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and skill</title></head><body>
<div>At 12:04 PM +1000 17/10/05, Kyle Schuant wrote:</div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>----- Original Message -----</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><b>From:</b> <a
href="mailto:kyle3054@iprimus.com.au">Kyle Schuant</a></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><b>To:</b> <a
href="mailto:lev_lafayette@yahoo.com.au">Lev
Lafayette</a></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><b>Sent:</b> Monday, October 17, 2005
11:51 AM</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><b>Subject:</b> relative strength of
randomness and skill</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><br></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><b>From:</b> <a
href="mailto:lev_lafayette@yahoo.com.au">Lev
Lafayette</a></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1"><br>
OK, the idea is pretty simple. The basic principle is<br>
the degree of randomness varies according to the<br>
action performed.<br>
...<br>
Depending on the type of activity or their relative<br>
importance of the incident to the story, different<br>
skills will have a different influence of randomness<br>
in determining the Trait Effect.</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial"
size="-1">****</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial"
size="-1"> </font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">OH NO,
NARRATIVISM!</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial"
size="-1"> </font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><font face="Arial" size="-1">Okay, so
that's, "if it's important to the story, randomness will be
important, too. If it's not important to the story, not so
much."</font></blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> That's what we miight
call a "Narrative" approach. Or "storytelling" or
whatever. I'd call it a "dramatic" approach. Problem with
these words is that they all come from movies... and in movies, we
have the opposite effect. The more important a task is, the LESS
likely a PC is to do really well or badly. The less important the
task, the more random the result! So Jackie Chan may fumble making a
cup of tea, or may make the most delicious dinner ever. But he will
almost never fail when sliding down a large ribbon through the middle
of a multi-storey mall, and landing on a foe and knocking him
out.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> In rpg design, we keep
aiming for the opposite of movies, whereas players keep hoping for
action movies... I think this is perhaps a reason for trouble in many
game groups!</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>Well,
the hard core simulationists aim for 'realism', whatever that is, but
it is probably the opposite of movies, the genre simulationist games
(like James Bond, the original Star Wars, Pendragon) aim for something
very like particular sorts of movies, the narrativists are really
aiming for something new -- they are aiming for a satisfying story,
but a satisfying story with multiple independent central characters.
To achieve that, you have to aim squarely at that goal, rather than
aiming for 'like real life' or 'like movies', both of which are
different.</div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>So, I'd
call this approach something other than narrativist, because its not
really what people mean when they talk about narrativist games.</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> In rpg design, we shie
away from the idea of making ridiculous tasks easier than simple
tasks, because we feel that players would do ridiculous tasks all the
time, then, and the game would become... ridiculous. Many systems
solve this by having a basic system of, the more difficult the task,
the greater the degree or need for randomness (ie, "you need a
good roll to succeed"), and balance it for the "movie"
feel with some system of Hero Points, allowing you to buy successes or
rerolls.</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>Yep.
And for the genre simulationist stuff, it works pretty well.</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite>HELP, EVEN WORSE, GAMISM!</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> </blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> Then there's the
approach of simulating reality. My view is that as you become more
skilled in an area, random chance plays a smaller part. So for example
there's the 100m sprint. I have no skill in it, I may run it in 14.50
sec today and 12.50 sec tomorrow. My performance will vary by +/-1
second, or +/-1 7%, roughly. But your Carl Lewis will run it at 10.01
sec today, and 9.92 sec tomorrow. His performance varies by 0.09
seconds, or +/-0.05%. His higher skill doesn't just make him faster,
it makes his performances more consistent, too.</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>To some
extent, this is about the nature of the task rather than skill. For
some tasks, higher skill may introduce more variance (but a higher
lower bound).</div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>Lets
talk about playing scrabble. A better scrabble player is likely not
only to consistently do fairly well, but also to more often make huge
high scoring words --- their variance in final score may actually be
higher, as well as their mean score being higher.</div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite> In most games,
however, the randomness of the dice rolls is very great compared to
the skill/attributes involved, so that in say 10% of contests, I could
outrun Carl Lewis.</blockquote>
<div><br></div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>Of
course, in real life, this may be realistic... if you aren't running
over an empty, straight course. If you are running, say, though a
relatively crowded mall, or a somewhere full of obstacles like a
junkyard or a swamp, its quite realistic that you might beat Carl
Lewis 10% of the time or more.</div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab>This
factor, of the degree of variance, seldom gets put into RPGs. It would
probably solve a lot of nitpicking simulationist issues if it was. But
would it aid playability and fun?</div>
<div><x-tab> </x-tab></div>
<div><br></div>
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