What do you think of Roll-under ?
Where a 1 is the best result ?
I can not stop thinking in therms of roll under systems in like they are so natural to me.
Roll-under systems
What do you think of Roll-under ?
Where a 1 is the best result ?
I can not stop thinking in therms of roll under systems in like they are so natural to me.
Roll under percentile is how I like to go. It's just very simple and obvious to see how it fits together, and what the odds are of a given action succeeding or failing.
What draws us to this way of thinking.
I can not even explain it. Why is it this way ? it is so logical to me.
Only why ?
>Roll under percentile
is it because you fit in the 37% of success and this makes sense ?
>percentile
My man I started thinking in Roll-under systems in all kinds of dice
D6
D12
I can not even start thinking in a roll over system at this point.
Because roll under means higher numbers are always better.
Not only that, but don't higher rolls still account for greater success so long as that number is still under the target score? That's at least how I always interpret it at the very least.
>Bob does History check with a History score of 70.
>Bob rolls a 60 and passes.
>Jane does History check with a History score of 40.
>Jane rolls a 20 and passes.
>Between the two, Bob knows more about the given subjec due to scoring higher on his roll, which was only achievable because he has an overall higher History score than Jane.
Why this would be relevant is up to the GM, but I always liked this sort of concept alongside doubles being crits, so higher skill scores meant more chances to land a crit.
>is it because you fit in the 37% of success and this makes sense
This exactly. If fits in with the already established idea of having a percentage chance of doing something rather than some arbitrary number determining success. It's just more intuitive amd easier to read rather than abstracting say a d20 roll over result into a statistic determining success.
If you roll just under that degree of success it conveys the satisfying feeling of just scraping by, and likewise with getting a critical 1-10 being tangibly in the top twn percentiles of how well you could have done said action.
Overall through making use of an extant and generally understood concept it's simpler to read, easier to relate to a 'real-world' chance of success/failure and manages to be more dynamic without sacrificing ease of use.
Roll under percentile is definitely the way to go, there's a reason why BRP uses it.
So you mean it is something like
>37% for success in opening this lock
>So roll 37 or under to succeed
?
Hmm.
I started thinking if I did not fall into a mental trap. In the back of my mind I keep thinking maybe there is a way to make it roll over. However All of them look strange or require additional calculations.
I now forced myself to think in this way and theoretically your 37% to open the lock is also a 63% to fail so roll 63 or over to open it.
The unspoken benefit of roll under is that it literally fricks with loaded dice.
I like roll under d100 systems like . It just makes sense.
>d100
I hope these are 2 separate D10s not a D100 ball.
I run things mostly online, so yes it is a d100 for the most part. In person it would be the two d10's though.
>so yes it is a d100
Digital or physical ?
Digital, which I assumed would have been conveyed by me saying that I run things mostly online.
>Digital
Ok I understand, I like rolling physical dice however.
> that I run things mostly online.
Duno you can have a camera to the dice.
I mean I could and I trust all my players if they wanted to roll physical dice and tell me what they got, but it's pretty easy to click the buttons on Foundry or roll20 so here we are.
Thanks for the info.
Most of the time people mean 2d10s when they say d100.
And I didn't.
Pretty good.
LEssens the cognitive load, and also gives a very clear framework of how you can succeed. The gamemaster can't suddenly increase the DC of the roll (even by reflex) since the value is already known.
>LEssens the cognitive load
Elaborate.
i started with
>Oh I make it a roll under since I subtract from the stat
And now I can not stop thinking everything is a roll under for me.
>Elaborate
It's easier than rolling your d20, accounting for all your modifiers, asking the gamemaster if you passed the DC, etc.
Just roll the d20, if it is under your value, it's done.
Because it's arbitrary.
>The gamemaster can't suddenly increase the DC of the roll (even by reflex) since the value is already known.
I mean, yes you can. I.E. with Delta Green, the PC might take a -20 modifier to that roll, essentially making their skill in it 20 less than what it is. However you gotta put that out there earlier.
>cognitive load
if you're not capable of intuitively understanding inequality operators, you probably shouldn't be playing tabletop games.
