Characteristic x N rolls are an abomination (?)

[Stephen L]

Many thanks to the estimable @PhilHibbs for a passing comment, the mulling over of which leads to the conclusion that Characteristic x N rolls are an *abomination*, though I will admit (grudgingly) that the case of N = 5 (and only 5) works. 

Imagine a weight lifting competition.  Our Hero, STR18, v’s our Geek STR3.

We use average weights, which can be lifted on a STRx5.

Our Hero lifts on 9 times in 10, our Geek 1 time in 7, so the Geek will succeed at the same time as the Hero fails 1 time in 70.

Now, lets go to really heavy weights, so the referee says it’s a STRx3 roll to lift.

Our Hero lifts now 1 time in 2, our Geek 1 time in 10, so the Geek will succeed at the same time as the Hero fails 1 time in 20.

You see what is happening, as we go to lower multiples of the Characteristic, the higher characteristic gets less and less of an advantage (because it’s multiplied by less).  A STR 18 goes from 90% to 54% for x5 to x3, whilst the STR 3 goes from 15% to 9% (which isn’t that big a change).

It only *ever* makes sense to multiply characteristics by 5, as we are converting them from a (nominal) scale of 1-20 to a percentile scale 1-100.

If it is easier or more difficult, it should be % added or subtracted from the x5 score.

Or, if you like the resistance table (which I do), then you could compare your characteristic against a value given by the relative difficulty of the task.  A passive value of 10 on the resistance table gives exactly the same probabilities as the Characteristic x 5 %, so I’d suggest passive values of 5, 10, 15, 20 for difficulty levels of easy, average, hard, heroic.

Returning to our lifting competition, lifting the heavy weights, using a passive value of 15, our Hero Lifts 2 times in 3, and our Geek, well, they’re too heavy for him.

Be warned.  In the middle ages they burned people for crimes less offensive than this!

(It is possible that @PhilHibbs holds less extreme and more reasonable views than this)

[Runeblogger]

The same happens when the rules say "the skill is halved", as that is more negative for high-skilled characters. What I do is to apply a -50% instead.

Perhaps you could apply a malus like -20% to the Characteristic x 5 instead of using an inferior multiplier.

[Bill the barbarian]

14 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

The same happens when the rules say "the skill is halved", as that is more negative for high-skilled characters. What I do is to apply a -50% instead.

 

Really, had not given this thought and using as it is RAW in many instances at our table as it is simple which is why I embraced it. So you are saying, bad barbarian RB? Hmm, - 50 is as easy to remember as is + 50 in lieu of a doubling (oft found in RQ G).

Edited January 18, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[ffilz]

Working with probabilities is always weird.

On the one hand, STRx1 or STRx5, the STR 18 character always has 6 times the chance of success as the STR 3 character, well actually at x1 the STR 3 character gets an advantage due to the 5% minimum chance of success. This seems fine and logical to me.

On the other hand, at STRx1 the STR 18 character only has a 15% better chance of success compared to a 75% better chance of success for STRx5 and that seems illogical to some.

If we look at expected value over a large number of rolls, adjusting difficulty by multiplying the chance of success by some constant modifier actually seems more fair than adding or subtracting to the chance of success. Over the course of 100 rolls, expected value of STRx1 would be 5 successes for the STR 3 character (assuming you still grant an automatic 5% chance of success) and 18 for the STR 18 character. If we instead subtracted, so 45% (taking the modifier based on the average 11.5 attributes), then the STR 3 character would have a 5% chance of success for an expected value of 5 successes over 100 tries while the STR 18 character would have 45 successes, now he gets 9 times as many successes for only 6 times the STR.

[Stephen L]

4 minutes ago, ffilz said:

On the one hand, STRx1 or STRx5, the STR 18 character always has 6 times the chance of success as the STR 3 character, well actually at x1 the STR 3 character gets an advantage due to the 5% minimum chance of success. This seems fine and logical to me.

