff you can do in that is fairly realistic (in a James Bond kind of way) so there's never really that big of a difference between the skill levels of characters. In Top Secret some character attributes are based on combinations of other character attributes and turning the system d20 could be kinda difficult (because then you'd have to deal with fractions which sounds like math you don't want to deal with in RPG combat or otherwise).

Edit:
To elaborate, in Top Secret real power doesn't come from how high your stats are (though that does help), but rather from how versatile your skill set is. And characters who survive to have a long careers will have a skill list as long as something really long. The percentage system works well, because you need all the help you can to be able to figure out quickly what you can or can't do (which gets harder and harder the more experienced the character is).

I remember a conversion someone did of James Bond into the game (I don't recall if it was official, or what) and he was a slightly above avarage guy with a gigantic list of skills.


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## Votan (May 19, 2013)

Mike Eagling said:


> I've just realised Rolemaster/MeRP has both levels and d%-based mechanics and is arguably the biggest advert for the OP's point!




Yes, that was my instinct as well.  Heck, the open-ended nature of the attack roles is pretty mimicked with a d20 system.  

I do think the critical system (which is based on a small chance of dreadful outcomes) would need to be completely rethought in a d20 version.  But GURPS manages very realistic combat without the charts, so it should be at least possible to do.


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## TMRose (May 19, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Actually, in Stormbringer, you could have a skill of over 100%.
> 
> It didn't mean you hit every time: there were still penalties due to this or that, and it would affect your criticals.  If your sword skill was 126%, and you were fighting a skilled combatant, your actual chance to hit him might be more like 73%, and your chance to crit him would be 12%.



 I do know that. In most systems based on Basic role playing , you could have a skill over a hundred. But after you added in all the modifiers, you seldom had a %100 chance to hit, and even if you did the other side could still dodge or parry.


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## TMRose (May 19, 2013)

JoshDemers said:


> I've always wanted to see some kind of system that uses percentile in its literal terms: 100% equals 100%, you've completely accomplished your goal. I don't know if it's possible, but if someone said they had put something like that together, I would want to check it out.



 In Basic role playing system  a100% means you will suceded most of the time( a die roll of 96-100 always means you fail) But there are Mods you add in.
 For example you have Read write  english at 100% means you can read al the books in the local library, But there might be-15 to understand some one speaking  pidgin English from Hawaii, a -20 to understand a 12 century manuscript in English and a -50 to understand some one from Scotland.


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## JoshDemers (May 19, 2013)

TMRose said:


> In Basic role playing system  a100% means you will suceded most of the time( a die roll of 96-100 always means you fail) But there are Mods you add in.




Thanks, I'll give Basic a look. I was actually going even more literal than that: you roll 50 on d%, and you've accomplished 50% of your task; you roll 68% and you've accomplished 100% of your task. Problem is, that would be such a random system, I can't think of how you would do it with any dramatic tension. You could kill a dragon in one hit by rolling a 100, then take forever to kill a kobold by rolling under 10 every time. The power of the task or obstacle is totally negated.

I guess I like the idea of the more literal representation, but I can't see how to do it.


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## Argyle King (May 20, 2013)

I've come to prefer multiple dice and a bell curve over a flat roll.  I'm undecided on % systems; usually, I'm perfectly happy to use 3d6 or something similar.


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## Dethklok (May 20, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Apples and oranges.
> 
> In a percentile sysem, your PC imposes at N% per progression event, just like in a non-percentile sysem.  IOW, the choice- using your analogy- is between $5 allowance per week and N¢ per week- you don't change the pay period just because you changed the denomination of the payment.



No, the post to which I was responding said, "It allows a player to take action to progress a character and makes those adjustments quite small so many of them can be had." My response wasn't an apples and oranges comparison, and the correct analogy isn't to compare earning X*100 cents per week with earning X*1 dollars per week.



JoshDemers said:


> I've always wanted to see some kind of system that uses percentile in its literal terms: 100% equals 100%, you've completely accomplished your goal. I don't know if it's possible, but if someone said they had put something like that together, I would want to check it out.



Hmm... shouldn't be hard to design. I'd imagine that hit points would be the best candidate for such a mechanic; presumably there would need to be damage vs. toughness mechanic so that 15% damage would mean something different to a chicken or a tank.



Nagol said:


> Would you rather get your whole salary on Dec 31 or be paid installments throughout the year?



This isn't a challenge to my point, as much as it is the flip side to my point: *There is a "sweet spot" to granularity*. And it isn't found in percentiles or d2s. Yet while nobody in this thread seriously advocates a 1d2 system, many, many gamers advocate the use of 1d100.



Stormonu said:


> One game I found that had an inventive use for d% was Chronicles of Ramlar.  All skills were in %, but in combat, the "1"s die also determined the hit location.



I remember doing this when I was younger. It can be fun, although the realism isn't high - a hit to the limbs is a less successful attack than a hit to the head. This would imply that it's actually the 10's die that should determine location; unfortunately that would mean in a percentile system that head hits would generally be very rare. 

(The passing thought does occur that such an idea of reading the 1's digit as location is actually best with a d20, although this isn't why I believe percentile systems are inappropriate for most rpgs).



Mike Eagling said:


> The d% systems I can think of (i.e. the ones I've played) all seem to be ones without levels or classes. I'd argue the additional granularity is important in such cases because of the way skills improve little and often rather than in defined jumps.



Wonderful! I nominate you to be the one waking up every twenty minutes to give my son his tri-hourly one-cent allowance.



Johnny3D3D said:


> I've come to prefer multiple dice and a bell curve over a flat roll.  I'm undecided on % systems; usually, I'm perfectly happy to use 3d6 or something similar.



The triangle and bell curves really are nice for games.

Truthfully, I think there is a sweet spot for the number of dice one throws also. I don't like 3dX systems because they require a lot of addition for simple rolls, when one could simply throw a d6, d10 or d20 and be done. 3d6 also gives very rare 3's and 18's - critical successes are only one in 216! To get near the popular 5% critical hit of d20 systems, you need to make 16's, 17's, and 18's critical.

But on the other side, with only 1d20, 1d10, or any sort of 1dX, you can't get sigmoidal success curves. So I think 2dX is _probably_ the best for most games.

But that stated, I'm not convinced that the lack of a sigmoidal chance for success is that bad, or that having to add three dice together to get a roll with a Gaussian is a real problem, either. 1dX and 3dX are pretty close in usefulness; you'd have to go to something like 5dX before I could say it was definitely worse than 2dX. But this is what the percentile system is to its competitors - the numbers are literally a factor of five greater than d20, and a factor of _ten_ greater than d10. RPG Percentile Systems? Just say No!


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 20, 2013)

> No, the post to which I was responding said, "It allows a player to take action to progress a character and makes those adjustments quite small so many of them can be had." My response wasn't an apples and oranges comparison, and the correct analogy isn't to compare earning X*100 cents per week with earning X*1 dollars per week.




That post was true.

Many small adjustments CAN be made.  Progression in percentile systems tend to have improvement in small amounts.  In contrast, in a system like D&D, each level can be a significant power boost.

But in each case, the increments large or small are per advancement event.  To say that a single D&D level is like multiple advancement events in a percentile system is to ignore the way the percentile system actually works.  Generally, there really is no good way to compare them directly because the systemic assumptions and math are likely quite different.

For instance, in certain percentile systems, skills of all kinds can be improved by using them (sometimes ONLY by using them).  That means that, in certain systems, your PC is _constantly_ improving each session.  Sometimes, multiple times in a single session.

There really isn't an analog of that in D&D.


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## Argyle King (May 20, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> The triangle and bell curves really are nice for games.
> 
> Truthfully, I think there is a sweet spot for the number of dice one throws also. I don't like 3dX systems because they require a lot of addition for simple rolls, when one could simply throw a d6, d10 or d20 and be done. 3d6 also gives very rare 3's and 18's - critical successes are only one in 216! To get near the popular 5% critical hit of d20 systems, you need to make 16's, 17's, and 18's critical.
> 
> ...





I'm not convinced that the magical 5% is popular because of being better.  The fact that there are different chances to roll different numbers on 3d6 is exactly why I started to like it once I tried games outside of the d20 family.  I prefer the more consistent results; if my character is good at something, it seems odd to me that I always have a 5% chance to critically fail.  Granted, critical failure is an optional rule for D&D, but it struck me as especially odd that a high level fighter in 3rd Edition (or Pathfinder) had a higher chance of critical failure than a low level fighter because of having more rolls to make with a full attack action.  I still like unusual/critical results to be possible, but I also like to know that -if my character is good at something- my skill will be reflected in the game world by the dice producing results which are consistent with my level of skill.  

