A Defense of Roll Under

I've said it here before, I'm a big fan of GURPS. GURPS stands for "Generic Universal RolePlaying System", and has been part of Steve Jackson Games' product line for more than three decades.

So, it may come a surprise that my first experience with a "roll-under" system came from a relatively unknown game called "Cascade Failure". Where GURPS is a mechanically unique, long-time mainstay of the roleplaying game industry; Cascade Failure is a Sci-Fi d20 game in most respects. In fact, the major deviation from the d20 model is in the fact that the system uses a "roll-under" dice mechanic.

The average player of something like D&D is probably used to the idea of target numbers. You have to roll a 15 or better on, let's say a stealth check, you roll a 20 sided die, add your stealth score, and if you meet or beat a 15, congratulations! You did a sneak!

In a roll-under system, the same logic is applied in a wildly different order. Instead of a DC 15, you might be rolling at a -3. Subtract three from your sneak score, and then try to roll at or below the modified score.

In fairness, this system is a little less intuitive in a couple of ways. Firstly, having to add OR subtract to set the difficulty might feel a little more daunting than just adding your roll to your score. Secondly, for players who are used to hoping for high numbers on a die roll, it can be tricky to flip that switch and think of a 3 (in GURPS) or a 1 (in a d20 system) as a critical success.

Still, I'd argue that in my experience, the benefits have outweighed the negatives. Players who get used to this style will quickly pick up the narrative difficulty of the tasks based on the plus and minus modifiers you call out. It also gives you a good "default" difficulty by having them roll an unmodified check.

More than any of that, and I have no real explanation for this, roll-under combat moves faster. I'm not sure the math behind why it does this, but something just seems to click right when the players are rolling low instead of high. Combat skips along at a wild and cinematic pace, as opposed to the long draw that more traditional systems tend to bog down into.

If you've never tried to re-imagine your gaming in a roll-under model, I'd encourage you to give it a try, and let me know in the comments what you've found to work at your own table.

Happy gaming, all.

Foreshadowing Done Right

Hey all,

Today I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite pieces of foreshadowing from one of my favorite games: Portal 2. This post will include Portal 2 spoilers.

Somewhere past the halfway point of the game, you begin working with conversion gel. This is a white fluid that can be used to solve puzzles by making surfaces that cannot normally take a portal into surfaces that can.

Through dialogue, Cave Johnson reveals that this substance is made from moon dust. The surface level payoff of this is his reveal that the moon dust has given him cancer, and this leads into the "lemon" speech Which is probably one of the most iconic pieces of dialogue in the series.

The fact that this element of the world-building is played for laughs, combined with it's place shedding some light on the composition of an in-world substance; means that most players will assume that this information has served its role in the story and move on not expecting anything else to follow.

Except that something else does come of this.

Portals can be made on conversion gel. This is a special function of its make-up. The only ingredient we know of conversion gel is moon dust, and what else is covered in moon dust? What else can, presumably, support a portal?

Why, nothing else except the cinematic solution to the game's final shot of the portal gun. With the world falling to pieces around you in a dramatic final showdown, what seemed like a throwaway line of comedy foreshadowed the game's climax, the one puzzle that takes you beyond the walls of Aperture Laboratories.

Happy gaming, all.

Where were we then? 2008

Hey all,

I thought it might be fun to look at how everyday objects have changed over time. Ten years seems like a decent increment (though my Back to the Future fanboy REALLY likes the sound of 30: let's do one step at a time). So let's look at 2008, when the Giants won the superbowl, and Miley Cyrus was a squeaky-clean Disney starlet.

The Phone of 2008

The biggest change in phones in 2008 was the iPhone 3G. The year 2007 had seen the first touch screen smart phones in the form of the LG Prada, and the original iPhone. The original iPhone didn't even have the GPS function that came with the 3G!
While the device we think of as a smart phone had some predecessors, in the form of things like the blackberry, the touch screen interface we know today was still relatively new only ten years ago.

The Music of 2008

Many popular artists of 2008 will still be familiar names today; including Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Kanye West, and Rihanna.
In 2008, My Chemical Romance and The White Stripes were still together and making music, while today, both of these names have faded into history.
Interestingly, Beyonce had left Destiny's Child only three years prior, and her solo career was still a fairly new development in the grand scheme of things.

The Politics of 2008

In 2008, Barack Obama beat John McCain for the presidency. This win secured Barack Obama's first term in office, and today it's easy to forget the fact that, very suddenly, Americans lived in a world where an African-American man could provably become president. What today seems inevitable was, at the time, a landmark moment in American politics.

Video Games of 2008

Some big series started with a 2008 debut, including Dead Space and Valkyria Chronicles; while Fallout 3 brought the Fallout franchise into the modern era. This is also the year of indie darling: Dear Esther. All of this, in a year where the public was still seeing expansions for The Sims 2.

The Playstation 3 had come out two years before, but the PS2 was still in production, and would continue to be for another FIVE years. The XBox 360 was three years old, and the original XBox still had another year before its retirement. The Gamecube had been retired, but with the Wii breaking sales records left and right, and the incredible sales of the Nintendo DS in Japanese markets, Nintendo wasn't suffering the lack of Gamecubes on store shelves.

Health in 2008

"Hot" yoga, nettle tea, and Goji berries were just some of the fads and buzzwords surrounding health in 2008. Low Sodium and Probiotic reared their heads, and, in defiance of today's feelings about the dreaded gluten; whole grain was a go-to for the health-minded individual.

Top Selling Car of 2008: The Toyota Camry

I'll be honest, I don't know much about cars. Anyway, here's a picture of a 2009 (because cars come out a year early of their model number for some reason) Toyota Camry.

Looking around, it looks like the Camry is known for comfort, safety, and fuel efficiency. So, I guess those must have been things that people liked in 2008.

The Movies of 2008

Iron Man kicked things off in what we now call the MCU with an after-credits scene that changed audience expectations of what movies could do. The Dark Knight contributed to make 2008 a watershed moment for superhero movies. The Incredible Hulk was there, too, I guess.

Kids movies brought Kung Fu Panda, which sparked off a sprawling franchise, and Wall-E: an instant classic with genuine artistry in its execution.
Taken, Tropic Thunder, Cloverfield, and Slumdog Millionare also came along to make this a year to remember in movies.


Overall, the last ten years have seen some tremendous changes, and a few surprises in what has stayed the same. It'll be interesting to see where the next ten years might take us. Thanks for reading, all.