Dreadnought wrote:
I can't see any fundamental reason it wouldn't work as long as people are comfortable doing the closer calculations needed. It's easier to know that a 1 or a 2 or a 3 is a good success on a roll where you know the success number was likely to be somewhere between 10 and 13, than it is to know that a roll of a 11 was a good success because you'd need to know the actual success number. I generally have a feel for when a success is a very good one with low numbers and I think it allows for more 'drama' in the game. We only bother doing the calculations when they are close enough for doubt and I'd worry this might slow down the most dramatic moments.
That's good insight - thanks!
One reason that I like the "roll under, but higher is better" approach is that I really like how it handles contested rolls. In an arm wrestling contest, for instance, instead of each player having to determine their margin of success, they simply say "I succeeded with a 12" or the like and the high roll (that's successful, of course) wins.
This approach can also be nice in conjunction with a chart that ties successful rolls to the level of success one has with a given task. For instance, if one succeeds on a roll with a 3 or 4 it could be considered a sloppy job, perhaps earning a disdainful comment, while a successful roll of a 16 or 17 would earn a great deal of praise. Again, this could be done with a "lower is better" mechanic, but it requires a player to do a bit of math and then report "I beat it by 7" or the like.
It's important to note that I'm approaching this from the position of a novice. While I've owned the DW books for a long time and pull the core book out a few times a year to peruse it, I've never actually played the game. Only recently, with a realization that the DW ruleset might be very well suited for a campaign concept that I'm really excited about, have I been giving serious thought to actually running a game.
While I'm sure that every campaign is different, I wonder if I'm over-estimating the value of the "higher is better" mechanic in DW. After all, things like Perception vs. Stealth only require a roll by one party. So here's a question: how often do contested rolls and margins of success come up in your DW games?