RQ vs D&D

[Bill the barbarian]

Just now, Qizilbashwoman said:

How dare you insult the d12, a hardworking die that isn't responsible for the fact that nobody seems to love her

 

How dare you dare me to dare you to .... h... where were we?

[Sean_RDP]

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

How dare you insult the d12, a hardworking die that isn't responsible for the fact that nobody seems to love her

(seriously, though, a d12-based game would be excellent?)

The One Ring rpg uses a D12 (and D6). One of my (many) projects, Skull & Sorcery, uses only D12s. The number spread is better than you think. 

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, Sean_RDP said:

The One Ring rpg uses a D12 (and D6). One of my (many) projects, Skull & Sorcery, uses only D12s. The number spread is better than you think. 

the one ring does indeed, and I love it. it is both well-done mechanically and beautiful.

sadly i do not want to play middle earth games and hope it will be used for, like, dino-pirates of skull island or something

[Lordabdul]

FWIW, when I play GURPS or other D6-based games, I use a bunch of "Double Sixes", which are D6s where each number is repeated twice, so as a result they're the shape of D12s, effectively.

(if you're wondering "why?", besides "because I can", there's also the fact that they roll more satisfyingly than a bunch of cubes)

Edited September 24, 2019 by lordabdul

[Qizilbashwoman]

Just now, lordabdul said:

FWIW, when I play GURPS or other D6-based games, I use a bunch of "Double Sixes", which are D6s where each number is repeated twice, so as a result they're the shape of D12s, effectively.

(if you're wondering "why?", besides "because I can", there's also the fact that they roll more satisfyingly a bunch of cubes)

d6 roll like crap, i applaud your decision

[GamingGlen]

I like D12s, they roll better.

I have several 12-sided dice with numbers 1-4 three times, in essence a D4.  I roll them now instead of those caltrops known as D4s 

A young and new DM is trying different things* but still sticking with 5e for mechanics, he did change the D20 initiative roll to a D12 roll.  I like that as it lessens the more chaotic nature of the D20 and lets DEX have a bigger impact. 

 

* his world building ideas have concepts similar to Glorantha so I introduced him to that setting by selling him (I'm a store owner) a Heroquest Glorantha book at a big discount as we had plenty and they weren't moving.. so far he hasn't taken that bait, yet. 😈

 

[boradicus]

7 hours ago, styopa said:

IMO you said it yourself many times: your design aesthetic was 90% RQ2, I think that's close to what RQG is.  If I had to make a quick metaphor: 5e is a 2018 Ford Edge SUV: safe, conservative, with modern safety gear, will get you from A to B without fuss but also pretty boring; pedestrian.  RQG is a retuned, detailed 1967 Impala.  Everyone will certainly see/hear you coming down the street, heads will turn.  It won't be for everyone, but it's not trying to be.

A '67 Impala?  RQ isn't *that* old!  How about a classic late 70s sophisticated sports car?  The system is a classic, but it is also both streamlined and sophisticated.

[Austin]

1 hour ago, GamingGlen said:

I have several 12-sided dice with numbers 1-4 three times, in essence a D4.  I roll them now instead of those caltrops known as D4s

But that ruins half the fun of shouting "Magic Missile!" before chucking one across the room at the DM!

 

[Bill the barbarian]

and i say death to all d12s and other such dice. bwahahaha!

[PhilHibbs]

Alex Ferguson (no, not that Alex Ferguson, THAT Alex Ferguson) came up with an alternative Hero Wars / HeroQuest mechanic using D12 instead of D20. It avoided the mathematical niggle that in some circumstances increasing your skill by 1 decreased your chance of success.

[David Scott]

32 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Alex Ferguson

@Alex

 

[Jeff]

13 hours ago, styopa said:

Yes, RQ combats with multiple combatants are long affairs, as I specifically mentioned.  Throw 12-14 trollkin at a party of 6 and get that combat done in less than a half hour?  As we commonly have an adventuring group of 5-6 and our adventures are combat heavy, encounters can be long affairs PARTICULARLY when you throw complicated or dynamic terrain, and a few spell casters in there.

