role-playing

NEW POLL: Your Preferred RPG Resolution System?

When playing role-playing games, which action resolution system do you prefer? 

Do you prefer the elegance and simplicity of a single die roll?  Or do you prefer the tactile sensation of a bunch of die clacking together in your hand just before you roll? 

Do you believe in calculating the sum of multiple dice, or are Successes and Failures the more statistically valid approach? 

Or do you shun dice altogether, preferring the logic of comparing ability scores?

Vote in the new poll here at ONCE UPON A GEEK and let the world know!  Also, feel free to comment explaining your feelings further!

4 thoughts on “NEW POLL: Your Preferred RPG Resolution System?

  1. I’m a fan of simple=better. More dice is just a complication that makes players FEEL more important, but it doesn’t actually make their character any better than if they used less dice.

    Also, systems with more dice tend to really hamper your ability to create the character you want.

    Personally, the old Marvel system, I thought, was great. everything was resolved on a nice easy chart using percentiles.

  2. I’m still fond of the old DC Heroes system, where a single die roll (sum of 2d10) determined both success/failure and the result (e.g., damage). It’s always made sense to me that the better your success roll, the better the result should be, but few games most game just don’t reflect that very well. It also worked well for a comic-book reality with the idea of “rolling up,” where if you rolled doubles, you got to roll again and add that result to your score. That made it possible for even Jimmy Olsen to occasionally cut loose with a Sunday punch and knock Luthor for a loop.

  3. Fond, fond memories of the West End Games Star Wars RPG. I started playing that after getting way too frustrated with feeling like I had to be a math major just to figure out if I was able to punch someone in the face in D&D.

  4. In before history.
    I’ve always been a huge fan of the only D6 system used in Shadowrun. Needing only one kind of die and looking for rolls of 5 or 6 aka ‘hits’ made it one of the faster, if not the fastest resolution systems I’ve seen to date.

Leave a Reply