Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
I've introduced my 5th ed group to AD&D 2E
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 8766957" data-attributes="member: 6680772"><p>The important thing to note was that, like in many wargames of the period, the most salient information was in the table referenced. With the table doing all the math, how the armor is classified is somewhat superfluous; they could have just called Armor Class A, B, C, etc. The central design conceit is that you're trying to keep the target numbers "on the die," so that you can just roll, see the result, and know the outcome. Arneson & Gygax just happened to use ordinal numbers for the classes, which allowed for further expansion using negative numbers.</p><p></p><p>THAC0, then, was just a later innovation from people noticing, "Hey, the to-hit numbers go down by one counting armor class from 0, so if you subtract the Armor Class number from the to-hit number for AC 0, you get the to-hit number for that AC." And from there, "So if you roll a d20 and subtract the result from the to-hit number for AC 0, you get the number for the lowest AC that you can hit!" And they started using that so they didn't have to reference the tables. Then, that shortcut was put into the official game.</p><p></p><p>The innovation of 3e was its embrace of "imaginary die results". By which I mean, you have an attack bonus of +7, and your opponent has an AC of 21. Not only is the target number "off the die", but so is the final result if you roll a 14 or higher. This is certainly a cromulent way of doing things (though things got out of hand in 3e and 4e, IMO, when AC and attack bonuses could be so high, that the die roll was a proportionately smaller contributor to success).</p><p></p><p>But such a system (and THAC0 for that matter) would have been thought inelegant from a design perspective in 1970s wargaming culture. Why make the participants do math in their head in the first place, when you can just get all the math out on a table, and a few plusses or minuses notwithstanding, roll the die and immediately see if you were successful or not.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Iosue, post: 8766957, member: 6680772"] The important thing to note was that, like in many wargames of the period, the most salient information was in the table referenced. With the table doing all the math, how the armor is classified is somewhat superfluous; they could have just called Armor Class A, B, C, etc. The central design conceit is that you're trying to keep the target numbers "on the die," so that you can just roll, see the result, and know the outcome. Arneson & Gygax just happened to use ordinal numbers for the classes, which allowed for further expansion using negative numbers. THAC0, then, was just a later innovation from people noticing, "Hey, the to-hit numbers go down by one counting armor class from 0, so if you subtract the Armor Class number from the to-hit number for AC 0, you get the to-hit number for that AC." And from there, "So if you roll a d20 and subtract the result from the to-hit number for AC 0, you get the number for the lowest AC that you can hit!" And they started using that so they didn't have to reference the tables. Then, that shortcut was put into the official game. The innovation of 3e was its embrace of "imaginary die results". By which I mean, you have an attack bonus of +7, and your opponent has an AC of 21. Not only is the target number "off the die", but so is the final result if you roll a 14 or higher. This is certainly a cromulent way of doing things (though things got out of hand in 3e and 4e, IMO, when AC and attack bonuses could be so high, that the die roll was a proportionately smaller contributor to success). But such a system (and THAC0 for that matter) would have been thought inelegant from a design perspective in 1970s wargaming culture. Why make the participants do math in their head in the first place, when you can just get all the math out on a table, and a few plusses or minuses notwithstanding, roll the die and immediately see if you were successful or not. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
I've introduced my 5th ed group to AD&D 2E
Top