Quote from SagaTympana >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Quote from Lycaon1765p >>

whilst a system with d6's was in the original D&D, that isn't how the rest of DnD went along. The swingy-ness is the point. 

I shall recant.

The swingy-ness is the point.

This is at the core of the fudging & closed rolling V.S. no fudging & open rolling debacle. The dice are the unbiased arbiters of resolution. They have just the same chance to give you any number as any other number. You saying that a 2d10 system making an average result more likely is directly opposed to this ethos and way of thinking. Biasing towards a certain curve rather than have all results be equal is the direct opposite of that which is wanted.

 
Swinginess is bad.

Swinginess sucks donkey rocks.

Swinginess says my eleventh-level artificer with tool Expertise rolling at +10 to Thieves' Tools checks, with a 1d4 from Guidance and the ability to +5 any roll she makes with Flash of Genius at need, still has a 5% chance to be completely and utterly baffled by a five-copper DC 5 baby's-first-lock from the local fishmonger's bazaar.

No.  **** that.  **** that literally forever.  And don't give me that moose garbage about "critical success/fumbles only happen during combat"; point me at one single GM ever who adheres to that instead of doing "hilarious" garbage like "Oh no, your master locksmith with really high quality artisan-grade thieves' tools rolled a 1 on your check?  Guess you broke your picks!  You're gonna have to buy some new ones, and I bet the guards at the next town will be really interested in why you're trying to buy thieves' tools! wink wink!"  

Some things do not bloody ****ing merit failure.  Some things do not bloody ****ing merit success.  And until GMs as an aggregate whole learn that, I will always be a proponent of mechanically limiting aberrant results as much as is feasible.  A zeroth-level street urchin with "thieves' tools" consisting of a few bent-up wires will never, ever, EVER crack the king's jewel vault, and a twentieth-level master thief will crack that dumbass DC 5 lock literally more easily and more reliably than you or I can buckle our belts.  It is not funny when an untrained moron shows up an Expert master of a skill.  It is not funny when the Expert master breaks their shit, or snaps their bowstring, or hurls their sword through a momentary portal into the Abyss, or whatever other dumbass idiotic nonsensical total-bullshit Loony Toons tombuggery you decide to inflict on them for having the sheer gall to roll a natural 1.  It's not cool, it's not a strength of D&D, it's not a storytelling moment. 

It's ****ing bullshit.

The "swinginess" of D&D means every last single character in D&D is not actually trained at anything.  They have no practiced skills, no honed masteries, nothing.  They're all a bunch of screaming yaybos flailing mostly at random and praying the Almighty Math Rocks of the Gods come down in their favor.  It is maddening, and it very much dissuades many people from trying to make "expert of their trade"-type characters.  

Chaos has its place in a game of D&D 5e.  So does actually being good at what you're good at, and being able to rely on those skills.

 

I'm fully on board with the idea that normal distributions are better than flat ones, but it is worth pointing out that nothing about your post has any basis in the rules of D&D. If your bonus is at least +4, there is exactly 0 chance of failing to pick a DC 5 lock, and the GM doesn't really have to call for a roll (though, who uses DC 5 locks anyway). Natural 1s don't mean anything special except on attack rolls, and if your GM is using shitty house rules, it's not really fair to be mad at the game itself because of it.

Yeah, the issue in that example is the DM calling for a roll in the first place, not how swingy the dice are

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

"Nat 1s are auto-failures on everything" is one of those 'house rules' that's not really any such thing, much like "The Surprise Round".  Everybody does it, and since GMs constantly call for rolls they have no business calling for, it means people flub checks they have no business flubbing all the time.  I've played at tables with GMs who deliberately fish for natural 1s to screw players over with (if only ever once, for any given such dickhead GM), and when called on it they say "that's how the game works!  If you roll a nat 1 you goof up and something bad happens!"  It's such a pervasive thought pattern that even GMs who know better end up doing it half the time.  You can't get away from it, and players are always expected to just grin, grit their teeth, scratch their difficult-to-locate tools or their vital-to-the-current-adventure weapons off their sheet and say "sure."

