old d&d was a mix of rolling high, rolling low, polyhedron dice and percentage dice without any structure, yet i never complained and did always had a great time ...
Yes, exactly. As I mention in the video, it never occurred to me at the times that there was something "wrong" with the system (and I still don't think there is - as noted in the video, I'm currently running 1981 B/X for my daughter and her friends and having a blast).
@@daddyrolleda1 there is to much fuzz about crunch and fluff this days, to much rethoric about balance and rule lawyering ... before, it just was : what do you do, roll tose dice and lets see what happens
@@manuelgarcia-ve5vmbecause the game today is about being an invincible superhero so the mechanics have to be built around justifying characters that cannot ever fail.
I prefer that classes are distinct and different from each other and provide diversity of expertise. I like it when a game doesn't have optimization built into it
I also don't like balanced encounters or balanced out characters. I say that in the sense that I know when you roll 3D6 the average roll is around 9, but no one really wants a strickly average character, but also I don't think it is cool when every encounter is a strictly winnable situation and one of the things I like about the Black Moore movie was when Wesley said that just let the players do whatever they want, with consequences. You want to do a Mounted Horse Charge into a scouting party. No problem - the terrain is a swamp and you loose your mounted units.
Thank you! I was a little taken aback by a comment I got last week by someone who said, "No offense, but I don't watch DM Advice videos." And, I'm totally find with that, as I don't take any offense at all, but it does make me wonder, *why not*? Unless you're no longer actively playing, which makes sense, I can't figure why you wouldn't want to keep learning?
When I was up at GaryCon (actually Strongholds and Followers) Paul Stromberg showed me Gary’s copy of Chainmail that had his notes in them about using a d20 for attacking instead of a 2d6. First time ever. It gave me chills. It’s in the Lake Geneva Museum in the D&D section of the museum.
Back in the day I did notice the different mechanics and assumed it was haphazard, but most of the time I didn't think about it or care. When I first started with 5e I liked the unified mechanic. Over not too long I got tired of 5e and stopped playing -- for a number of reasons. It wasn't until you identified it in this video that I realized a big part of what was how the unified mechanic did make everything feel exactly the same. Revelation.
2d10- Roll two ten-sided dice. Take the higher and subtract the lower. You get an absolute value result, heavily weighted toward zero! Allows you to handle essentially one-sided bell curves.
Started in 79 with AD&D1 with exposure to Basic and Chainmail, which we used as supplements. These days my research is more toward learning back to Chainmail. So I'll be interested in this for sure.
Traveller stuck with 6 sided for everything, whether it was 1D6, 2D6, etc. 6 sided dice were ubiquitous; every household had them. And, as you said, with even only a 2D6 roll you can create either/both any percentage, linear or curved.
I love the game of Traveller a lot, but I don't love the strickly D6 mechanic of it. I say that in the sense that everything is resolved around a Ability modifier, a skill modifier, a situation/equipment and a dice roll. The average dice roll is 7 and if your have +1 in your ability, skill, or equipment/situation you can accomplish most average checks. It just isn't as nuanced as other games in the available outcomes.
I think your a quality creator, so if anyone has a ill word to say about you you just send em to 'ole Raptor jesus's way and I'll set them straight with the one cowboy combo of "Have-You-Ever-Watched-His-Videos" 🤠 Keep your Shield Arm Strong fella!
Martin, I started playing D&D in mid-1975 and when I bought the set of rules, the vendor told me I would need the polyhedral dice so even by then sellers had figured out that they needed to give their customer a minimally complete solution. We never had Outdoor Survival or Chainmail but had no problem playing the game. Dice, the rules and some paper were all we needed. Everything else was nice to have but not required. At least that was my experience.
I started playing in the 4th to 5th edition transition, and I recently got into OSE. I really like the different dice mechanics for different things because to me it makes it more interesting. But I will say a core mechanic makes it convenient for onboarding new players.
I definitely think having a unified mechanic is easier to teach new players. But that said, as a kid, we played 1981 B/X when I was around 11 years old, and we figured it out!
Hard to say which is my favorite video of yours, but this is definitely one of them! So will there be a part 2 where you go into the "repeating 20s" on the combat table (and how it works with the optional "critical hit" rule), extraordinary (percentage) strength, the introduction of advantage/disadvantage (2ed "Player Options" IIRC), etc..?
Glad you like it! I started doing that last year and while some folks completely skip it, for the folks who stay, there's usually something fun. I hope you stick around and find some other stuff you like! Thanks for watching and commenting! I always appreciate it when folks stay through the bonus content!
I really appreciate you watching! I hope you enjoyed it. My videos are quite long and I've gotten a lot of feedback from folks that they prefer them that way. It seems like a lot of folks listen to (rather than watch) them while they are working, doing chores, etc. I've gone back and forth with whether to reduce the length and, say, divide them into parts, but I get the impression I'd lose a lot of my core audience. Thanks again!
AD&D will always be first on my list. It's what I grew up playing. The rules were made by gamers for gamers. The artwork inside the books inspired many adventures in the World of Greyhawk for my group. IMHO every version since has been sold, streamlined, and dumbed down. Now the franchise is a cash grab standing on the shoulders of AD&D.
I fully agree and it’s why I make a new systems that’s like if ad&d added orignal dnd things like mass combat WHILE fighting dragons and other things like that. I seriously love non-weapon profs so dearly! It’s hard to believe how games super streamlined the game and stayed from making it it’s true potnetial like earlier variations! I plan to fix this in my game Tower of Dice I’ll drop early next year. I won’t have it all done, but I’ll have enough for die hard 2e fans to “fill” the gaps like ad&d was originally made for to begin with lol
I like having different dice and different mechanics. For combat a 3D6 bell-curve works well, a D100 for anything to do with sneaking or scouting, different dice for different weaponses damages.
Thanks Martin! Not to be overly diplomatic but I love both - modular & unified mechanics. We run BECMI games concurrent with 5e. I love PC & Apple too; I need both to play to their strengths.
Yes. For my 1974/75 OD&D I had my copy of Chainmail, my copy of Outdoor Survival, and tracked down all the items to play and evolved with the game. Such memories. 😊
I've always found games with uniform mechanics rather dry and clinical as a general thing. They don't really inspire me like a game that just "grew that way" as a result of enthusiatic gamers bolting on purpose-built solutions to specific design problems as they cropped up. Classic D&D feels more *real* to me in that sense, being at the end of the day both by and for hobbyists.
@@GamerKatz_1971 To me, it's like having a drink in a 500 year-old British pub that was built by hand and shows all the marks of its centuries versus visiting a pre-fab strip mall sports bar put up last week. Both have booze and seats, but only one has history and character.
I dislike it wholly. They feel cluttered and noisy to me. I want uniform and universal mechanics from the game I run, because then I don't have to memorize and keep in mind a dozen subsystems and can focus on the table of people around me. It's also easier to make up rulings on the spot with a uniform system where I know that the task resolution mechanism is always the same regardless of the situation.
That's so cool! My daughter played it for the first time this past Christmas while at a friend's holiday party. The family had the original game and all the kids in attendance decided to play it out in the garage! Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. Cheers!
I was thinking about this last night and today and I like a core mechanic in general but not broadly specifically. Now I don't need a million mechanics, but 2D6 random tables are great because of the bell curve and percentage dice work great for other things - especially a long list of low probability factors, like background stories.
Thank you so much @nomoremaybes, and also, @spudsbuchlaw, I really appreciate you listening! I've had a few folks suggest that I try to turn some (all?) of my content into podcast versions, and I've been thinking about how to do that giving my limited equipment and also my very limited technical know-how. One person said my audio sounds "hollow" like I'm in a huge room (which I am not; I just record on my phone). Others said I should include a background music track, and I have no idea how to do that and/or if it would be offputting to other folks. And then a few others folks said they listen to my videos to fall asleep, which is a huge complement but not what I intended and I don't know the first thing about how to record audio that would be helpful for those kinds of folks!
@@daddyrolleda1 I prefer no background music, and retaining the visual component of the videos. My only important complaint about your videos is I feel you gloss over a lot of fine details and don't go into depth enough, including showing precisely what the text says and explaining it beyond a very brief and general summary. It makes many of your points feel like they never hit home. Rarely feel that coup de grace of your "arguments" shall we say.
