A rant against so-called heroes

[Elennsar]

Depends on the situation and my actions and the other guy's actions.

http://fanaticus.org/DBA/battles/maldon.html should be a lot closer to "fighting against equals, quite possibly 50%+" then an action where the PCs run into (and charge) a stray half dozen barbarians.

[NineInchNall]

My point is - if you fail the first roll (or flip), then you have no chance to succeed on the task, yes?

If you do, you have a 50% chance (if the second is a 50-50 thing).

Let's say four players attempt the two-die task, right? The question at hand is how many succeed at the task as a whole.

(commence trials!)


Player 1, Roll 1: FAIL
Player 2, Roll 1: FAIL
Player 3, Roll 1: WIN
Player 4, Roll 1: WIN

Half of the first rolls failed, so half of the players have already failed at the task.

Player 3, Roll 2: FAIL
Player 4, Roll 2: WIN

As you said, half of the players who made the first roll failed the second.

So in the end, only one of the players actually succeeded at the task.

[Elennsar]

Theoretically (as in, according to the theory): 50% succeed on roll 1, and 50% of that group succeed on roll 2.

So theoretically, 1.

I would not be surprised if in an actual group of 4 trying it that it didn't work out precisely that way, however.

[NineInchNall]

Oh, of course, that's why it's probability, not certainty.

So now I have to ask: with what are you disagreeing precisely?

[virgil]

What's the point in all this debate? Is it not clear that after 17 pages (not even counting the other gargantuan threads along these lines) that we're not getting anywhere?

Elennsar, I've yet to see you actually make ANY hard statements. It's always been about as specific as "a chance" or "less than what we have". Going by that, essentially all of the systems proposed on this forum meet your criteria (and all published ones), because none of them absolutely guarantee success; we say that some scenes are without threat, despite the fact there does exist a nonzero chance of them posing one due to strings of crits.

[Elennsar]

The idea that probability -is- telling us with certainty what will happen when we actually flip.

If I get a head, then I expect I have a 50-50 (win-lose) chance of winning. If I get a tail, I expect I have a 0-100 chance of winning.

But when the coin is up in the air, I'm only concerned with the current 50-50 chance.

If I have twenty drinks out of 400 available drinks, and there's a 1-20 chance of getting a poisoned drink, I don't expect to inevitably get one.

Elennsar, I've yet to see you actually make ANY hard statements. It's always been about as specific as "a chance" or "less than what we have". Going by that, essentially all of the systems proposed on this forum meet your criteria (and all published ones), because none of them absolutely guarantee success; we say that some scenes are without threat, despite the fact there does exist a nonzero chance of them posing one due to strings of crits.

Because it depends on the situation. If I charge a group of guys shooting arrows at me, I expect my odds of injury to still be fairly low (in Arturius or something like that), because even with my defense (to not be hit) at a pretty poor level, arrows < mail armor.

How low? I don't know. I don't see Frank saying his goal is that (under any circumstance that could come up) have a 20% (or whatever) chance of getting killed with one hit in Warp Cult. And Warp Cult is vastly more ready-to-play than Arturius.

So why are you pestering -me- to give that number and fine with Frank not giving any such number? Did he PM it?

[Roy]

Regardless of the chance of failing combat, it is well established Elennsar has a 110% chance of failing logic, probability, and math.

[Psychic Robot]

I'm not sure what Elennsar's arguing against, to be honest. From what I gather, his argument is that the success of encounters two and three is wholly dependent on the success on encounter one. This, of course, just makes it more deadly for the PCs either way, so what's the big deal?

[Elennsar]

From what I gather, his argument is that the success of encounters two and three is wholly dependent on the success on encounter one. This, of course, just makes it more deadly for the PCs either way, so what's the big deal?

Not really at all no.

If you fail on roll 1, you cannot succeed on both rolls one and two.

If you fail encounter 1, you cannot succeed on both encounter one and two.

If you survive 1, but lose, you can win 2 just fine (depending on your condition when entering 2 and what difficulty it is to begin with and so on etc.)

But if you don't survive 1, you could have a 100% chance of surviving #2 (taken on its own merits), but since you're dead, that doesn't matter.

I am against the idea that if I drink 20 drinks out of 400 and 5% of the 400 drinks are poisoned that I inevitably get 1 poisoned drink.

[violence in the media]

With enough trials, the possibility of you NOT getting one of those poisoned drinks goes way down. You will never "inevitably" get a poisoned drink in the same way that you will never "inevitably" avoid all the poisoned drinks.

In plainer terms, how many days do you think you are likely to survive if you were forced into that drink-gamble every day?

