Atgxtg Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Going with the lowest roll wins straight up has a very big effect on the odds though. The two methods being discussed (blackjack and the made roll by the most method) have exact same odds for a given set of skill ratings being compared. Low roll wins greatly increases the odds of the lower skill winning and really minimizes the advantage of having a higher skill. Could you give an example? I think what is lost in one success range is probably made up in another. Quote Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rurik Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Although I know better, I want to believe the "trained dice" philosophy. After years of playing games like RQ and James Bond, I got used to wanting to roll low, and my dice seemed to try and meet my expectations. So use the dice that have always hated you for roll high games. Come on, everyone who believes in lucky dice has a a set of dice that just plain hate them. Admit it. Quote Help kill a Trollkin here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atgxtg Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 So use the dice that have always hated you for roll high games. Tried that. It doesn't work, The little buggers are simply too clever, and just roll in the middle. Come on, everyone who believes in lucky dice has a a set of dice that just plain hate them. Admit it. Luck involves an element of chance. Hate does not. So dice that hate you are more constant and reliable (in a bad way) than dice that are just lucky. Quote Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vagabond Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Could you give an example? I think what is lost in one success range is probably made up in another. Assume 10% crit and 20% special. Assume A has skill 80 and B has skill 40. A crits on 8 or less, specials on 16 or less, succeeds on 80 or less. B crits on 4 or less, specials on 8 or less, succeeds on 40 or less. If A and B get equal normal successes, B has the advantage in that A must have rolled in the range of 17 - 40 to have any chance of beating B who has rolled in the range of 9 - 40. A only has a normal success range of 24 points, but B has a normal range of 32 points. Also, any normal success rolled by A in the 41 - 80 range would lose if B rolls a normal success. That's 40 points of a normal success range that is lost. -V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atgxtg Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Assume 10% crit and 20% special. Assume A has skill 80 and B has skill 40. A crits on 8 or less, specials on 16 or less, succeeds on 80 or less. B crits on 4 or less, specials on 8 or less, succeeds on 40 or less. If A and B get equal normal successes, B has the advantage in that A must have rolled in the range of 17 - 40 to have any chance of beating B who has rolled in the range of 9 - 40. A only has a normal success range of 24 points, but B has a normal range of 32 points. Also, any normal success rolled by A in the 41 - 80 range would lose if B rolls a normal success. That's 40 points of a normal success range that is lost. -V But mathematically, I think it is the same as roll high. The 40% that "A" appears to loose is made up for when B rolls over 40. It just shifts the percentages from Success vs Success to the Success vs Fail range. I think if we did the win/loss numbers for all the ranges and added them together it would come out the same. Quote Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rurik Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 (edited) Vagabond is right. What is up for play is the range of possible rolls when the lower skilled character makes his roll, and the higher skilled character rolls a success but greater than the lower skilled characters skill. So in Vagabonds example say player B (skill 40%) rolls a normal success. If Player A rolls between 41 and 80 with high roll wins he wins. If player A rolls between 41 and 80 with low roll wins he loses. That is a pretty big swing of the odds in favor of the 40% skill (granted he has to make his skill roll, which the odds are against in the first place, but if he does it becomes much harder for the 80% skill to win). Edited May 27, 2009 by Rurik Quote Help kill a Trollkin here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vagabond Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 (edited) But mathematically, I think it is the same as roll high. The 40% that "A" appears to loose is made up for when B rolls over 40. It just shifts the percentages from Success vs Success to the Success vs Fail range. I think if we did the win/loss numbers for all the ranges and added them together it would come out the same. If B rolls over 40, he loses anyway. So there is no point in examining that - highest roll wins, lowest roll wins, etc., the result is the same. But, when B rolls a success, A loses half of his skill range in lowest wins. Look at it this way. B loses any contest 60% of the time (41 - 00). 32% of the time, B gets a normal success (9 - 40). A loses any contest 20% of the time (81 - 00). 64% of the time, A gets a normal success (17 - 80). In the event of a tie, A automatically loses 40% of the time (41 - 80). So, effectively, his success range has dropped to 24% (17 - 40) while B maintains his 32% success rate. Yes, A has greater ranges for crits and specials, but in normal successes, he is at a disadvantage if B succeeds. -V Edited May 27, 2009 by vagabond Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atgxtg Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Vagabond is right. What is up for play is the range of possible rolls when the lower skilled character makes his roll, and the higher skilled character rolls a success but greater than the lower skilled characters skill. So in Vagabonds example say player B (skill 40%) rolls a normal success. If Player A rolls between 41 and 80 with high roll wins he wins. If player A rolls between 41 and 80 with low roll wins he loses. That is a pretty big swing of the odds in favor of the 40% skill (granted he has to make his skill roll, which the odds are against in the first place, but if he does it becomes much harder for the 80% skill to win). Yeah, but that is like saying roll low is bad because if I roll an 01 you