A rant against so-called heroes

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 10:37 pm

If combat results in death 20% of the time, except when you bias combat by using good tactics, in which case it's 2%, then the actual chance of death is 2%.

That presumes that the players will use good tactics. In most cases, the combat will result in death 20% of the time.

We've already established that probability and actual play may or may not have anything to do with each other.

Having a 50% chance of winning each of three encounters can go several ways: Win, win, win. Win, win, lose. Win, lose, lose. Lose, lose, lose. Etc.

Well, yes, they do pertain to one another. If you have a 50% chance of winning one encounter means that you have a 50% chance of winning an encounter. You might win-win-win, but each encounter has a 50% chance of being won.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 10:42 pm

Which would be lovely if it took into consideration that you can't have paths 5-8 at all until you get "win".

Which means that requiring a second success after that is 50-50 (if you already have a first success - if you don't, having one 50-50 is a loss too, so you're no more likely to lose.)

In other words, you have a 0% chance of a second win (in a row) until you have the first win.

Well, yes, they do pertain to one another. If you have a 50% chance of winning one encounter means that you have a 50% chance of winning an encounter. You might win-win-win, but each encounter has a 50% chance of being won.

In other words, you have a 0% chance of a second win (in a row) until you have the first win.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 10:44 pm

I'm not sure of your point.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 10:45 pm

You should calculate for good tactics, IMO. If you want to encourage good tactics you need to actually punish bad tactics, so whatever you feel is the desirable death rate should be equal to the death rate you expect from play you wish to encourage mechanically, otherwise people with brains have a lower-than-desired death rate. If you're going to go all Thief, 75% chance of death for screwing up enough to fight is Okay, even if you want a 10% per adventure death rate when you play smart. Frankly, for anything where you care about the characters even 10% may be on the high side, but whatever.

EDIT:

Elennsar wrote:Which would be lovely if it took into consideration that you can't have paths 5-8 at all until you get "win".

Which means that requiring a second success after that is 50-50 (if you already have a first success - if you don't, having one 50-50 is a loss too, so you're no more likely to lose.)

I can't believe i'm having to explain this twice in a row, but here goes:

You see, in half of the encounter 1s, you fail, and can't progress. This is paths 1-4, but i wrote them out to be clearer and have equal probabilites of each path i wrote down.

in half of encounter 2s, you fail and can't progress. ones where you get to encounter 2 and fail are paths 5 and 6.

in half of encounter 3s, you fail and can't progress. ones where you get to encounter 3 and fail fall under path 7.

in the remaining set of possibilites, you win. that's path 8. All paths are equally likely, but in paths 1-4 you don't see the remainder of the path, same with 5-6. The thing is, 1 out of 8 possible results for the entire set fulfills the win condition, in the same way as 1 out of two possible results for encounter 1 fulfill that win condition.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:03 pm

can't believe i'm having to explain this twice in a row, but here goes:

I can't beleive that you're incapable of accepting that I have no reason to be worried about my odds of making two rolls in a row until I make the first roll.

If I don't, then having a 50-50 chance in one roll would be a defeat just as badly.

So there's no greater risk of losing two 50-50 in a row then one when actually rolling the damn dice.

1 in every 20 drinks are spiked every night in clubs, knowing this i called into work sick on monday morning and said ''I cant come in, my drink was spiked last night'' my boss said ''how do you know it was spiked?'' to which i replied ''Well, i had twenty of them so one was bound to be''

is a funny (well, maybe) joke, but I somehow doubt it is true in regards to the drinks.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:12 pm

okay, time #3.

You fail a single roll half the time, but because you fail the second roll half the time you make it, half the successes on the first roll are failures when you roll twice. half of 50% is 25%, therefore two 50-50 chances with success on both needed total up to a 25% chance. therefore, you fail more often with 2 50-50 chance rolls in a row than with 1 50-50 chance roll.

I don't get why you have trouble understanding that.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:19 pm

Because I am not concerned with whether or not I make "both" rolls after failing #1.

If I succeed at #1, I have a 50-50 chance of making #2 as well.

If I don't succeed, I have a 0% chance of making both rolls.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:25 pm

Elennsar wrote:Because I am not concerned with whether or not I make "both" rolls after failing #1.

If I succeed at #1, I have a 50-50 chance of making #2 as well.

If I don't succeed, I have a 0% chance of making both rolls.

okay, let's try this differently:

50% chance: fail

50% chance, succeed, move to next check
50% chance: fail
50% chance: succeed

the total chance of either of the second check results is 25%, because (1/2)*(1/2)=(1/4)=25%

If you don't get that, too bad. I'm not going to bother with any other ways of expressing that.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:27 pm

No, let's see you accept that unless and until the first roll is a success, then there is no possibility of both rolls being a success, and once it is, there is a 50-50 chance of the second being a success too.