Its often easier to get a feel of things in statistics to think of the chance of failing. 

STR 18 has 10% chance of failing for x5 and 46% chance of failing for x3

STR 3 has a 85% chance of failing for x5 and 91% chance of failing for x3

10 minutes ago, ffilz said:

adjusting difficulty by multiplying the chance of success by some constant modifier

Nope. Not for me.  Some weights are possible for a strong person to lift and impossible for a weak person.  That can't be achieved with multipliers.

The whole point of a value that's taken off, is that it represents a difficult task making the effective skill lower.  A penalty of -25% turns an expert (75%) to a skilled practitioner (50%) and a skilled practitioner (50%) to a novice (25%), and is just too difficult for a novice.  It feels that something similar should happen when rolling against a characteristic.

[Stephen L]

31 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

So you are saying, bad barbarian

Not, not bad barbarian.  Not at all.

I just have to burn you because I disagree with you, not because you're bad.  It's nothing personal.

I believe that's how it worked historically.

[Stephen L]

48 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

Perhaps you could apply a malus like -20% to the Characteristic x 5 instead of using an inferior multiplier.

Indeed, that is identical (mathematically) to a rolling against a passive 14.

So whichever you prefer.

You're safe from the flames.

[Bill the barbarian]

13 minutes ago, Stephen L said:

Not, not bad barbarian.  Not at all.

 

you misunderstand the “bad barbarian" part..(a misunderstanding on the net... when silly/bad barbarian humour in involved, pshaw)... 

no I am referring to my not seeing the forest for the trees, it looks like you have come across something and I am certainly not accusing you of calling me a bad barbarian That task I have well in hand good sir. No, bad for failing to see what looks to be a big problem because I wished to see an easy solution (foiled again).  I am not a mathhead but I am lover of logic and and thus one and one, being two. Love the logic, can do the math if teeth are being pulled but no, I was wondering what the other mathheads say to your conclusion. 

 

ETA and a double check to see art you what you were referring to and it seems that my query and comment about bad barbarian was to @Runeblogger.

Gads and Zounds 

Edited January 18, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[ffilz]

4 hours ago, Stephen L said:

Its often easier to get a feel of things in statistics to think of the chance of failing. 

STR 18 has 10% chance of failing for x5 and 46% chance of failing for x3

STR 3 has a 85% chance of failing for x5 and 91% chance of failing for x3

Nope. Not for me.  Some weights are possible for a strong person to lift and impossible for a weak person.  That can't be achieved with multipliers.

The whole point of a value that's taken off, is that it represents a difficult task making the effective skill lower.  A penalty of -25% turns an expert (75%) to a skilled practitioner (50%) and a skilled practitioner (50%) to a novice (25%), and is just too difficult for a novice.  It feels that something similar should happen when rolling against a characteristic.

True, sometimes you care about the chance of failing, and that's the tricky thing about probabilities and multipliers. If you want a STR 3 to fail 6 times as often as a STR 18, then you need to do different probability math. So you can either have a multiplier of the chance to succeed or the chance to fail, but not both.

A an additive/subtractive modifier has it's own quirks. A -20% on STR x 5 means STR 18 goes from a 10% chance of failure to 30% or 3 times, while a STR 6 goes from 70% to 90% or less than 1/3 more, for STR 3 it either becomes impossible (-5% chance of success) or goes from 85% to 95%, less than 1/6 more.

No matter what modifier mechanism you use, and what probability curve you use, base probabilities at different points on the curve will change differently with different modifiers, and how the change feels to an individual will depend on how aware they are of the success vs fail rates and which they care more about.

As to lifting weights, that probably shouldn't be a success/fail chance anyway. If you feel it should be random, the randomness should be a random modifier to the expected max weight the character can lift, either negative only (i.e. this character absolutely can only lift 90 pounds, but sometimes can't even lift that, or this character usually can only lift 100 pounds, but there's a 1% chance they could lift 120 pounds or something like that. That all depends on what your model for STR and lifting is.