You mentioned a 1 in 216 chance to crit; GURPS has criticals happen on 3 or 4 (crit success) and 17 or 18 (failure.)  Even after a few years of playing the system, I'm pretty happy with how that plays out.  Though, to be fair, it's important to point out that there are other rules which interact with that to make the overall system function (imo, better.)  In particular, your chances of scoring a hit can increase or decrease based upon Effective Skill; if your effective skill in something is high enough, you can critical on more numbers.  Character skill matters; I think that's how it should be rather than always having a 5% chance of stabbing myself in the face no matter how skilled I am -as is the case with a flat d20 roll.  

In the past, I'veplayed D&D and replaced the d20 with 2d10.  That seemed to work out pretty well for my tastes.  Though, at the end of the day, it wasn't a big enough change for what I wanted at the time, so I ended up trying different games.  I still highly enjoy D&D (and other d20 games,) but I've come to highly prefer games with a bell curve and games which don't have levels.


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## Bagpuss (May 20, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> This isn't a challenge to my point, as much as it is the flip side to my point: *There is a "sweet spot" to granularity*. And it isn't found in percentiles or d2s. Yet while nobody in this thread seriously advocates a 1d2 system, many, many gamers advocate the use of 1d100.




Hey don't you go picking on 1d2 systems! There is nothing wrong with *Prince Valiant* it was a pretty good RPG!


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## Bagpuss (May 20, 2013)

Stormonu said:


> One game I found that had an inventive use for d% was Chronicles of Ramlar.  All skills were in %, but in combat, the "1"s die also determined the hit location.




The FFG, Warhammer 40K various rules do the same thing, you make one attack roll then reverse the %roll values to get the hit location.

In a 1d20 or 3d6 system you would need to make a separate roll for hit location. I guess you could actually use a different coloured dice in a 3d6 to do hit location at the same time, but it would limit your locations.


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## Nikosandros (May 20, 2013)

Never mind. I replied without realizing there was one more page of posts.


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## Argyle King (May 20, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> The FFG, Warhammer 40K various rules do the same thing, you make one attack roll then reverse the %roll values to get the hit location.
> 
> In a 1d20 or 3d6 system you would need to make a separate roll for hit location. I guess you could actually use a different coloured dice in a 3d6 to do hit location at the same time, but it would limit your locations.




The way GURPS (a 3d6 system) works is that you can choose the location you are trying to hit.  What you're trying to hit modifies your skill.  For example, the torso is assumed to be the default hit location if you don't specify otherwise, and there is no penalty for targeting the torso.  Targeting the face is more difficult; doing so gives a -5 to skill.  If you have an impaling weapon, you can attempt to target Vitals at -3 to skill.  It's worth noting that GURPS is also a system which has active defenses... meaning that the defender can dodge, parry, or block.


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## Dethklok (May 21, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That post was true.
> 
> Many small adjustments CAN be made.



Of course the post was true. My argument was that it was irrelevant. If you want to address my argument, well, that could be fun!



Johnny3D3D said:


> I'm not convinced that the magical 5% is popular because of being better.



Neither am I - the system I like defaults to d6 minus d6. But I tend to go for what I think I might actually be able to win; people who love d100 might be convinced to drop to d20, but probably not lower.

From one perspective, though, the existence of the d20 system is the real evidence for the inferiority of the percentile system. Because to a certain extent XdY systems really are "apples and oranges" away from 1d100 systems, but the comparison between d20 and d100 is direct: with rare exceptions, d20 is simply and straightforwardly better.



> The fact that there are different chances to roll different numbers on 3d6 is exactly why I started to like it once I tried games outside of the d20 family.



Yeah, that's easy to understand. You don't find the need to add those dice together cumbersome, though? I'm not trying to insist that it is, but I've had people (adolescents in highschool) balk at basic addition and subtraction of single digit numbers in my games. Have you ever gamed with kids, or (especially) teenage girls?



> You mentioned a 1 in 216 chance to crit; GURPS has criticals happen on 3 or 4 (crit success) and 17 or 18 (failure.)  Even after a few years of playing the system, I'm pretty happy with how that plays out.  Though, to be fair, it's important to point out that there are other rules which interact with that to make the overall system function (imo, better.)  In particular, your chances of scoring a hit can increase or decrease based upon Effective Skill; if your effective skill in something is high enough, you can critical on more numbers.  Character skill matters; I think that's how it should be rather than always having a 5% chance of stabbing myself in the face no matter how skilled I am -as is the case with a flat d20 roll.



Well, things can be handled that way in any dice system (though I'll grant that you really do want that sigmoidal curve to make it work well). Let me ask you, have you ever tried d6 minus d6?



> In the past, I'veplayed D&D and replaced the d20 with 2d10.



Eh? Why not 3d6 again? The average is 10.5, as with 1d20. Or was the reduced standard deviation of 3d6 too much?




Bagpuss said:


> Hey don't you go picking on 1d2 systems! There is nothing wrong with *Prince Valiant* it was a pretty good RPG!



Aha! But I took care when I wrote "1d2," as in, _one and only one_ d2. Prince valiant has you flipping multiple coins with any action in a way that regularly looks more like 4d2. Prince Valiant's a fine game.

As an aside, can anyone think of an RPG that genuinely uses 1d2 or 1d3 only?



Johnny3D3D said:


> The way GURPS (a 3d6 system) works is that you can choose the location you are trying to hit.  What you're trying to hit modifies your skill.  For example, the torso is assumed to be the default hit location if you don't specify otherwise, and there is no penalty for targeting the torso.  Targeting the face is more difficult; doing so gives a -5 to skill.  If you have an impaling weapon, you can attempt to target Vitals at -3 to skill.  It's worth noting that GURPS is also a system which has active defenses... meaning that the defender can dodge, parry, or block.



Do you have any experience sparring? In dueling (with or without a shield), the limbs are far more commonly hit than the torso.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 21, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> Of course the post was true. My argument was that it was irrelevant. If you want to address my argument, well, that could be fun!




I did.

Frequent but minor positive reinforcement of behavior (many small rewards given often) is at least as powerful a motivator as periodic major reinforcement (big rewards given after longer time intervals).  According to some behavioral research, its _more_ powerful.

(And as a GM, it may even make your game more manageable, since the deltaV of advancement is more continuous.)

In addition, random rewards can reinforce behavior even more strongly than carefully regimented rewards.

The thing is, the math and basic advancement assumptions vary greatly between most percentile systems and D&D.  D&D advances (nearly) everything simultaneously, but only after much adventuring.  Percentile systems grant improvements more parsimoniously, but more frequently...and typically, not by the same amount for each PC.  They do this by (in some systems) improving the PC immediately for making critical successes.

So certain percentile systems offer not only frequent small rewards on a regular schedule, but also ups the psychological ante by including _variable_ small rewards.

Those are not irrelevant differences.


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## Jhaelen (May 21, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> That there are other complaints about RQ does nothing to change the fact that RQ would be much better always treating the ones die as a 0, or, (for those who can't live without pushing the upper limit on what one might be able to squint and _pretend_ is genuine rather than false precision), with all values divided by 5 and then converted to d20.



I disagree. RQ really works best using percentiles. Imho, the additional granularity over a d20 works well when determining the chance for special successes, crits, or fumbles.
There are other systems where I don't like the percentiles, though, e.g. Eclipse Phase, which indeed would be better served to just use a d20.


Johnny3D3D said:


> I've come to prefer multiple dice and a bell curve over a flat roll.  I'm undecided on % systems; usually, I'm perfectly happy to use 3d6 or something similar.



I don't like bell curves. Or at least I don't like bell curves created from rolling more than two dice. 2d10 create a rather nice bell curve. 3d6 not so much.

I like being able to calculate my chance for success on the fly and that's something that is much harder to do if bell curves are involved.

Dice pool systems are hit and miss. E.g. I found Shadowrun (3rd.ed.) really awful while WoD worked rather well for me.


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## Tonguez (May 21, 2013)

I use to like percentage systems until I realised that d20 is a percentage system based on 5% intervals,


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## Dethklok (May 21, 2013)

Jhaelen said:


> I don't like bell curves. Or at least I don't like bell curves created from rolling more than two dice. 2d10 create a rather nice bell curve. 3d6 not so much.



Agreed (although 2d10 isn't a bell curve, it's a triangle). I'm not convinced there's anything intrinsically better about 2dX than 3dX, but I would personally rather play 2d10 than 3d6.

As for calculating success chances, have you had a statistics course? Because the 3d6 Gaussian has a mean of 1.5 and an SD of 3.0, so given to two significant figures, the chances break down like they would for any Gaussian curve:

5 or better: 98%
8 or better: 84%
11 or better: 50%
14 or better: 16%
17 or better: 2.3%





Dannyalcatraz said:


> I did.



