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

[lordsmerf.livejournal.com]

Okay... I think we've gotten about as far as we can on this one.

My short answer is, "Yes, you should ditch the system and get one that does exactly what you want."

My contention is that there are unbreakable games, and that I have seen them, and that you can see them too. I don't know that we'll get anywhere until you take a look at one and see what I'm talking about. It's sort of like me claiming "the sky is green" and you responding with "I haven't ever seen the sky, but my gut instinct is that it is not green." You may very well be right, but we can't discuss such things until you take a look at the sky yourself. Then you can say, "Man, you're a freakin' idiot. The sky is blue!"

So, take a look at The Pool (http://www.randomordercreations.com/thepool.html") by James V. West and let me know if you think it can be broken. The system only takes up about three pages or so, so you should be able to read it quickly.

Oh, one last thing. A system is only "broken" or not based on the purpose it is designed for. You don't use a jet engine to put things in lunar orbit, but a jet engine is great for atmospheric travel. This point may have been glossed over in this discussion. There is an unbreakable system for each seperate game goal. I hope I was clear on that, but you may have heard me saying something else.

Thomas

[unrequitedthai.livejournal.com]

Hey, Thomas, remember how we discussed weak/strong and robust/brittle systems?

I think it's pretty easy to break The Pool, actually, in the sense of "cause The Pool to generate some outcome that is detrimental to everyone's enjoyment of the game." It's very strong in that it's also extremely good at making enjoyable things happen, but that's orthogonal.

[evilmagnus]

I think it's pretty easy to break The Pool, actually, in the sense of "cause The Pool to generate some outcome that is detrimental to everyone's enjoyment of the game." It's very strong in that it's also extremely good at making enjoyable things happen, but that's orthogonal.

I agree. It's a neat system, and with the right group of players (say, for example, if you can find folks who will all approach the game as a collaborative story-telling exercise and have similar gaming experiences) it'd be a blast. But my first impression on reading those rules is that it's wildly open to interpretation that, at the very least, could sour the game experience for some or all of the players.

[unrequitedthai.livejournal.com]

One should also note that a game may have a dynamic set of goals.

What this means is that, for any instant, there is a system that is unbreakable at that instant for that game's purposes, but as soon as the game's goal (by which I mean "the summation of all the goals of the players") changes, that system may or may not be the unbreakable system any longer.

There are ways to make systems robust to goal-shifting; I find that Zak Arntson's Shadows is very good for this. The downside is that a system that is robust in certain manners (the contortions that d20 goes through for the sake of combat effectiveness equality among characyers with equal xp and wealth, for instance) can remove large swaths of options from the players, and thus it loses strength in its ability to take account of contributions.

[evilmagnus]

It appears as though there is dissent on whether on not The Pool is breakable. :)