Phumble Phailure: Improper Use Of A d100

The introduction of platonic solids into gaming pre-dates Dungeons & Dragons. Romans were gambling using d20's long before Gygax et al conceived their use as random number generators for fantasy role-playing games.

I like the platonic solids: d4, d6, d8, d12, d20. My favorite? The d12, partly because it gets so little play at the game-table --and is thus the red-headed step-child of the number-generator family -- but also because I made a d12 out of paper, long before I knew anything about D&D, in some elementary-school craft project, to which I pasted pictures of 12 influential people -- what their achievements were, I can no longer recall.

I'm not a big fan of either the d10 or d100. Oh, they are useful, if uninspiring, dice. But the d100, in particular, seems over-used to me. The d100 often gets used, when a d20 would suffice.

Take, for example, Dave Hargrave's Magical Phumble Chart, from Page 18 of The Lost Arduin Grimoire IV. The table has 13 magical phumble entries. Except for two (4% and 1%), each magic phumble entry has a 5, 10, or 15% chance of occuring. A little pet peeve of mine, but if each entry has a probability that can be expressed as a multiple of 5%, then a d20 will work equally well.

I know some people have a fetish for the d100. But i'm a big fan of economy, whether it be in my written communications, or the dice employed in my role-playing game.