On Dice Rolling Systems and Their Discontents

 One of the first things I changed was the dice rolling system. GLoG uses roll under, with different sizes used for different tasks.

I replaced it with an asymmetric, unified roll-over mechanic that wasn't even my favorite among those I considered, and how I arrived there seems worthy of a blog post.

My first consideration was compatibility. What I wanted was compatibility with everything, and thanks to Blog of Holding I found it: every face on a d20 is a 5% probability. Ultimately, bonuses represent either side "claiming" a face. If it's d20 to d20 it's apples to apples, everything else can just be converted to % and then divided by 5.

So ultimately you've really only got 4 basic moving parts: the dice roll or rolls, the base expectation (usually 10,) the total bonus, and the total penalty. What's fascinating is that you can generally move those around wherever you want them, changing them to negatives as needed.

Generally, I personally prefer math-first approaches: calculate the base, bonus, and penalties to generate a target number then roll to see if the dice meet or beat it. A bit venial but I like the way that everyone nearly instantly knows the moment the dice is rolled. A particularly elegant form is the "mathless" version: the roll is successful if it rolls *under* the attack value but *over* the defense value. In exchange for the weirdness of wanting middle numbers you don't have an explicit stop to math step anymore.

But I didn't use either as my default style of dice rolling. Because what I ultimately wanted wasn't elegance in theory but elegance in practice, and in practice what will generally happen is the player will have their numbers in front of them and the DM will have the situations numbers in front of them, and all those systems required math-in-the-moment: the DM (usually) gives the player (usually) the modifier, the modifier is applied each time, then the roll occurs.

If that's split, though, the system becomes much easier: the DM has pre-calculated targets and the player has a pre-calculated attack bonus: roll, add, and see. Communication becomes as straightforward as "beat a 12" and in practice, over the course of  whole game session, that matters, especially when it comes to saving wear and tear on the DM. So in g/x the statblocks are all written target numbers so the DM *can* add modifiers when it makes sense but otherwise can just use aas written.

Furthermore, all the roll-dependent stats are target numbers: the players roll both to attack and to defend, another huge break with tradition. This one's a little more straightforward: in my opinion, rolling dice and doing the math isn't the best usage of the DMs time. Descriptions, time management, strategic decisions, evaluating how the game is going, modeling the thought processes of the combatants, and any number of other things are already occupying DM attention. Pausing the game for math stones just creates dead space where it doesn't need to be.

Players like to roll dice, let them. DMs can make more impact elsewhere.

So, ultimately, that's the system I settled on: 1d20 + Bonus vs Target. ties go to the roller. Simple, consistent, smooth.

Buuuuut if anyone wanted something different, I did tuck a little backdoor in: want to run a Target into a Bonus? Subtract 10 and use as needed. Just in case somebody needs it in the future.