can't beat me. This is essentially the same thing that happens with critical and special successes in the game. . The situation Vagabond uses an 80% vs 40%, with the 40% character rolling a 40 and the 80% character rolling 41-80 is offset by the times where the 40% character rolls over 40. Mathematically there are the same range of results it is just that what the 40% gains in the success range is lost in the other ranges. he total number of results (100^2=10,000) is the same, and each character wins the same number of contests with high or low. Flip it around for a second. If the guy with 80% skill makes his roll, the guy with the 40% skill still has a less than 40% chance of winning. Where it will balance out is the times where the guy with 40% rolls in the 40-80 range but looses because he failed the skill roll. Quote Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atgxtg Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 (edited) If B rolls over 40, he loses anyway. So there is no point in examining that - But there is a point. This is an opposed roll. SO those results will matter in the win loss ratio. Since somebody is going to win the contest, then all the times B flubs the roll still count. It's not like an unopposed roll where a failure means nothing happens. In normal BRP/RQ type rolling, if both characters failed, nothing happened. For example, a failed parry vs. a failed attack. But with an opposed roll, it doesn't work that way. If B rolls an 81 and A rolls an 82, B wins. That is a fundemental difference between opposed rolls and unopposed rolls. Consider the roll high system. If B rolls a 40, A "looses" half his success range there too. Anything below an 40 would be a failure. Okay, specials and crticals still give A a chance, but it is really the same thing as the other way. In fact the high roll wins, hurts A just as much as the low roll wins, since when both roll in the 41-80 range, A just wins, rather than getting his result bumped up to a special as in roll low. Edited May 27, 2009 by Atgxtg Quote Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vagabond Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 Consider the roll high system. If B rolls a 40, A "looses" half his success range there too. Anything below an 40 would be a failure. Okay, specials and crticals still give A a chance, but it is really the same thing as the other way. We're talking "highest roll in the event of a tie", not "highest roll". So, in the "highest roll in the event of a tie", if B rolls a 40, A can roll a 41 - 80 and still win. If B rolls a 30, A can roll a 31 - 80 and win. So, the higher skill has the advantage. In other words, with this system, only examining normal successes, B can only win on a 9 - 40 or 32% of the time, while A can win on a 17 - 80 or 64% of the time. A has twice the range B has in normal success. In the "lowest roll in the event of a tie", A loses 40% of his range, and has a smaller normal success range than B. If B flubs, A wins all of the time unless he flubs. Regardless of high/low. So we need to ignore B failing - it is the same no matter what. If B fails, in either high/low in the event of a tie, A wins 80% of the time. Again, the problem occurs only in the normal range of success. However, in most cases, that is the largest and most common case where both will tie. -V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atgxtg Posted May 27, 2009 Share Posted May 27, 2009 We're talking "highest roll in the event of a tie", not "highest roll". So, in the "highest roll in the event of a tie", if B rolls a 40, A can roll a 41 - 80 and still win. If B rolls a 30, A can roll a 31 - 80 and win. So, the higher skill has the advantage. In other words, with this system, only examining normal successes, B can only win on a 9 - 40 or 32% of the time, while A can win on a 17 - 80 or 64% of the time. A has twice the range B has in normal success. In the "lowest roll in the event of a tie", A loses 40% of his range, and has a smaller normal success range than B. No. Not really. A is still going to win on those rolls above 40 where B doesn't roll below 41. What you seem to be doing is considering B rolls above 40 to be autowins for A, when in fact there are still contested. So A losing the 41-80 range for success is got back when B rolls over 40. Now you can say "B wouldn't have won those anyway", but that is incorrect. B only would loose the one where A beat his roll (by rolling a success or rolling a better failure). If B flubs, A wins all of the time unless he flubs. Regardless of high/low. So we need to ignore B failing - it is the same no matter what. If B fails, in either high/low in the event of a tie, A wins 80% of the time. Quote Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vagabond Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 (edited) I am assembling a 100x100 matrix, just looking at the results of B winning, assuming in one instance, lowest roll in the event both get the same degree of success wins, and highest roll in the event both get the same degree of success wins. In both cases, if the rolls are the same, and within the same degree of success, I award the higher skilled side to win. In the lowest roll wins in the event of a tie in degree of success, B wins 1898 out of 10,000 possible outcomes or 18.98% of the time. In the highest roll wins in the event of a tie in degree of success, B wins 1625 out of 10,000 possible outcomes or 16.25% of the time. So, lowest roll in the event of a tie in degree of success significantly favors the lower skill. -V Edited May 28, 2009 by vagabond forgot some vicotyr conditions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vagabond Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 What you seem to be doing is considering B rolls above 40 to be autowins for A, when in fact there are still contested. If B fails, A only fails if he rolls above 80. A fail/fail is still a fail. Again, fail/fail is irrelevant. What you guys are doing is ignoring too much of the range. For instance, if B has a 5% skill, and managed to roll it, you7d say A was getting shaftted by 75% of his success range. He isn't. B just rolled really well, and even so A can win with a special. If B rolls a 5% on a skill of 5, A must roll a 16 or less to win. Anything else is a failure in the lowest roll wins