Artorius: Those who desire old age need not apply

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 6:58 pm

violence in the media wrote:Creating an unenjoyable atmosphere by being an uncompromising dick because you're sticking to your character's ideals is just you being a dick to the other players at the table.

If all the characters have the same set of ideals (the ones Elennsar listed earlier), and that's the social contract for the game, then that could work. Problems may arise when you mix folks with Elennsar's 17 Noble Virtues with folks who don't share all of those virtues, so don't do that.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 7:05 pm

Elennsar wrote: I don't -want- a game that encourages people to be heroes by bribing and benefiting them. If you want to play a hero and deal with the elements of the game (overcoming failure and dealing with tragedy and loss as well as victory), then hopefully this will work for that.

The fact you can play a hero somewhere else is not a problem.

Where did I say bribe the players? I still don't see what makes this different from any other RPG.

I can roleplay without game rules, or I can play a game without roleplaying elements. There is not necessarily any link at all between them, even in so-called "roleplaying games".

Here I thought you were making a RPG whose mechanics were trying to simulate the world that you were envisioning.

Not much D&D like here. E6 or otherwise.

I guess what I was actually telling you what it is like.
It seems like it is pretty much EarthDawn.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 1:12 am

Where did I say bribe the players? I still don't see what makes this different from any other RPG.

Most RPGs are designed tilting things in favor of the PCs, both in terms of individual events and things overall.

That's not my goal. If you want to play someone who is brave, then play someone who is brave - but charging into the "Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell " in Tennyson's words for what the Light Brigade faced should not make you safer or stronger.

Here I thought you were making a RPG whose mechanics were trying to simulate the world that you were envisioning.

The world, yes. Nothing in this world makes heroes stronger by being heroic.

I guess what I was actually telling you what it is like.
It seems like it is pretty much EarthDawn.

Much, much, much less fantasy, however. Maybe virtually none.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:22 am

Psychic Robot wrote:I think Elennsar makes some good points. The problem is that what he wants from a game isn't the same as what the Den want. There's really no point in trying to discuss it, since if there's a good chance of death, your game is automatically bad and you hate your players.

Don't be a tool. People here like Shadowrun and thats pretty likely to get PCs killed. Quit strawmanning an entire message board's opinion to cover up Elennsar's inability to understand statistics.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 10:32 am

I can understand statistics. What I don't agree to is "your chances of rolling a 1 at some point" + dying if you roll a 1 at the wrong point = your chance of dying at some point.

Its not that simple.

Regardless, if you don't have any interest in discussing this, please stay out of the thread.

This is true whether its "not to your taste", "too deadly", "too restrictive", whatever.

I want PCs facing the fact combat can kill them. And I don't want supposedly equally skilled opponents being easy targets.

Nor do I want PCs dropping right and left.

All three are doable if done right.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 3:30 am

Do you even have to increase the chances of a PC dying in a particular fight to have them "face the chance of death"? If death is irreversable in your game, even a slight chance of character death looms large. This is particularly true given how small probabilities add up over many trials.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 3:47 am

Basically, what I want is this.

If you have a 50% chance of killing someone equally skilled as you - he has the same chance, assuming he does the same thing/s.

If you are in combat, you have A chance (as in it CAN happen) of it happening. That doesn't mean "you have a 5% chance". Things can come up that can cause you to die.

There are a variety of things that interfer with that and I'm personally in favor of ensuring they're functioning to keep ACTUAL death down if things work (as in, if your shield doesn't splinter, its good protection, once it does, things have gotten more dicey).

A chance too small to be measurable without placing all the numbers over 0 after the decimal is not a meaningful chance. Particularly when the fact the probability is the probability of you rolling a 3 (using 3d6) at all in a given number of rolls, not in a given number of vs. death rolls.

If you roll low on your Defense but high on your soak, you may be perfectly within the probable results of rolling 3d6...but surviving longer than vice-versa.

Picking 3 because being tough enough that 3 succeeds is unlikely, not because it automatically fails.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:02 pm

Elennsar wrote:What I don't agree to is "your chances of rolling a 1 at some point" + dying if you roll a 1 at the wrong point = your chance of dying at some point.

That is a straw man. No one is saying that. However, and this is important:

If you die when you roll a 1 at the wrong point then
Your chance of surviving a single "wrong point" without a 1-related death chances is 100% minus the chances of rolling 1. And Your chances of surviving all the wrong points is your chances of surviving one of them raised to the power of the number of Wrong Points there are.

That is an absolute, undeniable fact. If rolling a 1 at the wrong moment kills your character, and you roll a 1 5% of the time, and a potential wrong moment comes up 10 times in the campaign your character has a 59.8% chance of surviving that campaign. You are free to not agree with that, but since it's an absolute undeniable fact, don't expect anyone anywhere to take you seriously if you don't.