I like unified core mechanics - I liked how CoC was percentile roll under, mostly unified (I guess 7th edition is even more so now). The ad&d dice system was just like voodoo, but fun. I haven’t shopped for spirits much lately but my chartreuse is almost gone and I probably should start poking around for some,
I do think the core rule works to simplify things for a GM as they no longer need to know such varied systens, but with good players it gives so much to each player to have a theme, so if I roll d6 damage I feel it is a Mace! And I don't mind % for "skills" to again give it a different feel from a d20 to hit or d12 for reaction or d8 for a sword damage, etc. And I love the Final Word. The Green is good but I rather like Yellow too.
One thing I noticed about the universal D20 mechanic is that it makes the game very easy and fast to run. The Dm doesn't have to look up different rules for different things because it's all the same basic mechanic. So when a player makes an attack, or a saving throw, or a skill check etc they just roll a D20. Then when the Dm understands that incremental 5% increase in difficulty (or just do what i do and think of it like in this way 1-5: very easy, 6-10 : easy, 11-15: moderate, 16-20: hard, 20+ very hard) ad-hocing rules becomes very easy to do. This is actually superb as it allows the Dm to get his nose out of the book and pay attention to the table. The game suddenly moves faster as the Dm doesn't have to stop and look up that mechanic he can simply assign a difficulty in his head and ask for a die roll. it keeps the game moving and players stop becoming bored. Yes, you can do the same with more complex games with all the subsystems; but the universal mechanic easy; you don't have to invest a ton of brainpower into memorizing all the subsystems and mechanics in them. I think that's a great aspect of that system that is often overlooked.
Roughly 43:00 where you're talking about x-in-6 to cover things. I view the x-in-6 as something that is technically out of the PC's control and then if PCs can influence it directly, it's a d20 roll under. However, if they influence things indirectly, I up the (x+1)-in-6 up 3 or 4 sometimes. That then generally fits in my d6 oracle I bashed from Ironsworn.
I know this is another series, but you can feel the change in going from a non core-mechanic to a core-mechanic in Dragon Magazine. Pre 3rd Edition you've have nifty articles about almost anything. ""In a Cavern, In a Canyon..." by Thomas M. Kane in Dragon 152 stands out in my mind; its a whole primer on Medieval Mining, and other articles focused on expanding the milieu. After 3rd Edition, you get tons of feats, classes, skills, spells, magic items, etc, since its so easy to grok and make. While I love 3rd Edition, and think it definitely improved and streamlined the game, some wild creativity was lost, since you now had very clear, bold lines to color inside off, instead of a more tabula rasa.
I tried a "On the Rocks Premium Cocktails" The Old Fashioned made with Knob Creek Bourbon with bitters (listed as cane sugar, orange, cherry and lemon flavors). Didn't like it. Just tasted like alcohol to me. I don't taste anything except the burn. Love your videos though. Keep them coming.
On one hand, I really like the different levels of granularity with different resolution mechanics, but on the other hand, when I play shadowdark which uses the unified d20 engine, it's very easy to quickly assess the circumstances and set a check DC. I think if, when initially designed, the writers sat down and decided what mechanics should be used for what scenarios, it would make it much easier to identify when to use a resolution mechanic and decide what the pass/fail chance would be
Thanks for the video! Everything is a nail when? I like the variety that 1E AD&D brings to to mechanics though I very much use a lot of Ability Checks (when appropriate, the DM chooses pertinent Ability Score and player rolls a d20 to hit that number or lower), so maybe my games are and have been more d20 oriented than some other 1E AD&D tables. Of course, Thief Abilities utilize percentage dice in my games and damage dice are by weapon type or whatever a spell calls out, so there's a lot of variety there. Nina Simone's daughter Lisa is a singer, composer, and actor in here own right. Check out her music if you get the chance.
I kinda liked the old skill checks in 1st and 2nd being based off of your total stat with a modifier rather that your stat providing a bonus trying to hit a target number. So a fighter with a str of 18, roll str +0 to to do some blacksmithing has a 90% chance of success. Conversely, having a +4 to hit a target 15 only gives a 45% chance.
I'm still bitter about Dungeon. I was about 10 when I saw it in a game store in Sacramento. I saw TSR, I saw Dungeon, I saw the box cover, and I thought it was D&D. When I opened it and found the pawns and the board with spaces. The same day, I left it behind in a restaurant (put it on the shelf behind a curved banquet). I was even more crushed because my money was now gone.
Yes, exactly! That's my opinion as well, but I do come across a lot of folks who refuse to learn new systems and want any genre to be played with only one system.
@@daddyrolleda1 I have run nearly twenty different systems in my day and I have yet to find one that fits every type of setting or genre. Yeah, you can run a super hero type game with basic/expert with a ton of hacking, yet I doubt it would feel like a supers game.
Fate, Cypher, GURPS, Hero and Savage Worlds are able to run any setting to some degree or another. GURPS and Hero are just too much work and are really slow games. Fate, Cypher and Savage Worlds are far more rules lite but each seems to favor a specific play style that doesn't always translate into some genres.
Because they made it up as they went. MVPs (minimum viable product) always work that way. After the learning process is complete, you scrap it and build from ground up a new and better product. Early D&D was a great lesson on how to build a product. It’s also insane how many people would prefer the objectively inferior product because they’re entrapped in nostalgia.
48:30· There is Always a Chance We modified this rule to use the d30 die. It was always fun to👀see that Hail-Mary attempt roll around & about with the fate of our barely feasible logic to succeed. The d30 is unfortunately the red-headed orphaned dice of TTRPGs.
Bonus comment for bonus content: Chartreuse can be interesting, I'll have to try The Final Word sonetime. I like Nina. She ranges from totally incredible to a bit to experimental, and sometimes both. Cheers 🥃🎶
A lot my friends complain about the different resolution mechanics in OSE, but I'm with Rob Kuntz on this. I think it does do a lot for the game. Now I will disagree about 4e, yeah the damage has rough parity between classes on the powers, but there is so much more going on than just damage. If you're just looking at the damage something does in 4e you're missing out on the most fun part of the game which are the conditions and forced movement.
Thank you! I really appreciate you watching and commenting. And I do agree about the "forced movement" in 4E and that was a really fun part of that edition. My memory, though (which may be faulty) is that *most* classes had powers/exploits/spells/whatever that utilized forced movement, which made them feel the same to me. I seem to recall powers being: "1D6 + [Weapon or STR or Something] Plus Move Opponent Into (some kind of adjacent square, whether back or sideways)" That's obviously me just being overly simplistic and it's meant as tongue-in-cheek. The force movement plus the conditions were part of the things I had a blast with one of the times I played 4E. I mentioned it briefly on the channel before, but I played the right head of a Pygmy Ettin (character assigned by the DM for a one-shot). One of the other players was the Left Head. I was a Warlord with INT 10. The other player was a Fighter with INT 6. We split our movement but other than that, we each got to take independent actions on our turn. One of my abilities was to force people to do things by giving them a command whilst also applying physical damage. So on my turn, I would hit the other head and give it a command so that on its turn, it would do what I wanted. It was a funny and clever way to use those mechanics. Cheers!
I wonder what Gary would think of a dice pool system. You can't calculate the odds and the results are something you could map to a table, but it more about how many points did you roll
Great question! I'm not sure what his thoughts would be. I have heard many times that he was more partial to Castles & Crusades, and claimed that it's what he would've ended up designing for a revised edition had he stayed at TSR.
Re: Unified Mechanics: I think whether it's better or worse depends on your goals as a company. In the late 70s and early 80s D&D was growing quickly. If you're designing a game to appeal to tactical wargamers, having many varied mechanics might be ok. But if you're trying to grow the audience by appealing to people who only have ever played board games, unified mechanics are going to be quicker to understand. Not in the 4e "every class is the same" way, but in the , "roll d20, add mods and hit a DC to succeed" way. As far as the different mechanics make different things sytand out/more fun, it might make sense to war gamers, but probably not for others looking to create a shared story. That is, the thing that's interesting to me about picking a lock versus hitting a monster with a sword is if picking a lock is a cool part of the story. Making it d% roll under doesn't make it interesting. That's just the math. I'm more interested in the story than what die I roll and how that number is used.
I find that if the core of a system is too unified it becomes boring quickly. Immortals RPG uses all of these where each path has its own feel for various abilities. Thanks for the great video.