Yurei, if every DM who ever runs a game for you sucks I do feel very sorry for you (and can't help but wonder if you pissed off some extremely vindictive witch at some point), but it's silly to blame this on the system that actually does it right. I've been less unfortunate with DMs, it seems, but even if that weren't true it'd be a problem with those DMs, not with the rules, and if they're really that gung-ho about crit failures they'd come up with something using other rules too. 

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

"Nat 1s are auto-failures on everything" is one of those 'house rules' that's not really any such thing, much like "The Surprise Round".  Everybody does it, and since GMs constantly call for rolls they have no business calling for, it means people flub checks they have no business flubbing all the time.  I've played at tables with GMs who deliberately fish for natural 1s to screw players over with (if only ever once, for any given such dickhead GM), and when called on it they say "that's how the game works!  If you roll a nat 1 you goof up and something bad happens!"  It's such a pervasive thought pattern that even GMs who know better end up doing it half the time.  You can't get away from it, and players are always expected to just grin, grit their teeth, scratch their difficult-to-locate tools or their vital-to-the-current-adventure weapons off their sheet and say "sure."

It is absolutely ridiculous.  It is beyond ridiculous.  And people who advocate for "swinginess" are always doing so specifically so they can hang onto their "hilarious" critical fumble tables and continue making players wish they were dead rather than playing D&D at their table.

 

The only "surprise round" rules I know of are here. I've only ever seen people follow these rules. 

I've also only encounted DM's who have crit fail on attack rolls or rarely adding an extra die to say a fireballs damage (ex. 9d6 instead of 8d6 - not cantrips) on crit fail saves if they still fail after their mod is added. Mostly what I would consider minor damage boons to the spellcaster in our games. Never have I myself, I had or seen a DM use crit fails on ability checks. 

I do use a crit fail table but it's mostly flavor based and heavily weighted towards "you miss but look bad doing it [insert description]". The worst thing that can happen on my fail table is a) you take 1d4 psychic damage pained by the embarrassment. b) your weapon (if not natural/unarmed) is knocked out of your grasp but within reach (mostly this just means they can pick up their weapon immediately and continue except in rare circumstances - alternatively the pc's sometimes draw another weapon they have). I completely understand not wanting to play with a crit fail table in general though. I just like it because it gets my brain juices flowing in combat occasionally.

I wouldn't mind dice pools but I think it would require reworking a lot to fit in this system. I think I'd be able to adjust the monsters pretty easily - I have to do this every party/game anyway. Adjusting classes/subclasses core abilities especially any that revolve around crits (brutal crit, crit range etc.) would probably require significantly more testing.

I like your ideas about advantage/disadvantage having more interaction as adding/taking away dice is less impactful. It's definitely something I would consider trying if there was an easy way to implement it. We also primarily play online so it would definitely be a slow down compared to the current click xyz rollable thing for results unless it became a core/optional feature and was supported across various platforms. 

Disagree.  1d20 gives you a 5% chance of rolling any single score and fits nicely into things like AC, proficiency, etc.

I think OP’s issue is that they’re playing “crit fumble” house rules.  

I do that as well, but I still don't see their point.

The increased realism of multiple dice does appeal to me (getting outside the norm is less likely). But I'd have to disagree.

1. As DM, it's much easier to estimate difficulty with with 1d20 system. If a character has a +5, I know they'll have 50:50 chance of passing a DC15. Even without knowing their bonuses, estimating how difficult something is is quite intuitive. I can even adjust difficulty on the fly without a sweat. In xdy systems, that's really not easy. I'd have to break out the probabilities calculator to understand it. That slows down creating challenges significantly and makes the whole process harder . 
2. The extra maths is just unwelcome. Absolutely fine for a dice roller that adds it for you, but when manually rolling? It's just another delay (albeit a small one) in an already dragged out process. I'm looking to cut down the amount of work and time it takes to get a result, not add to it for a different probability curve.
3. A good portion of the excitement of D&D is the gamble. You can make long shot attempts and succeed, and you can make reasonably safe attempts and fail. While you don't want it too extreme, the possibility exists that it could happen this time while not being close to 50:50 is a nice balance in a 1d20 system. It could happen, but it's not common. With xdy systems, the chances are just much lower. You can be pretty confident if you will 0ass the check or not before you roll if it's in a narrower range. With the significantly lower chance for an upset, it is less exciting.
4. D10s look horrible. D20s look much better. Not much of an argument, but it's true.
5. D10s are not symmetrical on every axis. That means you have to be more conscious about rolling it to ensure that it's a fair roll.
6. Similar principle for rolling two dice instead of one.
7. More dice means it's more likely something will go wrong with the roll (goes off the edge of the table, etc).
8. Doing advantage/disadvantage (3 dice in an xdy system) requires even more effort.
9. Linking that back, the calculating the odds for advantage/disadvantage in an xdy system is a pig.
10. For the tenth reason (wahey), all the DCs, ACs etc would have to be calculated to account for the new probability curve. Eh, WotC's problem, but that'll be money and time taken away from developing other stuff.