-Username17

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:13 pm

The problem is that the number of times it comes up can be anywhere from (depending on the other points) every fight to only in the final battle to winding up as not at all (odds of either extreme are very low, to say the least, though).

And that's the problem. It is being treated as if having "if you roll a 1 you die, and you face ten fights where that's true, you'll have a 40% chance of dying (rather than surviving all ten)"...and is completely ignoring the things getting in the way of having the "roll 2+ or die" roll.

At the bare minimum, the other guy has to hit you (one roll), and you have to be badly hurt (another roll), unless both happen whether you die on a 1 or a 19 is irrelevant to your survival in any given fight.

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 3:04 pm

Elennsar wrote:A chance too small to be measurable without placing all the numbers over 0 after the decimal...

Just to be clear... this means a chance less than 1%, right? Because in 0.99%, all the numbers over zero (the two nines) are after the decimal. Did I understand you right?

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:05 am

Right. There has to be at least a 1% chance when it is supposed to be a meaningful risk.

The chance of being hurt by an arrow when you block with your shield can be 0%...shields are awesome like that and this is a design goal.

But the odds of hurting someone with a shield when using say, an axe, have to be greater than that, becauses guys with axes -do- threaten guys with shields. Doesn't mean you can't defeat them without being injuried, but it can't be -certain-.

Having a 0.99% chance is as meaningless as a 0.0000001% chance in any given encounter.

Roog · Post by **Roog** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:45 am

Elennsar wrote:Having a 0.99% chance is as meaningless as a 0.0000001% chance in any given encounter.

So changing 1.00% to 0.99% changes a meaningfull chance to a meaningless one, but changing 0.99% to 0.0000001% makes no difference? Do you expect the players of your game to share that opinion?

[absurdity]
If some player thinks that 1 chance in 80 (1.25%) is needed to make the chance meaningfull, your 1% chance of death will leave them with no meaning full chance of death. On the other hand someone who thinks that a risk that a risk of death of 1 in 125 (0.80%) will be taking a meaningful (for them) risk in encounters that you think of as having no meaningful risk.
[/absurdity]

Stating that a risk of 1.00% is meaningful, and that a risk of 0.99% is meaningless, makes no sense at all - unless all that players are Elennsar.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:52 am

I would say that a 1% chance is the smallest chance that has a meaningful chance of occuring. Setting that to a 0.5% chance is the lowest that even -can- occur on 3d6 (barring "must fail twice in a row" or something).

If you disagree - that's perfectly acceptable, but that's the lowest I will go.

So in other words, buzz off. If you actually have something to add, I'd love to hear it. If you're just going to pick nits and mock, stay away.

Roog · Post by **Roog** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:10 am

Elennsar wrote:I would say that a 1% chance is the smallest chance that has a meaningful chance of occuring. Setting that to a 0.5% chance is the lowest that even -can- occur on 3d6 (barring "must fail twice in a row" or something).

I am wondering whether you were talking about chances (for individual events) or risks (in general).

I.e. Do you consider a risk of death (etc) from a particular course of action less than 1% not to be worth worrying about (which would be a judgement made from the PoV of a player)? Or do you mean that a specific result of an action (e.g. Immediate death from a sword swing) needs to have at least a 1% chance of occuring when that action is taken, in order to be worth worring about mechanically (which would be a judgement from a different PoV)? Or do you mean both?

Elennsar wrote:If you actually have something to add, I'd love to hear it.

I was interested in peoples ideas for a game with significant chances of defeat, but low chances of death, but you seem to have moved on to having those things produced emergently from your combat system. So, all I can suggest now, is that you take a look at "The Riddle of Steel", because that seems to be a game set up to run the kind of combat you want.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:24 am

If something needs more than a 17 (on 3d6), under normal circumstances (no hero points or similar), it won't happen. If it needs more than a 18 (on 3d6), it is (effectively) impossible.

That's my opinion as a designer and a player.

A given sword swing probably -won't- kill you, though any given one probably -can- (Soak TN is not altered by the dice, at least not directly).

As for Riddle of Steel: No, no, no, and no!

What I want is for people to be facing the actual risk that they can be killed -by- sword blows, not "by a given sword blow".

Roog · Post by **Roog** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:40 am

Elennsar wrote:If something needs more than a 17 (on 3d6), under normal circumstances (no hero points or similar), it won't happen. If it needs more than a 18 (on 3d6), it is (effectively) impossible.

And if it reqires an 18?

Elennsar wrote:What I want is for people to be facing the actual risk that they can be killed -by- sword blows, not "by a given sword blow".

But wont that risk be made up of a group of smaller risks (e.g. individual sword blows) with individual chances of death less than 1%?