I started in the 80s with the three brown booklets, then basic box, before collecting ALL the 1st ed. hardbacks. Loved the nonweapon proficiencies from oriental adventures, but after the 2nd ed players handbook left dnd alltogether in favor of the Warhammer FRP system. I loved the extensive skills, the expansive career options, the exciting critical hit charts, and the fact that EVERYTHING needed was bound in a single book. Warhammer wasn't completely perfect in all respects, but mostly better imo. I developed my own armor and wound chart for damage locations, so that mismatched or incomplete armor sets could be worn, preferred a "called shot" vs. a random location, and eventually developed a unified system based on a d100 sandwich roll. No modifiers, very little math at all (stat+skill, 1-5each), and no math during play. So, having no exposure at all to 3rd to 5th ed., I'm almost a little overwhelmed with all the feats and such I've seen with pathfinder and today's dnd. It's TOO MUCH, and besides, I'm not a fan of "epic level" fantasy and prefer a setting where magic is rare and dangerous. As a kid, I thought new player species and classes were exciting, but thirty years later there's SO MANY! So now, you've got me wondering if I should use a different (non-unified) mechanic for my subsystems between combat, social and exploration perhaps?
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! You might be interested in a recent video I made about Warhammer FRP: ua-cam.com/video/rdPjjuW6B0w/v-deo.htmlsi=v7Ra7iDupTHganL3 I like a lot of the game, particularly the setting and the careers, but you're right that another great benefit is that everything you need to play is in a single book (much like the 1991 "Rules Cyclopedia" for D&D). I played a lot of 3.5 and Pathfinder 1E but grew tired (and overwhelmed!) by all the different options/feats/powers/etc., much like you mention. As far as using different mechanics/systems... maybe play around with it and see what you like! My video posting later today is about some mechanics from a variety of different RPGs that I really like, so maybe you'll find some inspiration there as well. Cheers, and happy gaming!
i like the(roll and move on) d6 mechanic, but paired with a players describing their actions as the supreme decider. so if they fail searching traps they can still poke around with a 10 foot pole and locate and disable traps, like if they are in a place like the tomb of horrors where there are so many traps you could never roll to find them all, while the roll and move on is quick and saves the player from cheap traps some DM's put in older modules to cheat players who would never think of such odd novel trap, like poisoned door knobs, novel annihilation traps, and disintegration rays that trigger opening doors, ect. another is if they search a room and the roll fails, they can still say i check the desk or behind the painting and possibly find something because they described interacting with the right objects. both systems work best in tandem. otherwise paranoid players are spending 30 minuets opening a single door because past traps had 300 different clever ways to go off, so the game moved extremely slow or they get corn holed by a single bad roll to not notice a horrible trap and have no agency to beat the trap thru careful and clever descriptive actions.
I still DM 1e so that should answer the question if I liked the unified d20. I have been looking to modify the cleric turn undead roll to make it harder, thks, will have to look at that chart more carefully!!!
Excellent! I hope you found it helpful and/or inspirational! I running B/X as you may have picked up during the video, and having a blast! Thanks for watching and commenting!
There is something about the process of dice rolling where some dice just feel more fun to roll than others, and having varied dice is even better. I've played d100 systems and there's just something about rolling d100 that feels less like a game and more like work. I find d20s also don't feel good if overused. On the opposite end, d12s and d8s never get old. Why this is, I have no idea, and maybe it's just me. My point is, varied dice just feel like more fun. The same goes for mechanics. Rolling on different tables using different dice is somehow more appealing.
Because you mentioned DaveCon, you might want to reach out to them and see if you could be a speaker for the 2025 convention and maybe run a session. And if the financials are an obstacle, you might be able to do a kickstarter or gofundme to help cover it. Just a thought, it would be cool to see you again there in 2025.
Arneson did get dice in England and so did Bill Hoyt who still has his, but these were only d20's. (1-10 numbered twice) They did not have the other funny dice. The other platonic dice came in either because of Wesely or Gygax or possibly both.
I don't think the issue is as much unified vs diverse mechanics as much as it is consistency. The basic game I'm running with my group (for players introduced through 5e who haven't even read other editions), there's been no complaints about diverse mechanics because I'm pretty consistent with d20-roll-over for just attack rolls, percentile is just thief abilities (which is basically a consequence-free trial check), 2d6 is for reactions they might influence but are out of their control, and d20-roll-under for normal skill checks (but d6 where variable difficulty cancels out their skill). If it's not covered by those things, they need to try to explain how to work it into those things, and they can try to explain their way out of one category to another. E.g. a thief who failed their climb walls roll or any non-thief can try to climb as a d6, but if they get or make an improvised rope-and-hook it becomes a d20-under, and if they get a decent ladder it's a straight "yes".
As someone who started with 3rd edition, the idea of having mechanics that "feel" different sounds really cool. However, modern designs trying ensuring that people don't feel intimidated by the mechanics also seems like a valid concern. DMs will always put more effort in to learn the game, but that's probably why there are always less DMs than players.
I definitely prefer games with different mechanics, mini games and all that; but I think these “unified mechanics” solutions are more suited to systems that are more skill-based… maybe that’s why it eventually became the norm in D&D as it was for a time transitioning to skill based.
1. Is AD&D1e turn attempt a d20 roll? For some reason, I recall using 2d10 for it. It's been a long time since I've played it though. 2. I prefer having separate mechanics; however, I dislike percentile scores for thief abilities.
This video is what I was looking to hear concerning today's unified mechanics vs multi-dice mechanics usage & systems mechanics. The idea of d20 unified DC-type mechanics are just so incredibly boring. Yes, it's easier, but it's not as fun...IMHO-ONLY. But I think it did a disservice to DM's and their creative thinking and adjudication of the game of D&D. Thnx! 🤓👍
The game used different dice for different mechanics because of the distributions of the probabilities for different combinations of dice. If you think the game feels different in ODND, 1E, or 2E than 3E+, it is because it is different.
I wonder if you'd get more from your GM Advice videos if they weren't _branded_ as GM Advice. Like you say, it's mostly stories of the game you run for your daughter and her friends, and you include GM advice sprinkled throughout, but it's less "here's how you should run your game" and more "here's how I'm running _this_ game", it feels more like a couple of hobbyists sharing stories and learning from each other. I think you should brand these videos as campaign adventures and recaps, and then include the GM advice as a little bonus. Because as you said, a lot of GMs aren't going to watch every GM Advice video they see because they figure they already know what they're doing. While it's true that we are all always learning no matter how experienced we get, we do not have enough time in the day to just watch GM advice videos until the end of time, so I think those should undergo a rebrand where it's more about "here's where our campaign is and what I'm learning from it".
This is such a great idea! Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, and for taking the time to share it. I think that's a really interesting idea, and I'm going to look into changing the banner for the thumbnails and changing the name of the playlist. I really appreciate your thinking on this. Thanks!
I love the IDEA of the different systems, but I hate them being presented in the standard/basic rules because it makes the game too complicated and overwhelming for new players and GMs. Looking back on BECMI, I think they had the right idea with the modular rulesets that level up with the players skills. The entry/standard rules should be simple. Then based on the individual interest and skill of your table, sure why not introduce more complexity? Sounds fun!
If modern games like Cyberpunk Red or Blades in the Dark released with no unified dice mechanic, people would find it hilariously incompetent. As a non-DnD person, I always find it so weird how normalized things in those games are that its fans, particularly old school people, dont change because it's how it is. I have _never_ played a ttrpg where people's fun hinged on the dice mechanic used lol. Mechanics are only allowed in so far as they support the fiction, and in any scenario where they are cumbersome or cause slowdown, they are to be banished to the shadow realm. Tracy Hickman's X-DM is a godsend in that regard: pick a number and roll it is _THE_ rule to use
I prefer non-unified mechanics personally. I have a big thing I called Tangible game design that's really meant to emphasize how things feel to do. Writing a novel and hitting a homerun feel like vastly different things in real life so why do they feel so similar in so many games? I want writing a novel to feel like writing a novel and the swing of a sword to feel like I'm biting into scales or skin. I feel like non-unified mechanics are better about "doing" something but unified mechanics are about the "results" of something.
Question for people who find that the different dice make a difference to the feel: if you play on a virtual tabletop like Roll20, do the mechanics still feel different?
the problem with Warhammer is that they are still stuck on using a d6 for everything, its one of the reason I like the battlesytem, but now, Im gearing more to just using AD&D for mass battle, like it was meant to be used, only I do group damage, and use average hp per figure for mass combat. so much easier and faster to use AD&D for combat, but I do have to say, the 2e monster manual makes things easier for using a point system the 1e.