I personally like the attribute multipliers, and I like the occasional skill multiplier even though usually skills are adjusted by a fixed percentage.

Then there's the resistance table that gives a STR 1 a 45% chance of matching a STR 2 while a STR 6 has only a 20% chance of matching a  STR 12, so the doubling of STR really doesn't feel like it has meaning. Of course originally the resistance table was only used for POW vs POW which doesn't map to anything concrete like how many pounds can you lift. The resistance table would make more sense if the STR scale was logarithmic where a delta of 1 point of STR always means the same multiplier of raw strength.

In the end, I ask myself does the mechanic create enjoyable play. And actually, no matter how you do the probabilities, it creates some kind of enjoyable play, but the meaning of the numbers on a character sheet changes with the probability methods used. I'm down with that. I also know that for myself I actually quickly get a sense for how the probabilities actually work and what the chance of success or failure will feel like.

[Stephen L]

2 hours ago, ffilz said:

I personally like the attribute multipliers, and I like the occasional skill multiplier

I'm afraid I'll have to disagree.

Consider the case you have, for easy maths a skill/Charx5 of a Master 100% and an Idiot at 10%.

Now you make it hard by applying a penalty multiplier of 3/5 (i.e. Charx3)

The Master has gone to 60% and the Idiot  has gone to 6%.

Now you roll many many times and check how your penalty has made things more difficult

For the master the application of the penalty has changed the result 40% of the time when she fails, when previously she would have succeeded.

For the Idiot the penalty has changed the result just 4% of the time, when he fails, when previously he would have succeeded.

Why should making things harder have so much effect on the Master, and so little on the Idiot ?

A (subtracted) penalty of 20%, means that, 20% of cases when you would have succeeded, you now fail.  That makes sense to me.

I cannot think of a bonus/penalty I would want that targets the better skilled/stronger, i.e. a multiplier.

3 hours ago, ffilz said:

In the end, I ask myself does the mechanic create enjoyable play.

I agree with this.  But I don't think that's enough to save you from the flames.

[PhilHibbs]

5 hours ago, Stephen L said:

Why should making things harder have so much effect on the Master, and so little on the Idiot ?

I guess this could be classed as a realism-vs-drama debate. I have argued on the side of realism, and call me contrarian if you will but that is not the only legitimate side. You could argue that dividing is better from a drama point of view, as the underdog still has a chance. Emotionally, we don't distinguish between a thousand-to-one chance and a million-to-one chance, if the game models those both as 01% then we don't care. Multiplying and dividing skills is a similar thing - yes it is objectively wrong, but it is not emotionally or intuitively wrong.

Edited January 19, 2021 by PhilHibbs

[Akhôrahil]

One of the oddball things about RQ -  which comes from being such an old design - is the proliferation of resolution mechanics. Most modern game have one or two, either a standardized system (like HQ) or (maybe the most common) one against static difficulty and one against active opposition. Meanwhile, RQ has (depending on exactly how you count):

1. Skill (or passion/rune/reputation, but this is basically the same thing) vs. static difficulty. Can involve subtraction from (or sometimes addition too) skill (due to difficulty), or division (or sometimes, multiplication) of skill due to difficulty 
2. Skill vs. opposition (combat)(possibly involving both subtraction and division) - you need a success while the opponent fails
3. Skill vs. opposition (dodge, non-combat and Spirit Combat) - you need a better success than the opponent (or in some cases, an equal success)
4. Characteristic x5% vs. static difficulty (sometimes involving other multipliers due to difficulty)
5. Characteristic vs difficulty on Resistance table

No-one would build a system like this today, unless to retain such a legacy design. Even D&D 3.5 uses a simple two-part [Roll + Characteristic, Skill or Attack] versus [static difficulty or opposition Roll + Modifier].  