No, you didn't, because I just read through the thread again, and you never did any more than restate your position. Even the rest of this is little more than a restatement on your position:



> Frequent but minor positive reinforcement of behavior (many small rewards given often) is at least as powerful a motivator as periodic major reinforcement (big rewards given after longer time intervals).  According to some behavioral research, its _more_ powerful.
> 
> (And as a GM, it may even make your game more manageable, since the deltaV of advancement is more continuous.)
> 
> ...



My argument, again, is that they are irrelevant, because, as I pointed out, there is clearly a point where no one cares about getting paid a penny every twenty minutes. Yes, fine, we could roll 1d3 every _forty_ minutes and get paid that many pennies instead. But this doesn't change my argument at all. And outside of the context of this debate, where admitting that you wouldn't want to pay someone or get paid 1d3 cents every forty minutes would lose you a rhetorical point, no sane person would ever want to get paid their allowance every forty minutes. The only context under which reducing pay periods to the minimum possible period is investment banking where compound interest allows each fraction of a penny to earn interest towards more fractions of a penny. Are your adventurers investing their skill increases to get more skill increases? No? Any time you want to actually address this argument, well, that could be fun.



Tonguez said:


> I use to like percentage systems until I realised that d20 is a percentage system based on 5% intervals



Yep.

Just as no one cares if you were driving down the road at 38 or 39 MPH, or whether you've been playing rpgs for 23 or 24 years, or whether it's 67 or 68 degrees Fahrenheit outside, I do not care if someone rolled an 84 or 85 on their 1d100. Of course, there are some contexts, such as a laboratory or a court of law, where that level of precision is meaningful. But in an imaginary world where we can only guess at what most quantities should be, and trust that the rules give us a simulation of reality that is at least sorta close, that level of precision is utterly meaningless.


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## Argyle King (May 21, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> Yeah, that's easy to understand. You don't find the need to add those dice together cumbersome, though? I'm not trying to insist that it is, but I've had people (adolescents in highschool) balk at basic addition and subtraction of single digit numbers in my games. Have you ever gamed with kids, or (especially) teenage girls?
> 
> 
> Do you have any experience sparring? In dueling (with or without a shield), the limbs are far more commonly hit than the torso.





I don't find it difficult to add three dice together at all; especially when each individual die can only generate numbers from one to six.  I have two small children (aged 5 and 6) who I sometimes use rpgs to help teach numbers, reading, and etc too; they don't seem to have a problem with it either.  Granted, they're slower at it than I am, but that's understandable considering differences in age and experience.  I'm sure it also helps that most board games I'm familiar with used d6s; I never had a problem counting dice when playing Yahtzee and it uses 5d6.


I wouldn't say I have experience with "sparring" in the sense you seem to be using the word.  However, I do have combat experience.  From my experience, it tends to be more difficult to put a bullet in the skull than it is to put one center mass.  In melee, most of my experience is with grappling, but -against a skilled opponent who has no qualms about striking back- it is usually tougher to tie up a limb than it is to scissor the body or mount.  From the perspective of gameplay, I also feel that making high value targets more difficult to strike makes sense as well; in GURPS, a hit to the head is very often a fight ending event, and a solid strike to the vitals tends to be lethal.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 21, 2013)

> My argument, again, is that they are irrelevant, because, as I pointed out, there is clearly a point where no one cares about getting paid a penny every twenty minutes. Yes, fine, we could roll 1d3 every forty minutes and get paid that many pennies instead. But this doesn't change my argument at all. And outside of the context of this debate, where admitting that you wouldn't want to pay someone or get paid 1d3 cents every forty minutes would lose you a rhetorical point, no sane person would ever want to get paid their allowance every forty minutes. The only context under which reducing pay periods to the minimum possible period is investment banking where compound interest allows each fraction of a penny to earn interest towards more fractions of a penny. Are your adventurers investing their skill increases to get more skill increases? No? Any time you want to actually address this argument, well, that could be fun.




1) the behavioral psychlogists disagree with you on the irrelevance of small, frequent rewards.

2) if I could set it up via computer, paying someone every 40 minutes is no issue to me.

3) pay me every 40 minutes, and I'll have fun using the time value of money.  Yet I am still sane.

4) the way those percentile systems I described work, yes- there is a reinforcement loop: the better your skill rating, the more often your skill will improve by force of statistical probability.  The better you are, the better you are at getting better.


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## Nagol (May 22, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> <snip>
> 
> 4) the way those percentile systems I described work, yes- there is a reinforcement loop: the better your skill rating, the more often your skill will improve by force of statistical probability.  The better you are, the better you are at getting better.




Most of them have a counter-weight tamp where the chance of success drops as the skill rises -- look at _Runequest_ for an example.  To increase a skill, you need to succeed (roll under your skill #) to mark the skill as tested and then fail (roll over your skill #) to gain the increase when you get the chance to check.  That also feeds into operant conditioning -- occasional rewards becoming less frequent.

_Aftermath_ has a similar system though the chance of gaining the increase is static between 0 - 20% depending on your talent in that skill's area.


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## Sword of Spirit (May 22, 2013)

So it seems like the real questions are:

1) How much granularity is desirable?

2) Are some forms of dice-rolling more satisfying than others?

and

3) How do the answers to either of those change based on the genre, campaign, or scenario?


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## Mike Eagling (May 22, 2013)

Sword of Spirit said:


> So it seems like the real questions are:
> 
> 1) How much granularity is desirable?
> 
> ...




Indeed. And the the answers to each question will vary from player to player.

Personally, when I play RuneQuest or Call of Cthulhu I'm perfectly happy with the granularity of the d% system. I'm equally happy using d6s in Traveller and a multitude of polyhedrals for D&D and its various spin-offs. I'm not a fan of dice pools but I have dabbled with FATE/Fudge and that system shows some promise.

Which one is best? None of them. They all have their own merits to a greater or lesser extent and I find each enjoyable in their own way.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 22, 2013)

Sword of Spirit said:


> So it seems like the real questions are:
> 
> 1) How much granularity is desirable?



Anticipating the third question, for me, it depends on genre & campaign.



> 2) Are some forms of dice-rolling more satisfying than others?




I can't really say...I like rolling dice, but I can always satisfy that Pavlovian need by playing "Mason" when things slow down.


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## Mike Eagling (May 22, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I can't really say...I like rolling dice, but I can always satisfy that Pavlovian need by playing "Mason" when things slow down.




Mason?


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## MerricB (May 22, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> I agree wholeheartedly! I also think percentiles would be ideal for _Paranoia_ - the false precision would not be a disadvantage, but rather an evocative reflection of life in the psychotically bureaucratic Alpha Complex.




They were in the original edition of Paranoia! The second edition went to d20 instead. 

Cheers!


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 22, 2013)

Mike Eagling said:


> Mason?




Its a simple dice game: 

Take 6d6 and roll them.  Count the number of dice that roll a 4 or better and pick them up, putting the others aside.

Throw the dice you picked up, counting the number that rolled a 4 or better.  Pick them up putting the others aside.  Repeat until no dice remain to be picked up.

Total the number of die rolls over 4.

My personal best is 21.


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## Mike Eagling (May 22, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Its a simple dice game:
> 
> _/snip_




Ah. Thanks. Not heard of that before.

Actually, no thanks at all as I've just spent the last twenty minutes playing it and expect to waste large quantities of time doing so in the future...!


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 22, 2013)

Is ridiculous, isn't it?


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## Dethklok (May 23, 2013)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 1) the behavioral psychlogists disagree with you on the irrelevance of small, frequent rewards.



Waking up every forty minutes to roll a die and add pennies into a pile is a form of sleep deprivation.



> 2) if I could set it up via computer



The GM is not a computer. I have no interest in programming an experience point reward system on my laptop.




Sword of Spirit said:


> So it seems like the real questions are:
> 
> 1) How much granularity is desirable?
> 
> ...



Absolutely, Sword of Spirit.

To address point 1, clearly, more granularity is desirable; equally clearly, less complicated arithmetic is also better. 

Less obvious is the fact that these benefits are likely to suffer from diminishing marginal utility. A game where "1+1" or "1 -1" are the most complicated operations to be completed is not likely to be much faster or better than one where numbers as large as 2 must be manipulated. Likewise granularity of a million is not much better than a hundred - otherwise people would regularly tell time to the second, or buy meat weighed to the dram.

The issues you raise at point 2 and 3 are harder to address, but I think there are  costs and benefits to be discussed there as well - people like shiny dice of different shapes and colors, but in his review of _Dragon Warriors_, creator Dave Morris regretted using polyhedrals instead of d6 only, as he said it made the game less accessible. (For his own games, he evidently doesn't use _Dragon Warriors_, and apparently prefers a form of GURPS that he calls 7URPS - it has seven attributes instead of only four.)



Mike Eagling said:


> Indeed. And the the answers to each question will vary from player to player.



That's true, Mike, but I think your conclusion does not follow:



> Which one is best? None of them.