The granularity of using 2 ten sided dice cannot be matched by a twenty sided die. A six sided die cannot be matched by either. 6 and 10 are not evenly divisable by 4. A four, eight, twelve, and twenty sided die can be quartered.
At no time were polyhedral dice "difficult to get ahold of." They were cheap, and cheaply made. The d20 could become unusably rounded after a couple years. Early DnD had 10-sided dice. Every d20 was numbered 0-9 twice. Ok, you mention that just after I write this.
I don't think d10 were added to allow percentile rolls. My d20 was numbered 1-10 twice. For a d20, you rolled it with a d6: 1-3 add nothing, 4-6 add 10. d10s were obviously more convenient, especially when d20 were numbered 1-20 for ease of use. Weren't there some weapons that did d10 damage right at the beginning? Hilariously, a demo game of Warmachine I was playing when it came out came to a screeching halt because my opponent didn't have a d20 and neither he nor the guy demoing the game knew what to do. I had to show them that your could just grab a d10 and a d6.
I love the older mechanics. Homogeny does not always mean better. "Oh, I have to roll a save. Oh well, let me roll this d20 for the four-hundredth time tonight. Oh look, another 12....yawn"..."Roll for detecting traps?" reaches for the exact same die and oh, another 12. Yeah, so exciting.
If I wanted exciting or complicated mechanics, I'd play Pathfinder lol. Quick, efficient and easy to learn is the way to go. If rolling dice is that boring to you, you can just...not roll them. Have your GM roll, another player, use cards, or a jenga tower, flip a coin, just describe it, like literally anything lol
@@spudsbuchlaw The subsystems were essentially mini games within the main game that served to break things up. The ubiquitous roll a d20 for everything model had the unintended consequence of blanding everything over. Old D&D was like a 500 year old tavern with a lot of quirks and history. New D&D is basically McDonald's. McDonald's is wildly successful and basically everywhere because it's consistent and not very complex.
Each aspect of the game seemed to be a different sub game. Ability scores may or may not have an impact on combat, exploration, character advancement, etc. spells and saving throws feel like add ons as well, as do magical items (and the whole intelligent swords thing). Thief skills are very obviously an add on. It’s a mess that later editions have tried to clean up but keep as much of the original feel as possible, to dubious success. But I guess as long as there’s classes, levels, demihumans, HP, spells, saves, magic items and monsters then it’s still D&D
Is there really is something liberating about the x-in-6 mechanic. I think it's because 6 is an easy number to grasp intuitively. d100 and d20 mechanics are too high-resolution, so it's easy to get stuck trying to decide if the target should be 35% or 40%, but when you only have five possible outcomes*, you can just go wirh your gut.
I could never get a handle on all of the different rules for all the stuff you could do in 1st and 2nd edition. I preferred the unified mechanic of the D20 system, and still do. I think Gygax over complicated things, but he was probably trying to do what Kuntz recommended rather than a 1-size-fits-all approach. And to be fair, that is probably what game designers did back then. It just made it so difficult to know what to do in any given situation.
I forgot how gloriously messy the dice systems were in old AD&D. Some make me wonder how anyone could think it was ever a good idea, others made wonder why it was ever abandoned. Nice deep cut Nina album, by the way.
I'm glad you liked it, and I really appreciate you watching all the way through the bonus content to see the album! And, thank you for watching and commenting. Cheers!
The value for saving throws doesn't go negative for your chance to be successful. If its zero, then no roll is to he made. Originally, the chance to hit with attack roll was based on the saving throw mechanic. I haven't ever heard the reason for needing to use an algebraic equation to determine attack rolls. Maybe, because higher rolls were at one time the unified standard to determine success.
I think a problem with the assertions in this video is that rolling dice isn't gameplay. There are legitimately good design reasons to have people roll dice, but viewing dice as the lynch-pin for why people enjoy playing DnD is just completely not getting it. They aren't here for throwing rocks at the table, they're here for good gameplay, and a unified action resolution mechanic is without a doubt a better facilitator of this. Having the world feel more cohesive and all work under the same rules is also a good thing for feeling the world and intuiting how to play. You have the problem where combat gets treated by GMs as a minigame where everyone does a Final Fantasy *woosh* into with initiative rolls, role-playing stops happening, and the entire rules the world functions on gets flipped on its head. If you treat these as distinct, hard modes of play rather than different timescales, it really takes people out of the experience.
You mean now, right? It's gotten progressively worse since 1994 or so, when the class splat books and expanded options for 2E started hitting tables. It was great before that. Everything since has been one high power/high fantasy circle jerk after another.
@EaterOfWorlds78 Just because you don't like High Fantasy and prefer the survival horror style of older D&D, that's fine, but as a rules set, pre-d20 3E was pretty bad.
A few folks have asked for this, and I am looking into the feasibility. I don't know that my current equipment is suitable for the kind of audio experience folks are looking for. I've heard people say my audio sounds "empty" like I'm in a huge room or something, which I'm not (I'm just in my home office, which is pretty small). I stand over my phone which is pointing downward to shoot the video portion. Anyway, I am very open to information and tips on making a podcast version of my content. Thank you!
@@daddyrolleda1glue egg boxes to your walls as makeshift dampeners 😂 But seriously, maybe drop some background music in for the audiophiles out there. There’s no hollow sound for me, it’s just right
With regards to the podcast request you've received, I myself prefer no background music and retaining the visual component of the videos. My only important complaint about your videos is I feel you gloss over a lot of fine details and don't go into depth enough, including showing precisely what the text says and explaining it beyond a very brief and general summary. It makes many of your points feel like they never hit home. Rarely feel that coup de grace of your "arguments" shall we say.
old d&d was a mix of rolling high, rolling low, polyhedron dice and percentage dice without any structure, yet i never complained and did always had a great time ...
Yes, exactly. As I mention in the video, it never occurred to me at the times that there was something "wrong" with the system (and I still don't think there is - as noted in the video, I'm currently running 1981 B/X for my daughter and her friends and having a blast).
@@daddyrolleda1 there is to much fuzz about crunch and fluff this days, to much rethoric about balance and rule lawyering ... before, it just was : what do you do, roll tose dice and lets see what happens
@@manuelgarcia-ve5vmbecause the game today is about being an invincible superhero so the mechanics have to be built around justifying characters that cannot ever fail.
I prefer that classes are distinct and different from each other and provide diversity of expertise. I like it when a game doesn't have optimization built into it
I also don't like balanced encounters or balanced out characters. I say that in the sense that I know when you roll 3D6 the average roll is around 9, but no one really wants a strickly average character, but also I don't think it is cool when every encounter is a strictly winnable situation and one of the things I like about the Black Moore movie was when Wesley said that just let the players do whatever they want, with consequences. You want to do a Mounted Horse Charge into a scouting party. No problem - the terrain is a swamp and you loose your mounted units.
Martin. I agree. I’ve been at it for just over 50 years, and I very much want to learn and grow and improve what I do. ❤
Thank you! I was a little taken aback by a comment I got last week by someone who said, "No offense, but I don't watch DM Advice videos." And, I'm totally find with that, as I don't take any offense at all, but it does make me wonder, *why not*? Unless you're no longer actively playing, which makes sense, I can't figure why you wouldn't want to keep learning?
@@daddyrolleda1 Alwaya be learning. That’s my philosophy to help in having a good life.
When I was up at GaryCon (actually Strongholds and Followers) Paul Stromberg showed me Gary’s copy of Chainmail that had his notes in them about using a d20 for attacking instead of a 2d6. First time ever. It gave me chills. It’s in the Lake Geneva Museum in the D&D section of the museum.
Back in the day I did notice the different mechanics and assumed it was haphazard, but most of the time I didn't think about it or care. When I first started with 5e I liked the unified mechanic. Over not too long I got tired of 5e and stopped playing -- for a number of reasons. It wasn't until you identified it in this video that I realized a big part of what was how the unified mechanic did make everything feel exactly the same. Revelation.
A unified mechanic means the distributions of probabilities is the same. There is no sense of differing chance in the game.
2d10- Roll two ten-sided dice. Take the higher and subtract the lower. You get an absolute value result, heavily weighted toward zero! Allows you to handle essentially one-sided bell curves.