I think the best way to demonstrate the frustration we all have here would be to run some game according to your paradigm with one caveat: whenever the players feel that things have gotten so fucked up that they'd rather not press on with the current game, they can call a "do over" and force you to restart the campaign from scratch.

[Elennsar]

With enough trials, the possibility of you NOT getting one of those poisoned drinks goes way down. You will never "inevitably" get a poisoned drink in the same way that you will never "inevitably" avoid all the poisoned drinks.

With enough trials, anything that is not literally impossible will occur. What's your point?

The odds of playing long enough that everything not literally impossible occurs are not particularly good.

I think the best way to demonstrate the frustration we all have here would be to run some game according to your paradigm with one caveat: whenever the players feel that things have gotten so fucked up that they'd rather not press on with the current game, they can call a "do over" and force you to restart the campaign from scratch.

No, the best way to demonstrate that frustration you have here would be for you to actually roll the goddamn dice and actually show the goddamn outcome.

Having a 1/300 chance of dying over the course of 300 encounters may mean that you die in encounter #1 or #300 or any other, or even none.

[RandomCasualty2]

The idea that probability -is- telling us with certainty what will happen when we actually flip.

Nobody is fucking saying that.

The fact that you continue to claim that people are saying this only shows that you absolutely don't understand the concept of probability.

[Elennsar]

I understand that a 1/4 chance means that out of 4 possible outcomes that the desired one is only 1 of the 4.

What I don't understand is what amount of the time I should actually expect it to actually happen when actually trying to get it.

Because that bit of information is relevant to whether or not I'm having it happen too often or not enough.

The fact there are 3 undesired outcomes out of 4 possible outcomes isn't.

[RandomCasualty2]

What I don't understand is what amount of the time I should actually expect it to actually happen when actually trying to get it.

This depends on a number of factors.

But basically it comes down to this.

-X: The average chance of all the PCs surviving any single one of your obstacles, assuming they use good tactics.
-Y: The number of obstacles you expect PCs to have to risk getting through before the end of the campaign.

You take X and you raise it to the Y power. This gives you the chance of the PCs surviving from start to finish in your campaign.

This calculated chance should be at least 50% if not more. Even 50% suggests that the PC party will have experienced some losses before the end, which is actually pretty high.

Now, keep in mind that this number refers to permanently dead. If you've got mechanics like raise dead, then death is just a status condition and doesn't actually mean a PC is removed from the game, thus it can happen more often. Personally though, I've never been a fan of raising, so I tend to remove it. I like the "if you're dead, you're dead" concept.

Because that bit of information is relevant to whether or not I'm having it happen too often or not enough.

The fact there are 3 undesired outcomes out of 4 possible outcomes isn't.

Yeah it is relevant, because a 25% chance of survival for two fights is terrible. It means that PCs are dropping like flies.

[Elennsar]

You take X and you raise it to the Y power. This gives you the chance of the PCs surviving from start to finish in your campaign.

And what is the chance that this formula will actually be the percentage of PCs not dying in a given campaign?

Yeah it is relevant, because a 25% chance of survival for two fights is terrible. It means that PCs are dropping like flies.

Not unless that means that you actually are seeing 3/4 mean 3 dead/1 living.

[Leress]

I understand that a 1/4 chance means that out of 4 possible outcomes that the desired one is only 1 of the 4.

Okay

What I don't understand is what amount of the time I should actually expect it to actually happen when actually trying to get it.

25% of the time on average

Because that bit of information is relevant to whether or not I'm having it happen too often or not enough.

The fact there are 3 undesired outcomes out of 4 possible outcomes isn't.

Now is 25% of the time too much? Seriously you are making this more complicated then it necessary. This is about probability it won't tell you exactly when an outcome will occur just the chance of it happening.

When you are making a game with rolls this is important when you want to know the general way the numbers will fall. Saying that 3/4 outcomes are undesirable is just plain being ignorant of using probability when making a system.

[norms29]

You take X and you raise it to the Y power. This gives you the chance of the PCs surviving from start to finish in your campaign.

And what is the chance that this formula will actually be the percentage of PCs not dying in a given campaign?

Yeah it is relevant, because a 25% chance of survival for two fights is terrible. It means that PCs are dropping like flies.

Not unless that means that you actually are seeing 3/4 mean 3 dead/1 living.

Have you seriously circled back to the "magic dice" argument.

[Elennsar]

This is about probability it won't tell you exactly when an outcome will occur just the chance of it happening.

And when it will occur is -much- more worrisome when playing.

Let's say you have a 99% chance by the math in posts above of making it to the end of a campaign.

You screw up horribly in encounter #1 and die.

Short campaign.