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:51 am

I mistyped. That should have read "Eighteen or more", to be honest. Anything that only kills you one time in two hundred sixteen can safely be assumed to be something that won't kill you (hero points are common enough to save your butt from those...its not a given, but it -should- save you. Don't waste them...they -are- finite.).

But wont that risk be made up of a group of smaller risks (e.g. individual sword blows) with individual chances of death less than 1%?

There are four factors that determine whether or not a sword blow kills you.

Ignoring hero points and other such things:

1) You have to be hit to begin with.
2) You have to be hit somewhere important - you -could- die from being hit in the leg, but bleeding rules are something I haven't even thought much about, and they'd take this in a different direction, so that chance if it exists doesn't matter here. We'll just continue with "dead by sword doing lethal damage right off"
3) You have to be dealt a grevious wound.
4) You have to fail your roll to avoid dying.

So while #1 may or may not be particularly difficult, #2 is a bit dicey, and #3 and #4 can be anywhere from "You're fucked." to "not too dangerous."

However, any given sword blow can -get- to #4. Which means its in your best interests to keep it from getting there...there's a reason shields are used.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 10:48 am

Elennsar wrote:Anything that only kills you one time in two hundred sixteen can safely be assumed to be something that won't kill you

And yet, if you took such a chance every day, your chances of making it through the year would be less than 19%.

This is why we get on your ass about iterative probability. A small chance taken several times is a large chance. Your chances of surviving the battle is composed of many very large chances of surviving any particular attack. Each enemy may attack someone other than you (giving you perhaps a 1 n 4 or even less chance of even being in personal peril), it may not hit, it may not do enough damage to drop you, you may stabilize on your own even if you're dropped (or whatever). All together, the chances of a particular sword blow actually targeting you and then subsequently leading to your death is extremely low. Well less than your 1% threshold for things that supposedly don't happen. Probably less than your 1 in 216 chance for things you don't even have to think about. And yet, a 5 round combat with 5 enemies, that's twenty five such attacks. That 1 in 216 per attack just climbed up to an 11% chance of you dying. Similar chances for all your friends.

Let's face it, that 1 in 216 corresponds to a warhammer scenario in which you have 3 friends (so 1 in 4 attacks targets you), you are hit on 5s, Wounded on a 5, have a 3+ armor save, and then die of your wounds half the time. You've played enough Warhammer to realize that you do in fact lose a fair number of Necrons to lasgun fire, right?

Very small probabilities do not ever go to zero. They stay really small. And if you give very small chances many opportunities to occur, they go back to being reasonably large chances again.

-Username17

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:31 am

And yet, if you took such a chance every day, your chances of making it through the year would be less than 19%.

This is why we get on your ass about iterative probability.

Which would be very lovely if it wasn't magicing away all the other rolls and saying that if you have a 1 in X chance, that if you make X rolls, that outcome will pop up when you roll vs. death.

Now, if it was ONLY "roll X or you die.", it would apply perfectly, but it isn't.

Odds of you having a failed roll somewhere along the line? Essentially inevitable.

Odds of the "vs. death" being the failed roll? Good question. You don't even have to -roll it- if you do well enough on the other rolls, so the odds of failure at some point may well happen on step #1 and you do well enough on step #2 to not have a step #3.

Then there's the part about hitting the other guy, where he has to avoid getting killed by you in order to potentially kill you.

Etc, etc.

Stop treating all those rolls as having minimal bearing on your life expectancy and I'll start taking the math calculated out as applying when it hurts as something other than a statistic that doesn't relate to the actual number of living characters.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 12:13 pm

All of this brings up something I want sorted out, because it scrambles the dice rolls.

I like the idea someone (Absentminded Wizard?) had about how you start with a fairly large pool but by the end of the campaign, you have less.

Should this be true whether or not you're spending them, and how do we handle "Okay, you're out."? I'd like to make it so you have at least one (regardless of spending) in any major fight (defined earlier, sort of), but beyond that, I'm not sure.

Note to those reading: I've moved game creation for this project to the proper subforum, so anyone who wants to start pounding out hard numbers, here you go: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=81530#81530

norms29 · Post by **norms29** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:38 pm

Elennsar wrote:
And yet, if you took such a chance every day, your chances of making it through the year would be less than 19%.

This is why we get on your ass about iterative probability.
Which would be very lovely if it wasn't magicing away all the other rolls and saying that if you have a 1 in X chance, that if you make X rolls, that outcome will pop up when you roll vs. death.

Now, if it was ONLY "roll X or you die.", it would apply perfectly, but it isn't.

Odds of you having a failed roll somewhere along the line? Essentially inevitable.