Part of GM:ing is deciding - perhaps implicitly - which mechanics you prefer.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[albesias]

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer this kind of 'old fashioned' approaching when gm. Every different roll and mechanic is offering me valuable info for enhancing descriptions and resolutions.

[NickMiddleton]

29 minutes ago, albesias said:

Maybe it's just me, but I prefer this kind of 'old fashioned' approaching when gm. Every different roll and mechanic is offering me valuable info for enhancing descriptions and resolutions.

I have long maintained that a flaw in "modern" (post circa-1990) game design is this weird obsession with fitting all resolution on to a single schema or mechanism at any cost... it presupposes that every question one might ask the rules of an RPG to answer impartially for us in play should have the same texture and feel in the answer. So whether a character can out fight a demon, seduce the Comte de Lacy, build a better mousetrap or win a land war in Asia should (nay, must according to some rhetoric) be treated as mechanically interchangeable...

... absolutely one wouldn't want to return to the insanity of stuff like FGU's Space Opera (every topic has a new sub-system, variant or even entirely new resolution mechanic)... but I still maintain there is merit in treating different activities differently.

We play tabletop RPGs sat round a table (most often virtual these days): playing out a diplomatic conference (where various people have conversations) requires a modest amount of imagination and maybe a few accents, but the reality of the players and the fiction of the game are pretty congruent;  playing out a daring heist by airship to retrieve the invasion plans from the ambassadors suite is far less congruent to us sat round our table (virtual or otherwise) and thus has different requirements. And whilst some groups may be entirely happy with resolving the two situations with the same mechanics and levels of abstraction or detail, in my experience most groups prefer to vary the level of abstraction and the mechanical reinforcement / support depending on the specifics.

One of the things I like about BRP is that we have a palette of resolution techniques (skills, stat rolls, resistance table etc) to draw on to lend different emphases to different aspects of an event we are playing out. Exciting, hi energy stuff like combat etc tends to get handled with detailed skills rolls, possibly with combat / action sequence timings and the tracking of specific resource quantities like power points and hit points etc... High tension, dramatic but less timing sensitive stuff like seducing the off duty guard to reveal which cell the prisoner is in don't need that level of minutia, but still specific skills and talent it feels right to emphasise... sudden dramatic moments of punctuation (can a PC bend the bars to unblock the sewer entrance and allow the escape?) are nicely emphasised by a simple Strength Check, or a resistance table check...

BRP reduces every question, ultimately, to a percentage test: a target number, and one outcome for rolling lower and another for rolling above... But part of the art and creativity (and fun) of playing an RPG (rather than simply collectively making up a narrative) is the different ways we arrive at that target; the differences in emphasis and nuance they afford.

[Stephen L]

3 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I have argued on the side of realism, and call me contrarian if you will but that is not the only legitimate side

Careful.  Those we regard as traitors to the cause get an especially hot fire…

But yes, if you want the result of a roll to be more random, and less based on skill/characteristic, I can see there can be a dramatic reason for going for a multiplier modifier rather than an addition/subtraction. 

So, I *would* agree (as long as you know that you are doing it in order to level the field a bit).

However, in order to avoid the flames myself, I am *compelled* to counter argue…

Aren’t we just levelling the playing field by a sneaky rule, hoping people don’t notice that what’s we doing?  Wouldn’t it be more honest to say: your character with 100% is really annoyingly awesome, so I’m giving them a special -20% penalty, but poor old Bloggs here only has 40%, so I’m not applying the penalty to him.  And we’re doing it because no-one like a smart arse.

(However, I will admit in *secret* that I agree you’re right, as long as you don’t snitch on me)

[Stephen L]

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

• Skill (or passion/rune/reputation, but this is basically the same thing) vs. static difficulty. Can involve subtraction from (or sometimes addition too) skill (due to difficulty), or division (or sometimes, multiplication) of skill due to difficulty 
• Skill vs. opposition (combat)(possibly involving both subtraction and division) - you need a success while the opponent fails
• Skill vs. opposition (dodge, non-combat and Spirit Combat) - you need a better success than the opponent (or in some cases, an equal success)
• Characteristic x5% vs. static difficulty (sometimes involving other multipliers due to difficulty)
• Characteristic vs difficulty on Resistance table

Agreed, there are a number of resolution systems.

