Subject:
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Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.geek
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Date:
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Wed, 29 May 2002 06:48:54 GMT
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Viewed:
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3148 times
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Christopher Weeks wrote:
>
> In lugnet.fun.gaming, Frank Filz writes:
> > Geek warning: the following description is starting to get pretty geeky.
> > I've set follow-ups to lugnet.off-topic.geek, see you there if you want
> > to continue discussion...
>
> Um, it seems that you didn't. But I have included them and set FUT there.
Crud, you managed to respond to the one I realized was wrong and
canceled...
> > First, for those who want to go into more depth of the math, you could
> > start with this web site:
> >
> > http://www.pinkmonkey.com/studyguides/subjects/stats/chap7/s0707901.asp
>
> Cool. It was good to review and verify that their formulae match those used by
> MS Excel which is what I've been playing with to try to engineer this system.
>
> > The normal distribution is good for working with random numbers which
> > are centered on 0. Of course, a standard deviation of +-1 is a little
> > harsh for gaming, so it is best to scale the distribution. The system I
> > was using scaled so approximately +-7 was one standard deviation (I
> > think it may be +-6.666666... but I'm not sure).
>
> Ah...there's the key. Like you say, the curve is way too steep at +/-1. I
> think your numbers must have been generated with ~6.6667 as the standard
> deviation. However I do find an error in the numbers...+9 should be .911
> instead of .912 -- according to Excel, anyway.
There's quite possibly some slight errors. I remember the guy claimed
you needed high precision computation to generate the table, it's
possible he was using a clumsier method than Excel uses.
> > Also, the
> > way the table is created, it is possible to scale it to suit your needs,
> > though from play experience I would suggest the above chart is close to
> > ideal.
>
> Well, I'd think that this would depend on the scale of the game. If your
> stat/skills were on a base 100 scale, then you might want to use a stdev more
> like 12.
My point on the close to ideal is that if you use much larger of a
scale, the difference between points is so small as to be not worth it.
Also, if you use a larger scale, it will become hard to memorize the
table (which will slow things down some).
> Thanks for the details. I get it completely now. Neat mechanic.
Your welcome. It is quite a neat mechanic (I was thinking today, I
wonder if it was something patentable, that is the process of rolling
the sequence of d10s, obviously the table itself isn't patentable).
Something else which is fun to play with is to create quick and dirty
combat simulators which let you determine how well two opponents fare if
they just slug it out. Such things are great for showing how quickly in
most systems what appears to be a minor difference in skill swings the
outcome hugely in favor of the better skilled combatant. If I recall, in
this particular system, a +1 skill advantage resulted in a 70/30 split,
but maybe it was a little lower. Interestingly, if you think about it,
you will realize that the more successful blows required to win, the
wider the spread.
Sometime I need to do an analysis and figure out what the right number
of blows to disable an opponent is for my tastes (which run in the
direction of combat being possibly deadly, but rarely so, so it needs to
be several blows so you have a chance of bailing if your opponents are
lucky or you misjudged things). One of the problems I have with GURPS is
that I feel you can be taken out too quickly (which is realistic, more
than a couple good blows should take down an opponent).
Perhaps the ideal is actually something where you have like between a 55
and 75 percent chance of landing a blow (so a skill level would just
give you a 2 or 3% bonus or so), and then like 5 blows being necessary
to disable and opponent (with critical hits throwing some randomness
in). Of course the problem would be that people would feel that their
skill increase wasn't worth much (even though a one skill level
advantage might still tip the odds to 55/45). Of course the counter
danger in such a system would be that there would be no real "wimp"
encounters, but that might not be a bad thing (do you really need to
play out battles where the PCs will win in 3 or 4 rounds with no
injuries? Do such opponents even need to exist?).
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| (...) Doh! Sorry. (...) I don't know about patents, but I have read several discussions that suggest that a game's core mechanics can not be protected IP, that only the turn of phrase with which they are explained and fleshed out can be (...) (22 years ago, 1-Jun-02, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Elements of a brick oriented RPG
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| (...) Um, it seems that you didn't. But I have included them and set FUT there. (...) MS Excel which is what I've been playing with to try to engineer this system. (...) Ah...there's the key. Like you say, the curve is way too steep at +/-1. I think (...) (22 years ago, 28-May-02, to lugnet.gaming, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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