Higher number better. Most things in life teach people that higher numbers are better (money, grades, what-have-you) so people subconsciously associate higher numbers with success.
You can take this itself back to much older, simpler things:
Welcome to our farming village, hunter. So long as you are willing to work hard we will take you in and you will have both meat and bread. Would you like one loaf of bread, or two?
Higher number better. Most things in life teach people that higher numbers are better (money, grades, what-have-you) so people subconsciously associate higher numbers with success.
Higher number better. Most things in life teach people that higher numbers are better (money, grades, what-have-you) so people subconsciously associate higher numbers with success.
I dunno, coming 10th in a contest between 20 people is as average as can be, while coming 1st means you're the champion.
Also, that second loaf of bread is poisoned, it was a test of greed, you see.
Right, the contest is eliminating losers, the breadaphor is eliminating bread.
When you think about combat you COULD think about it as eliminating bad outcomes if very autistic or only defending, but in practice you are thinking about doing something. Same with skills. You are actively doing something so bigger number better, simple as.
Big is best, because generally roll under systems still use "roll for damage" mechanics and stat systems where big is good. Its more elegant when you always want the same magnitudes
Example: >step one: player rolls hit location; there are more than two possible locations to hit, so it has more than two ranges, and a higher number targets a more ideal location >step two: target rolls how well they defend; there are more than two possible outcomes, so it has more than two ranges, and a higher number defends in a more ideal way >step three: if the chosen action has a secondary effect, roll from a table with ranges determining the effect's outcome
Instead of moronic pass/fails that cause dead turns.
Playing games with people who can understand more than one use for a dice, or heaven forbid and allah forgive me for typing this, but more than one system in the same game.
BLUE IS BEST LUCKY BLUE >where da purple boxes go?
Roll two six sided dice. You can chose which particular numbers succeed or fail. You can very well manipulate the odds through this method, without it becoming tedious. For example: if you want 1/4th of the rolls to succeed, have it pass only on a 7, 2 and 12. That leaves exactly 8 potential rolls out of 32. Want 50/50 odds? have it succeed on 6, 7 and 8. That's 16 potential rolls. If you want to have the rolls opposed, you can do that too: one player wants low number, one wants high number. They each roll a die, and you only have to designate thresholds of success.
All of the dice have their highest number replaced with a Star, except for one of tne of the dice, which is distinguishable from the rest, and has its highest number replaced with a Skull.
The dice are rolled together and summed, except for Stars & Skulls, which are set aside. You want for this sum to meet or exceed a target number; higher is always better.
You may cancel out a Skull with a Star; remove both before counting up your dice.
If you rolled a Skull, you failed (or barely/technically succeeded) with some sort of Complication, Count up all of the remaining Stars you rolled.
Count up any remaining Stars you rolled. You need to spend at least one Star in order to make a roll that otherwise scored high enough actually succeed, and you need to spend additional Stars to attain higher thresholds of success (e.g.: 1 Star causes your Melee Attack to Press, 2 Stars causes it to Connect, 3 Stars lets it actually deal a real Wound, 4 Stars lets it Kill)... alternatively: every Star adds Dice to the Damage Roll of a successful Attack.
...or, like, whatever; I'm just spitballing a system I'm working on.
Roll-under is faster arithmetic but that's neither positive nor negative. It could be worse in some cases, like where you want the players to prolong tension or be slightly distracted, as in horror games. But it's better if you want people to focus less on the dice and more on the game.
if your game offer autistic levels of personalization by letting you have percentile customization in each die roll, then use lower number is better.
In every other case big number is better, because big number makes your brain happy
the reason D20 works is because it's simple and intuitive to understand. >big number good, see big number happy
that's it.
alternative systems might have objectivelly better roll formats rulewise but that don't provide the same feedback even after you get used to it. >3D6 roll under >"okay so I rolled a 3, a 5 and a 1, the total is, let's see, a 9, the DC is 8 minus my dex bonus which is 2, so I succeed!"
>okay so I rolled a 3, a 5 and a 1, the total is, let's see, a 9, the DC is 8 minus my dex bonus which is 2, so I succeed!
If you stopped at the 3 dice addition i would even concur with you about potentially thinking off people but the adjustment applied to the roll instead at the TN makes plainly obvious your trolling attempt. 5/10, try again later.
The odds of success go up as your stat goes up in a more direct way. It allows the success to be determined by your stat + situational modifiers, not a target number
>D&D style: You have an athletics skill of 5 and a strength of 14, which means you have a total of +7 to the roll. The GM sets a target number and you try to roll over that target number.
