All y'all motherfuggers better listen up!

[benlehman]

It has come to my attention that most people in RPG theory have little or no knowledge of probability, and thus tend to get into long arguments about dice vs. dicelessness, with Erick Wujcik on one side saying that any randomizer means that the RPG is shit, and dicelessness-with-hidden information is the way to go, and Ron Edwards on the other side saying that role-playing games without chance cannot properly be called role-playing games at all.



Both hidden-information games and random games are the same, probabilistically speaking.

Let's pretend that we're playing a game -- I roll a six sided dice behind my palm, and you try to guess the number it sits on. (this is a boring game, yeah, but it illustrates a point.)

Before you guess, you can associate a probability with any face being up (this probability will be 1-in-6). The point is, even though I've rolled the number and have seen it, it is still random *to you*

Let's play a different game: I set a six-sided die to a particular value, and you guess it without looking.

Before you guess, you can associate a probability with any face being up (this probability may not be the same for every face.) In other words, despite the fact that no die was rolled (I made a decision about the die), the hidden information means that it is still random *to you*

Philosophically, you can argue that there are two different things going on here, but mathematically they are identical.

So, for one, when you play Amber, you are using random numbers all the god-damn time. So stuff it.

So, for two, there is no tangible difference between a diceless-but-hidden-info game and the roll-a-die game. So claiming that they are fundamentally different at a mathematical level is wrong wrong wrong.

In terms of the ephemera and toy quality, of course, they are very different. They *feel* very different. But they really *aren't* very different.

And I hope that shuts you fuckers up.

(P.S. As far as I know, there are no well-played diceless RPG systems that do not include randomness in the form of hidden information, possibly outside GM fiat. Cradle could do it with a few nips and tucks and, I think, still be a fun RPG. So I even disagree with Ron at that level.)

Comments

[funwithrage.livejournal.com]

I'm with Magnus on this one: there's a difference between railroading all the time and not letting someone wipe out your entire plot--vague as it may be--because he can tweak the rules more than you can and/or because he may not know that hey, the One Ring is the key to this entire campaign. It's not even an issue of trust so much as one of PC/GM information discrepancy.


Certainly I've come up with plot alterations or additions on the fly when my PCs do something I hadn't anticipated at all. I don't see too much of a problem with imping in a reason why something doesn't work--"Say, you know those Fell Beasts? Look totally capable of munching Eagles to me. And them. So...no."--and then working out all the details later, generally in class.

[matt-rah.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if/when you were going to show up on this discussion. A lot of the stuff these people are discussing essentially relates to what I've been arguing with you about regarding your TRoS game. Don't get me wrong, I'm essentially fine with what we discussed via email last week, so long as we can stick to it.

And, I agree with what you say here, I've certainly done that sort of thing in my own games. It's more purely systemic issues where I was disagreeing with your judgment calls as GM.

But I just wanted to call your attention to the parallels I see, because some of the people on here are able to articulate the issue(s) better than I was.

Matt