Giantlands, reviewed by David Flor on Twitter.

RealAlHazred

Frumious Flumph (Your Grace/Your Eminence)
Call of Chtuluh and other Chaosium games have a large fan bases. It's just a question of preference. I like it.
But I can't recall CoC or RQ ever actually having you roll 1d100 for characteristics. Stats were 3d6 (or 2d6+6 for things like Size and Intelligence), the only things that were rolled on d100 were checks. The most recent edition of CoC has 1-100 stats, but you assign points, you don't roll them.
 

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billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)
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.
You probably could for a lot of things, but if you've got a feature that works really well on a 100 point scale, like Call of Cthulhu's sanity score, you might as well put as many things on those % dice as you can to maximize people's use of the same dice mechanic. And, in fact, CoC has doubled down on the % in recent editions. Converting the skill and stat checks to a d20 would be an unnecessary complication.
 


billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)
But I can't recall CoC or RQ ever actually having you roll 1d100 for characteristics. Stats were 3d6 (or 2d6+6 for things like Size and Intelligence), the only things that were rolled on d100 were checks. The most recent edition of CoC has 1-100 stats, but you assign points, you don't roll them.
The skills have points assigned, but in CoC 7th ed, you're still rolling those stats on the 3d6/2d6+6/whatever. You're just multiplying by 5 to normalize into %-friendly scores so that the players can roll % dice for all their tests.
 

Jer

Legend
Supporter
Did FASERIP use d100 for the Marvel game? (With the average stat being pretty low on the scale).
FASERIP used a d100 but attributes were not percentiles. You use a chart to translate your die rolls into success levels.

So a character with an average ability score (Typical) would have a 50% of scoring at least a "Green" result (a minimal success), at 20% chance of scoring at least a "Yellow" result (a solid success) and a 3% chance of a "Red" result (critical success). Things improve in roughly 5% increments at each level (except for criticals) from there as ability scores increase.
 

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.
I'm usually bummed out by the lack of mathematical smoke and mirrors in d100 systems (don't tell me the odds!), but some games do interesting things with it. Like in Delta Green:

A critical success is a roll of 01 or any success where the dice match. So if your Agent’s skill is 50%, you achieve a critical success with a roll of 01, 11, 22, 33, or 44. A critical success automatically succeeds, and exceeds expectations.

A fumble is a roll of 00 (100) or any failure where the dice match. So if your Agent’s skill is 50%, you fum- ble on a roll of 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, or 00.
 

Sir Brennen

Legend
I'm usually bummed out by the lack of mathematical smoke and mirrors in d100 systems (don't tell me the odds!), but some games do interesting things with it. Like in Delta Green:

A critical success is a roll of 01 or any success where the dice match. So if your Agent’s skill is 50%, you achieve a critical success with a roll of 01, 11, 22, 33, or 44. A critical success automatically succeeds, and exceeds expectations.

A fumble is a roll of 00 (100) or any failure where the dice match. So if your Agent’s skill is 50%, you fum- ble on a roll of 55, 66, 77, 88, 99, or 00.
I ran a playtest version of CHILL (until it and the company making it vanished due to licensing screwups) which used the exact same crit/fumble mechanic. I liked it because of the little extra excitement at the table rolling doubles brought.

It also used a "blackjack" mechanic where you wanted to roll as high as possible without going over the target number (usually Attribute + Skill + modifiers). This was because it also had a degree-of-success mechanic, where each increment of 25 you rolled over was an additional success.

IMO, one advantage of d100 games is small, incremental advancements of skills/attributes to achieve a sense of progress without bloat that's harder to do in some d20 (or d10) based games. This CHILL playtest was the same way, except skill advancements were given out 10 points at a time. Though a player could spend those points one at a time on various skills in a granular fashion, they were more likely just to dump them all on one skill, basically the same as adding +2 in a d20 game.

Really, though, the crit/fumble mechanics and Attribute increases (3 points at a time) were the only part of this abortive version of CHILL that couldn't be done with a d20. And the playtest docs were very plainly using the d20 OGL mechanics translated to d100 in many places.

But at least you couldn't roll a 1 for an Attribute :rolleyes:
 
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darjr

I crit!
Here is another look. From Matty Helms at RPGPUB.

 

Jer

Legend
Supporter
Here is another look. From Matty Helms at RPGPUB.

That thread includes a link to a press release from Wonderfilled indicating that they are planning to open a theme park based around Giantlands - an "immersive gaming destination".


This seems ... ambitious? let's say ambitious.
 

Sacrosanct

Legend
That thread includes a link to a press release from Wonderfilled indicating that they are planning to open a theme park based around Giantlands - an "immersive gaming destination".


This seems ... ambitious? let's say ambitious.
Yeah, that's been bantered around for at least a year that I'm aware of. A dream. Pipe dream, but a dream nonetheless. I suspect it will be an amusement park in the same way the Dungeon Hobby Shop is a museum. I.e., something contained to someone's home. Kinda like how people set up their own mini haunted houses in their garage during Halloween.
 

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