Whoo! New video! Let’s go. Will watch this afternoon.
Thank you so very much! Your support of the channel is so amazing. I truly appreciate it. Cheers!
Started in 79 with AD&D1 with exposure to Basic and Chainmail, which we used as supplements.
These days my research is more toward learning back to Chainmail.
So I'll be interested in this for sure.
Traveller stuck with 6 sided for everything, whether it was 1D6, 2D6, etc. 6 sided dice were ubiquitous; every household had them. And, as you said, with even only a 2D6 roll you can create either/both any percentage, linear or curved.
I love the game of Traveller a lot, but I don't love the strickly D6 mechanic of it. I say that in the sense that everything is resolved around a Ability modifier, a skill modifier, a situation/equipment and a dice roll. The average dice roll is 7 and if your have +1 in your ability, skill, or equipment/situation you can accomplish most average checks. It just isn't as nuanced as other games in the available outcomes.
WEG SWRPG used d6 exclusively as well.
@@russellharrell2747 ...and Tunnels & Trolls! Meadows & Megaliths is a 1D6 system.
I like the D&D advice videos
And I truly appreciate it! Thank you so much!
Excellent overview! Enjoying a pour or three of Buffalo Trace while finishing this video. Keep em coming!
Cheers to you, and enjoy! I do quite like Buffalo Trace. Excellent choice! And thank you for watching and commenting!
Great video. Very good explanation of why Gary did have a method to his madness.
I think your a quality creator, so if anyone has a ill word to say about you you just send em to 'ole Raptor jesus's way and I'll set them straight with the one cowboy combo of "Have-You-Ever-Watched-His-Videos" 🤠 Keep your Shield Arm Strong fella!
Ha! This gave me a huge smile! Thanks so much for your support! I really appreciate it!
@@daddyrolleda1 No problem I love the history of the hobby, channels like your are important!
Martin, I started playing D&D in mid-1975 and when I bought the set of rules, the vendor told me I would need the polyhedral dice so even by then sellers had figured out that they needed to give their customer a minimally complete solution. We never had Outdoor Survival or Chainmail but had no problem playing the game. Dice, the rules and some paper were all we needed. Everything else was nice to have but not required.
At least that was my experience.
I started playing in the 4th to 5th edition transition, and I recently got into OSE. I really like the different dice mechanics for different things because to me it makes it more interesting. But I will say a core mechanic makes it convenient for onboarding new players.
I definitely think having a unified mechanic is easier to teach new players. But that said, as a kid, we played 1981 B/X when I was around 11 years old, and we figured it out!
Hard to say which is my favorite video of yours, but this is definitely one of them!
So will there be a part 2 where you go into the "repeating 20s" on the combat table (and how it works with the optional "critical hit" rule), extraordinary (percentage) strength, the introduction of advantage/disadvantage (2ed "Player Options" IIRC), etc..?
wow a drink and a record at the end? this is my kind of channel. thank you!
Glad you like it! I started doing that last year and while some folks completely skip it, for the folks who stay, there's usually something fun. I hope you stick around and find some other stuff you like!
Thanks for watching and commenting! I always appreciate it when folks stay through the bonus content!
90 minutes is an exceptionally long video for me, but I like OD&D so here we are! :D
I really appreciate you watching! I hope you enjoyed it. My videos are quite long and I've gotten a lot of feedback from folks that they prefer them that way. It seems like a lot of folks listen to (rather than watch) them while they are working, doing chores, etc. I've gone back and forth with whether to reduce the length and, say, divide them into parts, but I get the impression I'd lose a lot of my core audience.
Thanks again!
AD&D will always be first on my list. It's what I grew up playing. The rules were made by gamers for gamers. The artwork inside the books inspired many adventures in the World of Greyhawk for my group. IMHO every version since has been sold, streamlined, and dumbed down. Now the franchise is a cash grab standing on the shoulders of AD&D.
Preach, Tony! AD&D and Greyhawk 4 ever!
I fully agree and it’s why I make a new systems that’s like if ad&d added orignal dnd things like mass combat WHILE fighting dragons and other things like that. I seriously love non-weapon profs so dearly! It’s hard to believe how games super streamlined the game and stayed from making it it’s true potnetial like earlier variations! I plan to fix this in my game Tower of Dice I’ll drop early next year. I won’t have it all done, but I’ll have enough for die hard 2e fans to “fill” the gaps like ad&d was originally made for to begin with lol
I like having different dice and different mechanics. For combat a 3D6 bell-curve works well, a D100 for anything to do with sneaking or scouting, different dice for different weaponses damages.
Thanks Martin! Not to be overly diplomatic but I love both - modular & unified mechanics. We run BECMI games concurrent with 5e. I love PC & Apple too; I need both to play to their strengths.
Yes. For my 1974/75 OD&D I had my copy of Chainmail, my copy of Outdoor Survival, and tracked down all the items to play and evolved with the game. Such memories. 😊
Oh wow! You did it right! That's fantastic!
I've always found games with uniform mechanics rather dry and clinical as a general thing. They don't really inspire me like a game that just "grew that way" as a result of enthusiatic gamers bolting on purpose-built solutions to specific design problems as they cropped up. Classic D&D feels more *real* to me in that sense, being at the end of the day both by and for hobbyists.
I like that somebody here gets it. lol
@@GamerKatz_1971 To me, it's like having a drink in a 500 year-old British pub that was built by hand and shows all the marks of its centuries versus visiting a pre-fab strip mall sports bar put up last week. Both have booze and seats, but only one has history and character.
I dislike it wholly. They feel cluttered and noisy to me. I want uniform and universal mechanics from the game I run, because then I don't have to memorize and keep in mind a dozen subsystems and can focus on the table of people around me. It's also easier to make up rulings on the spot with a uniform system where I know that the task resolution mechanism is always the same regardless of the situation.
Absolutely, sir! Great comment.
May as well throw away your DM screen then
I love tinkering subsystems in old mechanics. ❤
I remember playing the first version of dungeon ( small box) and then for Xmas I got the one you have pictured.
That's so cool!
My daughter played it for the first time this past Christmas while at a friend's holiday party. The family had the original game and all the kids in attendance decided to play it out in the garage!
Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 my pleasure
I was thinking about this last night and today and I like a core mechanic in general but not broadly specifically. Now I don't need a million mechanics, but 2D6 random tables are great because of the bell curve and percentage dice work great for other things - especially a long list of low probability factors, like background stories.
just got notice. already watched Prof DM and Bob World Builder. So, I'm free to watch right now. 🎉
Oh great! I'm so glad to hear that! I really hope you like it. I had a lot of fun combining all these various ideas into a single video. Cheers!
Daddy should be first in this list
@@nomoremaybes I listen to these as a podcast, so no, it shouldn't be first haha
Thank you so much @nomoremaybes, and also, @spudsbuchlaw, I really appreciate you listening! I've had a few folks suggest that I try to turn some (all?) of my content into podcast versions, and I've been thinking about how to do that giving my limited equipment and also my very limited technical know-how. One person said my audio sounds "hollow" like I'm in a huge room (which I am not; I just record on my phone). Others said I should include a background music track, and I have no idea how to do that and/or if it would be offputting to other folks. And then a few others folks said they listen to my videos to fall asleep, which is a huge complement but not what I intended and I don't know the first thing about how to record audio that would be helpful for those kinds of folks!
@@daddyrolleda1 I prefer no background music, and retaining the visual component of the videos.
My only important complaint about your videos is I feel you gloss over a lot of fine details and don't go into depth enough, including showing precisely what the text says and explaining it beyond a very brief and general summary.
It makes many of your points feel like they never hit home. Rarely feel that coup de grace of your "arguments" shall we say.
I like unified core mechanics - I liked how CoC was percentile roll under, mostly unified (I guess 7th edition is even more so now). The ad&d dice system was just like voodoo, but fun.
I haven’t shopped for spirits much lately but my chartreuse is almost gone and I probably should start poking around for some,
I do think the core rule works to simplify things for a GM as they no longer need to know such varied systens, but with good players it gives so much to each player to have a theme, so if I roll d6 damage I feel it is a Mace! And I don't mind % for "skills" to again give it a different feel from a d20 to hit or d12 for reaction or d8 for a sword damage, etc.
And I love the Final Word. The Green is good but I rather like Yellow too.
