Roll High

[Bezzeb]

9 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

"I need to roll 10 or higher."

"But because of circumstance X, you get +1."

"So I add 1 to my roll."

 

Yeah, good point, duuhhrr..  I wasn't thinking it through fully.  So then buying a skill to 14- would instead be buying roll bonuses.  Got it.  Needing to translate the printed material in one's brain constantly hurts my brain a bit...  But i concede that it is 6 of one .5 dozen of the other.

 

Last lingering question though..  Does roll-high still give the same degree of intuition?  I'm not sure and am admittedly biased...  But it seems that adjusting the goal might give a better and more "always on" intuitive sense.  We play with two small 3d6 charts on the outside "Player surface" of my GM screen which i made with excel, so they can see the likelihood of an outcome (one bell curve to hit a specific number, and one sum curve showing cumulative odds to roll under).  I explain it as putting the player in control, and think it's important for them to have some intuition that "Oh, my range modifiers do this, and if i make a placed shot it does this, it's a slow monster so DCV is probably manageable, chart says i'll still have an x% chance, so i'll go for it."  I explain that when players do this math, it simulates how as a pro marksman intuitively can be thinking "It's a tough shot, but I can do it!" or "it's an insane shot, i will probably miss...".  If they decide what to do accordingly, i think it makes them more capable and in control, and most importantly less likely to do things they didn't really understand or wouldn't have done if they had known their odds.

 

So, if your players have that finesse with the roll high inversion, then i'd fully condone it.  I've never tried, but i'm suspecting it probably works fine once the brain flip-flops.  Deffo not gonna change my group to roll high though.    Their brains (and mine!) would explode, and for whatever reason, i love the standard way.  And I came here to just point out that it's not too hard to teach the standard roll under method.

 

In the end, to each their own.  My 2 cents has been paid in full.

[Lee]

I'm like Duke in that I've never seen what the problem is. There seems to be angst about something that is simply a matter of perspective. To me, what it boils down to is this:

 

Which is more important: what you roll or what you need to roll?

 

If it is what you roll, then a roll high system makes sense. However if it is what you need to roll, then roll low is what you want. They are simply two sides of the same coin.

 

In my opinion (which is worth exactly what you paid for it, nothing), roll low makes more sense. For one, I view what I need to roll (even though it may be calculated on the fly) to be a characteristic of my character. High STR is better than low STR; High DEX is better than low DEX; High OCV is better than low OCV; High to hit roll is better than a low to hit roll. The dice are simply a random number generator and its results are strictly to be used to interpret the roll needed to hit. Nothing more.

 

Additionally, it meshes better for me from a probability stand point. If I have a 73 percent chance of success and am rolling percentile dice it is more intuitive to me to think "I need to roll a 73 or less" than to think "I need to roll greater than 27". But, that again comes back to an emphasis on what is needed to be rolled rather than what was rolled.

 

Your mileage will most certainly vary.

 

Lee

 

P.S. I really like the golf analogy. I don't play golf, so I would never have thought of using it. But, a lot of people do play it and could help them see things from the proper perspective in a roll low game. Thanks for the idea!

[PhilFleischmann]

2 hours ago, Lee said:

High STR is better than low STR; High DEX is better than low DEX; High OCV is better than low OCV;

And a high total on the dice is better than a low total on the dice.

 

This is a pretty pointless argument, and it's not getting any more pointful.

[Lee]

4 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

This is a pretty pointless argument, and it's not getting any more pointful.

 

As is the argument for roll high when the system is designed roll low.

[Spence]

I simply don't get the entire point. 

Right now I play far more games by Chaosium and Modiphious than anything else and they are all roll low.

I've yet to meet anyone IRL that found roll low harder than roll high. They are just die rolls with a target number.

[sentry0]

12 hours ago, Spence said:

I simply don't get the entire point. 

Right now I play far more games by Chaosium and Modiphious than anything else and they are all roll low.

I've yet to meet anyone IRL that found roll low harder than roll high. They are just die rolls with a target number.

 

HERO is both a roll low and roll high system at the same time.  My new players were pointing out that it's a little weird to do both.

 

It doesn't bother me and probably the vast majority of users on these boards but it was honest feedback from fresh eyes.

[Spence]

7 hours ago, sentry0 said:

 

HERO is both a roll low and roll high system at the same time.  My new players were pointing out that it's a little weird to do both.

 

Ah, youu mean roll low to determine success, roll high for effect/damage?  Correct?

 

If yes, that is true for all the roll low systems I know of.  But it does clear up my confusion.

 

Thanks

 

 

[sentry0]

2 hours ago, Spence said:

 

Ah, youu mean roll low to determine success, roll high for effect/damage?  Correct?

 

If yes, that is true for all the roll low systems I know of.  But it does clear up my confusion.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

A couple of the guys are programmers and I had a process engineer and a teacher at the table... they may have just been overthinking things

 

[Spence]

54 minutes ago, sentry0 said:

 

A couple of the guys are programmers and I had a process engineer and a teacher at the table... they may have just been overthinking things

 

 

I'm shocked. 

Gamers overthinking things

[Sean Waters]

On 1/28/2020 at 2:41 AM, Spence said:

I simply don't get the entire point. 

Right now I play far more games by Chaosium and Modiphious than anything else and they are all roll low.

I've yet to meet anyone IRL that found roll low harder than roll high. They are just die rolls with a target number.

 

 

Don't know Modiphious, but Chaosium is % chance to hit, IIRC.

 

I think that people understand percentages and if you have a 45% chance they instinctively know that is 1 to 45: above that is bad.  Also Chaosium doesn't (or didn't) have an equivalent of DCV.

 

Psychologically, I think Hero is different.  If you work out in advance what your hit chance is and call for a roll of 13 or less, that is fine, everyone knows where they stand, but the way the system actually applies hit rolls in combat is, frankly, weird.  It is not intuitive to add 11 to your OCV then subtract your 3d6 roll to determine what DCV you can hit.  It is easier and more intuitive to just say "Difference in CVs added to 11 and roll under that", but that tells the player what the target DCV is.  I mean the player might well work that out after a few hits and misses anyway, but the rules as written don't feel intuitively like the right way to do it.  To me.  YMMV.

 

 

[ScottishFox]

On 2/2/2020 at 6:31 PM, Sean Waters said:

 

 

Don't know Modiphious, but Chaosium is % chance to hit, IIRC.

 

I think that people understand percentages and if you have a 45% chance they instinctively know that is 1 to 45: above that is bad.  Also Chaosium doesn't (or didn't) have an equivalent of DCV.

 

Psychologically, I think Hero is different.  If you work out in advance what your hit chance is and call for a roll of 13 or less, that is fine, everyone knows where they stand, but the way the system actually applies hit rolls in combat is, frankly, weird.  It is not intuitive to add 11 to your OCV then subtract your 3d6 roll to determine what DCV you can hit.  It is easier and more intuitive to just say "Difference in CVs added to 11 and roll under that", but that tells the player what the target DCV is.  I mean the player might well work that out after a few hits and misses anyway, but the rules as written don't feel intuitively like the right way to do it.  To me.  YMMV.

 

 

 

I have my players give me their current OCV and what they rolled.  I tell them whether they hit or not.

 

It's easy enough to do 11- (DCV-OCV) in my head and save them the hassle.