Answers to the question "what is the integral of 4x with respect to x" will vary from person to person, but some answers are clearly better than others. Now, it _is_ true that some questions are purely subjective, like, "do you prefer chocolate or strawberry ice cream?" So clearly subjectivity can play the dominant or even exclusive role in decision making. But different dice systems come with different benefits and costs, and this mimics situations from in engineering and design, where effective solutions must maximize benefits and minimize costs.

For must situations, 1d2 has insufficient granularity, while 1d100 just has insufficient speed and ease of use. Dice systems that maximize benefits and minimize costs will generally fall somewhere in between 1d2 and 1d100.




MerricB said:


> They were in the original edition of Paranoia! The second edition went to d20 instead.
> 
> Cheers!



Really? Actually that's pretty cool! Not only since I've heard that 1st Edition was closer to Straight Paranoia than the later editions, but also because 1st Edition was reviewed as "cumbersome," "tricky" and riddled with "complications" relative to "slick" 2nd Edition.


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## Mike Eagling (May 23, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> That's true, Mike, but I think your conclusion does not follow:
> 
> _Which one is best? None of them._
> 
> Now, it is true that some questions are purely subjective, like, "do you prefer chocolate or strawberry ice cream?"





Or even "do you prefer System X that uses a d20 mechanic or System Y that uses a d% mechanic?" That question certainly _is_ subjective. Consequently, neither system is objectively better than the other. It is purely a matter of personal preference.


I suppose I could have added the caveat _in my opinion_ neither system is better than the other but I honestly don't believe it is necessary.


In my experience the d% mechanics of RuneQuest/Call of Cthulhu/etc. work well within the framework of the rest of the rules. Given that characters in those games have neither levels nor classes, and skills improve by small amounts in relation to their successful use, the "headroom" of having those skills range over 100 points means they don't max out as quickly as they would if they ranged over 20 points.


Meanwhile, in DnD, that "headroom" is transfered to the xp required to level up, allowing that system to have its skills (for want of a better term) range over 20 points without curtailing the time necessary for the character to max out.


Both systems essentially do the same thing albeit in different ways. I happen to like them both.


On the other hand, RoleMaster/MeRP employs a d% mechanic too. Now I've not played MeRP in decades so my memory of it is somewhat rusty. However, I remember I didn't particularly enjoy playing it because (in part) I didn't like the way the core mechanic was implemented. Nevertheless, one of my friends really liked it. I thought the system was "bad". They thought it was "good". Neither of us was more right than the other, we just had different opinions.



Dethklok said:


> Answers to the question "what is the integral of 4x with respect to x" will vary from person to person, but some answers are clearly better than others.





I'm fairly sure that's not how maths works but OK...


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 23, 2013)

> Waking up every forty minutes to roll a die and add pennies into a pile is a form of sleep deprivation.




Direct deposit and computerized random number generators are wonderful inventions.



> The GM is not a computer. I have no interest in programming an experience point reward system on my laptop.




Now you're moving the goalposts.  We were, at that moment, talking about money, not XP, as was 100% clear from the rest of the sentence that you chose to selectively quote.

And even in the most liberal percentile systems, there won't be more than a couple of improvements- if any- in a given session.  Figuring out how much the PC improves in those events is as trival an event, in GM time-management terms, as generating the contents of a felled Orc's coin purse.


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## Elysia (May 23, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> *There is a "sweet spot" to granularity*. And it isn't found in percentiles or d2s. Yet while nobody in this thread seriously advocates a 1d2 system, many, many gamers advocate the use of 1d100.
> 
> ...Truthfully, I think there is a sweet spot for the number of dice one throws also.




As a physics major, I would actually find it particularly attractive to find a nice logical mathematical formula that weights various aspects and comes up with that "sweet spot."  I think total "sweetness" might take into account a variable of fun,  suspense, or something of the sort though, as well as maximizing granularity and realistic effectiveness.  

Being female however there is something subliminally attractive about rolling a couple of glittering d100's in the palm of your hand, before tossing them with a gasp of wonder to the table to watch them until...  



Dethklok said:


> RPG Percentile Systems? Just say No!




Self control is soooo hard!


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## Sword of Spirit (May 23, 2013)

I'm going to answer my own questions from my earlier post, and I'd love to hear  disagreements and different opinions, since it will help my design work quite  a bit.



Sword of Spirit said:


> 1) How much granularity is desirable?



The minimum necessary to reach the desired mechanical results and establish the intended feel.

For instance, the system I'm working on does just about everything in  single digits, since I want to have: (a) no derived stats, (b) math you  never have to reference a book for, and (c) characters that can be  remembered or created extremely quickly based on descriptive words  rather than numbers.

Since there are only three descriptive levels of attributes higher than average, the numbers for that (assuming it can work with the rest of the system) don't have to be any bigger than 1, 2, and 3.



> 2) Are some forms of dice-rolling more satisfying than others?



I think different types of physical dice on the table make a difference  in the feel of the game. If you only use boardgame d6s with pips, that  will create an entirely different feel than the multi-colored grab bag  of random dice of all shapes and sizes I so love in my D&D games.  The same thing goes for different numbers of dice. If there is just a  single die sitting on the table, or one die for each player, it creates a  different feel than the cornucopia of dice everywhere.

In addition, how often you roll them changes the feel. More dicey usually means more gamey.

And then we come to the actual systems. I'm going to agree with some of  the thoughts that d% really work better with some genres than others.  I'll admit that I have some bias against d%, simply because they feel a  bit too retro for me, but I think they might produce a flavor that goes  well with a hard sci-fi game. Some people enjoy picking up large pools  of dice to roll. I think it might be that it creates a sense of power,  since you have visual and tactile representation of your characters  abilities, rather than merely adding or subtracting a number you have in  your head or on a sheet. It also moves the game outside of the theater  of the mind (temporarily) and onto the table more than a system where  you are only dealing with a die or two does.

I personally find using the d20 system for anything other than D&D  unsatisfying in and of itself, because it turns what should be it's own  game into an extensive set of house rules in my gut emotional  perception. So that bias on my part means that no matter how good the  system, if it's not D&D but we're using D&D dice systems/rules  for it, I'm already dissatisfied.



> 3) How do the answers to either of those change based on the genre, campaign, or scenario?



I already mentioned a bit about genre, and I think it has an enormous impact on how satisfying the different levels of granularity and forms of dice usage are. Let's say you were playing a game all about wonder, enchantment, and magic, and maybe marketed to a young crowd. Having a lot of different highly colorful custom dice to use would really enhance the imagery. Say the dice are really visually attractive and color coded based on size, and when you cast a spell you roll a combination of different dice based on the type of effect (which you can spontaneously create on the spot). You grab the red (d8) for a damaging effect, the blue (d12) for a defensive effect, the yellow (d4) for a mental effect, etc. Or, in a narrative horror game you might want low numbers, and having larger dice to use is bad for you. You only get one to roll, and you want that one to be as small as possible. Maybe even color code it so the larger die sizes are progressively darker shades of grey (or other appropriate colors).

When it comes to style of campaigns or scenarios, it's just as important. In a highly story-focused campaign, I prefer few dice, low granularity, and less rolling. If I were playing some sort of gamey high-powered supers scenario, I might be excited about massive dice pools I get to use regularly. For a more explorationist/simulationist scenario, I'd want to roll the right amount of dice for the scene--maybe adjusting the number and frequency based on the part of the scenario itself.

Thoughts? (And I hope I'm contributing rather than hijacking the thread.)


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## Elysia (May 23, 2013)

Double post


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## Dethklok (May 23, 2013)

Ugh - I'm posting from the same computer as Elysia and accidentally posted from her account. This is what I get for posting so late at night!



Mike Eagling said:


> Or even "do you prefer System X that uses a  d20 mechanic or System Y that uses a d% mechanic?" That question  certainly _is_ subjective. Consequently, neither system is  objectively better than the other. It is purely a matter of personal  preference.



 By this reasoning, a dGoogol system is every bit as good as a d10  system. Do you think that the requirement that one carry, count out,  roll, and then write out the results for _one hundred_ d10's  makes this dGoogol system merely subjectively bad? And, if so, can you  find us one single person who would actually find such a system not only  fun but _preferable_ to other systems? 




> In my experience the d% mechanics of RuneQuest/Call of  Cthulhu/etc. work well within the framework of the rest of the rules.  Given that characters in those games have neither levels nor classes,  and skills improve by small amounts in relation to their successful use,  the "headroom" of having those skills range over 100 points means they  don't max out as quickly as they would if they ranged over 20 points.
> 
> Meanwhile, in DnD, that "headroom" is transfered to the xp required to  level up, allowing that system to have its skills (for want of a better  term) range over 20 points without curtailing the time necessary for the  character to max out.