One thing I noticed about the universal D20 mechanic is that it makes the game very easy and fast to run. The Dm doesn't have to look up different rules for different things because it's all the same basic mechanic. So when a player makes an attack, or a saving throw, or a skill check etc they just roll a D20. Then when the Dm understands that incremental 5% increase in difficulty (or just do what i do and think of it like in this way 1-5: very easy, 6-10 : easy, 11-15: moderate, 16-20: hard, 20+ very hard) ad-hocing rules becomes very easy to do.
This is actually superb as it allows the Dm to get his nose out of the book and pay attention to the table. The game suddenly moves faster as the Dm doesn't have to stop and look up that mechanic he can simply assign a difficulty in his head and ask for a die roll. it keeps the game moving and players stop becoming bored.
Yes, you can do the same with more complex games with all the subsystems; but the universal mechanic easy; you don't have to invest a ton of brainpower into memorizing all the subsystems and mechanics in them. I think that's a great aspect of that system that is often overlooked.
Roughly 43:00 where you're talking about x-in-6 to cover things. I view the x-in-6 as something that is technically out of the PC's control and then if PCs can influence it directly, it's a d20 roll under. However, if they influence things indirectly, I up the (x+1)-in-6 up 3 or 4 sometimes. That then generally fits in my d6 oracle I bashed from Ironsworn.
I know this is another series, but you can feel the change in going from a non core-mechanic to a core-mechanic in Dragon Magazine. Pre 3rd Edition you've have nifty articles about almost anything. ""In a Cavern, In a Canyon..." by Thomas M. Kane in Dragon 152 stands out in my mind; its a whole primer on Medieval Mining, and other articles focused on expanding the milieu. After 3rd Edition, you get tons of feats, classes, skills, spells, magic items, etc, since its so easy to grok and make.
While I love 3rd Edition, and think it definitely improved and streamlined the game, some wild creativity was lost, since you now had very clear, bold lines to color inside off, instead of a more tabula rasa.
I tried a "On the Rocks Premium Cocktails" The Old Fashioned made with Knob Creek Bourbon with bitters (listed as cane sugar, orange, cherry and lemon flavors). Didn't like it. Just tasted like alcohol to me. I don't taste anything except the burn.
Love your videos though. Keep them coming.
On one hand, I really like the different levels of granularity with different resolution mechanics, but on the other hand, when I play shadowdark which uses the unified d20 engine, it's very easy to quickly assess the circumstances and set a check DC.
I think if, when initially designed, the writers sat down and decided what mechanics should be used for what scenarios, it would make it much easier to identify when to use a resolution mechanic and decide what the pass/fail chance would be
Thanks for the video! Everything is a nail when? I like the variety that 1E AD&D brings to to mechanics though I very much use a lot of Ability Checks (when appropriate, the DM chooses pertinent Ability Score and player rolls a d20 to hit that number or lower), so maybe my games are and have been more d20 oriented than some other 1E AD&D tables. Of course, Thief Abilities utilize percentage dice in my games and damage dice are by weapon type or whatever a spell calls out, so there's a lot of variety there. Nina Simone's daughter Lisa is a singer, composer, and actor in here own right. Check out her music if you get the chance.
Ooh, thank you so much for the tip on Lisa Simone! I will check her out. Thanks, as always, for watching and commenting. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Glad to be a part of the conversation!
I kinda liked the old skill checks in 1st and 2nd being based off of your total stat with a modifier rather that your stat providing a bonus trying to hit a target number. So a fighter with a str of 18, roll str +0 to to do some blacksmithing has a 90% chance of success. Conversely, having a +4 to hit a target 15 only gives a 45% chance.
Thank you, for another wonderful video my friend. ❤
I am so truly thankful for your ongoing support! It means the world to me. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 you are most welcome Martin. ❤️
Love your channel!
I am so happy to hear that! Thank you so much for letting me know. Cheers!
I'm still bitter about Dungeon. I was about 10 when I saw it in a game store in Sacramento. I saw TSR, I saw Dungeon, I saw the box cover, and I thought it was D&D. When I opened it and found the pawns and the board with spaces.
The same day, I left it behind in a restaurant (put it on the shelf behind a curved banquet). I was even more crushed because my money was now gone.
a Core Unified Mechanic, or C.U.M., I gotta say, I love it
I like both approaches to rolls. The rules should match the feel of the genre.
Yes, exactly! That's my opinion as well, but I do come across a lot of folks who refuse to learn new systems and want any genre to be played with only one system.
@@daddyrolleda1 I have run nearly twenty different systems in my day and I have yet to find one that fits every type of setting or genre. Yeah, you can run a super hero type game with basic/expert with a ton of hacking, yet I doubt it would feel like a supers game.
Fate, Cypher, GURPS, Hero and Savage Worlds are able to run any setting to some degree or another. GURPS and Hero are just too much work and are really slow games. Fate, Cypher and Savage Worlds are far more rules lite but each seems to favor a specific play style that doesn't always translate into some genres.
Because they made it up as they went. MVPs (minimum viable product) always work that way.
After the learning process is complete, you scrap it and build from ground up a new and better product.
Early D&D was a great lesson on how to build a product. It’s also insane how many people would prefer the objectively inferior product because they’re entrapped in nostalgia.
48:30· There is Always a Chance
We modified this rule to use the d30 die. It was always fun to👀see that Hail-Mary attempt roll around & about with the fate of our barely feasible logic to succeed. The d30 is unfortunately the red-headed orphaned dice of TTRPGs.
When I try to explain the 2 crayon colored d20 to younger people today I get a look like
"Sure Grandpa, let's get you to bed..."
That’s hilarious 😂
Bonus comment for bonus content: Chartreuse can be interesting, I'll have to try The Final Word sonetime. I like Nina. She ranges from totally incredible to a bit to experimental, and sometimes both. Cheers 🥃🎶
I still have my 1974 original Tractics boxed set. ❤️
Oh wow! You have all the good stuff from back then!
@@daddyrolleda1 Yes. The roots of my gaming history. 😊
A lot my friends complain about the different resolution mechanics in OSE, but I'm with Rob Kuntz on this. I think it does do a lot for the game. Now I will disagree about 4e, yeah the damage has rough parity between classes on the powers, but there is so much more going on than just damage. If you're just looking at the damage something does in 4e you're missing out on the most fun part of the game which are the conditions and forced movement.
Thank you! I really appreciate you watching and commenting.
And I do agree about the "forced movement" in 4E and that was a really fun part of that edition. My memory, though (which may be faulty) is that *most* classes had powers/exploits/spells/whatever that utilized forced movement, which made them feel the same to me. I seem to recall powers being: "1D6 + [Weapon or STR or Something] Plus Move Opponent Into (some kind of adjacent square, whether back or sideways)"
That's obviously me just being overly simplistic and it's meant as tongue-in-cheek. The force movement plus the conditions were part of the things I had a blast with one of the times I played 4E. I mentioned it briefly on the channel before, but I played the right head of a Pygmy Ettin (character assigned by the DM for a one-shot). One of the other players was the Left Head. I was a Warlord with INT 10. The other player was a Fighter with INT 6. We split our movement but other than that, we each got to take independent actions on our turn. One of my abilities was to force people to do things by giving them a command whilst also applying physical damage. So on my turn, I would hit the other head and give it a command so that on its turn, it would do what I wanted. It was a funny and clever way to use those mechanics.
Cheers!
I wonder what Gary would think of a dice pool system. You can't calculate the odds and the results are something you could map to a table, but it more about how many points did you roll
Great question! I'm not sure what his thoughts would be. I have heard many times that he was more partial to Castles & Crusades, and claimed that it's what he would've ended up designing for a revised edition had he stayed at TSR.
Re: Unified Mechanics: I think whether it's better or worse depends on your goals as a company. In the late 70s and early 80s D&D was growing quickly. If you're designing a game to appeal to tactical wargamers, having many varied mechanics might be ok. But if you're trying to grow the audience by appealing to people who only have ever played board games, unified mechanics are going to be quicker to understand. Not in the 4e "every class is the same" way, but in the , "roll d20, add mods and hit a DC to succeed" way.
As far as the different mechanics make different things sytand out/more fun, it might make sense to war gamers, but probably not for others looking to create a shared story. That is, the thing that's interesting to me about picking a lock versus hitting a monster with a sword is if picking a lock is a cool part of the story. Making it d% roll under doesn't make it interesting. That's just the math. I'm more interested in the story than what die I roll and how that number is used.