in the event of a tie in degree of success. In the highest roll wins in the event of a tie in degree of success, A will win with any roll 80 or less, or, any success. -V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harshax Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 four words: Shut up and play! This thread is utter madness. MADNESS I SAY! I hope islan appreciate the meta-mechanical tizzy this board is thrown into whenever this topic comes up. :lol::lol: Quote And don't forget Realism Rule # 1 "If you can do it in real life you should be able to do it in BRP". - Simon Phipp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islan Posted May 28, 2009 Author Share Posted May 28, 2009 four words: Shut up and play! This thread is utter madness. MADNESS I SAY! I hope islan appreciate the meta-mechanical tizzy this board is thrown into whenever this topic comes up. :lol::lol: It's certainly crazy. :confused: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogspawner Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 This madness is caused by Opposed Rolls - and you don't need them! It's precisely because they confuse people like this that I recommend they be dropped. Quote Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickMiddleton Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 As and when the BRP core book is revised the opposed skills section certainly needs clarifying: but dropping the opposed skill rules would be a hugely retrograde step IMO. If people don't like the rule they can chose not to use it. Other people dislike hit locations, finding them unrealistic and awkward - should we drop those entirely as well? Nick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pulpcitizen Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 four words: Shut up and play! This thread is utter madness. MADNESS I SAY! I hope islan appreciate the meta-mechanical tizzy this board is thrown into whenever this topic comes up. :lol::lol: It's okay - I am still stuck on dice high/low philosophy (since I seem cursed to roll at extremes), let alone understanding the mathematical solutions espoused by a few of our esteemed members. Blinking heck! :eek: Quote Very slowly working towards completing my monograph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogspawner Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 As and when the BRP core book is revised the opposed skills section certainly needs clarifying: but dropping the opposed skill rules would be a hugely retrograde step IMO. If people don't like the rule they can chose not to use it. Other people dislike hit locations, finding them unrealistic and awkward - should we drop those entirely as well? Hit locations are an option. People are free to use them or not as they see fit. (As it happens, for the most part I find them an unnecessary complication and only use them for significant wounds). Opposed Rolling is the only mechanism given for combat in the new BRP core book. That's BAD. Officially, people can't choose not to use it. (Oddly unlike most other rules - why??) I agree with you that the Opposed Roll rules are unclear. However, I think that's an intrinsic problem with the mechanism's complexity, not a fault of the writer or the reader's capacity to understand. IMO, dropping the simpler Independent Roll mechanic and showing potential new players no alternative but the complex, controversial and mathematically uncertain Opposed Rolls has been BRP's "hugely retrograde step". The question now is, what's the best way to undo that damage? Quote Britain has been infiltrated by soviet agents to the highest levels. They control the BBC, the main political party leaderships, NHS & local council executives, much of the police, most newspapers and the utility companies. Of course the EU is theirs, through-and-through. And they are among us - a pervasive evil, like Stasi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vagabond Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 Made a correction above since I forgot the victory conditions when A fails outright but B gets a normal success. It still doesn't change the difference of 273 more victories if one uses the "lower roll wins in the event of a tie in degree of success". Anyway, yes - just go play -V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rurik Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 four words: Shut up and play! This thread is utter madness. MADNESS I SAY! I hope islan appreciate the meta-mechanical tizzy this board is thrown into whenever this topic comes up. :lol::lol: I count 29 words. 31 if you count the words 'four words'. Clearly your bias against the current hijack of this thread is that you are math challenged. Seriously though, it is only a semi-hijack, and somewhat relevant. This same discussion raged over at the MRQ Boards, people even wrote opposed roll odds calculators. I had no desire to pull out old formulas - especially as the math is so much simpler with MRQ (fixed fumble at 00 and one 10% crit, rather than variable fumbles and 5% crits plus 20% specials). Either way, Vagabond is right here. The odds are different, and low roll wins is weighted more towards the lower skill, while high roll wins is weighted more towards the higher skill. Quote Help kill a Trollkin here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harshax Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 Clearly your bias against the current hijack of this thread is that you are math challenged. Oh yeah? I can subnet in my head. Quote And don't forget Realism Rule # 1 "If you can do it in real life you should be able to do it in BRP". - Simon Phipp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rurik Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 Oh yeah? I can subnet in my head. IPv6? Quote Help kill a Trollkin here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harshax Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 IPv6? Quote And don't forget Realism Rule # 1 "If you can do it in real life you should be able to do it in BRP". - Simon Phipp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vagabond Posted May 28, 2009 Share Posted May 28, 2009 IPv6? When it is actually universally deployed, I'll worry about it IPv4 is sufficient for now. -V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.