Grognards: Was the Dex Check a Common House Rule Before 1e?

[Crothian]

We used the dex check and other attributes checks in our old games. We didn't use percentage dice for the random stuff, we usually just used a d6. So, 2 in 6 chance this place has plate mail to sell and stuff like that.

[JeffB]

I recall few of the "ability checks" (roll under) cutting my teeth with the LBBs however we often pitted ability score against ability score , obviously monsters not having one necessitated rolling it on the spot-often with a penalty or bonus depending on the creature (e.g. rolling a STR score for a goblin would often get a penalty, whereas rolling Dex for a Giant Snake would get a bonus)

When I started playing Runequest I stole the Ability score x 5 (or 4, or 3, etc) = a percentage chance of success.

[Primal]

Originally Posted by jdrakeh

Well, obviously, you and I never spoken about this before Philotomy (I think), Geebo, and a few other posters here and at another forum mentioned the percentile resolution and the purely fiat resolution when I was working on my own house rules document for OD&D+Chainmail about a year back.

You know, now that I started to recall back to those days, I suddenly remembered that one DM *did* use 1D6 to determine random stuff like whether you can buy plate mail or a magic item in town (just like Crothian noted) and a friend of mine even created a D20 table for stuff like this.

But it was a lifetime ago and my memories from those days are shaky at best...

[dougmander]

This is going back to 1977, when we played using the Holmes blue box set. We used percentile dice to determine whether someone succeeded at a non-combat task not otherwise codified in the rules, and didn't even think about the PC's relevant ability. The DM (me, all of 13 years old) simply set the odds.

[JRRNeiklot]

Yep. The dm would generally roll some dice and narrate the result, or sometimes let the player roll, while he had a number in his head, based on how tough he thought the task might be.

[jdrakeh]

In case you're asking about this because you're researching alternate skill resolution methods for your own OD&D/BD&D game, I recently stumbled upon a copy of Delving Deeper for use with Labyrinth Lord that may be right up your alley.

[pawsplay]

Incidentally, the Immortals box set used % roll-under for ability score checks for a variety of purposes.