Tom Kalbfus said:
What so great about using 2d6 as your main selling point? Why not do a science fiction game that uses d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, d12s, and d20s? What is the big deal about using only d6s? Dungeons and Dragons has enough market saturation that just about anybody can get those dice, its not like you have to break open your Yahtzee set to get those d6s to play 2d6 games. I don't think I would want to play a game just so I could roll six-sided dice. Having only six-sided dice is a bit of a handicap one needs to work around. Most people think in the decimal system, so what do you do if you want to assign a probability of 2% and you need to roll only d6s to represent that probability? You got to do some crazy math to convert decimal into a result by rolling 2d6s, 3d6s or 4d6s. With the D&D dice set, you have some more flexibility.
On the other hand, while paying for a set of polydice isn't exactly likely to break anyone's bank, if I'm first getting into PP/TTRPGs at all [and let's not get into the argument over the appropriation of "RPG" by the FPS crowd], it's likely that I can get started sooner with d6-only rules, whether it's 2d6 or some-other-number-of-d6 - because I can download my core rules - whether they're
Cepheus Engine, the
Traveller 1e SRD, the UGM 2d6 SRD, the PDF of the
Traveller 1e or 2e
Core Rules, or whatever - and then I
can break into my Yahtzee set, or my Monopoly set, or my Shut the Box set, or any number of other board games that I may have around that use the extremely common - perhaps 'ubiquitous' is a good word to use here - d6. And get started in a couple of hours, instead of having to wait until I can get to FLGS and buy polydice - because I'm not going to find polydice at my local Target or B&N, as D&D doesn't seem to come in boxed sets with a set of polydice any more.
Someone else commented on the
Cepheus Engine - and other OGL games - as being "soulless". I'm going to disagree. I have early CT, from before the Imperium was A Thing, and even then, there was a definite flavor. It was more or less simulationist, with a heavy admixture of narrativism, before GNS defined simulationism and narrativism; it was noir before Noir was The New Black; it was gritty before androids dreaming of electric sheep became a little more than a cult favorite. And when the rest of the world went Noir and gritty,
Traveller - without the Imperium - still left open the opportunity to play the Hope for the Future. From where I sit, calling it "soulless" says more about the poster's imagination than it does about a game whose rules are known to me to support at least six published settings (Including all the various eras of the Third Imperium as a single published setting), and has openly been touted - and not only by me - as being a good fit for at least three more settings from published and popular SF.
I dislike polydice rule systems perhaps as much as Mr Kalbfus appears to dislike d6 systems. But I will not denigrate them. I will try to present reasoned arguments in favor of my preferred ... let's come right out and admit it,
Traveller system. But I will acknowledge that there is a certain style of gaming for which polydice rules are perhaps more appropriate - witness Mr Kalbfus's example above, of a stated 2% chance. In my gaming - and I suspect that most
Traveller players are with me in this - It's not about fiddly exactitude in percent chance of success. It's more freewheeling and rough around the edges - is the Thing You're Trying To Do going to be "I can do this with my eyes closed", Easy, Average, Hard, "Don't hold your breath"? The book says, more or less, that Average is "Roll 8 or better on 2D6. If it's easier, either offer favorable DMs or lower the target number; if it's harder, offer unfavorable DMs or raise the target number." Do I really need more than that? The simpler the rules, the faster the game moves as a game, and the better it holds the interest of the players - who are largely going to be about the Story, and the Drama, not the percentages and the rolling of dice.
I could easily keep going - and perhaps someday I will, but in
Freelance Traveller, not here. For now, I think I've said what's most important about what's on my mind, and hope that it will provoke nontrollic and nonflammable discussion.
