Probability: Elennsar MUST Read

[Elennsar]

I have started the process. What I haven't done is spell out how I want the mechanics to work because guess fucking what: I don't know how I want them to work.

But apparently, having an outline isn't good enough, one has to submit a fucking essay that answers every goddamn question anyone would possibly want to know before its good enough.

So, unless you're prepared to accept what I have as a starting point, then don't bother with the project and that's perfectly okay!

But don't complain that I'm refusing to do anything or come up with anything because I don't have answers to every goddamn question.

[RandomCasualty2]

But don't complain that I'm refusing to do anything or come up with anything because I don't have answers to every goddamn question.

The questions people are asking aren't super specific nit pick things. They're stuff you should have in even a bare bones outline.

Things like "How deadly is this game going to be?" are things you really should have thought out.

[JonSetanta]

Because I have enough of an idea to want to get started, but not enough of an idea to be able to say "I know exactly how I want this to go".

Gee, who would have thought someone might try to figure out how things work while working on design, instead of knowing exactly how they want things to look in advance.

Here's where you are going wrong:

When people try to figure things out while working on design, they make decisions. It really doesn't matter at all if your decision is the right one because you can always change it later if it doesn't work out. The important thing is to just start choosing because it gives you something to work with. Don't like what you end up with? Change it up and try something else.

That's why everyone is so frustrated with you. You don't have a starting point, you have a sticking point.

I've considered this thread's entirety and agreed upon the wisest statement to sum this dilemma before going back to webcomics.
Bold for emphasis.

[Leress]

Woah, people, to be fair El has started with the

"Artorius: Those who desire old age need not apply" and "Arturius"
threads.

Now since even a fair amount of the fluff isn't really hammered out, hell there are even contradicting statements in the posts, I don't expect all the mechanics to be sorted out.

What my main problem is that El still doesn't understand how to apply probability when that part of the design process comes up.

[NineInchNall]

It's fun. And it's easy.

...

...

You gone learn all about it.

[Elennsar]

The questions people are asking aren't super specific nit pick things. They're stuff you should have in even a bare bones outline.

Things like "How deadly is this game going to be?" are things you really should have thought out.

I do know how lethal I want it to be, more or less, what I don't know is how that adds up and whether or not that should be "ideally" (i.e, you don't drink the poisoned wine because you notice its poisoned or suspect it will be or whatever) and how much that should be including drinking it.

Things like "what actions should people be doing in combat! What probability should they have to succeed!" are specific questions.

If what you want is a fully completely documented ready for mechanics and second thoughts but otherwise ready, then fuck off. I don't have one and I'm not likely to have one simply by you pestering, prodding, badgering and otherwise irritating me into wondering whether or not you "helping" would actually be of any assistance or if it would just be "let's be annoying until Elennsar says that he's scrapping the project."

If you actually are willing to deal with the fact an outline is just that - an outline of generalities, short on details, then stop bitching about me not being able to answer how many hits it takes to kill someone immediately.

As for probability: When it is basically a bunch of meaningless statistics (you're only 25% likely to win both of two 50-50 encounters, but the fact that you don't get a second encounter if you don't survive the first at all means that if you do get two encounters the fact you're less likely to survive both doesn't mean anything in terms of actual play), what am I supposed to do? Pretend that somehow that tangle actually means anything in terms of what will actually happen to an actual PC surviving encounter #2?

[Leress]

I do know how lethal I want it to be, more or less, what I don't know is how that adds up and whether or not that should be "ideally" (i.e, you don't drink the poisoned wine because you notice its poisoned or suspect it will be or whatever) and how much that should be including drinking it.

A minor detail that was used as an example, and a rough estimate could be pulled out of the air and then adjusted at a later time.

Things like "what actions should people be doing in combat! What probability should they have to succeed!" are specific questions.

They are also important questions.