That is the relevant chance on the second roll. Not 0.5 x 0.5.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:32 pm

El, unless the game has a single roll in it entirety, then you have to take multiple rolls into account.

Let's get back on the topic of heroes.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:36 pm

You also have to take into account that you can't have both rolls succeed without having roll #1 succeed.

When you do, then you need to care about making roll #2 and (for two-roll checks) the overall check.

As for heroes: You mentioned Bushido earlier. What's so awesome about it?

No, seriously - I have a cursory knowledge of it (own a copy, in fact), but not enough to see why you're recommending it.

And I'd like to know why - because there has to be a reason for digging a typewriter age game out.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 11:48 pm

Elennsar wrote:No, let's see you accept that unless and until the first roll is a success, then there is no possibility of both rolls being a success, and once it is, there is a 50-50 chance of the second being a success too.

That is the relevant chance on the second roll. Not 0.5 x 0.5.

Roll 1: Win
Roll 2: Lose

Roll 1: Win
Roll 2: Win

Roll 1: Lose
Roll 2: Doesn't Happen

Is this what you are trying to say? There's a 50% chance that you get a second roll. There's a further 50% chance that you succeed on the second roll. You succeed on the first roll half the times you make a first roll. Half of the times you succeed on the first roll, you also succeed on the second roll.

So out of 8 first rolls, you actually make a second roll 4 times. And out of those 4 times, you succeed twice.

Right?

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:06 am

Roll 1: Win
Roll 2: Lose

Roll 1: Win
Roll 2: Win

Roll 1: Lose
Roll 2: Doesn't Happen

Is this what you are trying to say?

...
So out of 8 first rolls, you actually make a second roll 4 times. And out of those 4 times, you succeed twice.

Right?

Right. The formula is measuring all possible rolls that can be generated, and expresses that fine - but as you put it

Roll 1: Lose
Roll 2: Doesn't Happen

is the case when we're rolling in play (unless you want to see what happens on roll #2 because you have nothing better to do).

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:50 am

Are you fucking retarded?

I hope so, because surely you aren't ignoring CENTURIES of basic-level mathematics. You cannot say that you aren't ignoring them either, because you just keep saying the same thing over and over.

Look, your chance of success is 50%, right? Your chance of getting a second roll is NON-ZERO. In fact, it is equal to your chance of success (50%, remember?). You cannot say that there is a ZERO percent chance of getting a second roll ("You won't see the second roll unless you succeed on the first). This means that your second roll (yes, I know, you only see it if you succeed on the first) has some set of probabilities (50%) which you have a NON-ZERO chance of seeing.

1st flip - heads or tails
If(Heads) -> 50% chance of second flip
If(Heads) -> 50% chance of 3rd flip

You have a 50% chance of getting a 2nd flip. You have a 50% chance of getting 3rd flip, given a 2nd flip occured. We represent this a P(3 | 2), or the probability that you will get a 3rd flip, given that you got a 2nd.
P(2|1) = .5 (remember, 50% chance of seeing a 2nd flip, you always get a first)
P(3|2) = .5 50% chance of success, if you saw a second flip
P(3) = P(2|1)*P(3|2) = .5*.5 = .25
The probability that you get a third flip is the cumulative probability of success.

Look, okay, the PCs aren't going to care about every enemy on the playing field all of the time provided that the enemies have different power levels. You cannot put a 5th level fighter and a 1st level fighter next to a character and expect him to care about the 1st level fighter. Or a wizard and a fighter. Or a oliphant and an orc.

If you want characters to run away, that's fine. Hell, I do it to my players about 1 session in 6. If you want them to always run away, play another game: Call has already been thrown out there. If you want them to be heroic, play D&D with one of my already mentioned tactics (or your own).

Also, fuck you. I even came back to this thread and was helpful in providing risk. You can't be all Wangst about it when people are actively trying to help, even though it is goddamned lost cause.

Anyways, I thought of some more stuff to add to the list of making characters feel threatened:

- Remember, you have 3-7 PCs. You can kill one and have it be okay. This is especially true if they are unhappy with their character.
- Remember, you can reduce a PC to between 0 and -9 hp and have the other characters play the "save him quickly!" game.
- Even if you don't kill a PC, but only reduce one to -2 every 3rd session, the characters will be feeling like combat is dangerous enough to avoid it.

