BRP is a Better D&D

If any of you are really into RPGs, and particularly BRP, you'll know there's a cool project called Classic Fantasy. The author converted D&D to Basic Role Playing, a percentile based role playing system. A lot of guys in the BRP community are claiming it does classic dungeon crawling better than current D&D, and I'm starting to see why.

Something I've noticed while going through all of the 1st Edition stuff, is almost every other mechanic or stat in the game has a percentage equivalent marked out next to it. Chances for surprise, disease mechanics, reaction rolls, etc... Even Arneson, who really came up with the role playing aspect of D&D came out with Adventures in Fantasy, in which he converted the attack tables to percentage based.

The skill system my wife convinced me to include was essentially that of BRP, you have a percentage chance for the skills, and you roll under your stat to succeed. What does this sound like? Rogue skills. Gygax, with the creation of the thief, essentially created the underlying system for BRP. In my game I differentiate between class skills that Rogues, Rangers, etc.. have, and mundane general skills. However what makes most sense to me, is simply extending the Thief skill system, to the more mundane skills of D&D, like non-weapon proficiencies.

I already intended to include non D&D sources in my game like Chivalry & Sorcery and Runequest for some ideas, but now it seems more clear then ever, that D&D is really every RPG.

Of course if I'm including a skill system, possibly including something like feats, having all of the extra classes, and using ascending armor class, why not play 3rd Edition? Because AD&D does it better. That's for another post, and idea I have, but suffice it to say; the d20 mechanic that's supposed to simplify the game, really doesn't.

From experience it's easier to have a bunch of unrelated, simple sub-systems, than trying to make one mechanic cover every possible situation. When you do that, you end up having to have a million special circumstances, and spot rules, that really end up being different sub-systems.