Why Percentile?
Submitted by RobBoyle on
There's a new thread about Eclipse Phase over at rpg.net. Some questions were raised about Eclipse Phase's percentile system, and I thought it'd be good to repeat/summarize my responses over here.
As we've noted elsewhere, Eclipse Phase uses a d100 roll-under mechanic, with some tweaks from traditional percentile systems. To some folks, this may seem an odd choice, and the trend is for new games to have their unique systems, to stand apart from others.
Our intent with Eclipse Phase, though, was to go for "complex setting, simple mechanics." So we opted to go with a d100 system since such mechanics are fast and easy, it's not difficult to gauge odds when the gamemaster needs to fudge numbers, most gamers know the system already, and it's super easy to each. There's a lot of heavy concepts and advanced technology in the setting that can be overwhelming to people unfamiliar with the genre, and we wanted players to be able to focus on that and not sweat the rules.
As we've noted elsewhere, Eclipse Phase uses a d100 roll-under mechanic, with some tweaks from traditional percentile systems. To some folks, this may seem an odd choice, and the trend is for new games to have their unique systems, to stand apart from others.
Our intent with Eclipse Phase, though, was to go for "complex setting, simple mechanics." So we opted to go with a d100 system since such mechanics are fast and easy, it's not difficult to gauge odds when the gamemaster needs to fudge numbers, most gamers know the system already, and it's super easy to each. There's a lot of heavy concepts and advanced technology in the setting that can be overwhelming to people unfamiliar with the genre, and we wanted players to be able to focus on that and not sweat the rules.