Yes, I entirely agree that 5e is a "cleaned up" version of AD&D, + 2e, + 3e (and none of the regrettable 4e).  Which is precisely why it's popular.  It gives its consumers precisely what they want: a tighter, cleaner system for playing D&D.  I certainly didn't (and wouldn't) use the term 'cutting edge' for 5e mechanics.   

What I will commend 5e for is their simplification of kludgy inconsistencies in previous editions; boiling down status effects to very simple sets of conditions and impacts on characters.  Advantage/Disadvantage is a brilliant concept (I don't know if they came up with it first, or just ripped it off someone else's game) that radically speeds up the game at only a minor cost of verisimilitude.  They removed the (essential) requirement of a tabletop grid for play, but certainly provided solid mechanics to use it if one wishes.  Simplification/codification of magic systems and mechanics (regrettably, still Vancian, but still...).

Despite this, I'm not here to 'defend' D&D.   After all my game of choice is still basically RQ.

What defines a modern game?  For me (and this is obviously subjective) it's more about specific features: I'd call opposed rolls a 'modern' resolution mechanism (robust, scalable, intuitive) while the resistance table is not (intuitive only within strict bounds, non scaling, non robust).  Easily remembered algorithms are 'modern'.  Tables and charts are not.  I'd call any game with (basically) 3-18 stats old-fashioned (ie both D&D and RQ), while CoC7e made a 'modern'  move to dispense with that canard.  I think Passions are very "modern" as they mechanically support roleplaying in a way older games rarely did.  Just a testament to how far ahead Greg was in his game concepts. 

If you need an example, I'd probably call FATE games like Diaspora "more essentially modern", where the game result is more a synthesis between the players and GM than the classic tabletop-rpg narrative-with-choices.  Not my bag, personally, but with the right group I could see it being fascinating.

IMO you said it yourself many times: your design aesthetic was 90% RQ2, I think that's close to what RQG is.  If I had to make a quick metaphor: 5e is a 2018 Ford Edge SUV: safe, conservative, with modern safety gear, will get you from A to B without fuss but also pretty boring; pedestrian.  RQG is a retuned, detailed 1967 Impala.  Everyone will certainly see/hear you coming down the street, heads will turn.  It won't be for everyone, but it's not trying to be.

And btw d12s are delightful.  Maybe I'm just some sort of dodecahedral atavism.  Platonic solids FTW.  But yeah, I'd consider that modern systems probably are more decimal.  (Still waiting for someone to come up with a reason for d12-ile rolls.  Or d20-ile.)

That doesn't sound like a modern v. old-fashioned to me, but just an aesthetic preference. Like Greg, I like tables and charts. I don't like dice mechanics where "I" find it difficult to intuitively understand my likelihood of success. Other people disagree.

I don't find FATE games particularly modern - just with a different set of assumptions from BRP games or D&D games. . 

As for RQG - whether it is "modern" seems to come down to a handful of elements: the resistance table, pushing results or Luck points, and MRQ2.

The resistance table - which might as well be called the Magic Resistance Table given that almost all of its uses are for magic resistance - is there because it makes the likelihood of success immediately predictable. Like your chance to hit with a weapon, knowing your chance of overcoming an opponent's POW should be predictable. In RQ attacking something is a different action than parrying something - you as the player know this and can work out strategies around that if necessary. Opposed rolls seem intuitive, but few people actually know what their likelihood of success is (the procedure is more intuitive than a resistance table, but the spread of results is far less intuitive for most people). Given the centrality of magic in RQG, the resistance table was a better mechanic than opposed resolution. 

Others have said RQG would have been more modern with some mechanics that let you Push results or Luck points as per CoC 7e. But RQ has magic, augments, and divine intervention that  already push things far more in the players' favour than Luck or Pushing Results do. And ultimately, I think that it is important for RQ that players can fail. They can and do die. They can get around that with things like Resurrection, heroquests, and divine intervention. 

