Michael W. Ryan on the roll-low convention:
> What I've also realized is that trying to do it any other way breaks too
> many other parts of the process. Simple group contests work this way
> (with failures and fumbles adding 3 or 6 to the best rolls). It also
> softens the effect of bumps. Most of the time, a natural success will be
> better than a bumped success; this makes sense.
Actually, it doesn't. It just lessens the net benefit of having a mastery on someone, and more annoyingly, makes it that much less 'even'. Compare on the one hand, 1W vs 1, and on the other, 10W vs. 10. However, the 'problem' here isn't roll-low, it's the effect of the bump-up. (And the convention for the 'score' on a bump-up, specifically.)
I'm not sure how globally true this is, but in many respects the net effect of progression is, point for point, somewhat 'shallower' than in Pendragon. As someone commented, a +4 (say) isn't such a big advantage as it is in Penrdragon. This somewhat fits with the fact that the ability scale doesn't stop at 39, though, it seemlessly goes up to... well, whatever you like, but the 'human' scale goes up to 60-80, at any rate.
So I don't see these mechanics as being inherently unfair or broken, just that they require looking at the numbers a little differently.
Cheers,
Alex.
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