I keep the take 10 mechanic in play, so as long as you are not under duress and are sure your bonus's will exceed a dc on a roll of at least 10, then you don't need to bother rolling.  You only need to roll if you think you need a roll higher than 10 to beat the DC or are in a hazardous situation.

Another way to deal with natural "1"'s from a 3e UA variant rule is to have them count as -10's rather than automatic failure and/or fumble.  It's possible you have enough bonus's stacked to bring your cumulative roll back above a "1".  You may even still succeed at a low enough DC, but even if you don't, it's still not a fumble unless the cumulative roll is still a 1 or less.

Another way for people who prefer 2d10 in a game where 1d20 is the standard is to allow for a means of conveying the axiomatic trait to a PC i.e. via a potion or ring, or as a weapon enhancement etc.  This serves as a Mcguffin to allow the player in question choose to use a 2d10 in place of a 1d20 without having to change it for other players who do prefer the standard model.  Such a player becomes immune to fumbles as even a snake-eyes counts as a roll of "2", and only a roll of "1" qualifies for a fumble roll.  

Quote from Linklite >>

The increased realism of multiple dice does appeal to me (getting outside the norm is less likely). But I'd have to disagree.

1. As DM, it's much easier to estimate difficulty with with 1d20 system. If a character has a +5, I know they'll have 50:50 chance of passing a DC15. Even without knowing their bonuses, estimating how difficult something is is quite intuitive. I can even adjust difficulty on the fly without a sweat. In xdy systems, that's really not easy. I'd have to break out the probabilities calculator to understand it. That slows down creating challenges significantly and makes the whole process harder . 
2. The extra maths is just unwelcome. Absolutely fine for a dice roller that adds it for you, but when manually rolling? It's just another delay (albeit a small one) in an already dragged out process. I'm looking to cut down the amount of work and time it takes to get a result, not add to it for a different probability curve.
3. A good portion of the excitement of D&D is the gamble. You can make long shot attempts and succeed, and you can make reasonably safe attempts and fail. While you don't want it too extreme, the possibility exists that it could happen this time while not being close to 50:50 is a nice balance in a 1d20 system. It could happen, but it's not common. With xdy systems, the chances are just much lower. You can be pretty confident if you will 0ass the check or not before you roll if it's in a narrower range. With the significantly lower chance for an upset, it is less exciting.
4. D10s look horrible. D20s look much better. Not much of an argument, but it's true.
5. D10s are not symmetrical on every axis. That means you have to be more conscious about rolling it to ensure that it's a fair roll.
6. Similar principle for rolling two dice instead of one.
7. More dice means it's more likely something will go wrong with the roll (goes off the edge of the table, etc).
8. Doing advantage/disadvantage (3 dice in an xdy system) requires even more effort.
9. Linking that back, the calculating the odds for advantage/disadvantage in an xdy system is a pig.
10. For the tenth reason (wahey), all the DCs, ACs etc would have to be calculated to account for the new probability curve. Eh, WotC's problem, but that'll be money and time taken away from developing other stuff.

 11. Having to rewrite the Champion sub-class to accommodate the lower probability of getting a nat 19 (18 if you hit that tier of play).

Quote from Damian_Magecraft >>

 11. Having to rewrite the Champion sub-class to accommodate the lower probability of getting a nat 19 (18 if you hit that tier of play).