 In a game with as few as ten skills which max out as low as 10, it would take a _hundred_  sessions to max out all of those skills. Further given a mechanic  something like RuneQuest uses, one could be given only a skill _roll_  to increase a skill, which would then double the amount of sessions  required to max out these skills, all without the need to resort to XP.  When you consider that most rpgs have much, much larger skillsets, this  cannot be a significant problem even for a system that restricted itself  to d10's, let alone d20. Knowing this, it should be easy to understand  why, in my experience with the 2d6 games I always play with, none of us  have never come close to maxing anything out.



> I thought the system was "bad". They thought it was "good".  Neither of us was more right than the other, we just had different  opinions.



 Yes, I understand. Do you also think that all designs for bridges are  equally good. Or, are all possible temperatures are equally good for  cooking a souffle? Or do you think that all coding styles are equally  good for computer programs? There is a reason that chefs, civil  engineers, and computer programmers go to school for years to develop  the ability to produce code, bridges, and food - all designs, styles,  and kinds are not equally good.



> I'm fairly sure that's not how maths works but OK...



 Really? Because the best answer for  "what is the integral of 4x with respect to x" is "2x^2 plus an  arbitrary constant of integration," with "2x^2" being less good, and all  other answers being bad.



Elysia said:


> As a physics major



 Oh thank goodness. Please tell me you know how maths work! 



> I would actually find it particularly attractive to find a nice  logical mathematical formula that weights various aspects and comes up  with that "sweet spot."  I think total "sweetness" might take into  account a variable of fun,  suspense, or something of the sort though,  as well as maximizing granularity and realistic effectiveness.



 Yikes. Wouldn't this be more a question for the social sciences? Because  even though there is an objective component to the debate, there are  definitely subjective elements as well. You might be able to model them  as noise or something, but they would probably interact with the  different levels of granularity in predictable ways - no one wants to  roll d36, even though numbers would be generated exactly the same way as  d100: (1d6-1) * 6 + 1d6. And few people like d12 or d4 systems because  the d12 and d4 always rolled awkwardly. If it mattered, I might be able  to come up with an equation that measured only the value of a system  with respect to granularity and mathematical inconvenience... but even  there I could easily be accused of weighting things specifically so that  the d100 came out badly.



Sword of Spirit said:


> I hope I'm contributing rather than hijacking the thread.



Not at all! Without these kinds of musings the thread would consist of  nothing other than disgruntled posters pinching the bridges of their  noses and wondering why they spend so much time arguing on the internet.  

(I didn't see your post when I wrote this response, but I'll give a better answer after other posters have had a chance.)


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## Bagpuss (May 23, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> By this reasoning, a dGoogol system is every bit as good as a d10  system. Do you think that the requirement that one carry, count out,  roll, and then write out the results for _one hundred_ d10's  makes this dGoogol system merely subjectively bad? And, if so, can you  find us one single person who would actually find such a system not only  fun but _preferable_ to other systems?




Does make me wonder about the "buckets of dice systems" where you roll several dice and compare them all with a target number or use some other method to get a result. Shadowrun, original Storyteller System, HERO system, Wordplay, Cortex (to some degree). Their are some systems where you can be rolling up to 40 dice at times, yet people still seem to enjoy them.

Is d% at least better than these? Or because they use some other mechanic that isn't just the "false precision" d% give they get a pass?


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## Wednesday Boy (May 23, 2013)

I've only used percentile dice in Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu and I thought it worked well.  Characters were easy to generate and the skill system was incredibly easy to grasp, even by new players.  I suppose you could have the same system and use a d20 instead of a d100 but that seems like six one way, a half-dozen the other to me.


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## Bagpuss (May 23, 2013)

How would you do experience progression if you switched CoC to d20? In the d% system it only goes up by 1d6 at a time, so usually less than 5, so smaller than you can measure on a d20.


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## Wednesday Boy (May 23, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> How would you do experience progression if you switched CoC to d20? In the d% system it only goes up by 1d6 at a time, so usually less than 5, so smaller than you can measure on a d20.




Good point.  I was thinking of it from a character creation standpoint and hadn't considered experience progression.  Which makes sense because the longest that one of my CoC characters lasted was two sessions!


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## Mike Eagling (May 23, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> By this reasoning, a dGoogol system is every bit as good as a d10 system. Do you think that the requirement that one carry, count out, roll, and then write out the results for one hundred d10's makes this dGoogol system merely subjectively bad? And, if so, can you find us one single person who would actually find such a system not only fun but preferable to other systems?





I'm interested in an RPG system that uses bananas for task resolution. Or puppies.


Look, the point I'm making is that I disagree with your original argument, "that any percentile rpg ever designed would be better once converted to d20, d10, 2d6, or some other system using smaller numbers." The assumption in your argument is that smaller numbers are somehow objectively better than larger numbers. Better or worse in this context are subjective qualities that cannot be measured objectively.


The d% system in RuneQuest isn't concerned with the false precision of shooting crossbows in the rain. A +/-1% difference in crossbow skill in this case isn't really about granular precision in task resolution. It is an artefact of how RuneQuest resolves character advancement. Yes, one could adjust skills so that they use a d20 and increase by 1 each advance. Is this mathematically easier? Possibly. Would it fundamentally change the feel of the game? Almost certainly. Is this a better system? No. Why? Because it's no longer RuneQuest, it's a new d20RuneQuest system.

If I want to play RuneQuest then I want to play _RuneQuest_.

Other people may hate RuneQuest and much prefer d20, d20RuneQuest or even dBananas and that's fine. People are more than welcome to their opinion of what is a good game for them. I enjoy those games too. I especially enjoy dBananas, it evokes a very definite atmosphere at the table. I don't much like dPuppies. I find the system unwieldy and it brings me out in a rash.




Dethklok said:


> In a game with as few as ten skills which max out as low as 10, it would take a hundred sessions to max out all of those skills.





That assumes those 10 skills start out at 0.




Dethklok said:


> Further given a mechanic something like RuneQuest uses, one could be given only a skill roll to increase a skill, which would then double the amount of sessions required to max out these skills, all without the need to resort to XP.
> When you consider that most rpgs have much, much larger skillsets, this cannot be a significant problem even for a system that restricted itself to d10's, let alone d20. Knowing this, it should be easy to understand why, in my experience with the 2d6 games I always play with, none of us have never come close to maxing anything out.





None of that makes any of those systems objectively better or worse than the way RQ does it.




Dethklok said:


> Yes, I understand. Do you also think that all designs for bridges are equally good.





Define good in this context. The utility of a bridge is its capacity to provide passage across an obstacle. The utility of a role-playing game is to provide entertainment or amusement for its players. I can point you in the direction of planning standards and engineering principles that can be used to measure the utility of a bridge. Show me the ISO standard for fun.


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## Dethklok (May 23, 2013)

Sword of Spirit said:


> The minimum necessary to reach the desired mechanical results and establish the intended feel.



Well, I would say that for some games, the minimum necessary granularity would  work best with a d4 and have no numbers greater than five. Your game reminds me something of a game by Paul Elliot called Totem where rocks were pulled from a bag in a way that gave probabilities of 1:3, 1:2, and 2:3 - I don't remember the mechanics well, but there may not have been numbers. I do think these kinds of games are well designed, but, if you allow only the minimum necessary granularity, then you'll turn off some gamers. (I just wouldn't be one of them.)




> *Large dice pools* moves the game outside of the theater  of the mind (temporarily) and onto the table more than a system where  you are only dealing with a die or two does.



My sense of games is that this is where most people's mental playing space actually is: the table. My attitude has always been simulationist, in the sense that I stop believing in the numbers and dice and sheets unless they plausibly reflect something that is happening in the otherworld, rather than _being_ the thing that is happening. It's taken me a while to realize that this is unusual.

For instance, I don't know whether most people stop to consider whether it really matters if they have a 9 or 10 in a stat. Isn't what matters whether you succeeded or failed at a task, and by how much? This is what actually happens in the game world; as I see things all stat are are nothing more than measurement or representations, which can only be so accurate. True, you might want to have a feel for your chances going in to a task, so you might care whether your stat is 9 or 4. But this is about where your adventurers would be - they could have only vague clues about their abilities and the strength of the problem going in. Definitely when I present myself to a job interview or try to make it to a store before closing, a don't gauge my chance for success at granularity better than fifths. And none of my attributes are measured to any more accuracy than a standard deviation - if one rose or fell by less than that (say, 2 points in D&D reckoning) during the day, I would have no way of noticing. I really don't mind a certain amount of fake precision, so if people like to measure out their stats to the nearest 5%, fine with me. But when the numbers get quite large they simply become tedious to manipulate.




> I personally find using the d20 system for anything other than D&D  unsatisfying in and of itself, because it turns what should be it's own  game into an extensive set of house rules in my gut emotional  perception. So that bias on my part means that no matter how good the  system, if it's not D&D but we're using D&D dice systems/rules  for it, I'm already dissatisfied.



