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<blockquote data-quote="Man in the Funny Hat" data-source="post: 7449624" data-attributes="member: 32740">Did 1e/2e have a need for more consistent/unified mechanics?&nbsp; Undoubtedly.&nbsp; Did 3e throw out the baby with the bath water?&nbsp; You bet.&nbsp; 3e, rather than looking at each situation where a random roll was to be used (as well as IF a random roll ought to be used) instead seemed to have said “We are the Dice Borg.&nbsp; Here is the single overwhelmingly common mechanism we will use.&nbsp; All situations will adapt to service this mechanic. Variation is irrelevant.&nbsp; System mastery will derive not from knowing the variations in the system but from knowing how to push this single, monotonous mechanism to breaking as often as possible.”&nbsp; 1e, for all its faults in having too many needlessly varied and ill suited dice mechanics was still better than having one all-powerful force controlling EVERYTHING.Some die rolls will need lots of modifiers.&nbsp; Some don’t.&nbsp; Some need fine degrees of success, others are simple, unmodified pass/fail.&nbsp; Sometimes what is attempted should succeed or fail without a random die roll element at all.&nbsp; Some need more granularity than a d20 - MANY need a lot less.Unified mechanics is good but is not the be-all/end-all bill of goods that 3e et.al. propagandizes it to be.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Man in the Funny Hat, post: 7449624, member: 32740"] Did 1e/2e have a need for more consistent/unified mechanics? Undoubtedly. Did 3e throw out the baby with the bath water? You bet. 3e, rather than looking at each situation where a random roll was to be used (as well as IF a random roll ought to be used) instead seemed to have said “We are the Dice Borg. Here is the single overwhelmingly common mechanism we will use. All situations will adapt to service this mechanic. Variation is irrelevant. System mastery will derive not from knowing the variations in the system but from knowing how to push this single, monotonous mechanism to breaking as often as possible.” 1e, for all its faults in having too many needlessly varied and ill suited dice mechanics was still better than having one all-powerful force controlling EVERYTHING. Some die rolls will need lots of modifiers. Some don’t. Some need fine degrees of success, others are simple, unmodified pass/fail. Sometimes what is attempted should succeed or fail without a random die roll element at all. Some need more granularity than a d20 - MANY need a lot less. Unified mechanics is good but is not the be-all/end-all bill of goods that 3e et.al. propagandizes it to be. [/QUOTE]

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