Giantlands, reviewed by David Flor on Twitter.

[Bolares]

I don't get the appeal od a base d100 system. Do we really need that level of granularity? Most games that use it yould do just fine using d20 or even a d10.

 

[Mezuka]

OUTCH!

Wow - that sounds so much worse than it should be.

Not even the worst bit but one that jumped out immediately - I thought people figured out that randomly rolling attributes on a span of 0-100 with uniform probability was a bad idea decades ago. Even some of the first percentile driven games (like say Star Frontiers) understood you shouldn't do that. To see it in a modern game not written by a 12 year old figuring things out on first principles is shocking.

Indeed!
In Star Frontiers you rolled d100 for attributes but the results were looked up afterwards on a table that made most rolls have a value in the middle range (bell curve). You had to roll very low or very high to get exceptional percentages.

 

[Mezuka]

I don't get the appeal od a base d100 system. Do we really need that level of granularity? Most games that use it yould do just fine using d20 or even a d10.

Call of Chtuluh and other Chaosium games have a large fan bases. It's just a question of preference. I like it.

 

[Jer]

This system seems like a clunky throwback to the 80s. It feels like something 40 years old rather than a new release.

I believe given the history of this whole project that was probably the point. It's supposed to be "old school" but it appears that unlike a lot of other "old school" projects - which use the lessons of last 4 decades of RPG design to try to create systems that give you the feel of an old school game while also giving you a solid gameplay experience - they seem to have decided to ignore the last 40 years of design lessons and just put together a game that could have been released in 1979.

I used a 1-100 scale when I created Altus Adventum...many years ago. While I think I gave options to prevent the wild swings in scores, I don't think I'd ever use a 1-100 range again.

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I don't think there's anything wrong with a 1-100 scale per se - though I think the granularity of 1% differences in ability don't usually change the gameplay, so most percentile systems can be replaced with a d20 rollunder approach- 5% granularity is usually sufficient.

But if you're going to have a 1-100 span with random assignment of attributes then what you're doing here is the right way to go - respect the bell curve!

 

[Sacrosanct]

I believe given the history of this whole project that was probably the point. It's supposed to be "old school" but it appears that unlike a lot of other "old school" projects - which use the lessons of last 4 decades of RPG design to try to create systems that give you the feel of an old school game while also giving you a solid gameplay experience - they seem to have decided to ignore the last 40 years of design lessons and just put together a game that could have been released in 1979.

When most people (including myself) who put out OSR products, we have a choice on how to approach the design to emulate TSR.

Option 1:
Capture the feel of the gameplay (lethality and niche protection)
Tramp, Otis, Elmore, etc
Ravenloft
Isle of Dread
Theater of the Mind

Option 2:
Forest Oracle
All My Children
Woodburning kit
Put bare breasts everywhere
Racist tropes
Legal drama

It sure seems like these people (Dinehart, LaNasa, etc) sure seem to keep choosing option 2 by looking at their stuff.

 

[Mallus]

It lacks the sophistication of, say, the early Palladium releases.

 

[DarkCrisis]

He has some valid points but he's also very nitpicky, like the Gygax secret door post.. I get the feeling he's never read Original D&D or is a fan of old school gaming. A lot of what I'm seeing is very "old school".

But yeah he's 100% correct it needed a better editor.

 

[Morrus]

I don't get the appeal od a base d100 system. Do we really need that level of granularity? Most games that use it yould do just fine using d20 or even a d10.

It works for some games. For FASA's Star Trek in the 80s it felt right -- percentages go well with sci-fi.

 

[Bolares]

It works for some games. For FASA's Star Trek in the 80s it felt right -- percentages go well with sci-fi.

That makes sense. I guess I just never found the right game with d100 to experience them right. (I have a chtulhu sized hole in my RPGs experience).

 

[Cadence]

It works for some games. For FASA's Star Trek in the 80s it felt right -- percentages go well with sci-fi.

Did FASERIP use d100 for the Marvel game? (With the average stat being pretty low on the scale).