Also, remember that killing a PC is not the end. Take-what-you-get Reincarnate is an awesome time (especially with a custom-made table!). Coming back to the table as an Elf from Dwarf is particularly hilarious. Resurrection occurs frequently at higher levels. And at lower levels, becoming undead or Awkened Undead can be a fun time (read Atland, if you haven't, the hero dies among the first comics and becomes an undead). Hell, if one of my campaigns went a bit longer, I was going to re-introduce an older character as an undead minion for Team Evil.

PS - I actually used that kobold trick about 2 months ago to modest success.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:07 am

Elennsar wrote: Right. The formula is measuring all possible rolls that can be generated, and expresses that fine - but as you put it
Roll 1: Lose
Roll 2: Doesn't Happen
is the case when we're rolling in play (unless you want to see what happens on roll #2 because you have nothing better to do).

The point at hand is: how likely is it that the situation is going to occur? (Lose the first, and therefore render a second roll moot.) Answer: Half the time you roll that first die. Which means that half the time you get to roll a second die!

Thereafter, how likely is the situation where you win the first and lose the second? Answer: half the time you roll the second die.

Also, how likely is the situation where you win the first and win the second? Answer: half the time you roll the second die.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 4:42 am

The point is Elennsar, (and feel free anyone else to quote me and address this, since Elennsar has me on ignore for not pretending to care about Arturius), that yes, in a three role test, half the people never see roll 2, and of them, half never see roll 3.

The point here is, that if not winning roll 3 counts as a failure of the campaign, the basic assumption of most people here, since we are usually talking about chance of fatality, is that 7/8ths of all people fail the campaign.

So, the average game session that has three encounters a day, and each one has a 50% chance of party death goes like this:

DM: Okay, as you round the bend, some bandits surprise attack you.
*roll roll roll*
DM: In the surprise round, Timmy and Jonny die.
DM: Chuck? Hans? what do you do?
Chuck: I attack bandit X
Hans: Y
DM: Okay, Z and W finish you off. Pull out your back up character sheets.
DM: You come across the corpses of traveling adventuring band, and the bandits who attacked them.
DM: Dragon breathes fire, Timmy dies.
*Epic battle*
DM: Okay, Timmy and Hans, break out your backup backup character sheets. You meet these guys arbitrarily on the road and reach the city. Roll diplo to have the guards not kill you on site.
DM: awesome, you succeeded. Now you go to visit the king and head to the goblin cave. Oh crap, Beholder attack. You all get rayed to death in the surprise round.
DM: Break out backup characters again, you come across a dead dragon, and look, it's the Dragons furious mate.
*further epic battle*
DM:Okay, roll to have the guards not kill you on site.

ect.

So yeah, in conclusion. when 7/8ths of time that the five people sit down to play your game, even playing the best they can, the don't actually have characters that go to sleep that night. Your game isn't going to be popular with anyone but you. And Gygaxian DMs.

That's why it doesn't matter that the probability of winning the third encounter if you get to it is 50%, because 7/8 people who play the game are not going to win that encounter.

This does in fact mean that you have a 12.5% chance of winning the third encounter, conditional on losing an encounter resulting in not reaching the next one, when you sit down to play.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 8:58 am

SunTzuWarmaster wrote:Are you fucking retarded?

We can increase the accuracy of this statement by removing a a word and a punctuation mark.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 9:11 am

Perhaps it'd be easier to visualize for the mathematically impared on a mass scale

100 guys join the 1st fight and half die so down to 50.

50 guys continue to the 2nd fight where half die, so down to 25

25 enter the 3rd fight where half again die, so down to 12.5

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:51 pm

Also, fuck you. I even came back to this thread and was helpful in providing risk. You can't be all Wangst about it when people are actively trying to help, even though it is goddamned lost cause.

Risks that are 90%+ illusionary and -appearing- to be deadly and scary and somehow magically only fucking up the PCs a fraction of the time.

Because the PCs are too special to actually threaten with "you could -actually- die."

For those wanting illusion? Awesome. For those wanting something the PCs actually can be killed by? "Damage equal to current health -1, does not cost resources to heal." sucks on its own.

So congradulations. You helped those who want illusion and did virtually nothing for those who want to know how to have their PCs facing something that can somehow or another kill them.

The point at hand is: how likely is it that the situation is going to occur? (Lose the first, and therefore render a second roll moot.) Answer: Half the time you roll that first die. Which means that half the time you get to roll a second die!

And unless you do roll a second die, you have already failed. You having a chance of winning the second roll between X(where X>0)-100% only matters if you made the first roll (assuming the first roll succeeding is necessary to check the second).

Similarly, unless you succeed on the second die, who the fuck cares what your odds of succeeding on #3 would be.

Which means that in play, the people who lose #1 lose the challenge 100% of the time.

Or in other words, those who do not make roll #1 don't worry whether their odds of making 3 are really good or really bad because they already lost the challenge.

