Quote from: jibbajibba;382505No they don't they need a $10 computer programme that can act as a probability engine. Of all areas of Maths probability and statistics are the best suited to computerisation.

Sites like http://www.fnordistan.com/smallroller.html
or
http://wareseeker.com/free-roll-dice-probability/

or just type "Dice based probability programmes" in google ....

Right. And we don't need mathematicians because we have calculators. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Imperator;382493Gary Gygax was a shoemaker. Many great game designers were not statistic experts

Another of Gygax's early jobs was being an insurance actuary. At GaryCon, his friend Flint Dille was saying that he thought that the things this work involves - quantifying the key variables that relate to the probability that an individual will die within a certain time period - had a lot to do with D&D's design.

I think this might not be a causal relationship - I don't know that the idea of character attributes can be credited to Gygax instead of Arneson or the common wargaming lingua franca, for one thing - but it's interesting to think that the same turn of mind would make you interested in the probabilities of insurance and gaming.

Quote from: Peregrin;382458You don't need to be a science major to take a stat course.

Studying Geography in France does include Statististics courses.

Quote from: Imperator;382493Greg Stafford is not a mathematician. Sandy Petersen is not a mathematician. Ricard Ibañez is not a mathematician. Gary Gygax was a shoemaker. Many great game designers were not statistic experts, and no one gives a fuck.

Agreed. I think having mathematicians design a role playing game wouldn't necessarily be such a good thing, from my POV.

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;382512Right. And we don't need mathematicians because we have calculators. :rolleyes:

No you don't need mathematiciains to do stats analysis period you need mathematiciains to work on Number theory, set theory and advanced n-dimentional trig. My A-level maths teacher even refused to teach statistics because it was so far divorced from mathematics (mind you he was a bit of an elitist having studied Pure Mathematics and Philosophy at Lincoln College).

You are desiging a roleplaying game you just need to know that if I require a series of 4 successes each one with a chance of 65% to climb this wall what is my chance of climbing this wall... and similar such comundrums. For that you just need a probability engine and some smarts.

Calulators help with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and so on they don't really help much with maths which is why you are allowed to take then into maths exams :rolleyes:

Quote from: mhensley;382485Now go back and tell us the backgrounds of D&D creators.

- D&D

Gary Gygax - anthropology (U. of Chicago) (did not finish degree)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gygax

Dave Arneson - history (U. of Minnesota)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Arneson


- Runequest

Steve Perrin - English (San Francisco State U.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Perrin

Greg Stafford - ? (Beloit College)

http://www.weareallus.com/biography/eventsofmylife.html


- Call of Cthulhu

Sandy Petersen - zoology (U. of California at Berkeley)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Petersen


- GURPS

Steve Jackson - ? (Rice U.), law school

http://www.io.com/~sj/sjbio.html

The only bona fide mathematician I could find offhand was Richard Garfield, who designed Magic: The Gathering.

He has PhD in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garfield

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Quote from: ggroy;382503This was attempting to answer a point raised by Garnfellow in the following post:

http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=382276&postcount=237

(As to whether Garnfellow was just being sarcastic, I don't know).

I was actually being sarcastic -- based on the 4e hype, one would have expected their design team to be composed almost entirely of mathematicians, engineers, and scientists. (I'm pretty sure the Magic side of WotC design has historically had mathematicians on staff.)

That said, this is a pretty interesting thread. It seems RPG design has largely been a liberal arts pursuit, which is interesting because so many RPG players seem to have science or engineering backgrounds.

Quote from: ggroy;382535The only bona fide mathematician I could find offhand was Richard Garfield, who designed Magic: The Gathering.

He has PhD in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Garfield

And ironically magic was full of statistical errors largely because Garfield never imagined people would by booster packs by the box so he relied on rarity being a limiter. Mind you even without it the  triads proved very very broken (white = 3 life, red = 3 damage, green = +3/+3 on a creature, black = 3 Mana and Blue = 3 cards ) elegant and of course wrong

Quote from: Benoist;382530Agreed. I think having mathematicians design a role playing game wouldn't necessarily be such a good thing, from my POV.

It will probably end up looking like Rolemaster.  

Quote from: Benoist;382528Studying Geography in France does include Statististics courses.

It can be the same here in the US, though it's not a requirement in all programs. With a concentration in Environmental Analysis, stats was a part of my core curriculum, and my senior project was performing geostatistical analyses of well-water pollutants and integrating them with geographic information systems; I also did some work on a professor's rain forest data from Borneo.

Sad to have to claim Mike Mearls as one of my own, however . . .

Statistics is not necessarily at all. Statistics is making educated guesses about unknown variables based on experiments. For an RPG one usually knows all variables involved.

It might help to know a little bit about probability theory, but were I come from you learn enough of that in high school. Probability theory at university level is mostly measure theory, most of which is not worth thinking about when it comes to dice (i.e. discrete probablity distributions).

And no, my games hardly look like role-master. You know, mathmaticians hate numbers, tabels and calculating.

Quote from: 1of3;382556It might help to know a little bit about probability theory, but were I come from you learn enough of that in high school.  Probability theory at university level is mostly measure theory, most of which is not worth thinking about when it comes to dice (i.e. discrete probablity distributions).

They don't really cover measure theory at the undergraduate level in university here, other than as an optional course in senior year.  But measure theory is usually done in pure mathematics PhD programs here.

I didn't bother going further in pure math after undergrad.  Too much demand on my time for too little in return, at the time.  Years later I only ever pulled out my measure theory books, was when I was trying to figure out how to prove the strong law of large numbers.

Not being highly and appropriately qualified doesn't exclude you from writing or being involved with games. The only prick who bandied his doctorate qualification is Ron Edwards.