Perhaps the real root of the issue is that you have characteristics measured on a 1-20 scale, where as your resolution system is percentile based.

I’ve always thought that slightly untidy, but not enough to care.  Especially as you can move from one to another using a x5.

(and in the main thread, I’m just arguing that you should *only* use a x5 to convert between the two.  Beyond exceptional circumstances, which I can only agree with in secrecy).

It would be tidier, I suppose, if you could use the resistance table to resolve using opposing skills.  It would only need headers with percentile (x5) values with the 1-20 values.  (I’d group the percentile values in 5s as that’s close enough).

Then you could collapse the resolution systems (or you could ditch the resistance table, and have opposed char x5 rolls).

However, I quite like the current rules for resolving opposing skills, so I would only suggest using a resistance table for cases where you don’t want a situation-hasn’t-been-resolved-yet result, (i.e. when both parties achieve the same level of success).

Ultimately, I suppose, I’m happy that we’ve a number of resolution systems.  They are all based on very similar core concepts, and just reflect do we want to resolve this in one roll, a few rolls, or (potentially) many rolls.

[Akhôrahil]

19 minutes ago, Stephen L said:

Perhaps the real root of the issue is that you have characteristics measured on a 1-20 scale, where as your resolution system is percentile based.

This is a big part of it. For unclear reasons, the BRP games in Sweden mostly moved to a 1-20 skill system (like in Pendragon), and that simplifies matters as now the scale is the same. It does have the downside that you have to do a "roll to confirm" for crits, specials, and fumbles as 1-20 isn't granular enough otherwise.

The latest version of Call of Cthulhu took it in the other direction, and made characteristics into a 1-100 range.

A recent streamlined BRP variant (Expert Nova) by Swedish RQ edition lead Anders Blixt had a very pretty and simple rolling system: abilities of 1-20, apply penalty if needed, roll equal or under, level of success depends on the delta (modified ability - roll). If opposed and both succeed, highest delta wins. And Pendragon's "roll under, but highest" is just awesome, of course.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[ffilz]

4 hours ago, Stephen L said:

Agreed, there are a number of resolution systems.

Perhaps the real root of the issue is that you have characteristics measured on a 1-20 scale, where as your resolution system is percentile based.

I’ve always thought that slightly untidy, but not enough to care.  Especially as you can move from one to another using a x5.

(and in the main thread, I’m just arguing that you should *only* use a x5 to convert between the two.  Beyond exceptional circumstances, which I can only agree with in secrecy).

How do you feel about crits and fumbles? They are probability multipliers. Should we change it so a crit is scored if you roll, I dunno, Skill-50 or lower? So someone with a skill 100 crits half the time, and someone with a skill 50 or below never crits, or always crits 5% of the time? And then how do we feel that at skill 95 + crit-modifier or better a character will always crit? With crits being 0.05 x skill, it takes a 1900% skill to reach a 95% chance to crit (see Ring World for one way to handle very high skill levels like this, see Hero Quest for another way with it's mastery levels system).

My point is that multipliers and additive/subtractive modifiers do different things to the probability curve, and sometimes one makes sense to use and sometimes the other makes sense to use, but multiplicitive modifiers aren't invalid. And depending on where you are on the probability scale, each method can create modified probabilities that don't make sense.

Different people see probabilities differently. I see your point, and sometimes your point actually makes sense to me. Other times, a multiplier makes more sense to me than an additive modifier. And that's fine, if we all agreed on how probabilities and such should work, there would be only one RPG. Heck, I could argue that the system I played in college that used the standard normal distribution ("true bell curve") for resolution is the only one that makes sense. But guess what, in that system, sometimes things don't make sense either... And it ONLY works with additive modifiers. I'm pretty sure there are games that use logarithmic scales in such a way that an additive modifier is actually a multiplier.