 
That has to be done anyway so it doesn’t count.

I'm not a fan of the bell-curve approach because it simultaneously reduces the chance of doing below average and the chance of doing above average.

In dnd, being good at a skill is represented by additions to your roll. this moves the bell curve along the graph, so someone with +6 to a roll is going to roll 17-18 or so most of the time on 2d10, whereas they have just as much chance of an 18 as they have of a 6 or a 26 with a d20.

Can anyone give me a story in which a mediocre roll made all the difference? I've heard loads of nat-1 stories which people remember, and the same of nat-20 stories. No one ever remembers the time when they rolled an 11 - so why do we want to make it more common?

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >>

I'm not a fan of the bell-curve approach because it simultaneously reduces the chance of doing below average and the chance of doing above average.

In dnd, being good at a skill is represented by additions to your roll. this moves the bell curve along the graph, so someone with +6 to a roll is going to roll 17-18 or so most of the time on 2d10, whereas they have just as much chance of an 18 as they have of a 6 or a 26 with a d20.

 

Can anyone give me a story in which a mediocre roll made all the difference? I've heard loads of nat-1 stories which people remember, and the same of nat-20 stories. No one ever remembers the time when they rolled an 11 - so why do we want to make it more common?

 
Aberrant results being rarer makes the times you get those results more memorable, not less.  In GURPS, the chance of getting The Number of the Beast (18, i.e. 666 on three d6) is roughly half a percent according to the book's math, as is Bilbo's Blessing (3, i.e. 111, i.e. eleventy-one, on 3d6).  The Number of the Beast is automatic failure on the roll, and the GM is encouraged to be merciless in introducing complications to the scene whenever the dice come up Satan.  Because the event is so rare it really does feel like a cosmic happenstance and the resulting chaos is far more engaging than the D&D equivalent of "Lawwwwl that's your fifty-seventh nat one tonight!  Let me roll the Wheel Of ****ery to see what HiLaRiOuS happenstance befalls you this time!"

The d20 ensures that chaos is the norm, failure is omnipresent, a character's skill, talent, and training are all meaningless, and that there's no real reason to remark on or remember most rolls of natural 1 or natural 20 because literally who cares they happen all the bloody time.  Ironically, my most prized/cherished story of high-rolling Dice Juju was with a d10, not a d20 - a party member was unconscious in a fire and about to burn to death, and my tiefling rolled some mediocre number to try and find him and pull him free in time.  But said tiefling had a homebrew ability, 'Devil's Fortune', that allowed me to roll a d10 and add even numbers to my result, at the cost of subtracting odd numbers.  The math worked out, after the campaign once I knew the target, such that only the 8 or 10 on a d10 roll would've gotten me past the target.  

I rolled a "nat" 10, and saved my friend's life from the flames.  If not his pants.

That story, I remember.  Because the odds of that sequence of events happening were so much slimmer than just "oh yey/noes, nat 20/1."  It's the sort of story D&D, as a general whole, is just poorly equipped to tell because it's so all-fired concerned with the lolrandom hyper chaos of the d20.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

The d20 ensures that chaos is the norm, failure is omnipresent, a character's skill, talent, and training are all meaningless, and that there's no real reason to remark on or remember most rolls of natural 1 or natural 20 because literally who cares they happen all the bloody time. 

Except that's not true. It's a binary system, which is equally as chaotic with single die rolls or multiple dice rolls. How often failure happens is a function of DCs. Skill, talent and training will stop you from ever failing a skill check that's supposed to be dead easy for you as well as determine how difficult a task you can hope to complete successfully. And 5% of the time is not all the bloody time. 

I feel morally certain I've had this conversation with you before, Pang.  I can distinctly recall going over the game feel behind the math and why the more stable, less aberrant and swingy results behind a dice pool system feels drastically different than the lolrandom hyper chaos of the d20, no matter what someone says about "a 65% chance to succeed is a 65% chance to succeed regardless of how many dice are involved with the roll."  I know I've laid that out before, but apparently it was in a thread other than this one.

Nevertheless.  A refresher.

