If you were able to design your own version of D&D, how would you do it?
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I interpreted [MENTION=58416]Johnny3D3D[/MENTION] a bit differently, though only he can tell us if either of us is correct.
The d20 gives a much larger range of values than the modifier does.
For example, Fate dice are +1, +1, 0, 0, -1, -1. You normally add 4dF to your skill and other modifiers, but you know your skill is the majority of the roll.
So if you add +6 due to a skill, in d20 that can range anywhere from a 7 to a 26 with equal probability. In Fate it can go from 2 to 10, but you have a >60% chance of being in the 5-7 range. In other words the skill (and other modifiers) are most of the roll and the die adds little randomness.
Now, I'm not saying this is better. I like 5e's lack of skill inflation - in 3.x or PF you can get DCs that are moderate to easy for some PCs and impossible gfor other PCs, you can have +20 difference in skill rolls pretty easily. Also doing multiple dice for a bell curve means that a +/-1 in your skill at the 50% mark makes a hugh difference in result, so people will scrounge for the most bonuses because of how much they help.
But yeah, in 5e you can definitely roll so Hail Marys or mess up what should be just the other side of assured.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Bell curves are MUCH more swingy than a straight d20 in actual play unless you make your math so tight that there's no variation between characters.
Let's look at d20 and 3d6. D&D players are familiar with both, and they both have a 10.5 average.
From an RPG design perspective, the most congregated point is in the middle, so let's look there.
Say you need an 11 or higher to hit. But your buddy, who's a bit more of an optimized than you, only needs a 10 or higher to hit.
With a d20, there's a 5% difference in your chances to hit. With 3d6 there's a 12.5% difference in a chance to hit. A simple +1 has two and a half times the variation. That's a huge swing in the chance to hit for a simple +1. If they had a +2 over you it would be over 24% difference in what they need.
Basically, at the most common points of play the differences between success and failure have a huge swing with just minor variation. This is counter-intuitive if you only think that a bell curve congregates around specific numbers, but that's a false way of looking at it. Your ultimate concern is not the number, it's the Boolean success or failure. And the lack of granularity around the center of the bell curve numbers means is that even the most minor of character variation (+/-1) gives a huge swing in the chance for success.
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There is no bell curve - but abell curve without DC or target numbers is as mesningless as a d20.
The DCs and randomizer combined form the odds of success.
With a d20, it is transparent and consistent 5% per point of DC. With bell curves, it's not transparent or consistent because each point of DC might be very little 1 in 108ish or ten or more times that.
But the final result is that whether you are telling 3d6 or 1d20 or 2d10 after all is said and done the fie roll is a percent success and z percent failure and the real diff is that with d20 the smallest chance above zero is 5% and largest below certain is 95% so only if you think your scene factors are too precise and detailed to need less than 5 in 100 but more than no chance the 5% does the trick.
To achieve the typical bell curve odds (close to them) on a d20, just choose the right DC. Iirc 3d6 12- was about 75% so that's DC 6+ on the d20 (no modifiers.)
The bell curve effect of lots of results in the middle is just affecting what the DC means in relation to odds, not some miraculous game impact.
Argyle King
Legend
Slightly off topic, but related:
Blue is right that a +/-1 means more with a bell curve. Personally, I'm happy with a design handing out less +x items.
As far as the dice:
I see the value in the excitement which comes from a flat roll being more swingy. As such, I would not build a game with D&D-like expectations on 3d6. I believe that 2d10 gives some amount of consistency without taking too many steps away from why 1d20 is preferable in some situations.
In 3.5 and PF, too many modifiers sometimes make the d20 roll little more than a formality: "you have +(ridiculous number) to the roll, so just don't roll a 1." That's related, but it also touches upon a lot of other D&D design quirks.
5E is slightly better, but I'm not a fan of the static proficiency bonuses as the default rule. I vastly prefer the optional DMG rule of having proficiency be an additional die added to the d20 roll. I believe that allows for the person trained in the skill to still have an advantage without making it so obvious [that the +x guy should roll] that nobody else even tries. I would have preferred that 5E use that optional rule as the default and then built the "physics engine" (for a lack of better words) of the game world and DCs around the mentality born from that math. Oddly, in saying this, I somewhat contradict my own reasons for disliking the d20 at a primary resolution mechanic. I find the d20 to be too swingy, but the +X static base of proficiency and skill to be too rigid.
...thinking on it more, I believe some of what Blue is saying may be what bothers me. The range frequently produced by 1d20 is at odds with what I would prefer. I also see it as being at odds with some of the (alleged) ideals behind 5E because of later design choices which build from the initial choice of using a flat method of distribution.
Blue is right that a +/-1 means more with a bell curve. Personally, I'm happy with a design handing out less +x items.
