What I Hate About Percentile Systems!

What's Wrong Now when I first explained my thoughts on this subject to a fellow gamer he totally dismissed my thoughts with the following sentence: "You're a computer programmer so you start counting at zero. Normal people start counting at one. And that's that." Okay, I'll admit it. I am a computer programmer, and I do start counting at zero. But so should you! First, let's look at how percentile dice work. You roll one die for tens and one for units. In mathematical terms this means that your final score is calculated as: (1stD X 10) + 2ndD So if you roll a 5 and then a 2 the score is: (5 X 10) + 2 = 52 In the above example as soon as the first die came up as five you immediately knew roughly how well you had rolled. You had a fifty something. You roll the second die to see precisely which fifty something you have. But if we leave it like that we will have a range of possible results of 0 to 99. Now I think we should leave it at that. But apparently that makes me a computer nerd and all you "normal" guys all think I'm wrong. So let's look at how you guys modify the above system. You treat a roll of zero on the tens die as a special case. You don't know what it is until you roll the second die. Yep that right. The unit die can actually change the value of the tens die. Huh? If the units die comes up with a number in the range 1 - 9, then the first, tens, die is a zero. But if the units die comes up as a zero, then the tens die turns out to have been a ten. E.g. If you roll a zero and a five the formula is: (0 X 10) + 5 = 5. But if you rolled a zero and a zero the formula is: (10 X 10) + 0 = 100. Again, huh? Imagine a player making a roll where he has to get under 57. These are his thoughts after rolling the first, tens, die: 9: Ninety something, bollocks. 8: Eighty something, bollocks. 7: Seventy something, screwed it. 6: Sixty something, missed. 5: Fifty something, might have, it's gunna be close... 4: Forty something, made it. 3: Thirty something, easy. 2: Twenty something, good hit. 1: In the teens, spectacular success. 0: In single figures, excellent success... oh shit, unless I roll another zero. Does this make sense? So what do you think? Do I have a point? Or are you shaking your head as you read this, thinking: "Bloody hell, get a life you sad computer geek!" Drop us a line and let us know.

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