If what you want is a fully completely documented ready for mechanics and second thoughts but otherwise ready, then fuck off. I don't have one and I'm not likely to have one simply by you pestering, prodding, badgering and otherwise irritating me into wondering whether or not you "helping" would actually be of any assistance or if it would just be "let's be annoying until Elennsar says that he's scrapping the project."

No one is asking for that. The "pestering, prodding, and badgering" means that they do have an interest in it. If they didn't then they wouldn't have said a word and let you project die a horrible death and not have taken time to make threads to help. That's how shit gets done just because everyone isn't just drinking the Kool-aid doesn't mean that they don't want to be at the party.

If you actually are willing to deal with the fact an outline is just that - an outline of generalities, short on details, then stop bitching about me not being able to answer how many hits it takes to kill someone immediately.

You don't even really have a outline. You have a premise and some scant details.

As for probability: When it is basically a bunch of meaningless statistics (you're only 25% likely to win both of two 50-50 encounters, but the fact that you don't get a second encounter if you don't survive the first at all means that if you do get two encounters the fact you're less likely to survive both doesn't mean anything in terms of actual play), what am I supposed to do? Pretend that somehow that tangle actually means anything in terms of what will actually happen to an actual PC surviving encounter #2?

See, statements like this tell mean you don't know how to apply the probability to your project. No shit if you don't survive the first encounter the second one doesn't figure in the equation. These are things you have to think about when you make a game. I've given you several systems that you can kit bash for ideas on mechanics and what not. Here is another suggestion "Bushido"

Hell, your fluff is need of getting straightened out. All I see is that you are a cohort to someone else and you kill barbarians that are trying to take your shit. I am fine with black and white morality, but my problem is that you want that I should fight first instead of fight last. I understand fighting for defense but you said that you don't want diplomacy to be as good as fighting, because apparently it is more heroic to bash some barbarians heads in then to not do that and just get the war over with without spilling any blood. Also you seem to only want one type of hero and that limits some of thing you can do, coupled with a purposed system that seems to discourage fighting as a first option and just being stealthy* it looks like while the mechanics may reflect the flavor of the world it doesn't encourage to behavior you want to have displayed in said world.

[Elennsar]

A minor detail that was used as an example, and a rough estimate could be pulled out of the air and then adjusted at a later time.

And it could also be pointed out that I have no idea what I want to achieve, so any number would just be generating more numbers - but it wouldn't help in the slightest at determing whether 40% dying is too high, too low, nearly right, whatever.

They are also important questions.

Doesn't mean that there should be an answer by the third post in the thread, however.

No one is asking for that. The "pestering, prodding, and badgering" means that they do have an interest in it. If they didn't then they wouldn't have said a word and let you project die a horrible death and not have taken time to make threads to help. That's how shit gets done just because everyone isn't just drinking the Kool-aid doesn't mean that they don't want to be at the party.

If they want to help, then they should deal with the fact that I don't fuckign know and that insisting that I come up with something is not helping anything except encouraging me to make sure not to ask any of them for help...because they don't want to help, they just want to poke and prod and badger.

You don't even really have a outline. You have a premise and some scant details.

I don't really have any paitence for people who want to have "this is how it should go" written out. I really don't. If you can't stand that there are areas I don't know the answer to, then once again: FO.

See, statements like this tell mean you don't know how to apply the probability to your project. No shit if you don't survive the first encounter the second one doesn't figure in the equation. These are things you have to think about when you make a game. I've given you several systems that you can kit bash for ideas on mechanics and what not. Here is another suggestion "Bushido"

See, this is why your "probability" statements are useless. It says "You're only likely to survive two fifty-fifty encounters 25% of the time" when your likelyhood of failing the second encounter is exactly the same as the first so unless and until you survive the first, you have 0% in the second. 0! Not 25. Not 50. Zero.

But noooooo, we have to bring in a bunch of math that has no actual relationship to the actual adventure and claim it does because it makes things look harder than they really are.

Hell, your fluff is need of getting straightened out.

