When I started gaming ADnD was the king of the block, 1e Traveller (little black box), 2e Champions, 1-2e Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Elf Quest, 2-3e Call of Cthulhu were the outliers. I was never a fan of DnD, it just did not sing to me, its concept were too abstract and the game felt “soft”, meaning my high level character dying seemed like a choice not a fear.
I preferred the other more grounded and realistic games out there so I naturally gravitated towards Cthulhu and Traveller. This was just how I felt at the time. I have since bought almost every edition of DnD, but it always felt alien, weird and pointless, so now I only have 13th Age, a derivative of the system with lots of clunky edges filed off, but even then, I only keep it as a “if you insist on playing DnD, I’ll give you DnD” game.
The most common denominator was the venerable D100 game mechanic, which powers a lot of TTRPG’s, more than any other mechanic outside of D20, but they have many detractors, so lets look at why and some fixes as we go.
The games are too lethal.
This is not a D100 mechanical imperative, more of a habit of design. Because D100 games are often skills based, they are by extension not level based and therefore more grounded. This more realistic nature leans into combat as the possible undoing of any character of any experience level by any protagonist.
First up, this is not always a problem. Keeping players involved and even scared of the consequences of their actions in TTRPG’s can be hard. One of the easiest ways is to raise the stakes. There is nothing more boring to my mind than a swarm of minions attacking a group of near god-like heroes who can basically just wade thought them swinging.
Choosing to fight should not be sport without consequence, it should be one of several options to get things done and the results should be a reflection of those choices. It makes your wins more meaningful, not just an addition to your kill count. It can be a memorable stepping stone on the way to your legend.
Lethality is also down to a lot more than a simple core mechanic. What happens when a character takes damage, how are they effected? Is it brutal and every hit has an effect or can they soak a certain amount of damage before something sticks?
These factors are all in the control of the designer and nothing to do with the core mechanic. D100 game have chosen to take the “real licks have real effects” path over the years, but there is nothing to say a DnD style abstractness could not be used with them.
The math is too much.
D100 math is not hard, but can be made harder. Ironically, % based systems are very intuitive by nature a 25% chance meaning more to most than 1/4 or .25, but setting various difficulty levels and applying mulpiple mods on the fly is on a larger scale than D20 or 3d6 games by definition. Some older games are also a little counter intuitive with some odd chance slopes.
Games like Warhammer FRPG 4e is a prime example of making the simple less so. It requires levels of success derived from rolls vs targets compared to opposition rolls and gets quite convoluted, even offering a simpler option in the game and many just use more basic D100 systems.
There is no need for this and many D100 games have simple fixes. Difficulty can be a matter of reversing the dice (the D10 and D1 dice are usually pre-assigned, but this can be flexible), giving the players a roughly +25 or -25% chance of rolling better than 50, with a curve and no extra math required.
For my own games a basic test (not a 1v1 contest or a test under duress) is “dice read best way” giving a curve and room for levels of difficulty to be added. This also lets the game keep skill levels under control and the player may choose any combo that works for them (i.e deliberately fluff a roll for story diving need).
Exceptional results can simply be all doubles rolled, pass (good) or fail (bad), giving the characters a 10% chance of something outstanding happening, but these can also be aligned to the value rolled, a 99 fail being trivial, a 99 pass being unbelievably legendary, because only 99% skill characters can even roll it and so on. If “00” is a flat fail, then no character has a 100% chance of success. These can also be aligned to the difficulty, the 99 fail on a mundane task is negligible, but on a difficult task becomes more brutal (all this needs is a simple chart).
Contests can be as simple as “highest passing roll wins, a pass vs a fail gives advantage” etc.
These are a few ideas floating around currently and they basically remove any math outside of reading the dice.
The games are skills based (like life), not level based (like a game).
Not much can be said here. If you like the inherent suspension of reality that level based games provide, then I guess D% or any skill based games are not for you, but don’t level that at D% games only as plenty of other games go there. When DnD ruled the early years of RPG’s, basically by being the first, almost all of it’s competition went in the skills/abilities direction.
One of the many areas DnD has always fallen down is a decent skills system and support for non-combat role playing. It seems churlish to dislike the systems that actually support these things better.
Hit points, armour class, level based bonuses are closer to a video game than reality, so as a game mechanism, they make sense to many, but most RPG’s aim to recreate the world they are based on, DnD actually fails at this dismally if you compare the story line of almost any fantasy stories it claims to emulate to the reality of the game, even the DnD movie.
The linear nature of D100 is more swingy than dice pools or addition systems with a curve.
True, they can be, but the easy fix is the above mentioned roll best/as allocated/worst combo system. This means there is a curve for mundane or standard tasks, a linear chance for challenging and contested tasks and a curve against for difficult ones (and more dice can be added making thing exponentially harder).
The D20 is also linear, the curve in some systems can be tricky to make work (mods becoming more and more powerful over a smaller range) and pools can be accused of regularly producing bland results.
The roll under system seems negative and limiting, roll over is more positive.
I see this one a lot and I get it to a point. Throwing a ball as high as you can seems limitless, where rolling it along the floor to get as close to an edge as possible without it going over seems like a game in itself and one that requires restraint and some decision making.
This is very much down to your interpretation I guess. I like the high as I can within a limit envelope.
No right or wrong here. One thing I do is by using the “read them the best way” curve for basic tests, skill levels can be lower and still be effective and truly exceptional skill levels are rare and powerful. Advancement can be aligned to skill. For example, if a critical result is rolled (good or bad), the player may later test against their current skill and a roll over adds +1%. So, as the character gains skill, their progression slows, something Dragonbane does to great effect, if less incrementally.
Meeting a 97% skill swordsman should be an event, hopefully with a good ending.
If a system allows for more than 100% skills, these can be used to reduce opponents skill or allow a second safety roll after a flat failure.
The mechanics are dated.
I roll my eyes at this one. DnD is older, but nobody calls it dated. The real reason it may get this label is the consistency of the system, one that has fundamentally remained unchanged for over 40 years means it is directly linked to some games much older than the players playing them, but compare that to the revolving door of DnD and most other RPG’s that seem to have to re-invent their core mechanics regularly.
Try playing 1,2,3,4e DnD with 5e rules. Impossible.
Then give Call of Cthulhu or Runequest a go with their first and last editions mixed. Not so hard.
Easy to think of older games as old mechanics, but D100 games are a dynamic and ever changing group of games, that still share a core mechanic that is nearly unchanged and almost any D100 mechanical idea you have can be blended into almost any D100 game with little harm. Find RG:G too hard? Use BRP systems instead.
There are other negative points levelled at d100 games, but in most cases, these are simply down to “I don’t like them” worded another way. I don’t like D20 level based games with massive over simplification of details in abstract mechanics, which I feel is a more valid reason to dislike something than “just because”, but that is me, you need to be you.
I guess the question comes down to whether you like the game itself and if you do, will you accept the mechanic that powers it? I like D100 games so much, I convert other games to them.