Ramblings on sources of math overhead in systems

Phillip · April 07, 2013, 01:50:49 AM

Quote from: Justin Alexander;641904Even the lesser version found in Eclipse Phase (where your margin of success = the # you rolled instead of requiring you to subtract your die roll from your target number) creates a lot of push-back and confusion at the table.

Strange but true. You can either:

(A) Just look at the dice, see whether 7 (for instance) is higher than the attack number on your character sheet -- the same number you're using every single time! -- and, if not, call out "I hit Defense 7"

or

(B) Do addition or subtraction (or both) to arrive eventually at the same result.

What's most strange in my experience is that the protests came from the player least capable of actually performing the arithmetic he insists on using.

Bloody Stupid Johnson · April 07, 2013, 02:12:25 AM

Quote from: Phillip;643740Emphasis added by me: The point is that it does not involve a calculation at all, much less the subtraction that would be more usual.

Well I hate it, either way

I think systems where lower is sometimes better and higher is other times better are more difficult conceptually, if not mathematically - they break the idea that the roll represents a quantity of something.

Phillip · April 07, 2013, 02:44:32 AM

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;643744Well I hate it, either way

I think systems where lower is sometimes better and higher is other times better are more difficult conceptually, if not mathematically - they break the idea that the roll represents a quantity of something.

I think that's probably putting well what many people feel!

It seems strange to me partly because the whole business of thinking about dice, even before piling on additions/multiplications/subtractions/divisions, is quite foreign to addressing the situation in-chararacter.

All the dice-roll does is generate a result, and as a player I prefer to concern myself as much as possible with the in-world events rather than with the machinery grinding away behind (or too often in front of) the scene.

Of course, computers can easily handle such drudgery. It is thus likely that all the attention the machinery tends to demand is in fact part of the appeal of paper and pencil games for many people.

Bloody Stupid Johnson · April 07, 2013, 03:03:34 AM

Cheers (though I stole that from Clash, at least in part.).
Interesting way to look at it. Occasionally I hear someone saying that they like the feel of rolling more dice, or something like that - certainly its hard to convince high level wizard players they should take average damage - though the idea doesn't excite me so much.