If diplomacy was perfectly capable of solving this, it would have. If that's not your cup of tea, no one said you're forced to take part.

...it looks like while the mechanics may reflect the flavor of the world it doesn't encourage to behavior you want to have displayed in said world.

Making the mechanics reflect that behavior would destroy the point. It is supposed to be something you actually risk dying for because doing that is the right thing to do and if you want to do the right thing and if you want to play here, so be it.

This is not "Swashbucklers: Less likely to be killed by a pirate than you (the player) are by a mouse."

If you want to play a hero who is really making sacrifices, then good. If you want to play a character who goes out to avoid risk, avoid danger, avoid peril, avoid hardship no matter what will happen if they don't face those things - guess what, you're not a hero.

So go ahead and stick with the games where it is literally impossible for a Stormtrooper to kill Han Solo - but don't claim you want to play a brave hero and then protest that the mechanics don't make that easy.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I really don't understand why people can't see that discussions with Elennsar are straight-up illusory. Elennsar neither contributes nor is contributed to, but repeats s/h/it-self over and over again while incorporating quotes from the most recent things said. It's like talking to Eliza.

So yeah, Elennsar basically fails the Turing test.

[Elennsar]

No, you fail the "actually care enough to see why someone would think what they do" test.

Gee, maybe someone -does- want to actually have being a hero be a challenge instead of the easy way to victory.

Maybe someone -does- want to have to struggle with whether doing something that would be effective but amoral is worth it or just plain a rotten idea instead of having it either be "morality is for suckers!!!!!!!" or never come up because you never need to question it.

What a concept. A game about heroes who don't get victory handed to them for being heroic and PCs.

[Leress]

What a concept. A game about heroes who don't get victory handed to them for being heroic and PCs.

Where did anyone say that?

[Elennsar]

Somewhere around the umpteenth insistance that the mechanics have to reward the style of play desired.

Gee, and I was thinking that Agincourt really did involve the French doing something ineffective.

Wait, were they NPCs? That would explain it. NPCs can be expected to be stupid. PCs are -always- going to be calculating and clever.

Or something.

[Bigode]

Somewhere around the umpteenth insistance that the mechanics have to reward the style of play desired.

Gee, and I was thinking that Agincourt really did involve the French doing something ineffective.

Wait, were they NPCs? That would explain it. NPCs can be expected to be stupid. PCs are -always- going to be calculating and clever.

Or something.

He said he wants PCs to be stupid.

/thread

I wish it was so easy ...

[violence in the media]

No, you fail the "actually care enough to see why someone would think what they do" test.

Would it matter if we cared why you want these things? Are you going to launch into some heartwrenching personal story of injustice and tyranny that has made you into this fervent evangelist for Real Heroes in role-playing games?

If your personal story sheds some light on why you've become this Juggernaught of Justice, then please share it.

So, what is it? Why does the apparent amorality in games offend you? Why are you bothered that RPGs are generally set up with several benefial assumptions about the PCs?

[Elennsar]

He said he wants PCs to be stupid.

No, I want PCs to be people who can and at times do make mistakes.

So, what is it? Why does the apparent amorality in games offend you? Why are you bothered that RPGs are generally set up with several benefial assumptions about the PCs?

I have two reasons.

1) Its boring. Making decisions where it actually matters whether or not I answer "Yes." to a question is interesting - making decisions where choosing something -could- save my (PC's) life -is- something that could save my PC's life is interesting.

Having to decide "do I want to do this, or should I wait?" is interesting when answering wrong will bring about situations to deal with.

2) Because the idea that being morally right is either a) subjective or b) pointless offends me. I don't want to play a game where trying to help people doesn't matter. I do want to play a game where being a white knight will actually make a difference and where being honest isn't another word for being a naive idiot.

Martin may be a good writer technically speaking, but I dislike his books precisely because being Good turns out to just mean being stupid - Ned isn't able to make a difference, he's just able to get himself killed over something that even if he wasn't killed over wouldn't matter to -anything-.

