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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blacky the Blackball" data-source="post: 5844101" data-attributes="member: 6688526">The thing to remember here is that we're all experienced players who already know how attacks and AC and things work in our edition or editions of choice.The reason I started using the "Target 20" system (although as I mentioned before - I came up with it independently and didn't know it under that name) was because I was GMing for 7-13 year old players who had never played a roleplaying game before.And I can say from experience that for them, the big advantages of the "Target 20" system were:1) A fixed target number of 20 (when rolled on a d20) is very easy to understand. It's not only the maximum you could roll on the die without modifiers, it's also a nice round number which makes comparisons easy.2) Having a bonus to that roll that increases as you get better at fighting is also easy to understand and makes logical sense.3) Adding the opponent's AC to the roll also makes logical sense to someone who hasn't played before. The system assumes your foe is armoured in some kind of plate armour*. If they're wearing less armour than that you get a bonus to your attack roll because they're easier to hurt. If they're wearing more armour than that (or are generally tougher) - which is rare at low level when they're learning the game - then you get a penalty to your attack roll because they're harder to hurt.From my experience with new players (particularly younger ones), these small factors make a big difference. It's easier to understand a roll with a fixed difficulty that is a nice round number and a modifier to make it easier (and a low levels it is usually making it easier) than it is to understand a roll with a seemingly arbitrary variable difficulty.It's easy for us to lose sight of this because, as I said, we're already experienced players. Most of the time when we say "it's easier to do X" what we actually subconsciously mean is "X is what I'm most familiar with".But for new players who aren't already familiar with any particular system, this is - in my experience - easier to understand than either 1e-style big-honking-tables, 2e-style THAC0 or 3e/4e-style variable DC.* The exact armour needed for AC 0 may vary from edition to edition; I was using BECMI where that AC is for "Suit Armour".</blockquote>

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