Actually that normal distribution system I played in college is one way to actually handle skill ratings on an open ended scale as long as you can live with there always being a chance that a very inferior skill can succeed and a very superior skill could fail. Within the realm of that resolution system, we also understand that the ratings place you somewhere on the curve (with a 0 rating effectively being in the center of the curve) so a 2 rating is not TWICE a 1 rating. The relationship between a 1 and a 2 rating is exactly the same as the relationship between a 100 and a 101 rating. The system makes opposed rolls very simple, in fact, the scaling of the system could use it as a perfect drop in replacement for the resistance table, for ratings within a few points of each other, the probability is pretty close with increments of 4-6% (due to the bell shaped curve.

Edited January 19, 2021 by ffilz

[Stephen L]

58 minutes ago, ffilz said:

How do you feel about crits and fumbles?

Yes, I like Crits and Fumbles (except when they hurt).

58 minutes ago, ffilz said:

They are probability multipliers

Yes, so resolving them as probability multipliers is exactly the way to go.

58 minutes ago, ffilz said:

My point is that multipliers and additive/subtractive modifiers do different things to the probability curve

Yes.  That was my point.  Don't use multipliers instead of additive/subtractive modifiers, because they do different things.

58 minutes ago, ffilz said:

Different people see probabilities differently.

I very much agree.  Unfortunately, maths is maths, and different view points indicates someone is wrong (or indeed everyone, not uncommon in statistics).

58 minutes ago, ffilz said:

a multiplier makes more sense to me than an additive modifier

A multiplier makes sense if you want to level the playing field, and affect big skills more than little skills.  However, I was just pointing out that that's a bit arbitrary.  And unless you want to weight the penalty (or indeed bonus) to affect higher skills more than lower, don't use them.

We warned, I'll stoke the fires really hot for anyone who thinks that 3D6 is anything but a very rough approximation to a normal distribution!

Edited January 19, 2021 by Stephen L
Couldn't resist showing off.

[ffilz]

27 minutes ago, Stephen L said:

Yes.  That was my point.  Don't use multipliers instead of additive/subtractive modifiers, because they do different things.

I very much agree.  Unfortunately, maths is maths, and different view points indicates someone is wrong (or indeed everyone, not uncommon in statistics).

A multiplier makes sense if you want to level the playing field, and affect big skills more than little skills.  However, I was just pointing out that that's a bit arbitrary.  And unless you want to weight the penalty (or indeed bonus) to affect higher skills more than lower, don't use them.

We warned, I'll stoke the fires really hot for anyone who thinks that 3D6 is anything but a very rough approximation to a normal distribution!

People can be wrong about what a given probability actually is, but people can't be wrong about their preference for how a particular way of determining what the probability of success is. Someone isn't wrong for liking changing the multiplier for harder (or easier) tasks. I understand probabilities pretty good and I love it. I also like additive modifiers just fine too. And yes, additive vs multiplicative do different things. Different parts of the game system are doing different things.

Maybe it should be noted that I have been playing RQ since 1978 and actually still prefer the original rules. The original rules actually had almost no probability modifiers for skills except Defense for combat, and 1/2 skill for long range of bows. I think Apple Lane added +/- 20% for height advantage. RQ2 added a few more modifiers.