So what I want is a game with actual challenges and actual heroism, and I am annoyed at games that make it so that you have to actively try to lose before you're in a tight spot.

Nothing in my personal life makes me some "juggernaut of justice", but when I think of "I want to be like Aragorn", being able to outfight an orc is not what I'm thinking of. And I would like a game to not mock wanting to be the other part.

If that's not a game which you want, that's perfectly fine. The world will not come to an end, the Inquisition will not pronounce exterminatus, and jokes will still be funny - hell, Casey will even hit homers again.

But making a game that claims to be about heroes and heroism but which eliminates risk doesn't encourage daring, it can only mimic it.

[Username17]

So yeah, Elennsar basically fails the Turing test.

Pretty much. I gave him an ultimatum to accept a tautology or get put on ignore back on page 1 of this charming discussion. He refused, I don't make idle threats, and I honestly don't understand why this topic is still going on.

-Username17

[Elennsar]

What I refuse to accept is that 50% chance of surviving encounter two is influenced in the slightest by encounter one for anyone who actually is facing encounter two.

That mathematically, only 25% (50% of 50% of the initial number) will face encounter three does not mean anything in regards to those who get to encounter #2, who are the only ones who have to worry about encounter #3.

[Psychic Robot]

If you're wounded, then, yes, Encounter the First influences your chances of success in Encounter the Second. Then again, not all encounters are combat encounters. My current D&D group prefers to avoid combat rather than charge into it.

[Elennsar]

Right, but whether you had a 10% chance of reaching combat #2 or a 100% chance isn't relevant - just whether or not you got depleted enough to matter (spending one charge off a 50 charge wand mattering is...unlikely) -in- #1.

[RandomCasualty2]

I do know how lethal I want it to be, more or less, what I don't know is how that adds up and whether or not that should be "ideally" (i.e, you don't drink the poisoned wine because you notice its poisoned or suspect it will be or whatever) and how much that should be including drinking it.

Things like "what actions should people be doing in combat! What probability should they have to succeed!" are specific questions.

Not really.

Nobody is expecting an exact number, but you can give out an approximate figure.

Right, but whether you had a 10% chance of reaching combat #2 or a 100% chance isn't relevant - just whether or not you got depleted enough to matter (spending one charge off a 50 charge wand mattering is...unlikely) -in- #1.

This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read.

Seriously...

If you die before combat #2, then you automatically fail combat #2, because you're already dead.

So if to win the adventure you have to survive two combats and you die in one of them, then you've just failed the adventure and are rolling up new characters instead of even going on to combat #2.

To call that "not relevant" is beyond stupidity.

[opera]

Elennsar - the arguments that have been presented make exactly the assumption of independence that you describe; instead of arguing, why not try to make it work for you? If I were in your shoes, I would go about it this way:

- First, decide on the relevant time scale for defining "lethality." For example, you keep talking about encounters, but I myself would probably start by thinking about series of encounters, enough to make up a short but meaningful segment of the kind of campaigns I run/play - for me, I'd guess that's around ~ten (since I could see about that number of encounters or skirmishes making up part of a larger overarching battle or campaign segment). If one ran faster/shorter campaigns, then I would tend to choose a lower number.

- Next, I'd think about the proportion of people I would expect to be able to complete an encounter set without dying. This would be influenced by factors that define the relative severity of death (e.g., is resurrection magic available? How accessible is it?) For example, if we assumed resurrection magic was not typically available, then I couldn't see wanting a mortality rate higher than ~30% for successful parties (e.g., I could see about 1/3 of people not surviving an encounter set; YMMV, of course).

- Now, ignoring other factors, you can estimate a relative lethality on a per-encounter basis that you should be targeting. Continuing with my example, if you assume independent encounters (i.e., full rest and healing between them), then to achieve a ~2/3 survival rate over a 10-encounter set, you should have a survival rate of about .96, or a mortality rate of about 4% per specific encounter. (Of course, introducing more realistic factors like non-independence between encounters would alter the way you come up with a target number.

