Quick Quiz

[bluegargantua]

Hi,

For those of you who game (even a little bit, even board game):

When you roll dice against some target number does it feel more "correct" to try and roll higher than the target number (like d20) or to try and roll lower than the target number (like Call of Cthulhu)?

If you're reading a game and they do it differently than the way you feel comfortable with, are you less likely to try the game out?

later
Tom

Comments

[purly.livejournal.com]

I'm always rolling 1s, so I would go with lower.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

higher feels right.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

Trying to roll higher makes more sense to me. But a different mechanic would not prevent me from playing a game.

Note that I'm a babe in arms when it comes to dice-based games; most of my gaming experience is in LARP, where dice is not used. So, grain of salt, or something.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

As a rule, higher. With some exceptions, lower is usually a closed test, and those feel wrong and limiting to me, both as GM and player. It won't turn me off the game if the setting is good, but I will likely rip it out and replace it with a homebrew mechanic, like I'm doing with Fading Suns.

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

It's better to roll higher. As children, we are trained to know that rolling higher makes your little man move further along the board. Roll-under systems contradict this ingrained knowledge.

[shiffer.livejournal.com]

My gut reaction says "higher", but when stopping to think about it I find that I'm neutral. Doesn't really matter to me one way or another, but then I do try to use diceless mechanics as much as possible.

Dice hate me.

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

Higher except when targets are percentiles, but like kadath, I don't especially like closed tests so I don't generally like them.

[twwombat.livejournal.com]

Don't much care. I've played CoC and Hero (under) as well as d20 and Shadowrun (over) - dice methods don't mean a lick to me.

Although I think the prevailing social attitude is "bigger number means better result".

[lucasthegray.livejournal.com]

roll higher seems to make more sense to me, as roll under is a closed test that seems more limiting. Though it won't turn me off to a game if the system is roll under.

[invader-haywire.livejournal.com]

I would agree with this, also its easier to add modifiers than to subtract them depending on how the system works.

[dirkcjelli.livejournal.com]

(without reading other replies)

higher

[qedrakmar.livejournal.com]

I say Higher. If nothing else, it tends to be "roll X or better" and in most contexts more=better. This is reinforced through most scoring systems, whether it's tests in school, or scoring in the Olympics, but we generally recognize recieving a higher number as having done better.

[katkt.livejournal.com]

Higher.
No, not at all.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

I think rolling for the highest number on the die is cooler. It's a d20, so rolling for 20 is cool. Otherwise you're always aiming for 1 on all dice no matter how many sides it has, and that is uncool.

Also, mechanics have never stopped me from trying out a game if the game concept is interesting enough.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

-I'm used to both styles, and have no real preference.

[bonisagus.livejournal.com]

Higher...unless it's percentile. Perhaps it's cultural thing but rolling under has always been counter-inituitive to me.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

...unless it's percentile.

[buddhagrrl.livejournal.com]

i used to like the idea of rolling under... it made sense because then my stat represented how much ground I had covered in that area, and it all seemed clean and neat. I never played a system like this but I watched many games like this and always liked it. Then I played D20 DnD and D20 Wheel of Time and got really addicted to rolling 35s and 38s on my massively awesome specialty skills Hide in one case, Weavesight in the other. Having the ability to have a skill roll go to an absurd degree of success was really fun. That halfling, on a good day, could hide behind her own shadow. Whatever else she did, that was cool. My Initiate with the massive Weavesight stat could, on a good day, learn any spell she observed.

It wouldn't have been nearly as absurd or therefore fun if it was roll-under.

On the other hand, no, under vs over would not affect my interest level in a new game whatsoever.

[insegnante.livejournal.com]

Higher. Because we're programmed that more is better. More money, more land, more everything is better. So the higher the better.

Unless you're on of those radical liberals then lower is better.

[trystero.livejournal.com]

"Roll equal to or better" makes more sense to me from a game-design standpoint, but "roll equal to or less than" is faster and easier for my brain.

I wouldn't rule a game out for using either mechanic: I spent too many years playing both RuneQuest (roll equal to or less than target plus/minus modifiers) and Rolemaster (roll and add/subtract modifiers, try to equal or exceed target).

[wh-knight.livejournal.com]

I like 'roll higher than X', unless the system is percentile. Although Rolemaster (yes, I know everyone hates it except me) has d100 roll high and it fits/makes sense.

Either way, a dice convention opposite to my preference won't affect my decision to try out a game.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Higher is better. Every measurable standard we have outside of gaming has higher=better.

[pawo.livejournal.com]

I prefer games where you try to roll exactly the same as the target number, like Teenagers from Outer Space.

Or am I bluffing?

[lionmerlin.livejournal.com]

Seems hardly necessary, but higher. As some others have noted, it;s an intrinsically easier mechanic to learn...in the US at least. GURPS uses a roll-under system, which works well but requires extra work to learn. Another interesting mechanic: GURPS uses 3 6-sided dice, generally, so most skill rolls are 3-18. 3 and 4 are always critical successes, while 17 and 18 are always critical failures, and everything inbetween is skill-based. Just to keep ;ife interesting.

It's also possible that the crit failures can be mitigated by very high skill levels, but that might also be more GM choice than an actual mechanic.

Anyway, that's all my burbling. And a system that's different from what I prefer might have some small sway in whether I was interested in playing it, but only if the concept was already kind of borderline anyway: if I'm only mildly interested and it's a little harder to learn, I might not.

Okay, that's really it now. Happy designing, and Joyful Yulmastice/Chanukwanzaa to you and yours. :)

[spiritseeker.livejournal.com]

Higher. High should be good, low should be bad in all things. Nice, easy, consistant and jives with our (capitalist?) hindbrain.