>Roll Under Stat: You have an athletics skill of 5, which means you roll a d6 and if you roll 4 or less, you succeed at a standard athletics check.
Roll under stat or skill makes the numbers more player-digestible, and have done since the earlier days with things like chaosium BRP, which means it was an early example of players getting to see the numbers "legitimately", hence a legacy of being seen as more understandable to players.
Yes, it does. It's more about how players perceive it than how complex it really it, if you ask me. It's still easier to napkin math with roll under and modifiers than it is with roll over and difficulty numbers, and I think the positioning of roll under earlier in the history of RPG design helped give it that feeling.
Also historically, knowing the odds was one of the small mercies of call of cthulhu, and being "the place where the brutal system throws you a bone" makes it feel nicer than it is.
I've seen them used in combination (minimally mind you) in interesting ways. One was a wargame where the armor stat negatively affected a units ability to avoid charges from large beasts the higher it was, whereas against regular units higher was better. I liked that implementation. It made sense from both a logical and gameplay perspective.
I'm new to tabletop roleplaying. Why do roleplaying games not make use of dice whose values are divisible by four, all the way down to one, like computer bit numbers.
>divisible by four >all the way down to one >like computer bit numbers
Are you also new to mathematics?
You presumably mean "powers of 2", and it isn't done because there's no particular reason to do so, and the only common dice that fit it are the d4 (which is horrible) and the d8.
If you're not playing GOLF, higher number should always be better.
Also, don't play golf with dice.
Someone should make a dungeon golf game.
There's a tongue in cheek golf supplement for doomed adventurer dungeon crawler Trophy Gold.
Nah bro you need to run a Kamen Rider game and have one session out of the year be a golf session.
Higher number better. Most things in life teach people that higher numbers are better (money, grades, what-have-you) so people subconsciously associate higher numbers with success.
You can take this itself back to much older, simpler things:
Welcome to our farming village, hunter. So long as you are willing to work hard we will take you in and you will have both meat and bread. Would you like one loaf of bread, or two?
I dunno, coming 10th in a contest between 20 people is as average as can be, while coming 1st means you're the champion.
Also, that second loaf of bread is poisoned, it was a test of greed, you see.
Right, the contest is eliminating losers, the breadaphor is eliminating bread.
When you think about combat you COULD think about it as eliminating bad outcomes if very autistic or only defending, but in practice you are thinking about doing something. Same with skills. You are actively doing something so bigger number better, simple as.
Big is best, because generally roll under systems still use "roll for damage" mechanics and stat systems where big is good. Its more elegant when you always want the same magnitudes
The Black Jack ones: you have to roll as high as possible but within a threshold. Picrel, also Delta Green does that but only for opposed rolls.
Rolling one die per step and comparing the result within sets of ranges. Higher portions of the range produce better results.
Wut
Alternity & Earthdawn were Great games published by shit companies.
Example:
>step one: player rolls hit location; there are more than two possible locations to hit, so it has more than two ranges, and a higher number targets a more ideal location
>step two: target rolls how well they defend; there are more than two possible outcomes, so it has more than two ranges, and a higher number defends in a more ideal way
>step three: if the chosen action has a secondary effect, roll from a table with ranges determining the effect's outcome
Instead of moronic pass/fails that cause dead turns.
That sounds like it would slow things to a crawl
It's much faster than dealing with dead turns.
Having even the most basic information organizing skills makes a difference.
Depends on so many things that this question is meaningless.
Yahtzee
WHICH WUNZ DUZ YOUS LIKE DA BEST?
RED WUNZ OR UVVAH WUNZ?
theres a pidgin tickbox?
Playing games with people who can understand more than one use for a dice, or heaven forbid and allah forgive me for typing this, but more than one system in the same game.
BLUE IS BEST LUCKY BLUE
>where da purple boxes go?
Playing with people smart enough to have different uses for dice in different combinations and sizes, in the same game.
Mix of both. In FFGs 40k system you want to roll low for tests and high for damage.
This means it's harder to load your dice.
Roll two six sided dice. You can chose which particular numbers succeed or fail. You can very well manipulate the odds through this method, without it becoming tedious. For example: if you want 1/4th of the rolls to succeed, have it pass only on a 7, 2 and 12. That leaves exactly 8 potential rolls out of 32. Want 50/50 odds? have it succeed on 6, 7 and 8. That's 16 potential rolls. If you want to have the rolls opposed, you can do that too: one player wants low number, one wants high number. They each roll a die, and you only have to designate thresholds of success.
