Percentile blues
I was thinking today about some of my favorite roleplaying game rules systems (with Rolemaster predictably vying for the top position) and realized that there aren't very many percentile game systems out there at the moment. That is, relatively few games--and none of the most popular ones--use a 1-100 percentile dice roll as their primary mechanic.
Who out there is still using a percentile mechanic? Let's see:
- Call of Cthulhu (the Chaosium version) and a handful of other games that share its rules system
- Unknown Armies
- HARP/Rolemaster/Spacemaster from Iron Crown Enterprises
- ...anyone else? Is RuneQuest still around? That may have used a percentile system; I don't remember. Harn, maybe?
That's not a very big list. While most of those games are good ones, only Call of Cthulhu is sufficiently popular that there's much of a chance of finding it on the shelf of your local gaming store. And what's more, several of those games use the percentile system only selectively--that is, they use a percentile roll for things like skills but not for the basic stats that define a character.
I wonder why nobody's using a percentile mechanic? It's so straightforward and easy to grasp. It's not the fact that it's a linear (as opposed to bell-curve) mechanic--if people had a general problem with linear systems, D20 wouldn't be so popular. The only other issue I can imagine--and maybe this is the fatal flaw--is that in some cases it can result in having to do double-digit math on the fly. Although Rolemaster, for instance, usually stuck with multiples of five or ten, there were times when you ended up having to do moderately difficult math during games--"Let's see, my attack roll is 78, plus my Offensive Bonus of 34, minus the goblin's Defensive Bonus of 25, plus a +10 terrain modifier..."
Not being terribly math-inclined myself, I can see that being a problem. My old gaming group always had calculators on hand just in case the math got too scary, and having to occasionally whip out the ol' number-cruncher never seemed to slow the game down much. Other percentile games I've played, such as the old Top Secret/SI and Call of Cthulhu, never really got complex enough mathematically to require a calculator.
Alas for a fallen-from-favor gaming mechanic.
Comments
You are making me feel old.
Just yesterday I pulled out my first edition copy of Runequest (c. 1978) to answer a trivia question on the Forge.
Yes, it used percentiles for skills.
For me the king of percentile systems is original Top Secret. Everything, even attributes, was on a 1-100 scale. Merle Rasmussen, we miss ya. :)
I think the original Boot Hill was like that too, but I never owned a copy.
Posted by: Ed Heil | February 26, 2004 7:32 PM
Ah, classic Top Secret. That was quite the game--I'm pretty sure it featured a Random Torture Chart for determining the fate of your character upon capture by the enemy. We had great fun with that game but fairly quickly moved on to Top Secret/SI when it came out.
I toyed briefly with RuneQuest sometime in the mid-to-late-80s. There was one aspect of that game that singlehandedly kept me from ever getting into it: duck player characters. As in, players could create character who were giant talking ducks. I'm open to lots of weirdness in my RPGs, but the talking ducks was asking just a bit too much :)
Posted by: jrau | February 26, 2004 8:24 PM
I think part of the reason percentile systems are often avoided is the huge potential in them for cheating. A player rolls two dice that look exactly the same and then calls one the first number and the other the second.
"I rolled a 73!"
"Oh, that's too bad -- you needed a 50 or below to survive."
"Did I say 73? I meant 37! The blue one is the first one, not the red -- I just forgot. I swear!"
The answer, of course, is a hundred-sided die.
Posted by: Jon | February 27, 2004 9:16 AM
thats why you use percentile 10s with normal 10s and i saw awebsite where a guy claims he invented the system and noone cam publish books with it or he can sue he says it falls under the fre gaming licence rule...what a loser..then i invented the internet and oranges...
Posted by: kyle | December 7, 2004 11:53 AM