OK, but bear in mind that there are lots of other systems that used twenty siders. For instance, I mentioned Dragon Warriors earlier. Every character has ATTACK (13 for a Knight) and DEFENCE (7 for a Knight). When you attack, roll d20 and subtract the roll from your ATTACK to find the DEFENCE score you hit. Lower rolls a better, so a roll of 20 always misses, whereas a roll of 1 always hits and bypasses all armor. So even though it's centered on the d20, the feel is quite different.




> I already mentioned a bit about genre, and I think it has an enormous impact on how satisfying the different levels of granularity and forms of dice usage are. Let's say you were playing a game all about wonder, enchantment, and magic, and maybe marketed to a young crowd. Having a lot of different highly colorful custom dice to use would really enhance the imagery. Say the dice are really visually attractive and color coded based on size, and when you cast a spell you roll a combination of different dice based on the type of effect (which you can spontaneously create on the spot). You grab the red (d8) for a damaging effect, the blue (d12) for a defensive effect, the yellow (d4) for a mental effect, etc. Or, in a narrative horror game you might want low numbers, and having larger dice to use is bad for you. You only get one to roll, and you want that one to be as small as possible. Maybe even color code it so the larger die sizes are progressively darker shades of grey (or other appropriate colors).



I've toyed with ideas like this, but I never put forth the effort to make them work (and I don't know any of the games I design would really benefit from them). But definitely, these ideas are brilliant when they're done right. Look at how Heroquest (or the later Heroscape) used dice with skulls and shields - it's one of the best dice systems around, and when you get down to it they're only a bunch of d6's.

Anyway Sword of Spirit, you should put your game (or bits of it) up on the House Rules section so we can take a better look at it.




Bagpuss said:


> Does make me wonder about the "buckets of dice systems" where you roll several dice and compare them all with a target number or use some other method to get a result. Shadowrun, original Storyteller System, HERO system, Wordplay, Cortex (to some degree). Their are some systems where you can be rolling up to 40 dice at times, yet people still seem to enjoy them.
> 
> Is d% at least better than these? Or because they use some other mechanic that isn't just the "false precision" d% give they get a pass?



No need for scare quotes; false precision is real concept. Look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_precision

 Anyway, whether or not you run into false precision depends on the granularity, not the number of dice. It may be tedius to throw, say, 20 dice, but the tedium is a separate issue. So long as each die is only treated as a success or failure, then your granularity the same as for a d20 system. On the other hand, if those dice are read as numbers and then all added up, then your granularity can be quite high.




Bagpuss said:


> How would you do experience progression if you switched CoC to d20? In the d% system it only goes up by 1d6 at a time, so usually less than 5, so smaller than you can measure on a d20.



I played a Lovecraft game with a 2d6 system which (coincidentally) used a skill progression mechanic rather similar to Call of Cthulhu:

Every time you rolled a critical or a tie, put a check mark by your skill. Then after the session, make a skill check; if you _fail_, improve the skill by 1. This meant that skills improved more and more slowly as you mastered them, and gave a good rate of progression overall.

To give you an idea of how effective this was, after using this system a few times for various different genres, none of my players ever agreed to play regular Cthulhu, D&D, or _any_ other published game system ever again, despite my occasionally suggesting a change for variety! This doesn't mean that the experience system specifically was better than Chaosism's, or even that the system as a whole was better. But clearly it did work.


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## Dethklok (May 24, 2013)

Mike Eagling said:


> I'm interested in an RPG system that uses bananas for task resolution. Or puppies.



Right, but you're not really paying attention to the point I'm trying to make. A dGoogol system would require throwing a hundred d10s and then assigning each one to a digit of a giant number. Every time you rolled, you would need to have all hundred dice. And you would need to know which dice was the millions place, which was the quadrillions place, and so on. You would need to carry them to and from the game, and keep your kid brother or your dog from losing any of them. Probably you would need to count them frequently to see that you had all hundred of them. The alternative, of course, would be to do something like carry around only one die, and then sit there and roll it a hundred times whenever you needed to make a skill check. Mike, this is not fun. This is pure tedium.



> Show me the ISO standard for fun.



I vacillated about answering your post, because I generally don't like to reply to people if they're likely to regard my rebuttals as antagonistic. But Mike - _I am showing you the ISO standard for fun_. You aren't paying any attention. You would rather make objections about bananas and pick nits about whether a hypothetical skill system starts at 0 than understand that there really is an objective component to the fun of roleplaying games, and that, even if the d100 might still be fun to some people, at some point - like, when your granularity gets near the size of a googol - the dice system will be unanimously agreed upon as un-fun by all.

 If you like d100 systems, fine. But unless you're interested in considering how they might be better or worse than other systems under which contexts, then I'm going to tell you that you really don't want to be posting in this thread.


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## Bagpuss (May 24, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> No need for scare quotes; false precision is real concept. Look:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_precision
> 
> Anyway, whether or not you run into false precision depends on the granularity, not the number of dice.




The quotes are because I'm quoting your opinion which I don't happen to share, not because I don't believe false precision doesn't exist. If you look at the examples on the link you provide, they don't actually apply in to a d% system, so only as you arn't just rounding to the nearest 5%. 

In a d% system 34% is statistically different from 36%, when rolled on percentile dice that isn't a false precision. Someone with a 2% higher skill is more skilled if only fractionally so, and about 2% of the time that will matter. 

It might be unnecessary precision, that's a matter of taste, but it isn't false precision, hence the quotes.

False precision would be if you listed % values of skills but then only rolled a d20 and multiplied the result by 5 to see if you passed, or a d10 and multiplied by 10.

Your 2d6, CoC for example will actually lead to faster advancement as you progression steps are bigger than in a d% system, although pyramid probability compared to the flat d% probability might help slow it down towards the end, at the beginning it will actually speed things up. If anything your system has more "false precision" as an improvement of 1 on a skill means different things at different levels, where as it might look the same at first.

At least in a percentile system a 1% improvement is always a 1% improvement.


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## Mike Eagling (May 24, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> Right, but you're not really paying attention to the point I'm trying to make.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...




Actually I deliberately paid attention to your original argument, which I disagree with because I believe it confounds an opinion with a fact.


I also believe the reason you give for this argument (vis-a-vis false precision) does not take into account other reasons that may exist for using a percentile system.


Claiming that a deliberately fallacious random number generator somehow proves your point is a red herring.


You said yourself that your post was a deliberately controversial statement, so it should come as no surprise that someone might disagree with you. Claiming that I'm not paying attention is disingenuous. I've provided examples of d%-based games that I consider to be good or bad. What I take issue with is your claim that any given system is categorically better or worse than all others. Such a claim is an opinion and therefore subjective.


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## JamesonCourage (May 24, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> But Mike - _I am showing you the ISO standard for fun_. You aren't paying any attention. You would rather make objections about bananas and pick nits about whether a hypothetical skill system starts at 0 than understand that there really is an objective component to the fun of roleplaying games, and that, even if the d100 might still be fun to some people, at some point - like, when your granularity gets near the size of a googol - the dice system will be unanimously agreed upon as un-fun by all.



This post is just incredibly amusing to me. And, of course, if literally _everyone_ objected to how "un-fun" something is, _it would still be subjective._ That's how fun works. Just because nobody sees something as fun doesn't mean that it's objective, now. It just means everyone, subjectively, agrees.


Dethklok said:


> If you like d100 systems, fine. But unless you're interested in considering how they might be better or worse than other systems under which contexts, then I'm going to tell you that you really don't want to be posting in this thread.



Okay, man, keep telling other people what is objectively un-fun. I'm sure you'll convince everyone else at some point. You have fun with that, while I'll be having fun with other things. At least, until I know that it's actually not fun... As always, play what you like


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## Dethklok (May 25, 2013)

Bagpuss said:


> In a d% system 34% is statistically different from 36%, when rolled on percentile dice that isn't a false precision. Someone with a 2% higher skill is more skilled if only fractionally so, and about 2% of the time that will matter.



Throughout the course of a day, a person's ability to run, write an essay, or hit a target will fluctuate. To say "My ability to hit a target of X size at Y meters distant with rife Z is exactly 57%" is only plausible if we assume that my character has no existence apart from a set of numbers on a character sheet. If we're trying to imagine an actual person in a fantasy world whose characteristics are measured or represented numerically, then I really do think the precision is false.



> Your 2d6, CoC for example will actually lead to faster advancement as you progression steps are bigger than in a d% system



Yes. Yes, but look:

1. It wasn't Call of Cthulhu, and wasn't intended to be "Cthulhu with  2d6." Skill checks were awarded only for ties and crits, not successes,  so they were actually received at less the rate as in a Cthulhu session.  Also the skill set was different - it was smaller, so overall a skill  improvement was more useful than it would be in Call of Cthulhu.

2. We set the system for the rate of advancement we liked best. It's elementary to speed or slow advancement by making advancement checks easier more difficult, or giving them out under more or less stringent circumstances.