And yea, most games bell curves are poor approximations of the normal distribution bell curve. That's why I love that college system (that was developed somewhere around 1980) that actually uses the normal distribution for resolution. An Excel formula that produces almost exactly the table we used in college (2 numbers on the table are different) is =NORMDIST(-$ADJ,0,$STDEV,TRUE) where $ADJ is the adjustment modifier you are solving for, said modifier to be added to the skill rating to compare against the target number and $STDEV is the number of adjustment points in one standard deviation (the game uses 20/3 or 6.6666... for this, so a +7 adjustment modifier is just slightly past the first standard deviation. It's that simple, though my friend when he was developing the game didn't have a handy NORMDIST function... Well, maybe he had access to a Fortan library that contained such a function, but he couldn't just drop a formula into repeated cells in a spreadsheet. And that's way more explanation that you were looking for 🙂 , if you even cared about an explanation...

[ffilz]

Oh, and one more thought... Maths are really cool. But sometimes holding too tight to elegant maths results in something that isn't as fun or flavorful.

An acquaintance of mine, one John T. Sapienza (you might recognize the name) once published a mathematically elegant table of weapons for RQ. When it came out, I loved it. And then I returned to the RQ1 weapons table because the Sapienza weapon table turned out to reduce flavor rather than increasing it. In fact, when I did my big page by page comparison of RQ1 and RQ2, I realized yet another place I don't like the changes of RQ2, the RQ2 weapon table is less flavorful to me even if it might be more elegant or more realistic or whatever label you want to apply.

[Joerg]

6 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

 For unclear reasons, the BRP games in Sweden mostly moved to a 1-20 skill system (like in Pendragon), and that simplifies matters as now the scale is the same. It does have the downside that you have to do a "roll to confirm" for crits, specials, and fumbles as 1-20 isn't granular enough otherwise.

I own the original version of Drakar och Demoner, and the switch to a D20 was quite logical as DoD used a percentile system allowing only increments of 5. (But then so did RQ2.) It doesn't take a super mathematician to reduce the number of dice rolled to one, except for determining crits and specials. Rerolling 1s for crits and 2-4 for specials does increase your chance at a special slightly if a failed crit is treated as a special, but not that much, and re-rolling the 20 for fumbles (in that case on failures) gives you the exact same chances as the percentile system. It is simple and elegant.

Some of the other rules changes bothered me more.

The Pendragon principle of highest roll under your skill made opposed rolls easy to resolve even on the same result quality, and rolling your skiill gave you a crit, but that doesn't support specials, and we love our slashes, crushes and impales.

 

[Akhôrahil]

48 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I own the original version of Drakar och Demoner

The 1982 blue box? That's worth quite a bit by now, over €300.

48 minutes ago, Joerg said:

 Rerolling 1s for crits and 2-4 for specials does increase your chance at a special slightly if a failed crit is treated as a special

The system with a D20 had Special confirmation on 2-5 (which increases the chance), and not special on failed crit confirm. One fun feature it had was that some weapons had increased Fumble range, so that you needed to confirm for Fumble on 18-20 if you used a flail.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, ffilz said:

People can be wrong about what a given probability actually is, but people can't be wrong about their preference for how a particular way of determining what the probability of success is. Someone isn't wrong for liking changing the multiplier for harder (or easier) tasks. I understand probabilities pretty good and I love it. I also like additive modifiers just fine too. And yes, additive vs multiplicative do different things. Different parts of the game system are doing different things.

Completely agree here.

[Stephen L]

1 hour ago, ffilz said:

Maybe it should be noted that I have been playing RQ since 1978 and actually still prefer the original rules.

Indeed, and I recall your award!

2 hours ago, ffilz said:

but people can't be wrong about their preference for how a particular way of determining what the probability of success is

Agreed there.  And the corollary of this is that you can't object if I claim to find it abhorrent (which I can get away with because my admission that it might have it use putting super skilled munchkins in their place was made in secret).

Joking aside, you are quite right.  Why on earth would you have the insane scoring system of tennis, which makes some points more important than others?  Surely that's completely unfair for scoring a competitive sport (with quite a lot of money at stake)!  Yet that is what makes it the sport it is.   

And, for me, the tables for skill bonus based on characteristics are the same.  Insane, but the fun for having some increments being more important than others).