Wanting to have high numbers on attributes and low numbers on rolls feels less intuitive than having higher values as a player always being better.
>The gamemaster can't suddenly increase the DC of the roll (even by reflex) since the value is already known.
Anon already mentioned Delta Green. TDE is another roll-under system where you hardly ever check for you actual numbers, but use use modifiers for being harder or easier. CoC 7e divides your values if you need more than a simple success and can add bonus/penalty dice. So the GM can very well increase the difficulty of a check. But at this point any simplicity of roll-under is thrown out of the window.
This, I don't get what the frick people are talking about here. Feels arbitrarily contrarian to make smaller numbers good.
Wonder if an "all rolls are replaced by a hand of blackjack played againt the DM, the DM's cards are determined by the difficulty of the task"-system would be fun
yeah, sure, nothing like having to stop the game to play a completely different game every time an action needs to be resolved, really helps with the immersion and flows and to keep things fast and slim!
>Feels arbitrarily contrarian to make smaller numbers good.
The primary user of roll-under (and the second biggest RPG) today is Call of Cthulhu, which is based on the BRAP system and has been around since nearly the beginning in various forms. It's not contrarian, just old.
I'll show you an old BRAP system
>Wanting to have high numbers on attributes and low numbers on rolls feels less intuitive than having higher values as a player always being better.
Let me give you example of the S-D20 system.
How does it work ?
You make a character that is focused on shooting guns an accuracy stat of 15 is literally modern military 16 best of the best of the military
18 and 19 are literally reserved for perfect robots in fiction like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h09ydGGsh28.
20 is WTF !
22 is basically someone who puts absolutely wanked up anime characters to shame.
So how does it work ?
If your stat is 20 you can not miss a shot it is literally impossible for you to miss a shot. So a 22 stat character can not fail to shoot someone in like ever.
However your effectiveness is your stat - environment. You can have a 22 accuracy stat however that guy is hiding behind a wall so -6 to give you 22 - 6 = 16 effective targeting so roll D20 where 16 or under is considered a success,
Same for other conditions like smoke or night. You can not go bigger in targeting then your accuracy stat however your targeting is reduced by the environment. This seams so logical to me. What do you think ?
>The gamemaster can't suddenly increase the DC of the roll (even by reflex)
how is that a good thing?
>Californian daytime
>Another bot thread
>Where a 1 is the best result ?
That makes sense, the ones that don't make sense are those that are roll under but the best result is the highest roll under the target
Are you unfamiliar with the concept of blackjack?
>Are you unfamiliar with the concept of blackjack?
YES. I do not gamble.
In that anons defense, blackjack like most gambling games are set up in order to give the house the greatest advantage.
I’m familiar with the concept of genital warts, doesn’t mean I like it
It makes sense if you're comparing 2 rolls, the character with the higher stat should have more chance to win a roll-off
Roll over and roll under systems are literally the same. There's no deep mechanical or philosophical difference.
Only difference lies in that one resolution system may be more convenient than the other in a ruleset depending on how that ruleset determines difficulty thresholds and modifiers.
As a DSA Alrik I naturally prefer them
Roll under makes perfect sense. I have a skill where I succeed 70 times out of 100. I roll a 71 - it makes sense that I fail this, because it exceeds the number which represents my success rate.
If bigger number = better, roll under systems make more sense. Roll "higher than" means the best stat in something is 1.
Alternity did it, and it's my favorite RPG. So there's that.
bump
Most of Modiphius's system use it and they are great games
I envisioned a system where the higher your skill the lower the target number. This allows for two important elements:
1. The inherent knowledge based off of the roll whether you succeeded to accomplish a specific task regardless of external elements
2. Due to lacking bonuses you never roll over the max of the dice values so you can add dice to get closer to the max values which increase your "efficiency"
Using these two elements you roll the effect dice to determine how your action impacted the focus of the action which will have a resistance based off of numerous things such as armor, speed, skill, simply how difficult the desired goal was, or a flat reflection how how effective the action was (crafting may have no resistance but higher roles craft better things)
Most importantly I have never personally seen such a system inacted and wanted to create a unique dice system. Closest thing might be Cypher where your skill reduces the target number of the specific challenge but that isn't the same thing
>The inherent knowledge based off of the roll whether you succeeded to accomplish a specific task regardless of external elements
This seems more like a bug than like a feature. More often than not, I want players to be unclear whether they've actually gotten away with their actions.