> At least in a percentile system a 1% improvement is always a 1% improvement.



Some people do like flat probability curves, yes. But _X% is always X%_ isn't necessarily a benefit. There's a reason GURPS uses 3d6 to get that bell curve.




Mike Eagling said:


> Actually I deliberately paid attention to your original argument, which I disagree with because I believe it confounds an opinion with a fact.



OK, I get that. I do see that you are paying attention to my first post or posts.




> I also believe the reason you give for this argument (vis-a-vis false precision) does not take into account other reasons that may exist for using a percentile system.



Oh, absolutely! Remember where I said percentile systems are appropriate for certain games, like a high-tech game or Straight Paranoia? And there are lots more things I've been wanting to say, but haven't had much chance to. 

For better or for worse, the discussion goes where the arguments are. Bagpuss isn't having any of this false precision stuff; with you it seems more to do with my claims that a mechanic can ever be better or more appropriate than another. So for him, I'm just going to have to talk about precision a while longer. With you, it's going to be this idea of zillions of d10s. 




> Claiming that a deliberately fallacious random number generator somehow proves your point is a red herring.



Mike, I want to ask you, what do you think my point is?




> You said yourself that your post was a deliberately controversial statement, so it should come as no surprise that someone might disagree with you. Claiming that I'm not paying attention is disingenuous. I've provided examples of d%-based games that I consider to be good or bad. What I take issue with is your claim that any given system is categorically better or worse than all others. Such a claim is an opinion and therefore subjective.



So you would find a dGoogol system fun?

See, it isn't disingenuous of me to say you don't seem to be paying attention to this argument, when I keep making it and you keep ignoring it. I'm not suggesting you're being deliberately obtuse, or that you are looking at it and thinking, "I can't address this, so I just won't respond and hope it goes away." It's a big thread, and I probably missed stuff you've said, too. But I see this issue as being critical to your disagreement with me. You've either got to bite the bullet and say, "Yes, I'd love to play a dGoogol system, it would be, um, really great" at which point laughter will ensue, or else you have to admit that, fine, _some_ dice systems really do use too much granularity, even if d100 doesn't have too much. Or you may come out of left field with some other scintillating point; I'll wait and see.




JamesonCourage said:


> This post is just incredibly amusing to me.



Glad to have been of service!



> And, of course, if literally _everyone_ objected to how "un-fun" something is, _it would still be subjective._ That's how fun works. Just because nobody sees something as fun doesn't mean that it's objective, now. It just means everyone, subjectively, agrees.



Eh, at this point we may just be arguing over semantics. It's OK with me if you want to draw a distinction between everyone subjectively agreeing and something being objectively true.

Even then, though, wouldn't it strike you as interesting that millions of human beings, each with an individual opinion, might all agree about something being not fun? And if that were the case, then would it be unwarranted to say that this agreement probably came from their universally apprehending some _genuinely_ objective feature about life in this universe, even if they don't know what it is?




> Okay, man, keep telling other people what is objectively un-fun. I'm sure you'll convince everyone else at some point. You have fun with that, while I'll be having fun with other things. At least, until I know that it's actually not fun... As always, play what you like



Absolutely, play what you like! But it isn't a coincidence that no one throws a hundred d10s for task resolution.

I'm not trying to tell people that game system X can't be fun because it uses a poorly considered mechanic. I do think that when people insist that all mechanics are equal for all purposes, they're not really being honest with themselves. It seems to me that people like and enjoy a game, and then feel the need to defend it, even where it is weak. Doesn't the ability to identify, admit the existence of, and explore good and bad points of rpgs show a developed attitude toward the hobby? When is the last time somebody told wine tasters that they're all crazy when they talk about some wines being better than other wines, and then have the audacity to agree with each other about it? They may be snobs, but who seriously goes up to them and says the Bordeaux isn't any better than their $8 bottle of Ripple?


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## JamesonCourage (May 26, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> Eh, at this point we may just be arguing over semantics.



Well, no, but okay. I think that's very relevant in a discussion about objectivity.


Dethklok said:


> Even then, though, wouldn't it strike you as interesting that millions of human beings, each with an individual opinion, might all agree about something being not fun?



I don't think it's particularly interesting, but I can see how that might help inform game design, yes.


Dethklok said:


> And if that were the case, then would it be unwarranted to say that this agreement probably came from their universally apprehending some _genuinely_ objective feature about life in this universe, even if they don't know what it is?



Nope, still not objective. And, on top of that, we're talking hypotheticals; all we can do is speculate that _most_ people wouldn't like something, and work with that. It's pretty much the same in practice, except it's not saying, for sure, what is "objectively un-fun" or the like. And thus, to me, much more useful.


Dethklok said:


> I do think that when people insist that all mechanics are equal for all purposes, they're not really being honest with themselves.



I actually don't really see this being said. Can you point it out to me in this thread? Because, if someone said that, I'd agree with you, in a sense. All methods aren't equal for all purposes.


Dethklok said:


> It seems to me that people like and enjoy a game, and then feel the need to defend it, even where it is weak.



I have totally seen this, yep. Good friend of mine does it often with White Wolf.


Dethklok said:


> Doesn't the ability to identify, admit the existence of, and explore good and bad points of rpgs show a developed attitude toward the hobby?



Yes, I think so. But, labeling bits as "objectively un-fun" strikes me as a rather primitive view, in that you can't possibly make that statement and have it make sense. You can talk about "nearly everyone" or "basically nobody" or the like, and it will sometimes be true (rolling 100d10 for everything), but it won't always be true, of course. In this sense, honestly talking about weak points is a good thing; trying to put "objective" labels on fun, not so much.


Dethklok said:


> When is the last time somebody told wine tasters that they're all crazy when they talk about some wines being better than other wines, and then have the audacity to agree with each other about it? They may be snobs, but who seriously goes up to them and says the Bordeaux isn't any better than their $8 bottle of Ripple?



As it's taste dependent, which also varies wildly from person to person, I'm sure there are people that feel that way. I strongly dislike steak, and would rather have a piece of chicken. I'm not crazy, it's just my taste. I also hate chocolate, and would rather have corn, taste-wise; I just _love_ the taste (it was my favorite food as a kid).

I get I'm a statistical outlier, here, but I do exist. Unlike many other posters, I have no problem talking in generalities about how most people feel, or what most people might enjoy. However, I'm not about to agree that objectively labeling fun is somehow correct. Because, it's really not. So, I'll participate with you in speculation, but not in the labeling. Up to you. As always, play what you like


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## Mike Eagling (May 26, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> Mike, I want to ask you, what do you think my point is?





I suspect your point is that you want me to admit a dGoogle mechanic is a terrible idea. I further suspect that if I were to do this you would then say something along the lines of "A-ha! So if a dGoogle mechanic is bad you must surely admit that a d% system could be bad too?" thereby helping you "prove" your argument.


Only it doesn't. That line of argument is a logical fallacy.


Of course if that wasn't your point then I've obviously missed it, so feel free to enlighten me.




Dethklok said:


> So you would find a dGoogol system fun?





No, I happen to agree that _in my opinion_ such a hypothetical system would be bad.




Dethklok said:


> some dice systems really do use too much granularity, even if d100 doesn't have too much.




My argument has never been about the granularity of dice systems. My objection has been your insistence that "better" is objective. It isn't. Better is the comparative of good. Good is subjective. Hence, better is subjective by extension.





Dethklok said:


> It's OK with me if you want to draw a distinction between everyone subjectively agreeing and something being objectively true.





Good because there is a distinction, as I've explained.




Dethklok said:


> I do think that when people insist that all mechanics are equal for all purposes, they're not really being honest with themselves.





I don't see anyone doing this either.




Dethklok said:


> Doesn't the ability to identify, admit the existence of, and explore good and bad points of rpgs show a developed attitude toward the hobby?





Absolutely! I'm all in favour of exploring good and bad design. But that debate is still subjective.


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## Dethklok (May 26, 2013)

JamesonCourage said:


> I don't think it's particularly interesting



Really? Then what about this:



> As it's taste dependent, which also varies wildly from person to person, I'm sure there are people that feel that way. I strongly dislike steak, and would rather have a piece of chicken. I'm not crazy, it's just my taste. I also hate chocolate, and would rather have corn, taste-wise; I just _love_ the taste (it was my favorite food as a kid).



When you write things along these lines, I want to ask whether you think it's not interesting to ask whether the fact that you like food, and dislike the taste of (say) ammonia, is indicative of a preference instilled in you through generations of evolution / imbued into you by an omnipotent creator who wanted you to live? Because the desire of living organisms to eat things that provide energy is predicated on entirely objective qualities of living beings - namely that they require _energy_ in a digestible source. True, we may point out that there are many other factors which go into nutrition, and different people will disagree on whether they prefer chicken or steak. But this doesn't invalidate the notion that dietary preferences, at their core, help living species to identify and absorb nutrients, or that (in simple terms) substances with better nutrient content are better foods than substances with poor nutrient content.