As far as the dice:
I see the value in the excitement which comes from a flat roll being more swingy. As such, I would not build a game with D&D-like expectations on 3d6. I believe that 2d10 gives some amount of consistency without taking too many steps away from why 1d20 is preferable in some situations.
In 3.5 and PF, too many modifiers sometimes make the d20 roll little more than a formality: "you have +(ridiculous number) to the roll, so just don't roll a 1." That's related, but it also touches upon a lot of other D&D design quirks.
5E is slightly better, but I'm not a fan of the static proficiency bonuses as the default rule. I vastly prefer the optional DMG rule of having proficiency be an additional die added to the d20 roll. I believe that allows for the person trained in the skill to still have an advantage without making it so obvious [that the +x guy should roll] that nobody else even tries. I would have preferred that 5E use that optional rule as the default and then built the "physics engine" (for a lack of better words) of the game world and DCs around the mentality born from that math. Oddly, in saying this, I somewhat contradict my own reasons for disliking the d20 at a primary resolution mechanic. I find the d20 to be too swingy, but the +X static base of proficiency and skill to be too rigid.
...thinking on it more, I believe some of what Blue is saying may be what bothers me. The range frequently produced by 1d20 is at odds with what I would prefer. I also see it as being at odds with some of the (alleged) ideals behind 5E because of later design choices which build from the initial choice of using a flat method of distribution.
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But does Fate use the same scale of modifiers? Does Fate have at say introductory level the modifiers of +5 or so bring common? Do they rise to +7 by early heroic?
What I recall of fudge (dont know as much about Fate per se) was that the -1 to +1 was a huge range with most of the time each step being a magnitude of success or failure.
The equivalent in 5e to a Fate +1 modifier would be more like +5 if one were using the d20 degrees of success.
This gets back to the odds and result being what matters, not the raw numbers. If I have +5 and DC 10 sans modifiers I have a 20% fail and 80% success and those extra 15 pops on the d20 dont matter at all or matter a couple degrees of success.
Argyle King
Legend
There is truth to that, though I see it as less swingy in that extreme results happen less frequently.
To go beyond that, you are also correct in that other design choices would be a factor. For me personally (which is what the thread asks), my initial choice to not use a d20 to build an ideal game would also lead to not doing a lot of other things which D&D currently does.
"There is truth to that, though I see it as less swingy in that extreme results happen less frequently. "
Well let's look at 4F vs d20 5e.
In d20 5e you only roll if there is a 5% or more chance of success AND a 5% or more chance of failure - a 1 can fail and a 20 can succeed.
In 4F that's only covering the range of possible from "needs a 2- or better to succeed" and "needs a 3+ or worse to fail". Those are each in the %of around 5%ish each, maybe more like 3% to 7% but close enough.
So the so-called less frequent extremes of 4F are actually auto-successes and auto-fails in 5e for most check types (skills and saves) and only 5% for attack rolls.
Everything in-between depends on the DC set by the GM.
If one wants to use degrees of success for d20, the DMG provides one example that uses iirc 5 point swings, leaving the d20 roll capable of producing a four-five degree swing - fail, 1S, 2S at 6, 3s at 11, 4s at 16.
One can use an escalating scale if one wants the higher ends less likely.
4F produces a quality range of what - 4- to 4+? A bigger set of adjustments from the dice.
What usually gets folks misperception of 3 and 4 die pools is the idea that if they take the same DC values then the mid-range clusters make moderate outcomes more likely. But that comes down to the same thing as the GM in d20 saying "these locks are eastpy, not moderate" and assigning the right DC.
F course, maybe the FATE system is so precision a system with so precise descriptions that it needs to differentiate between a 1 in 1296 chance of failure and a no-roll success... but 5e does not really strive for that level of precision and is comfortable with "if it's not gonna fail at least 5 %, no roll needed"
Argyle King
Legend
I don't have experience with Fate, so I can neither confirm nor deny that I would find the way that particular systems handles things to be more or less preferable to my tastes.
Edit: I briefly browsed the rules found at the link below.
https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/what-you-need-play
It appears to be similar in theory to some games I have played.
It's interesting, but I don't see that as the style of game I would want to design. If I were to attempt something similar, I would likely prefer dice pools like those found in Genesys.
As it is based around 4 dice as a core mechanic, my initial impression is that it takes (at least) two additional steps beyond what my personal preference was stated to be; violating the design ideals I would have for stopping at 2d10 (and had previously stated). It also appears that Fate lacks the level of granularity I would prefer in other situations. (I wouldn't be opposed to 1d12 + 1d8 as compromise between the variability of 1d20 and the curve of 2d10, but I feel as though it would seem awkward at the table.)