You misinterpreted my meaning. It is only informative on the part of the player's action before accounting exterior forces or general effectiveness.
For example: trying to swing a sword.
With a successful roll you swing the sword and hit the place you intended. The more effectively you did so does create bonus that may add to the effect roll but the effect roll is where your target is taken into account. Thus a player can be successful in their initial roll but still fail the attempt depending on how efficiently they completed the action. This allows for nuances GM descriptions of the events based off whether the character failed simply or whether the obstacle was too difficult for how well they acted.
Another small example: climbing. A "successful" roll could mean the character reached for the correct handhold but a failed effect roll may mean the rock was too slippery
I was thinking more of actions like lying, stealing or performing emergency heart surgery where they only realize later that they fricked up.
Even better. My method sidesteps the whole "I rolled mediocre so I assume I failed" deal because success on the initial role is usually easier; typically just a barrier for low skill success. So the player can succeed but have no clue as to whether it was truly successful. They simply lied without stammering if they made the first role, the second takes into account the other person's doubts or general lack of trust. Also much like combat it can take multiple lies that supersede their resistance to make them believe the lie.
See:
Explain your system in detail.
Makes sense, stats and skills increase, so does the chance of success. You can tell how good your character is at something with a glance. I hate games where you have to do complicated calculations or look at multiple charts just to see if you can tie your shoes. It slows the game down to much.
Roll under where higher is better (as long as it is under the target) is superior.
Personally I really like the idea of roll-under systems in theory, but I've been less than impressed in practice. Does anyone have any system recommendations that I should check out? It's not that I think that roll under is any worse, I just always have a feeling that something more could be done with it.
I've played: GURPS, Hero, Eclipse Phase, Only War, and Rifts.
I really like it. Perfect for vets and newbies alike.
Honestly, I would rather run CoC or Warhammer instead of baby drivel like D&D 5 were I to run a game for ordinary humans.
>Roll under keks
>roll over gaygs
moron alert!
Roll close chads rise UP!
depends on framing. if you frame ability internally, roll under makes more sense, if you frame ability to exterior milestones, role over makes sense.
For example, if in your game you have a central objective, lets say you need to damage an armored knight and that challange is represented by a static number, roll over might make more sense, sine the quantity EVERYONE has to meet to achieve that goal will be the same. While in a role under, everyone has to hit a different metric as based on their own stats.
role over for general external milestones, role under for general internal milestones.
Itsa about what you want to be relitive too. if you wat a target number of 20 to represent something generally challanging by itself , like it would take a skilled practicioner in whatever feild to do thing x with a level of consistancy, OR is it a representitive of how challanging it is TO YOU. it might be a challange of 5 or under for a oproffessional, but it is 10 and under to unskilled you.
I like the concept well enough but I just can't find a system that really tickles my fancy. I don't care for GURPS, I find the granularity of d100 excessive, and as others have mentioned modifiers that change the target number kind of defeats the point of having a target number.
I love one-page RPGs that split actions between roll over and roll under like pic related, but no one else wants to play them for anything other than one-shots.
>and as others have mentioned modifiers that change the target number kind of defeats the point of having a target number.
How so ?
See S-D20 that system is made to model real life shooting where you know environmental conditions decrease your chance to hit someone.
Well, if you look at D&D basic, it is a both roll over AND roll under system, but in a way which makes sense:
Does the target number go up in value when "leveling up"? Roll under.
Does the target number go down in value when "leveling up"? Roll over.
Example: A stat/ability check or thief skill in BX is roll under because as a character gets stronger, those numbers increase.
A save against danger, or an attack roll against AC are roll over because as characters get stronger, and monsters become more dangerous, those numbers decrease. It's always like that in BX and if you think about it for a single moment you have no problems knowing what to roll and why.
Of course "thinking about it" is too hard for modern audiences which is why we have the d20 system today. Thanks, WotC.