I find that if the core of a system is too unified it becomes boring quickly. Immortals RPG uses all of these where each path has its own feel for various abilities. Thanks for the great video.
Chainmail is not a 2d6 system, it is an "buckets of d6" system, were you get d6 based on the number of figures for combat.
I started in the 80s with the three brown booklets, then basic box, before collecting ALL the 1st ed. hardbacks. Loved the nonweapon proficiencies from oriental adventures, but after the 2nd ed players handbook left dnd alltogether in favor of the Warhammer FRP system. I loved the extensive skills, the expansive career options, the exciting critical hit charts, and the fact that EVERYTHING needed was bound in a single book.
Warhammer wasn't completely perfect in all respects, but mostly better imo. I developed my own armor and wound chart for damage locations, so that mismatched or incomplete armor sets could be worn, preferred a "called shot" vs. a random location, and eventually developed a unified system based on a d100 sandwich roll. No modifiers, very little math at all (stat+skill, 1-5each), and no math during play.
So, having no exposure at all to 3rd to 5th ed., I'm almost a little overwhelmed with all the feats and such I've seen with pathfinder and today's dnd. It's TOO MUCH, and besides, I'm not a fan of "epic level" fantasy and prefer a setting where magic is rare and dangerous. As a kid, I thought new player species and classes were exciting, but thirty years later there's SO MANY!
So now, you've got me wondering if I should use a different (non-unified) mechanic for my subsystems between combat, social and exploration perhaps?
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! You might be interested in a recent video I made about Warhammer FRP: ua-cam.com/video/rdPjjuW6B0w/v-deo.htmlsi=v7Ra7iDupTHganL3 I like a lot of the game, particularly the setting and the careers, but you're right that another great benefit is that everything you need to play is in a single book (much like the 1991 "Rules Cyclopedia" for D&D).
I played a lot of 3.5 and Pathfinder 1E but grew tired (and overwhelmed!) by all the different options/feats/powers/etc., much like you mention.
As far as using different mechanics/systems... maybe play around with it and see what you like! My video posting later today is about some mechanics from a variety of different RPGs that I really like, so maybe you'll find some inspiration there as well.
Cheers, and happy gaming!
i like the(roll and move on) d6 mechanic, but paired with a players describing their actions as the supreme decider. so if they fail searching traps they can still poke around with a 10 foot pole and locate and disable traps, like if they are in a place like the tomb of horrors where there are so many traps you could never roll to find them all, while the roll and move on is quick and saves the player from cheap traps some DM's put in older modules to cheat players who would never think of such odd novel trap, like poisoned door knobs, novel annihilation traps, and disintegration rays that trigger opening doors, ect.
another is if they search a room and the roll fails, they can still say i check the desk or behind the painting and possibly find something because they described interacting with the right objects.
both systems work best in tandem. otherwise paranoid players are spending 30 minuets opening a single door because past traps had 300 different clever ways to go off, so the game moved extremely slow or they get corn holed by a single bad roll to not notice a horrible trap and have no agency to beat the trap thru careful and clever descriptive actions.
I still DM 1e so that should answer the question if I liked the unified d20. I have been looking to modify the cleric turn undead roll to make it harder, thks, will have to look at that chart more carefully!!!
Excellent! I hope you found it helpful and/or inspirational! I running B/X as you may have picked up during the video, and having a blast!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
There is something about the process of dice rolling where some dice just feel more fun to roll than others, and having varied dice is even better. I've played d100 systems and there's just something about rolling d100 that feels less like a game and more like work. I find d20s also don't feel good if overused. On the opposite end, d12s and d8s never get old. Why this is, I have no idea, and maybe it's just me. My point is, varied dice just feel like more fun. The same goes for mechanics. Rolling on different tables using different dice is somehow more appealing.
Because you mentioned DaveCon, you might want to reach out to them and see if you could be a speaker for the 2025 convention and maybe run a session. And if the financials are an obstacle, you might be able to do a kickstarter or gofundme to help cover it. Just a thought, it would be cool to see you again there in 2025.
Arneson did get dice in England and so did Bill Hoyt who still has his, but these were only d20's. (1-10 numbered twice) They did not have the other funny dice. The other platonic dice came in either because of Wesely or Gygax or possibly both.
I don't think the issue is as much unified vs diverse mechanics as much as it is consistency. The basic game I'm running with my group (for players introduced through 5e who haven't even read other editions), there's been no complaints about diverse mechanics because I'm pretty consistent with d20-roll-over for just attack rolls, percentile is just thief abilities (which is basically a consequence-free trial check), 2d6 is for reactions they might influence but are out of their control, and d20-roll-under for normal skill checks (but d6 where variable difficulty cancels out their skill). If it's not covered by those things, they need to try to explain how to work it into those things, and they can try to explain their way out of one category to another. E.g. a thief who failed their climb walls roll or any non-thief can try to climb as a d6, but if they get or make an improvised rope-and-hook it becomes a d20-under, and if they get a decent ladder it's a straight "yes".
As someone who started with 3rd edition, the idea of having mechanics that "feel" different sounds really cool. However, modern designs trying ensuring that people don't feel intimidated by the mechanics also seems like a valid concern.
DMs will always put more effort in to learn the game, but that's probably why there are always less DMs than players.
I definitely prefer games with different mechanics, mini games and all that; but I think these “unified mechanics” solutions are more suited to systems that are more skill-based… maybe that’s why it eventually became the norm in D&D as it was for a time transitioning to skill based.
That's an interesting point about skill-based systems and unified mechanics! Thanks for sharing. And, thanks for watching and commenting!
1. Is AD&D1e turn attempt a d20 roll? For some reason, I recall using 2d10 for it. It's been a long time since I've played it though.
2. I prefer having separate mechanics; however, I dislike percentile scores for thief abilities.
Didn’t Outdoor Survival use the 2D6 for their tables? I believe so. That game would be a cool video.
This video is what I was looking to hear concerning today's unified mechanics vs multi-dice mechanics usage & systems mechanics.
The idea of d20 unified DC-type mechanics are just so incredibly boring. Yes, it's easier, but it's not as fun...IMHO-ONLY. But I think it did a disservice to DM's and their creative thinking and adjudication of the game of D&D.
Thnx! 🤓👍
The game used different dice for different mechanics because of the distributions of the probabilities for different combinations of dice. If you think the game feels different in ODND, 1E, or 2E than 3E+, it is because it is different.
I wonder if you'd get more from your GM Advice videos if they weren't _branded_ as GM Advice. Like you say, it's mostly stories of the game you run for your daughter and her friends, and you include GM advice sprinkled throughout, but it's less "here's how you should run your game" and more "here's how I'm running _this_ game", it feels more like a couple of hobbyists sharing stories and learning from each other. I think you should brand these videos as campaign adventures and recaps, and then include the GM advice as a little bonus. Because as you said, a lot of GMs aren't going to watch every GM Advice video they see because they figure they already know what they're doing. While it's true that we are all always learning no matter how experienced we get, we do not have enough time in the day to just watch GM advice videos until the end of time, so I think those should undergo a rebrand where it's more about "here's where our campaign is and what I'm learning from it".
This is such a great idea! Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, and for taking the time to share it. I think that's a really interesting idea, and I'm going to look into changing the banner for the thumbnails and changing the name of the playlist. I really appreciate your thinking on this. Thanks!
@@daddyrolleda1 Glad to help!
I love the IDEA of the different systems, but I hate them being presented in the standard/basic rules because it makes the game too complicated and overwhelming for new players and GMs.
Looking back on BECMI, I think they had the right idea with the modular rulesets that level up with the players skills.
The entry/standard rules should be simple. Then based on the individual interest and skill of your table, sure why not introduce more complexity? Sounds fun!
If modern games like Cyberpunk Red or Blades in the Dark released with no unified dice mechanic, people would find it hilariously incompetent. As a non-DnD person, I always find it so weird how normalized things in those games are that its fans, particularly old school people, dont change because it's how it is. I have _never_ played a ttrpg where people's fun hinged on the dice mechanic used lol. Mechanics are only allowed in so far as they support the fiction, and in any scenario where they are cumbersome or cause slowdown, they are to be banished to the shadow realm. Tracy Hickman's X-DM is a godsend in that regard: pick a number and roll it is _THE_ rule to use
This video rolled a 1 on a d6!