Then finally, there are those who liked the some of the mechanics in MRQ2 that were rejected for RQG. That's a style choice - we didn't use them in RQG because we didn't like them. If you liked MRQ2 and thought its combat system was the bee's knees - go for it and knock yourself out with it. We rejected MRQ2's mechanics and found it got some extremely negative feedback from our newbie playtesters when compared with RQ2, but again that is not a modern v old-fashioned thing, just a matter of differing styles. Some people love the MRQ2 mechanics, more people (at least in our experience) didn't enjoy them.

In both cases, RQG and D&D5e have looked at what was most popular in the most popular previous versions (RQ2+Greg's RQ3 material for RQG, D&D 1-3 for D&D5). And both games passed aside elements of versions that didn't have the same popularity (MRQ1&2 for RQG, D&D4e for 5e).

Edited September 24, 2019 by Jeff

[Lordabdul]

9 hours ago, GamingGlen said:

I have several 12-sided dice with numbers 1-4 three times, in essence a D4.

I was considering getting those but (if they're the ones I'm thinking about) I didn't like how they looked and passed on it... I'm hoping they produce different models in the near future though. I also wonder why they didn't go instead with twice the numbers, ending with a D8-shaped dice... someone must really like the D12 shape.

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

Others have said RQG would have been more modern with some mechanics that let you Push results or Luck points as per CoC 7e.

Like you said, augments already fill that need, and feel a lot more Gloranthan than pushing a roll to me. Luck doesn't feel Gloranthan at all. I'm pretty happy with that side of RQG.

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

The resistance table - which might as well be called the Magic Resistance Table given that almost all of its uses are for magic resistance

That's one of the things I would have been OK getting rid of. Sure, I understand the nostalgic aspect of keeping it -- after all, that and the strike rank mechanic are 2 of the biggest contributors to making it feel like an RQ2 successor instead of some other BRP game. But, as a GM, I don't really like having multiple mechanics used to resolve similar situations. Choosing between Opposed Rolls or the Resistance Table is weird... at first it sounds somewhat OK: if you're going against something passive (like breaking down a door by overcoming its STR) you use the Resistance Table, and if you go against something active (like racing someone... basically anything that can do a stat/skill roll... unlike a door) then you do opposed rolls. But of course that breaks down when you go against someone with magic spells, where you actually use the Resistance Table... your argument that you need magical resistance's likelihood of success to be predictable is, errr, arbitrary? Why does it need to be predictable to attack someone with a spell, when attacking someone with a sword isn't? Is it to keep the number of rolls down for resisted Rune Magic? (I think that, if it was using Opposed Rolls, a resisted Rune Magic spell would result in 3 rolls... the 2 rolls for the resistance, and the roll for the Rune affinity... but in that case, we could just actually pit the Rune affinity directly against the opponent's stat to keep it in one roll)

Edited September 24, 2019 by lordabdul

[PhilHibbs]

18 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

I was considering getting those but (if they're the ones I'm thinking about) I didn't like how they looked and passed on it... I'm hoping they produce different models in the near future though. I also wonder why they didn't go instead with twice the numbers, ending with a D8-shaped dice... someone must really like the D12 shape.

I never really liked D8s. They don't really roll, and like a D6 it's possible to learn to throw them so that they land on the desired number. I knew a guy who thought he could do this, he wasn't very good at it but it is possible.

[Qizilbashwoman]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

I don't like dice mechanics where "I" find it difficult to intuitively understand my likelihood of success.

weirdly, the hardest thing for me about RQG is that it is percentile. It takes me RIGHT out of the fiction. No idea why, but percentile games always have. I really, really hate percentile. It's just... math? I know I could roll a d20 as percentile by fives, but somehow it's not the same! It just really breaks my immersion super hard.