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/6/27/genesys/
Edit: I briefly browsed the rules found at the link below.
https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/what-you-need-play
It appears to be similar in theory to some games I have played.
It's interesting, but I don't see that as the style of game I would want to design. If I were to attempt something similar, I would likely prefer dice pools like those found in Genesys.
As it is based around 4 dice as a core mechanic, my initial impression is that it takes (at least) two additional steps beyond what my personal preference was stated to be; violating the design ideals I would have for stopping at 2d10 (and had previously stated). It also appears that Fate lacks the level of granularity I would prefer in other situations. (I wouldn't be opposed to 1d12 + 1d8 as compromise between the variability of 1d20 and the curve of 2d10, but I feel as though it would seem awkward at the table.)
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/6/27/genesys/
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Jacob Lewis
Ye Olde GM
I think this conversation is headed off the rails, but maybe it will circle back to the topic soon.
As far as 3d6 vs d20, there have been a lot of discussions over this. I have personally applied this to a 4e campaign I ran online for two years, so I can offer some additional perspective based on actual experience as opposed to speculation and theory.
First, I only made the most minimal changes to the system. The math wasn't tweaked, so characters and monsters used the same bonuses, defenses and DCs were largely untouched except where I adjusted for regular DM fiat. (i.e. increasing or decreasing the challenge). Another factor I considered was only to apply this rule for the characters, not the monsters. I'll explain this soon.
Aside from that, the only other change was how to determine critical hits and this is where things began to deviate from the norm. I decided that rolling doubles was too frequent, but doubles of a certain value or higher was acceptable and flexible. Most attacks required double 6s, but for special weapons with a higher chance to crit, double 5s (or 4s) could also trigger a critical hit.
Before the 3d6 was adopted, however, we used the normal d20. Encounters were taking a very long time due to a number of bad rolls by the players. They were also frustrated from wasting all their encounter or daily powers due to a bad roll. This was particular for 4e, but the same could be said for other editions. Missing an attack or failing a saving throw too many times can be disheartening after a while.
After the change, however, combats went quicker. Those little bonuses to add +1 or +2 were more signifcant, which encouraged more teamwork and assisting others. The monsters retained the d20 to keep the swingingness in favor of the players instead of working against them, and still gave a sense of threat. Somehow, that struck a balance between probability and predictability. Things were improved.
What I learned from that experience was that there was much more that could have been done, and eventually the system would need to be adjusted. You can't just replace one mechanic the whole game is built around and not expect to hit a couple walls. We only dealt with what affected the current class and race options, and we only got to level 4. But that small segment of play and the results we got from that minor adjustment showed a lot of promise. It essentially changed our enjoyment of the game for the better. That, I think, is what this topic was about. What changes work for you. So if d20 doesn't work for you, no one has any right to tell you that is wrong.
As far as 3d6 vs d20, there have been a lot of discussions over this. I have personally applied this to a 4e campaign I ran online for two years, so I can offer some additional perspective based on actual experience as opposed to speculation and theory.
First, I only made the most minimal changes to the system. The math wasn't tweaked, so characters and monsters used the same bonuses, defenses and DCs were largely untouched except where I adjusted for regular DM fiat. (i.e. increasing or decreasing the challenge). Another factor I considered was only to apply this rule for the characters, not the monsters. I'll explain this soon.
Aside from that, the only other change was how to determine critical hits and this is where things began to deviate from the norm. I decided that rolling doubles was too frequent, but doubles of a certain value or higher was acceptable and flexible. Most attacks required double 6s, but for special weapons with a higher chance to crit, double 5s (or 4s) could also trigger a critical hit.
Before the 3d6 was adopted, however, we used the normal d20. Encounters were taking a very long time due to a number of bad rolls by the players. They were also frustrated from wasting all their encounter or daily powers due to a bad roll. This was particular for 4e, but the same could be said for other editions. Missing an attack or failing a saving throw too many times can be disheartening after a while.
After the change, however, combats went quicker. Those little bonuses to add +1 or +2 were more signifcant, which encouraged more teamwork and assisting others. The monsters retained the d20 to keep the swingingness in favor of the players instead of working against them, and still gave a sense of threat. Somehow, that struck a balance between probability and predictability. Things were improved.
What I learned from that experience was that there was much more that could have been done, and eventually the system would need to be adjusted. You can't just replace one mechanic the whole game is built around and not expect to hit a couple walls. We only dealt with what affected the current class and race options, and we only got to level 4. But that small segment of play and the results we got from that minor adjustment showed a lot of promise. It essentially changed our enjoyment of the game for the better. That, I think, is what this topic was about. What changes work for you. So if d20 doesn't work for you, no one has any right to tell you that is wrong.
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