It's a fairly easy means to express of a wide range of combat results. Compare attack and defense, roll dice look the results up on the table. How much simpler could it be?
A sample CRT for melee combat:
A wide range of results, some risk to the attacker and the defender. No math to speak of beyond being able to figure out odds.
Where did these tables go?
I grew up on CRT's from playing Squad Leader, and then Advanced Squad Leader. Not sure why rpg's moved away from them (well Rolemaster didn't really move away from them as much as created hundreds of new ones for each weapon type).
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see a new game designed around one. I have the AH game "Gladiator" and it uses a CRT for man-to-man combat. That might be a good place to start...
I have to go dig out Squad Leader, Haven't played that in about 20 years. Thanks for the heads up on Gladiator.
ReplyDeleteRolemaster is a halfway step from a straight forward CRT with some results and calculations being off the table (fumbles and ever expanding rolls) and then the results of attack roll vs armot type requiring the frequent consultation of another table for the fun critical hits.
I'd imagine a CRT for Rolemaster that put the fumbles and the crits for each weapon on the same table would be a bear so ICE likely went the right way for the scale of resolution they are shooting for in Rolemaster.
Gladiator uses an interesting creation process to, looking up rolls on a table to determine your gladiator's statistics. It is a neat game, too bad I never actually played it. I think it would translate well to a play by post game too (as all movement is script in advance).
ReplyDeleteI have always thought about porting it over to a rpg system - there has to be a way to make it work - I am sure of it.