- Now you have a number you can use as a guide when you are designing encounters; for example, saying that there is a 1/6 chance of getting hit in the head, with a 1/2 chance of killing you; and a 5/6 chance of getting hit in the body, with a 1/20 chance of killing you. In this case (apologies if I muck up the math, I haven't slept tonight), you'd have about a 1/8 chance of getting killed by a particular hit (1/6*1/2 = 1/12, 5/6*1/20 = 5/120, add the two), so attacks need to hit about 1/3 of the time if you want to get your target mortality rate of 4% per encounter.

Anyway, these numbers are clearly pulled out of my ass; I have no experience in game design, so I won't pretend that these numbers are in any way meaningful. I just wanted to give you an example of how you can use the statistics to achieve a specific result.

I think one reason everyone is beating you over the head about the numbers is you are focusing on a per-encounter mortality, and you don't seem to realize just how that will affect the rest of the game. I actually applaud trying to make the game a bit more deadly - that's one reason I strongly oppose removing all save or dies, and like having rules that include the possibility of deadly traps and poison.

However, what if I wanted more deadly combat, but instead of focusing on encounters, focused on attacks? It might not sound unreasonable on its face to say something like "an given attack should have a 2% chance of killing you," but over the course of an encounter, that 2% translates into short encounters with a LOT of bodies. Similarly, focusing on large mortality rates at the encounter level will tend to result in a LOT of bodies over the course of a campaign with substantial numbers of encounters. This might not be a problem if encounters/combat are much more rare than they are in D&D (for example, such assumptions might be good for a renaissance-oriented game, focusing on trade and diplomacy, with rare but deadly duels), if an "encounter" is a much longer part of your system (such as a "simulationist" type game, where you spend half an hour just deciding whether two people hit one another), or if your campaign is designed around a compressed timeframe (like wanting entire "campaigns" to take 20 encounters instead of 100).

[Elennsar]

Not really.

Nobody is expecting an exact number, but you can give out an approximate figure.

And you can accept "I don't know, I'm still weighing this." and suggest various things that you think might be good and see how I react, instead of pestering and prodding and insisting on an answer before I have any idea.

Seriously...

If you die before combat #2, then you automatically fail combat #2, because you're already dead.

So if to win the adventure you have to survive two combats and you die in one of them, then you've just failed the adventure and are rolling up new characters instead of even going on to combat #2.

To call that "not relevant" is beyond stupidity.

It is very much not relevant. If you can't survive encounter 1, then whether encounter 2 is a cakewalk or not has no bearing whatsoever on your fate, because you never got there.

If you can, whether it happened 10% of the time or 100% of the time isn't relevant, because it happened this time, which is the only time you have encounter #1.

[Orion]

Elennsar --

You do realize you don't *have* to reply to every post within 10 minutes, right?

People have asked me questions on my design threads I wasn't prepared to answer (go look at Bad Juju -- actually, everyone go look at Bad Juju and tell me what I need to do next)

When that happens, the response is to *go away for a few days and think about it,* then, post the answer you've come up with. There's no need ot keep posting "I can't answer that question" -- if you can't answer it yet, *don't post to that thread*. Simple.

[Elennsar]

And you do realize that the solution to "I can't think of it" is not "ANSWER ANSWER ANSWER ANSWER ANSWER ANSWER ANSWER ANSWER!!!!!"

I would prefer to answer what I can as soon as I can, and the answer is that I don't -know- and am open to reasonable suggestions and things to think on.

But apparently its better to pester and prod and irritate someone than accept that gee, maybe they don't know and are trying to think of something.

[Orion]

I guarantee you, if you stop posting we will stop pestering you.

That's not some threat or anything, it's not about driving you out of the board, it's just psychology. Here's how this works:

I ask you a question, and wait for you to post a reply.

You post a reply, which does not answer my question

I feel that my question has been ignored

I ask the question again.