That cracked me up so much! I really appreciate both the laugh and the support. Thank you!
@@daddyrolleda1 I am always happy to make good people laugh.
Iirc, chartreuse actually coined the term 'liqueur', so it might be more accurate to say modern liqueurs are lower abv?
So many ad hoc mechanics in older D&D editions.
It's not like there was a blueprint to follow.
Your have light blue coloured dice! My Moldvay dice are red!
Light blue were the most common for a couple of years (to almost grey).
There were several colors but light blue was most common. Wish I still had mine.
I prefer non-unified mechanics personally. I have a big thing I called Tangible game design that's really meant to emphasize how things feel to do. Writing a novel and hitting a homerun feel like vastly different things in real life so why do they feel so similar in so many games? I want writing a novel to feel like writing a novel and the swing of a sword to feel like I'm biting into scales or skin. I feel like non-unified mechanics are better about "doing" something but unified mechanics are about the "results" of something.
Question for people who find that the different dice make a difference to the feel: if you play on a virtual tabletop like Roll20, do the mechanics still feel different?
the problem with Warhammer is that they are still stuck on using a d6 for everything, its one of the reason I like the battlesytem, but now, Im gearing more to just using AD&D for mass battle, like it was meant to be used, only I do group damage, and use average hp per figure for mass combat. so much easier and faster to use AD&D for combat, but I do have to say, the 2e monster manual makes things easier for using a point system the 1e.
The granularity of using 2 ten sided dice cannot be matched by a twenty sided die. A six sided die cannot be matched by either. 6 and 10 are not evenly divisable by 4. A four, eight, twelve, and twenty sided die can be quartered.
Core
Unified
Mechanic
At no time were polyhedral dice "difficult to get ahold of." They were cheap, and cheaply made. The d20 could become unusably rounded after a couple years.
Early DnD had 10-sided dice. Every d20 was numbered 0-9 twice. Ok, you mention that just after I write this.
And it was the best.
I don't think d10 were added to allow percentile rolls. My d20 was numbered 1-10 twice. For a d20, you rolled it with a d6: 1-3 add nothing, 4-6 add 10.
d10s were obviously more convenient, especially when d20 were numbered 1-20 for ease of use.
Weren't there some weapons that did d10 damage right at the beginning?
Hilariously, a demo game of Warmachine I was playing when it came out came to a screeching halt because my opponent didn't have a d20 and neither he nor the guy demoing the game knew what to do. I had to show them that your could just grab a d10 and a d6.
Didn't all weapons do 1d6 in original D&D ?
I love the older mechanics. Homogeny does not always mean better. "Oh, I have to roll a save. Oh well, let me roll this d20 for the four-hundredth time tonight. Oh look, another 12....yawn"..."Roll for detecting traps?" reaches for the exact same die and oh, another 12. Yeah, so exciting.
If I wanted exciting or complicated mechanics, I'd play Pathfinder lol. Quick, efficient and easy to learn is the way to go. If rolling dice is that boring to you, you can just...not roll them. Have your GM roll, another player, use cards, or a jenga tower, flip a coin, just describe it, like literally anything lol
If you're relying on rolling different dice to keep things interesting, your game has much bigger problems.
@@spudsbuchlaw The subsystems were essentially mini games within the main game that served to break things up. The ubiquitous roll a d20 for everything model had the unintended consequence of blanding everything over. Old D&D was like a 500 year old tavern with a lot of quirks and history. New D&D is basically McDonald's. McDonald's is wildly successful and basically everywhere because it's consistent and not very complex.
Early mechanics often seemed to be created at the writers whim. Like Gary might say to himself... " i haven't used these dice recently... so why not?
Each aspect of the game seemed to be a different sub game. Ability scores may or may not have an impact on combat, exploration, character advancement, etc. spells and saving throws feel like add ons as well, as do magical items (and the whole intelligent swords thing). Thief skills are very obviously an add on. It’s a mess that later editions have tried to clean up but keep as much of the original feel as possible, to dubious success. But I guess as long as there’s classes, levels, demihumans, HP, spells, saves, magic items and monsters then it’s still D&D
@@joshuahebert7972 If the authors aren't using their own rules, why write the rules that way?
Is there really is something liberating about the x-in-6 mechanic. I think it's because 6 is an easy number to grasp intuitively. d100 and d20 mechanics are too high-resolution, so it's easy to get stuck trying to decide if the target should be 35% or 40%, but when you only have five possible outcomes*, you can just go wirh your gut.
I could never get a handle on all of the different rules for all the stuff you could do in 1st and 2nd edition. I preferred the unified mechanic of the D20 system, and still do. I think Gygax over complicated things, but he was probably trying to do what Kuntz recommended rather than a 1-size-fits-all approach. And to be fair, that is probably what game designers did back then. It just made it so difficult to know what to do in any given situation.
1
I forgot how gloriously messy the dice systems were in old AD&D. Some make me wonder how anyone could think it was ever a good idea, others made wonder why it was ever abandoned.
Nice deep cut Nina album, by the way.
I'm glad you liked it, and I really appreciate you watching all the way through the bonus content to see the album!
And, thank you for watching and commenting. Cheers!
Subsystems come and go.
System masteries change.
Yet the eternal truth remains,
THAC0 is indeed whaco.
The value for saving throws doesn't go negative for your chance to be successful. If its zero, then no roll is to he made. Originally, the chance to hit with attack roll was based on the saving throw mechanic. I haven't ever heard the reason for needing to use an algebraic equation to determine attack rolls. Maybe, because higher rolls were at one time the unified standard to determine success.
I think a problem with the assertions in this video is that rolling dice isn't gameplay. There are legitimately good design reasons to have people roll dice, but viewing dice as the lynch-pin for why people enjoy playing DnD is just completely not getting it.
They aren't here for throwing rocks at the table, they're here for good gameplay, and a unified action resolution mechanic is without a doubt a better facilitator of this.
Having the world feel more cohesive and all work under the same rules is also a good thing for feeling the world and intuiting how to play. You have the problem where combat gets treated by GMs as a minigame where everyone does a Final Fantasy *woosh* into with initiative rolls, role-playing stops happening, and the entire rules the world functions on gets flipped on its head. If you treat these as distinct, hard modes of play rather than different timescales, it really takes people out of the experience.
If you feel that you are too good of a DM to accept ideas from other DMs, then you DEFINITELY need advice from other DMs.
Good grief.
Let's play a drinking game.. a shot every time you say "mechanic"
It sounds like I might win! I'm in!
People forget how TERRIBLE of a game D&D was.
You mean now, right? It's gotten progressively worse since 1994 or so, when the class splat books and expanded options for 2E started hitting tables. It was great before that. Everything since has been one high power/high fantasy circle jerk after another.
@@EaterOfWorlds78 AD&D was okay. White Box D&D was basically unplayable.
@EaterOfWorlds78 Just because you don't like High Fantasy and prefer the survival horror style of older D&D, that's fine, but as a rules set, pre-d20 3E was pretty bad.
Yet it will still be played and loved long after you're forgotten dust.
@@willmistretta Okay? I'm not saying people can't or shouldn't play it. People play lots of bad games.
Sorry.. can't watch. You are not my style.
Thank you so much for commenting. I really appreciate it, as it helps the algorithm know that people are engaging with my content. Cheers!
ME WANT AUDIO VERSION
A few folks have asked for this, and I am looking into the feasibility. I don't know that my current equipment is suitable for the kind of audio experience folks are looking for. I've heard people say my audio sounds "empty" like I'm in a huge room or something, which I'm not (I'm just in my home office, which is pretty small). I stand over my phone which is pointing downward to shoot the video portion.
Anyway, I am very open to information and tips on making a podcast version of my content.
Thank you!
@@daddyrolleda1glue egg boxes to your walls as makeshift dampeners 😂
But seriously, maybe drop some background music in for the audiophiles out there. There’s no hollow sound for me, it’s just right
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_dice
With regards to the podcast request you've received, I myself prefer no background music and retaining the visual component of the videos.
My only important complaint about your videos is I feel you gloss over a lot of fine details and don't go into depth enough, including showing precisely what the text says and explaining it beyond a very brief and general summary.
It makes many of your points feel like they never hit home. Rarely feel that coup de grace of your "arguments" shall we say.