[RandomCasualty2]

And what is the chance that this formula will actually be the percentage of PCs not dying in a given campaign?

Probability isn't going to give you an exact. Nobody can predict exactly what's going to happen, because you're not dealing in absolute fact, you're dealing with random elements. The best you can do is say what's likely to happen.

But what is likely to happen is very important in a dice game. If it's likely that all your PCs die, then probably, that's exactly what's going to happen, and you're going to have to burn through several characters before you ever get lucky enough to last.

And if you want PCs to make it through an entire campaign story, you better fucking care about that. Because if that chance is too high, it's likely that you'll be dealing with 2nd and 3rd generation characters by the time you reach the end of the campaign, and the original characters are all dead. If your survival chances are literally 50%, you're likely to be on 10th-15th gen characters.

Not unless that means that you actually are seeing 3/4 mean 3 dead/1 living.

Yes that's what a 25% survival chance means. On average, 3 out of 4 of your PCs are dead. Only one makes it out.

[RandomCasualty2]

Let's say you have a 99% chance by the math in posts above of making it to the end of a campaign.

You screw up horribly in encounter #1 and die.

Short campaign.

Sure. There's a chance you can get horribly unlucky, but the probability of that is extremely low. If you've got a 99% chance of making it through 400 encounters without a single PC death, and you have 4 PCs, the odds of being the one PC who does die in the first battle will be very low.

You're looking at basically a 3 out of 100,000 chance of any one PC dying in any one battle. If you've got 4 PCs, it's going to be 3 out of 400,000 of any specific one PC dying.

That's a very acceptable risk.

[Elennsar]

Probability isn't going to give you an exact. Nobody can predict exactly what's going to happen, because you're not dealing in absolute fact, you're dealing with random elements. The best you can do is say what's likely to happen.

It is likely that you will not be hit by a car today. I'm reasonably sure that that you're still looking both ways before crossing the street and not crossing if you see a car coming, instead of trusting that the probability of you getting hit by a car on any given day sucks.

Yes that's what a 25% survival chance means. On average, 3 out of 4 of your PCs are dead. Only one makes it out.

And in practice, you have anywhere from 0-4.

[Username17]

Yes that's what a 25% survival chance means. On average, 3 out of 4 of your PCs are dead. Only one makes it out.

Specifically it means that out of 4 PCs, the number making it out alive will be:

All Four: .39%
Three: 4.7%
Two: 21.09%
One: 42.19%
None: 31.64%

And the average number of survivals is one. But nearly one time in three there won't be any survivors at all. When the results don't come out the single most likely way, they don't always turn out better. Indeed, usually not.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

It is likely that you will not be hit by a car today. I'm reasonably sure that that you're still looking both ways before crossing the street and not crossing if you see a car coming, instead of trusting that the probability of you getting hit by a car on any given day sucks.

The survival chance assumes good tactics. A drunken idiot stumbling through traffic or running into the road has a much greater chance of getting hit. So his risk percentage is a lot higher than a cautious person who takes reasonable precautions.

And in practice, you have anywhere from 0-4.

Nobody is arguing that you can't get varied results.

Yeah, you could survive. It's highly unlikely, but it might happen. But so what?

I don't even see your point with the magic dice, aside from that you don't understand probability.

EDIT: Also see Frank's post above detailing the exact results of how likely it is to get X number of survivors.

All Four: .39%
Three: 4.7%
Two: 21.09%
One: 42.19%
None: 31.64%

The chances of all four of your PCs surviving those TWO encounters is less than 1 out of 100.

Seriously, less than 1 out of a fucking hundred.

And if you don't care about that because your players walk around with magic dice in their pockets and miraculously beat the odds everytime, then I seriously advise you go to Vegas instead of wasting your time with RPGs.

[Elennsar]

Nobody is arguing that you can't get varied results.

Yeah, you could survive. It's highly unlikely, but it might happen. But so what?

So, your math is at best an imperfect guess on what will happen in any given campaign.

This is useful: All Four: .39%
Three: 4.7%
Two: 21.09%
One: 42.19%
None: 31.64%

This is not: And the average number of survivals is one.

[RandomCasualty2]

So, your math is at best an imperfect guess on what will happen in any given campaign.

This is useful: All Four: .39%
Three: 4.7%
Two: 21.09%
One: 42.19%
None: 31.64%

This is not: And the average number of survivals is one.

Frank's math breakdown is a bit more useful in terms of giving a better overall picture, but the fact that on average you'll have a single survivor is still very significant.

You're playing a game where you're supposed to have recurring characters and you think that somehow having the most likely outcome is that one guy survives is acceptable odds?