"65% chance of success is 65% chance of success no matter how many dice are involved" applies only to a single roll.  Over the course of a campaign and all its many thousands of die rolls, a dice pool system  produces drastically more stable results.  The deviation on rolls is much tighter, aberrant results are much rarer.  The result is that in a 3d6 dice pool game, i.e. the standardized system I'm using as a basis for comparison here, your skills, abilities, and training feels reliable.  You can count on your skills in a crisis, and training your skills feels meaningful and rewarding.  When you flub something badly, it's either a case of genuine, legitimate bad luck or a case of the extreme difficulty of a given, specific task managing to defeat your best effort.  It produces a game feel where being really good at something ensures that only cosmic happenstance or truly exceptionally adverse conditions can defeat that trained skill.

A d20 system, on the other hand, fostors a game feel of "literally anything can happen at any time."  The Intelligence 6 barbarian with not a single knowledge proficiency to his name can regularly outperform the Intelligence 20 wizard with Expertise in Arcana in matters of arcane lore and knowledge - and conversely, the Strength 6 wizard who's never lifted anything heavier than his spellbook in his life can regularly defeat physical challenges that stymie the Strengrh 20 barbarian with Expertise in athletics.  Things that simply should not be possible happen all the damned time with the d20, because ten percent of all rolls are either Glorious Success or Humiliating Failure, no matter what skill values are involved.  The d20's lolrandom hyper chaos is a primary contributor to the fact that nobody cares about proficiency or training in D&D 5e and why people scorn anyone who seeks to try and do the "skillmonkey" thing and be prepared for a diversity of challenges.  The common refrain is "why bother?  Just roll high and you win anyways, there's no point in spending resources on that stuff when you could spend resources on doing more damage instead!" 

Even in this thread, people have defended the "Anything Can Happen!" gamefeel of the d20 system as a high point of D&D, with the specific and explicit goal of ensuring that skill, training, talent, and all the rest has as little impact on rate of success as possible.  Is it any wonder that some people may chafe at the idea that no amount of honed skill should matter in a game about skilled, competent heroes seeking to protect their worlds from dire fates?

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

I feel morally certain I've had this conversation with you before, Pang.  I can distinctly recall going over the game feel behind the math and why the more stable, less aberrant and swingy results behind a dice pool system feels drastically different than the lolrandom hyper chaos of the d20, no matter what someone says about "a 65% chance to succeed is a 65% chance to succeed regardless of how many dice are involved with the roll."  I know I've laid that out before, but apparently it was in a thread other than this one.

Nevertheless.  A refresher.

"65% chance of success is 65% chance of success no matter how many dice are involved" applies only to a single roll.  Over the course of a campaign and all its many thousands of die rolls, a dice pool system  produces drastically more stable results.  The deviation on rolls is much tighter, aberrant results are much rarer.  The result is that in a 3d6 dice pool game, i.e. the standardized system I'm using as a basis for comparison here, your skills, abilities, and training feels reliable.  You can count on your skills in a crisis, and training your skills feels meaningful and rewarding.  When you flub something badly, it's either a case of genuine, legitimate bad luck or a case of the extreme difficulty of a given, specific task managing to defeat your best effort.  It produces a game feel where being really good at something ensures that only cosmic happenstance or truly exceptionally adverse conditions can defeat that trained skill.

A d20 system, on the other hand, fostors a game feel of "literally anything can happen at any time."  The Intelligence 6 barbarian with not a single knowledge proficiency to his name can regularly outperform the Intelligence 20 wizard with Expertise in Arcana in matters of arcane lore and knowledge - and conversely, the Strength 6 wizard who's never lifted anything heavier than his spellbook in his life can regularly defeat physical challenges that stymie the Strengrh 20 barbarian with Expertise in athletics.  Things that simply should not be possible happen all the damned time with the d20, because ten percent of all rolls are either Glorious Success or Humiliating Failure, no matter what skill values are involved.  The d20's lolrandom hyper chaos is a primary contributor to the fact that nobody cares about proficiency or training in D&D 5e and why people scorn anyone who seeks to try and do the "skillmonkey" thing and be prepared for a diversity of challenges.  The common refrain is "why bother?  Just roll high and you win anyways, there's no point in spending resources on that stuff when you could spend resources on doing more damage instead!" 

