Quote Originally Posted by icefractal View Post
That's why there aren't a lot of opposed stat checks in D&D. They're very swingy, they ignore level, and as a result they yield a lot of strange results. So ... don't use them. Personally, I would do something like arm wrestling with a smaller and more curved RNG - 3d4, perhaps.

For skills, the difference is generally more significant, although even then, I think that rolling the standard way only works for circumstances that are somewhat chaotic. In a controlled contest, perhaps both sides taking 10 would be appropriate, or rolling off X times and seeing who won more often.

A quick hack, for cases where you don't want to make it a lengthy contest, and want to keep things similar to standard, is for both sides to roll 3d20 and take the middle one. Sort of a middle-ground between rolling and taking 10, it could be appropriate for semi-threatened situations.
Them's some wacky houserules you have there, and should not be considered for any discussion of how "d20 systems" work.

So yes. d20 games have two big issues.

#1: The d20 is a flat, very large spread of numbers. A 1 is just as likely as a 10 which is just as likely as a 20.
#2: The spread of character bonuses is not very large compared to the spread of random numbers. A "large" difference in ability in most d20 games is like +10. That means when the person with +15 rolls a 5 and the person with +5 rolls a 16, the person with the +5 does better.

These two factors combine to create very swingy results. These sorts of things are counteracted by other game systems in two ways:

#1: Use multiple dice. This creates a bell curve. Simply substituting 3d6 for d20 means that situations in which a person with a +15 losing to a person with +5 become MUCH rarer.
#2: Make the 'ability spread' wider. You see this in a lot of percent based games. If "average" is +0, and "really good" is +90% or more, you'll see the +90% person losing less often.

But basically, if this annoys you, don't complain about it. Go play something else. There's an infinite number of games out there, and basically none of them use d20s for everything except for D&D, it's "d20" derivatives, and Pathfinder, which is basically a d20 derivative.

Even better, in your particular case, you have a perfectly clear argument for why you don't like D&D: You don't like games with swingy results. So find your own game and enjoy it.