On playing new game systems

[Greg K]

Funny I was just making a reference to that in my previous post above. I have no idea why so many people have problems with "roll under" resolution systems... Is it because they grew up playing D&D and have a "beat the score" reflex ingrained? For me it's weird, it would be like refusing to play card games or board games that have a system where you need the least number of points to win, which is fairly common...

My first two games were Holmes's D&D and then AD&D. However, I have played numerous rpgs. After being introduced to those two games, I regularly played Gamma World, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, Marvel Super Heroes, Toon. and Champions. All of the games except Gamma World (of which I might be mistaken after all of these years, are roll under. After that I have played more rpgs than I count and owned even more. Furthermore, for the longest time, Hero and GURPS were two of my favorite systems (both are roll under). So I have a lot of experience with roll under. It is just somewhere along the way, I found myself not enjoying the resolution mechanics of roll under systems (Toon may be the exception as I have not tried going back to it).

...although I was just researching this a bit and made some interesting discovery: Rummy, for instance, is commonly scored in France (where it's called "Rami") by adding up the points of all the cards you have remaining at the end, and so this is very much a "lowest score wins" game. I looked up the American version and it looks like the scoring is completely different (at least according to the Wikipedia page), and instead you score the cards that you put down and subtract the cards you have left in your hands... making it a "highest score wins" game! Is there some weird cultural bias at play here, and some countries just don't have a tradition of more varied scoring and resolution systems? How is Rummy played in the UK for instance?

To me card games and rpgs are like Apples and Oranges. Unlike rpgs, I don't go out of my way to play card games, and would not want to play card games on a regular basis. However, I have had fun playing different card games on occasion. Several of those card games were lowest score wins. So, for me the issue regarding high score and low score is not a cultural one.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Roll under vs roll over is partly a holdover from recent versions of D&D, but also a personal preference thing to some degree.

The one kind of roll under that everyone seems to understand, however, is the percentile roll under system. Saying that your Dodge or Library Use in Call of Cthulhu is 69% is very intuitive! You know what your chance to succeed is! Whereas the equivalent, "roll 32 or higher on the d100" is actually a bit less intuitive in terms of understanding your chance to succeed.

 

[lordabdul]

So I have a lot of experience with roll under. It is just somewhere along the way, I found myself not enjoying the resolution mechanics of roll under systems

Any kind of roll under? Regardless of whether it's a percentile roll under or bell curve 3d6 roll under or dice pool of D10s roll under?

Either way, that means you're in a different situation than I thought: you do have experience in many game systems already but you just don't like many of them for some reason. That's different from people who are reluctant to try them the first time (which is what the OP was about), and different from people who try them but somehow take a long time to (or maybe even never) get used to them (which is what I've witnessed a few times).

 

[prabe]

I don't have problem with either roll-under or roll-over; the math can work either way. I think there's possibly a problem with system coherence if the game has both approaches in it.

As far as new systems, in principle I'm willing to learn and play just about anything. In practice, there are time and budget limitations, as well as some settings and systems I'm less interested in revisiting.

 

[lowkey13]

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[Ulfgeir]

Most complex system I have seen was probably Cthulhutech 1e. You had a dicepool, and you rolled to get semi-versions of pokerhands. And depending on what you rolled, you added the dice differently...

 

[prabe]

I think many of us forget, not just the time and budget limitations (which are manifold and manifest) but also the difference in experience we have.

Other than quick, get-together party games, it can be HARD to learn a new game system. Or, at least, it used to be. After decades of experience, those grooves are pretty well worn.... for me. But as a DM that has to to introduce games to new players, I see the struggles to pick up new systems and games on a regular basis.

Yup. Most new games I play at this point are co-op board games, because that's what we play when we're not playing a TTRPG (and most of the time when we're playing a TTRPG, we're playing D&D).

 

[lowkey13]

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[Ulfgeir]

Well, I've ran across a bunch in my time. I remember Living Steel as being unfun to learn.

But the most complex was a system ... and the name escapes me .... but I recall being interested in it (this is the 80s), and it was modern warfare-style, but the rules for combat with the weaponry, and the amount of weaponry, were just .... oof. Ballistics ain't easy when you're making them super-realistic.

Phoenix command?

 

[lowkey13]

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