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

That's one of the things I would have been OK getting rid of. Sure, I understand the nostalgic aspect of keeping it -- after all, that and the strike rank mechanic are 2 of the biggest contributors to making it feel like an RQ2 successor instead of some other BRP game. But, as a GM, I don't really like having multiple mechanics used to resolve similar situations. Choosing between Opposed Rolls or the Resistance Table is weird... at first it sounds somewhat OK: if you're going against something passive (like breaking down a door by overcoming its STR) you use the Resistance Table, and if you go against something active (like racing someone... basically anything that can do a stat/skill roll... unlike a door) then you do opposed rolls. But of course that breaks down when you go against someone with magic spells, where you actually use the Resistance Table... your argument that you need magical resistance's likelihood of success to be predictable is, errr, arbitrary? Why does it need to be predictable to attack someone with a spell, when attacking someone with a sword isn't? Is it to keep the number of rolls down for resisted Rune Magic? (I think that, if it was using Opposed Rolls, a resisted Rune Magic spell would result in 3 rolls... the 2 rolls for the resistance, and the roll for the Rune affinity... but in that case, we could just actually pit the Rune affinity directly against the opponent's stat to keep it in one roll)

Attacking someone with a sword is very predictable, defending with a shield is very predictable. We don't combine those rolls and have a single result - we have an attack (which either succeeds or doesn't) and a parry (which either succeeds or doesn't). Then we figure out damage, how much is blocked, how much gets through armor, etc. We DON'T have a single opposed roll.

The Opposed Roll used in RQG results in a lot of ties - by design. It is roll low with the better level of success the winner. If both succeed, it is a tie. This wouldn't work for magic resistance - like combat spell casting is a regular matter of life and death in the game.

We considered a roll high system which was mathematically as predictable as the resistance table, but it was a TOTALLY different mechanic from every other dice roll, and so rejected it. The resistance table works like all other dice rolls - roll under the ability to succeed.

So no, getting rid of the Resistance Table was not an option. And it is easy to use, quick to remember, and disappears in the background pretty quickly.

[ThornPlutonius]

Side Bar:  Some games that use a D12-based system - "Shadow, Sword, & Spell", "Colonial Gothic", "Thousand Suns". 

[Israeldor]

One question I have had is why was the decision to allow for ties on opposed rolls without a tiebreaker (something which is atypical)?

[Jeff]

1. It lets us avoid using a roll high system for tie breaker (which really would be a case of having a mechanic that runs contrary to everything else).

2. It lets us avoid using a roll low tie breaker which has a really non-intuitive and weird spread of results.

3. Ties in skill use are pretty common in real life.

Edited September 24, 2019 by Jeff

[styopa]

20 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

How dare you insult the d12, a hardworking die that isn't responsible for the fact that nobody seems to love her

(seriously, though, a d12-based game would be excellent?)

d12centiles.  Woo...I rolled a twelvty-eleven!

[styopa]

16 hours ago, boradicus said:

A '67 Impala?  RQ isn't *that* old!  How about a classic late 70s sophisticated sports car?  The system is a classic, but it is also both streamlined and sophisticated.

I picked it because it's a gorgeous car with character, that's all.  Age has nothing to do with character.

[Qizilbashwoman]

12 minutes ago, styopa said:

d12centiles.  Woo...I rolled a twelvty-eleven!

i know for certain MIT gamers play a base-12 tabletop game

also, canonically in Supernatural, "Baby" is the most important object in the universe

Edited September 24, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[Lordabdul]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

The Opposed Roll used in RQG results in a lot of ties - by design. It is roll low with the better level of success the winner. If both succeed, it is a tie. This wouldn't work for magic resistance - like combat spell casting is a regular matter of life and death in the game.

Thanks for the behind-the-scenes glimpse!  I had totally forgotten that Opposed Rolls only compare levels of success (resulting in a lot of ties indeed) and not margin of success (which has very rarely any ties). Sadly, with percentiles, computing margins of success is not very friendly, unlike systems based on lower scales (d20, 3d6, etc.) so that's one downside (or at least important aspect) of d100s.

Edited September 24, 2019 by lordabdul

[styopa]

doublepost

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by styopa

[Austin]

2 hours ago, styopa said:

22 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

How dare you insult the d12, a hardworking die that isn't responsible for the fact that nobody seems to love her

(seriously, though, a d12-based game would be excellent?)

d12centiles.  Woo...I rolled a twelvty-eleven!

For what it's worth, I know of at least one system that uses D66-iles, though more for random generation off tables than for actual play. Forbidden Lands, by Fria Ligan.