Quote from: Old Geezer;732548Also, my congratulations to everyone, you've proven there is something worse than "story-gamer wankery."  Well done, all.

Probability wank is indeed a horrible thing and I feel the need to be burned just to cleanse the taint of being the most prolific poster in this thread.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;732537Below average = single

By your deeply and irrevocably flawed reasoning, Ichiro Suzuki is a mostly "below average" hitter.

That is, of course, a profoundly stupid thing to suggest.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;732553By your deeply and irrevocably flawed reasoning, Ichiro Suzuki is a mostly "below average" hitter.

That is, of course, a profoundly stupid thing to suggest.

It's the performance curves we're analyzing here, not the individual points. Feel free to offer a bell-curve model instead (I'm judging by the terseness of your replies that you're a bell curve proponent).

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;732554It's the performance curves we're analyzing here, not the individual points.

"You cannot complain about other statisticans massaging numbers into a bell curve while at the same time massaging numbers into your own preferred curve."

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;732554I'm judging by the terseness of your replies that you're a bell curve proponent.

I'm a proponent of knowing what the fuck you're talking about.

In versions of RQ where you rounded DOWN your skill/5 or /20 to get specials and criticals (RQ3, if memory serves), there's a simple way to determine whether you've scored an exceptional success.

Passing a skill roll with a multiple of 5 on the dice is a special.

Passing a skill roll with a multiple of 20 on the dice is a critical.

Failing a roll with a multiple of 20 is a fumble.

Rounding up messes with that though

Quote from: Black Vulmea;732558"You cannot complain about other statisticans massaging numbers into a bell curve while at the same time massaging numbers into your own preferred curve."

Fine, ignore all the numbers if you prefer and just consider my overall qualitative observation that "all-or-nothing tasks skew more towards extreme results". I believe batting is an example of that, but I'm ready to consider other possibilities.

Or, you could accept my challenge of providing a single raw performance dataset that supports bell curves (post #248). Show me you're right. I'm making it easy for you. You don't even have to post the data here, just cite the source (I trust you to know in your heart what is true. . Your HR manager can probably provide raw, pre-bell curved data without employee names attached.

Surely if bell curves are a reliable indicator of performance this should be a trivial assignment.

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;732551Probability wank is indeed a horrible thing and I feel the need to be burned just to cleanse the taint of being the most prolific poster in this thread.

Actually rather than probability wank I feel like it's definition-of-terms wank.

I feel dirty.  And not in a good way.

People don't like the roll under mechanic because they are favored by game designers who want early characters to suck.

A first level Pathfinder human rogue usually has a +8 or more to Stealth. Most rangers will have a +6 to spot him. He has better than a 50% chance to walk up on someone GEARED to spot him, and a great change to walk up on average people.

If you were to make the exact same guy in something like Dark Heresy or Palladium, he would have well under a 40% chance, maybe less than 30%, to do the same thing, against anybody, and alert characters would probably provide an additional penalty.

A first level d20 character can sneak up to a guard, knife him, calm his horse, and ride off with it.

A starting DH character can trip over his own feet, drop a grenade, and kill himself trying to sneak up on an untrained grandmother.

I think that most of the people who say they don't like roll under mechanics would like them just fine if their skills started out at 70% instead of 30%.

I personally hate playing characters weaker than I am in real life.

Point of Dark Heresy and other such games is that you aren't supposed to simply accept the flat odds - you need to be smart about it and seek out each and every advantage and use it to the maximum effect to rack up your odds of success. Dark Heresy characters who try for a "fair fight" die like flies. You're the goddamn Inquisition, people, you're not meant to fight fair.

Quote from: Warthur;732586Point of Dark Heresy and other such games is that you aren't supposed to simply accept the flat odds - you need to be smart about it and seek out each and every advantage and use it to the maximum effect to rack up your odds of success. Dark Heresy characters who try for a "fair fight" die like flies. You're the goddamn Inquisition, people, you're not meant to fight fair.

It is in the way that the game is played.

PFPC: "When I sneak up on the guy, I'm going to skirt the edge of the room, waiting for him to turn away before I move."

PFGM: "Cool discription, take +2."

PFPC: "Oh good, well I got a 25 so I think I'm good anyway."

vs.

DHPC: "When I sneak up on the guy, I'm going to skirt the edge of the room, waiting for him to turn away before I move."

DHGM: "Dumbass, he has robot ears. You take a -15% to your roll. You should have specified that you were only going to move in time with the roaring furnace which I clearly described 20 minutes ago."

DHPC: "Oh, ok. Well, I have a 32% and I rolled a 65, so I guess I failed?"

What's with the assumption that Pathfinder GMs are saints and DH GMs are assholes? It's just as possible to be a dickwad with Pathfinder modifiers as it is with DH.

Quote from: Warthur;732590What's with the assumption that Pathfinder GMs are saints and DH GMs are assholes? It's just as possible to be a dickwad with Pathfinder modifiers as it is with DH.

In my experience, which is the only way I can talk about something that is not studied, the sorts of game designers and game masters who want to run a game where a PC starts with a 30% in a defining skill want to run that game because they like the low odds of success either because it is a built in railroad they can count on, or because they think it is funny.

Pathfinder plays from the opposite assumption: that the players are competent from the beginning, and the stories are written from the assumption that the GM can not count on a PC failing a roll and failing to have a bypass spell.

Edit: There is built in railroading in the PF system. For example, certain creatures like dragons have unjustifiably high Perception scores, and the anti-combat maneuvers bonus jumps from +1 to +4 from large to the next size up, and then massive additional bonuses are granted for other things, like having four feet, so that NPC monsters can't be anti-climatically grappled down by any sort of player character, but knowing those things in advance as a player at least lets the rails be clearly defined.

Quote from: Old Geezer;732546* stations archers covering all exits *
* sets thread on fire *

:rotfl:They just won't stop, even while the thread is burning...

Quote from: ForumScavenger;732592In my experience, which is the only way I can talk about something that is not studied, the sorts of game designers and game masters who want to run a game where a PC starts with a 30% in a defining skill want to run that game because they like the low odds of success either because it is a built in railroad they can count on, or because they think it is funny.

See, your experience is the exact opposite of my experience, so it's purely anecdotal evidence to which the only reasonable response is "stop playing under asshole GMs".

Quote from: Warthur;732600See, your experience is the exact opposite of my experience, so it's purely anecdotal evidence to which the only reasonable response is "stop playing under asshole GMs".

Well, "don't play with assholes" exactly matches my experience...