All of the dice have their highest number replaced with a Star, except for one of tne of the dice, which is distinguishable from the rest, and has its highest number replaced with a Skull.
The dice are rolled together and summed, except for Stars & Skulls, which are set aside. You want for this sum to meet or exceed a target number; higher is always better.
You may cancel out a Skull with a Star; remove both before counting up your dice.
If you rolled a Skull, you failed (or barely/technically succeeded) with some sort of Complication, Count up all of the remaining Stars you rolled.
Count up any remaining Stars you rolled. You need to spend at least one Star in order to make a roll that otherwise scored high enough actually succeed, and you need to spend additional Stars to attain higher thresholds of success (e.g.: 1 Star causes your Melee Attack to Press, 2 Stars causes it to Connect, 3 Stars lets it actually deal a real Wound, 4 Stars lets it Kill)... alternatively: every Star adds Dice to the Damage Roll of a successful Attack.
...or, like, whatever; I'm just spitballing a system I'm working on.
Roll-under is faster arithmetic but that's neither positive nor negative. It could be worse in some cases, like where you want the players to prolong tension or be slightly distracted, as in horror games. But it's better if you want people to focus less on the dice and more on the game.
I play dice here usually:
https://www.playok.com/en/dice/
ah shit OP you just reminded me of that flash game where you had stacks of dice and used them to conquer territory
Dice Wars was the shit and I still always play it whenever anyone posts it on /f/
It's literally the same fricking thing
if your game offer autistic levels of personalization by letting you have percentile customization in each die roll, then use lower number is better.
In every other case big number is better, because big number makes your brain happy
This is definitely not blatantly moronic. After all, no one wants to be number one, but everyone wants to be number 8,093,866,907.
the reason D20 works is because it's simple and intuitive to understand.
>big number good, see big number happy
that's it.
alternative systems might have objectivelly better roll formats rulewise but that don't provide the same feedback even after you get used to it.
>3D6 roll under
>"okay so I rolled a 3, a 5 and a 1, the total is, let's see, a 9, the DC is 8 minus my dex bonus which is 2, so I succeed!"
>okay so I rolled a 3, a 5 and a 1, the total is, let's see, a 9, the DC is 8 minus my dex bonus which is 2, so I succeed!
If you stopped at the 3 dice addition i would even concur with you about potentially thinking off people but the adjustment applied to the roll instead at the TN makes plainly obvious your trolling attempt. 5/10, try again later.
no, you're right, it wasn't my intention but I presented an unfair comparison.
Three dice. Six sides. Roll under. All you need.
What is the difference with roll under anyway
The odds of success go up as your stat goes up in a more direct way. It allows the success to be determined by your stat + situational modifiers, not a target number
>D&D style: You have an athletics skill of 5 and a strength of 14, which means you have a total of +7 to the roll. The GM sets a target number and you try to roll over that target number.
>Roll Under Stat: You have an athletics skill of 5, which means you roll a d6 and if you roll 4 or less, you succeed at a standard athletics check.
Roll under stat or skill makes the numbers more player-digestible, and have done since the earlier days with things like chaosium BRP, which means it was an early example of players getting to see the numbers "legitimately", hence a legacy of being seen as more understandable to players.
Wouldn't the effect basically amount to nothing when trying to do more complex/difficult tasks warranting modifiers?
Yes, it does. It's more about how players perceive it than how complex it really it, if you ask me. It's still easier to napkin math with roll under and modifiers than it is with roll over and difficulty numbers, and I think the positioning of roll under earlier in the history of RPG design helped give it that feeling.
Also historically, knowing the odds was one of the small mercies of call of cthulhu, and being "the place where the brutal system throws you a bone" makes it feel nicer than it is.
I've seen them used in combination (minimally mind you) in interesting ways. One was a wargame where the armor stat negatively affected a units ability to avoid charges from large beasts the higher it was, whereas against regular units higher was better. I liked that implementation. It made sense from both a logical and gameplay perspective.
Even numbers are successes.
I'm new to tabletop roleplaying. Why do roleplaying games not make use of dice whose values are divisible by four, all the way down to one, like computer bit numbers.
>divisible by four
>all the way down to one
>like computer bit numbers
Are you also new to mathematics?
You presumably mean "powers of 2", and it isn't done because there's no particular reason to do so, and the only common dice that fit it are the d4 (which is horrible) and the d8.