Odds of the "vs. death" being the failed roll? Good question. You don't even have to -roll it- if you do well enough on the other rolls, so the odds of failure at some point may well happen on step #1 and you do well enough on step #2 to not have a step #3.

Then there's the part about hitting the other guy, where he has to avoid getting killed by you in order to potentially kill you.

Etc, etc.

Stop treating all those rolls as having minimal bearing on your life expectancy and I'll start taking the math calculated out as applying when it hurts as something other than a statistic that doesn't relate to the actual number of living characters.

Do you have an actual position at this point? or are you just stringing words together at random? because while the individual sentences seem to make sense here, I'm having troube parsing the post as a whole into any kind of coherant statement. the gists of various sub-portions seem to be

1. When you say and "X out of Y chance" you don't really mean "X out of Y" but some other number which is less objectionable but you can't say what.

2. that poor rolls might only happen on checks that won't kill you.

3. GIANT FROG

4. that statements of probability can only describe single die rolls, and therefore every one asking for such is asking for combat to be resolved by a single roll, which is a stupid idea.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:53 am

If you avoid being hit, then whether or not you'd soak is irrelevant. If you soak, whether or not you were hit somewhere vital is irrelevant. If you aren't hit somewhere vital, whether or not it was a grevious injury is irrelevant.

Or in reverse:

If you don't avoid being hit, then whether or not you'd soak is relevant. If you don't soak, whether or not you were hit somewhere vital is relevant. If you are hit somewhere vital, whether or not it was a grevious injury is relevant.

Unless that is all true, you don't make a vs. death roll.

So if you are likely to roll one 3 in two hundred sixteen rolls, it is more likely that you will have the 3 in one of the other rolls, because you are making many more of them.

Also, as stated, we have hero points. If you don't have a hero point to cover something that only happens less than one time in two hundred, you've been spending them as if they were going out of style.

You should be able to survive with as close to absolute certainty as possible (I don't know how fast you'll spend them, I do know there will be times you'll be either out or nearly out), if that's the worst that can happen.

Also, you are also threatening the other guy. So even if your "luck is out", you might kill him before he rolls his threatening blow.

Or not.

The math is solid and dependable. The game situation is not.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:17 pm

norms29 wrote:Do you have an actual position at this point? or are you just stringing words together at random? because while the individual sentences seem to make sense here, I'm having troube parsing the post as a whole into any kind of coherant statement. the gists of various sub-portions seem to be

1. When you say and "X out of Y chance" you don't really mean "X out of Y" but some other number which is less objectionable but you can't say what.
2. that poor rolls might only happen on checks that won't kill you.
3. GIANT FROG
4. that statements of probability can only describe single die rolls, and therefore every one asking for such is asking for combat to be resolved by a single roll, which is a stupid idea.

Pretty much. Gambler's Fallacy, Chaotic Stupid, various failures relating to Reading Comprehension, Math. Logic, and overall Ineptitude. Did I miss anything?

Saddest part? I know someone just like him. He basically went from having a fabricated point that he was eventually called on, to not having a point at all. However that person at least had the sense to shut the fuck up at this point, albeit after lying blatantly and generally being useless and the like.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:30 pm

Roy, if you have nothing productive to say, please stay out of this thread.

I'm tired of people insisting that because I don't agree that their math perfectly predicts exactly how combat that I'm totally blind to how math works.

violence in the media · Mon Feb 09, 2009 7:49 pm

Elennsar wrote:If you avoid being hit, then whether or not you'd soak is irrelevant. If you soak, whether or not you were hit somewhere vital is irrelevant. If you aren't hit somewhere vital, whether or not it was a grevious injury is irrelevant.

Or in reverse:

If you don't avoid being hit, then whether or not you'd soak is relevant. If you don't soak, whether or not you were hit somewhere vital is relevant. If you are hit somewhere vital, whether or not it was a grevious injury is relevant.

Unless that is all true, you don't make a vs. death roll.

So if you are likely to roll one 3 in two hundred sixteen rolls, it is more likely that you will have the 3 in one of the other rolls, because you are making many more of them.

Also, as stated, we have hero points. If you don't have a hero point to cover something that only happens less than one time in two hundred, you've been spending them as if they were going out of style.

You should be able to survive with as close to absolute certainty as possible (I don't know how fast you'll spend them, I do know there will be times you'll be either out or nearly out), if that's the worst that can happen.

Also, you are also threatening the other guy. So even if your "luck is out", you might kill him before he rolls his threatening blow.

Or not.

The math is solid and dependable. The game situation is not.

The math accounts for all of the situations you've listed. It accounts for your hero points, for you being a threat to your opponent, and for all of the rolls you insist go towards creating a situation where if you roll poorly = you die. No matter how you want to slice it, whether you live or die comes down to a single die roll at some point.