Even in this thread, people have defended the "Anything Can Happen!" gamefeel of the d20 system as a high point of D&D, with the specific and explicit goal of ensuring that skill, training, talent, and all the rest has as little impact on rate of success as possible.  Is it any wonder that some people may chafe at the idea that no amount of honed skill should matter in a game about skilled, competent heroes seeking to protect their worlds from dire fates?

 Since since some hate the idea of having any chance whatsoever in their games and don't want any element of risk, they should always take the average roll as part of the homebrew rules. If they fail, they fail because their character's skill sucked, or if they passed, then it's purely down to their skill. If having chance is such an issue, having 2d10 is still going to have the same fundamental problem. This resolves it! No need for that chance of skill failing and meaning nothing!

1d20 is a staple of D&D, a sacred cow that will never go. Nat 20 is such an iconic figure!

Fortuatly, any DM is free to use 2d10 instead if he or she wish so. 

You can also have different planes use different dice systems based on their alignment.  Material plane is 1d20 because it is mildly chaotic aligned, but if you adventure to The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, the system changes to 2d10 as the plane is lawfully aligned; perhaps even more of a change as it is heavily aligned towards Law.

Sacred cow implies that it's here regardless of how well it works. I agree with the others who say it's working exactly as intended. There have been plenty of chances for them to change it as we moved through editions, there have been decades for all these other game systems who use "better dice" to overtake D&D.

None of those things have happened because d20s are fun. Period. 5% crit/fail is a psychological sweet spot in the same way that 65% to hit is. Would 0.01% crits be even more speacialer than 5%? Sure. But it happens once a campaign while crits/fails happen enough that they can be a topic of discussion after nearly any session.

Brain chemicals + math = d20 is ideal. D&D has blown away every competitor because it has a resolution system that is both simple and satisfying. While you personally might love the "roll 5d6, take out the highest and lowest, then add 1d4 for each advantage and subtract 1d4 for each disadvantage and then add the square root of the angle of the sun in your eyes" system for it's edgy realism, it's not better. Not in the sense of mass appeal and general utility.

Most of the complaints against it are poor adjudication or outright house rules. Don't call for checks on things that should automatically succeed and don't add fumble rules for rolls other than attack rolls if you don't like those things.

As usual, you are free to change whatever you want for your game. But the idea that others should change something so tried-and-true that is totally working for them because you know better than professional game designers* and 50 years of market domination is a bit silly.

* don't @ me with poorly designed stuff like True Strike as evidence pros have no clue what they're doing. The base conflict resolution system of the game is a different level of design.

Quote from Shepherd_Hubbard >>

You can also have different planes use different dice systems based on their alignment.  Material plane is 1d20 because it is mildly chaotic aligned, but if you adventure to The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, the system changes to 2d10 as the plane is lawfully aligned; perhaps even more of a change as it is heavily aligned towards Law.

 That's a really cool idea actually, and one I may loot for future use!

what would you go to for additional chaos?

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

game feel

The game feel is bullshit if it isn't supported by, you know, facts.

Again, binary outcomes. Success or failure, that's all that matters. As long as more results being near the average doesn't translate into more results being successes (or failures) there is no more nor less chaos with a 1d20 roll vs a 2d10 roll. And that translation shouldn't happen as long as the game aims to have bounded accuracy.

As for your barbarian vs wizard comparison, a difference of 5 points in modifier (basically the difference between being proficient and having a decent relevant attribute vs not being proficient and being perfectly average in the relevant attribute) results in the character with the relative +5 winning 73.75% of contests. Sure, that could be higher (I think 80-85% would be better), but it's a far cry from your assertion nonetheless (if the difference is 2+5+6 (Barb's Int penalty, Wiz' Int bonus, Wiz proficiency with Expertise benefit or vice versa for Athletics) the wizard wins 94.75% of the time). 

And once more for God and country: there's no such thing as critical failures or critical successes in skill checks in the rules. DM doesn't play by the rules and things don't turn out well? That's on the DM, not the rules.

Math doesn't lie. Intuitive and subjective impressions may not line up with the math, but that doesn't mean the math is wrong. It means the impressions are mistaken.