Basically, I believe that both subjective and objective elements go into forming preferences about food, games, and any form of pleasure. You seem to assume that, because some preferences are clearly subjective, all preferences must be subjective - up till this point, your rebuttals to my position have taken the form of "some preferences are subjective and personal, see?" But this isn't a challenge to my position. Can you show that _no_ preferences can rest on objective criteria? Note that doing so may require showing how there is nothing objectively better about broccoli as a food in comparison to, say, Radium as a food.



> I  do think that when people insist that all mechanics are equal for all  purposes, they're not really being honest with themselves.
> I actually don't really see this being said. Can you point it out to me  in this thread? Because, if someone said that, I'd agree with you, in a  sense. All methods aren't equal for all purposes.



You might want to clarify your position, then - if all positions are subjective, than none can be better than another, and all systems are equal for all purposes. Thus, there can _be_ no genuine weaknesses in White Wolf systems without first positing that some things about games can be objectively stronger or weaker than others.




Mike Eagling said:


> I suspect your point is that you want me to admit a dGoogle mechanic is a terrible idea.



Nope, not even close. Although I am coming to realize that with you, I should probably count myself lucky to eke out an admission that you're posting on EN world in a thread created by Dethklok.


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## Mike Eagling (May 26, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> Nope, not even close. Although I am coming to realize that with you, I should probably count myself lucky to eke out an admission that you're posting on EN world in a thread created by Dethklok.




Then I evidently did miss your point, for which I apologise. Please clarify it for me and I'll address it.


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## JamesonCourage (May 26, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> When you write things along these lines, I want to ask whether you think it's not interesting to ask whether the fact that you like food, and dislike the taste of (say) ammonia, is indicative of a preference instilled in you through generations of evolution / imbued into you by an omnipotent creator who wanted you to live?



Interesting ≠ informative, which I made clear when I said "I don't think it's particularly interesting, but I can see how that might help inform game design, yes."


Dethklok said:


> True, we may point out that there are many other factors which go into nutrition, and different people will disagree on whether they prefer chicken or steak. But this doesn't invalidate the notion that dietary preferences, at their core, help living species to identify and absorb nutrients, or that (in simple terms) substances with better nutrient content are better foods than substances with poor nutrient content.



Which wasn't what you were commenting on whatsoever when I replied to you. You were stating that certain subjective things seem more objective ("They may be snobs, but who seriously goes up to them and says the Bordeaux isn't any better than their $8 bottle of Ripple?"). I'm rejecting that notion. You weren't commenting on whether or not people evolved to like the taste of nutritious things when I replied to you.


Dethklok said:


> Basically, I believe that both subjective and objective elements go into forming preferences about food, games, and any form of pleasure.



Okay.


Dethklok said:


> You seem to assume that, because some preferences are clearly subjective, all preferences must be subjective



In regards to what "fun" or "un-fun" is, most definitely.


Dethklok said:


> - up till this point, your rebuttals to my position have taken the form of "some preferences are subjective and personal, see?"



No, I'm speaking much more universally than that. I'm not saying *some* preferences are subjective and personal, I'm saying that they *all* are, at least as far as "fun" or "un-fun" goes.


Dethklok said:


> But this isn't a challenge to my position.



It seems like it is.


Dethklok said:


> Can you show that _no_ preferences can rest on objective criteria?



I'm not going to bother arguing with you over whether or not "fun" or "un-fun" is subjective. To question that is ludicrous, and if you want to have that conversation, take it up with another poster.


Dethklok said:


> You might want to clarify your position, then - if all positions are subjective,



On fun, dude.


Dethklok said:


> than none can be better than another,



We can objectively measure how well systems perform certain tasks, like give consistent results. We can't say that it's objectively more fun, though. We're only measuring, objectively, how a certain system achieves certain results (that's not based on preference).


Dethklok said:


> and all systems are equal for all purposes.



No, I disagreed with this. Hopefully you can see why, now.


Dethklok said:


> Thus, there can _be_ no genuine weaknesses in White Wolf systems without first positing that some things about games can be objectively stronger or weaker than others.



Right, which you can do. Just not "fun." I never, ever questioned the fun he had. Make sense? As always, play what you like


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## Elysia (May 26, 2013)

JamesonCourage said:


> Yes, I think so. But, labeling bits as "objectively un-fun" strikes me as a rather primitive view, in that you can't possibly make that statement and have it make sense. You can talk about "nearly everyone" or "basically nobody" or the like, and it will sometimes be true (rolling 100d10 for everything), but it won't always be true, of course.



 What an amusing view!  I guess that you must find science to be primitive then since it tends to rely heavily on statistical models to prove or disprove many of its theories. 



JamesonCourage said:


> As it's taste dependent, which also varies wildly from person to person, I'm sure there are people that feel that way. I strongly dislike steak, and would rather have a piece of chicken. I'm not crazy, it's just my taste. I also hate chocolate, and would rather have corn, taste-wise; I just _love_ the taste (it was my favorite food as a kid).



 Just because one individual atom of carbon is different (and yes a few indeed are different)  doesn’t mean that there is no objective theory of carbon atoms.  You may notice through subjective experimentation, that burning one lump of coal yields remarkably similar results to burning another.  Could there be an underlying objective principle at work?



Dethklok said:


> Throughout the course of a day, a person's ability to run, write an essay, or hit a target will fluctuate. To say "My ability to hit a target of X size at Y meters distant with rife Z is exactly 57%" is only plausible if we assume that my character has no existence apart from a set of numbers on a character sheet. If we're trying to imagine an actual person in a fantasy world whose characteristics are measured or represented numerically, then I really do think the precision is false.



Absolutely, if you were able to model any of these systems 98% accurately, you would need a computer to process all the data, and like you point out, the error in the system makes that kind of accuracy rather a moot point.  (That’s assuming of course that it were possible to model that accurately in the first place; physicists can’t even model the 3 body system of particles let alone a real n-body system.)  Anyway, too much precision is really not much, should I say it… fun. Ehem.  Give me a spherical cow any day. (Sorry, physics joke!) 



Dethklok said:


> And if that were the case, then would it be unwarranted to say that this agreement probably came from their universally apprehending some _genuinely_ objective feature about life in this universe, even if they don't know what it is?



 Might be a bit strong, but yes, the implication would be that an underlying factor might exist such that an objective feature _could_ be pulled out…
Indeed, that would make for a fascinating study.



Dethklok said:


> Doesn't the ability to identify, admit the existence of, and explore good and bad points of rpgs show a developed attitude toward the hobby?



 I would think, and moreover I would go so far as to say that the inability to recognize when something could be improved is primitive.



Dethklok said:


> Basically, I believe that both subjective and objective elements go into forming preferences about food, games, and any form of pleasure.



 The middle position is often the correct (and therefore better?)  one.



Dethklok said:


> You seem to assume that, because some preferences are clearly subjective, all preferences must be subjective - up till this point, your rebuttals to my position have taken the form of "some preferences are subjective and personal, see?" But this isn't a challenge to my position. Can you show that _no_ preferences can rest on objective criteria?



 Hmmm… many people seem to fall prey to this fallacy – some therefore all.



Dethklok said:


> Note that doing so may require showing how there is nothing objectively better about broccoli as a food in comparison to, say, Radium as a food.



 Hehehehe….


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## JamesonCourage (May 26, 2013)

Elysia said:


> What an amusing view!  I guess that you must find science to be primitive then since it tends to rely heavily on statistical models to prove or disprove many of its theories.



Are you telling me that science can prove the objectivity of fun? If so, show me.


Elysia said:


> Just because one individual atom of carbon is different (and yes a few indeed are different)  doesn’t mean that there is no objective theory of carbon atoms.  You may notice through subjective experimentation, that burning one lump of coal yields remarkably similar results to burning another.  Could there be an underlying objective principle at work?



This has absolutely nothing to do with something that is purely *opinion*, such as what people find "fun" or "un-fun".  It's completely different from what you're talking about. As always, play what you like


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## jonesy (May 26, 2013)

Dethklok said:


> When is the last time somebody told wine tasters that they're all crazy when they talk about some wines being better than other wines, and then have the audacity to agree with each other about it? They may be snobs, but who seriously goes up to them and says the Bordeaux isn't any better than their $8 bottle of Ripple?



http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/11/02/the-subjectivity-of-wine/
http://www.slashfood.com/2011/04/15/blind-tasters-cant-tell-cheap-wines-from-expensive/
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...t-why-we-cant-tell-good-wine-from-bad/247240/


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 26, 2013)

I'd say those links were full of awesome, but that would be subjective.


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## MJS (Jun 13, 2013)

I like percentile systems 47% of the time.


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