Review Giantlands, reviewed by David Flor on Twitter.
- Thread starter darjr
- Start date
Mezuka
Adventurer
Call of Chtuluh and other Chaosium games have a large fan bases. It's just a question of preference. I like it.
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 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!
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.
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DarkCrisis
Hero
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.
But yeah he's 100% correct it needed a better editor.
It works for some games. For FASA's Star Trek in the 80s it felt right -- percentages go well with sci-fi.
Bolares
Hero
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).
Did FASERIP use d100 for the Marvel game? (With the average stat being pretty low on the scale).
Liane the Wayfarer
Frumious Flumph
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.
billd91
Hobbit on Quest (he/him)
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
Hobbit on Quest (he/him)
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.
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.
Grendel_Khan
Hero
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 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
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darjr
I crit!
Here is another look. From Matty Helms at RPGPUB.
www.rpgpub.com
GiantLands
Dragonlance is post-apocalypse technically, isn't it? The Great Cataclysm I think it was called Oh so is Talislanta!
www.rpgpub.com
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".Here is another look. From Matty Helms at RPGPUB.
GiantLands
Dragonlance is post-apocalypse technically, isn't it? The Great Cataclysm I think it was called Oh so is Talislanta!
GiantLands Theme Park Will be a Game Park Built on a Groundbreaking Vision
Press release content from PR.com. The AP news staff was not involved in its creation.
apnews.com
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.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".
GiantLands Theme Park Will be a Game Park Built on a Groundbreaking Vision
Press release content from PR.com. The AP news staff was not involved in its creation.
This seems ... ambitious? let's say ambitious.
