Percentile Systems? Just Say No!

[TMRose]

As a old Runequest player, I do think there nothing wrong with using percentiles.
And for those who never played any of the Runequest/Basic Role player games, it often possible for some one to have a sword skill of 81%, a spell at 74% etc, as you increase skills at a 1d6 rate.
Runequst and the Basic role playing system problem is not its percentage system, it that most players want to be able to survive catching a hand grenade with their teeth.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Actually, in Stormbringer, you could have a skill of over 100%.

It didn't mean you hit every time: there were still penalties due to this or that, and it would affect your criticals. If your sword skill was 126%, and you were fighting a skilled combatant, your actual chance to hit him might be more like 73%, and your chance to crit him would be 12%.

 

[Dethklok]

I think actual dice can be part of a feel of a game. Percentile dice in a sciency/explorey Star Trek game feels right.

I agree wholeheartedly! I also think percentiles would be ideal for Paranoia - the false precision would not be a disadvantage, but rather an evocative reflection of life in the psychotically bureaucratic Alpha Complex.

It's not so much whether a particular shot might receive a -17 instead of a -16; you'll note most percentile systems use 5 and 10 point adjustments to ease math at the table.

This is my point. If you like step sizes of 5%, you don't want d100. You want d20. Because d20 allows you to manipulate numbers like "13," and "+5," while percentile systems give you numbers like "87" and "+25."

One of the values of a percentile system is character growth is slowed.

No. Character growth can be set to any rate, including frustratingly slow or even zero, in a game that uses dice of any size.

It allows a player to take action to progress a character and makes those adjustments quite small so many of them can be had.

I see! Then I have a question for you: Would you rather give your child five dollars allowance at the end of the week, or, would you rather pay out 1 cent every 20 minutes?

And there will be times when the 46 rolled hit, but would have missed without the last improvement.

Yes. And there would also be times when the imperfections in the dice rolled will skew the chances for rolling under vs. above 46 will be greater than 5%.

Further, there are percentile systems where... the roll is used to approximate a bell curve probability.

Please explain how d100 is used to approximate a Gaussian distribution, and why this would be preferable to generating a Gaussian distribution using 3dX.

Runequst and the Basic role playing system problem is not its percentage system, it that most players want to be able to survive catching a hand grenade with their teeth.

That there are other complaints about RQ does nothing to change the fact that RQ would be much better always treating the ones die as a 0, or, (for those who can't live without pushing the upper limit on what one might be able to squint and pretend is genuine rather than false precision), with all values divided by 5 and then converted to d20.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I see! Then I have a question for you: Would you rather give your child five dollars allowance at the end of the week, or, would you rather pay out 1 cent every 20 minutes?

Apples and oranges.

In a percentile sysem, your PC imposes at N% per progression event, just like in a non-percentile sysem. IOW, the choice- using your analogy- is between $5 allowance per week and N¢ per week- you don't change the pay period just because you changed the denomination of the payment.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

There's really not a compelling reason to use one over the other. Percentiles are a bit more intuitive, especially for non gamers. d20s are traditional. I don't think percentiles are any slower for anyone who's had high school math or above. In games where there are a lot of small modifiers percentiles make sense. Looks like Nagol hit most of the good points.

My actual preference is bell or triangular distributions: 3d6 in GURPS or d10-d10 in my homebrew.

 

[JoshDemers]

I've always wanted to see some kind of system that uses percentile in its literal terms: 100% equals 100%, you've completely accomplished your goal. I don't know if it's possible, but if someone said they had put something like that together, I would want to check it out.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

I see! Then I have a question for you: Would you rather give your child five dollars allowance at the end of the week, or, would you rather pay out 1 cent every 20 minutes?

Would you rather get your whole salary on Dec 31 or be paid installments throughout the year? See I can do it too! Dannyalcatrazz has a better answer though -- it slows advancement while letting the player take some positive action to improve.

<snip>
Please explain how d100 is used to approximate a Gaussian distribution, and why this would be preferable to generating a Gaussian distribution using 3dX.

Typically, a table lookup is used. As for why not to use XdY? Because you can skew a table more simply to meet the distribution desired.

 

[Stormonu]

One game I found that had an inventive use for d% was Chronicles of Ramlar. All skills were in %, but in combat, the "1"s die also determined the hit location.

 

[delericho]

Eh, it's all just probability and algebra - any d% system can be converted to d20 (and vice versa) with a bit of care, though you might lose some resolution in the shift. Beyond that, it's mostly just a matter of taste.

IMO, percentile systems are at their best when there aren't any modifiers - if your sheet says you have a 70% chance to hit, then you always have a 70% chance to hit. This can work, although it does require that any modifiers instead get shifted to the results of a successful action.

 

[Mike Eagling]

This is my point. If you like step sizes of 5%, you don't want d100. You want d20. Because d20 allows you to manipulate numbers like "13," and "+5," while percentile systems give you numbers like "87" and "+25."

...

No. Character growth can be set to any rate, including frustratingly slow or even zero, in a game that uses dice of any size.

The d% systems I can think of (i.e. the ones I've played) all seem to be ones without levels or classes. I'd argue the additional granularity is important in such cases because of the way skills improve little and often rather than in defined jumps.

Are there any d% systems that also have levels?