And somehow, I really doubt that, to use the joke's situation, if you drink 20 drinks and 1 in 20 drinks of the total drinks out there are poisoned that you inevitably get one (and only one) poisoned drink.

If there's 400+ drinks, all 20 drinks of yours could be poisoned, none, or anywhere in between.

So here's my challenge for those who feel mathematically smarter than I am:

Figure out how to put someone's in a situation that can have "character killed" occur other than by a nearly impossible situation, and then how the character could survive.

Because people have survived actual combat. Hell, people have survived extremely close calls.

So how do you represent that in game mechanics? Not in narration. In actual these-are-the-rules.

Because if narration is the primary way to make something seem life threatening, you'd be better off not having a combat system.

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:32 pm

So have you found a chance of dying you are comfortable with yet? Heck, even a range? Doesn't matter if its a chance per sword thrust, per encounter or per campaign.

So far I've seen you claim, directly and indirectly, anything between deadlier than Call of Cthulhu or Kult and less deadly than D&D with free resurrections, often both within the same sentence.

Anyways, on topic:
Given your imagined "always threatening" orc bravely leading the charge against 20 of these orcs is supposed to qualify as "heroic" because you have a real chance to die, correct? What about 10 orcs? 5? 2? 1? Is that still heroic? Is there some point, when the chance of death gets too low, where it is not heroic? Is it more heroic to bravely charge into 100 orcs? 1000?

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:40 pm

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, Elennsar. Of course failing the first means you don't get a second roll. I took that into account. (50% chance of getting a second roll at all.)

(Apologies to those who are infuriated by this statistics discussion. I just find it a fascinating exercise.)

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:51 pm

So have you found a chance of dying you are comfortable with yet? Heck, even a range? Doesn't matter if its a chance per sword thrust, per encounter or per campaign.

So far I've seen you claim, directly and indirectly, anything between deadlier than Call of Cthulhu or Kult and less deadly than D&D with free resurrections, often both within the same sentence.

Having never played Call of Cthulhu or Kult, how deadly those really are is literally unknown knowledge to me.

My comfortable chance of dying is something high enough you actually can get killed and low enough you can survive.

Anyways, on topic:
Given your imagined "always threatening" orc bravely leading the charge against 20 of these orcs is supposed to qualify as "heroic" because you have a real chance to die, correct? What about 10 orcs? 5? 2? 1? Is that still heroic? Is there some point, when the chance of death gets too low, where it is not heroic? Is it more heroic to bravely charge into 100 orcs? 1000?

Probably. Does that mean that there's something wrong with it? No. What's wrong is refusing to charge unless the chance of death is esentially "if you fall off your horse, while at a full gallop, are trampled by said horse, and an orc takes a knife and fork and cuts bits of flesh off your arm."

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, Elennsar. Of course failing the first means you don't get a second roll. I took that into account. (50% chance of getting a second roll at all.)

50% of the time, assuming its a one roll thing (same odds of success), you lose.

50% of the time, assuming it is a two-roll thing, you don't get a second roll.

So in play (as in, when actually rolling), if I don't make the first roll - it doesn't matter what the second roll would be.

It doesn't make me less likely to succeed that I needed a second roll at all.

I already failed.

Does that make sense?

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:03 pm

So in play (as in, when actually rolling), if I don't make the first roll - it doesn't matter what the second roll would be.

It doesn't make me less likely to succeed that I needed a second roll at all.

Do you mean, "Having already rolled the first die and failed, it doesn't make me less likely to succeed that I needed a second roll at all." 'Cause that is true.

But then, I haven't suggested otherwise, which is why I am confused.

Elennsar · Post by **Elennsar** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:14 pm

Do you mean, "Having already rolled the first die and failed, it doesn't make me less likely to succeed that I needed a second roll at all." 'Cause that is true.

Yes. Any possible outcomes where I need two heads are void before the second flip.

But then, I haven't suggested otherwise, which is why I am confused.

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).

So in play, that's what I'm worried about. Failing the first roll, which means I have no chance of succeeding at the challenge, or failing the second (which is independent of the first in terms of how likely I am to succeed or fail it)...not the fact that only one outcome in the X outcomes that could be generated would be success-success.

Not intending to be confusing or disputing anything but the idea that having two rolls actually hurts my in-play rolls.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:18 pm

Elennsar wrote:My comfortable chance of dying is something high enough you actually can get killed and low enough you can survive.

Epic probability fail.

Yes, that's also what everyone else wants, in the sense that what you just described is a set of all probabilities from .000000000000000000000001 to .999999999999999999.

Now try narrowing it down to a smaller range, you know, one that actually removes at least three possible numbers from the infinity.