MRQII is now "wayfarer"

[PhilHibbs]

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47648

http://blog.mongoosepublishing.co.uk/

RuneQuest is now going to be republished as "Legend" in October, and Mongoose will be helping publish a new edition of Ye Olde Gaming Companye's "Wayfarers".

[Smoking Frog]

Devil's Advocate question: if the truth was that the books you might be buying will become worthless, what would they say?

They'd say the exact same thing, of course! Since they have an economic self-interest in making the new rules compatible, I suspect that any problems will come not from their intention, but from the execution of their intentions. But I don't know the guys at Mongoose, so I'm just surmising what rational behavior would be.

[Atgxtg]

Devil's Advocate question: if the truth was that the books you might be buying will become worthless, what would they say?

The same thing.

BTW, You should play Devils Advocate more often. You got a talent for it.

[Atgxtg]

Twilight, the RPG. Because some players are more interested in the "mechanics" of story-telling and plot development (and relationships, etc...), without the want (or need) for detailed "physics" or probability mechanics. And hence only want a very light "math" to handle this.

Have a look at the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peHU9J4n5C8. This isn't my kind of game, but it demonstrates what others might enjoy.

Oh, please! Don`t tell me than "mulitiply by 5" prevents someone from being RPGS answer to Shakespear or Lawrence Olivier. That:s just an excuse for laziness and stupidly. And the "light math" model doesn:t hold up. Weather one is aware of the probabilties or not, tehy still exist and play a facotr in the way events play out. Just look at World of Darkness. No matter how much one wants to get iunto "story" and "roleplaying" the fact remains that staking a Vampire in WOD requires a certain number of success of a certain difficulty.

In my experience, the great story tellers and roleplayers are not the ones who are "math impaired". Or "tactcially impaired" either.

[PhilHibbs]

In my experience, the great story tellers and roleplayers are not the ones who are "math impaired". Or "tactcially impaired" either.

Fine. You go play with your elite genius friends. I have friends who aren't that good at maths, and I am having a lot of fun roleplaying with my friends. Your insinuation that they aren't worthy of the fine art of roleplaying is grotesquely insulting. Maybe that isn't what you intended to say, but it is what you said.

Smiley when you say that.

Nope. No smileys at my end.

[icebrand]

Fine. You go play with your elite genius friends. I have friends who aren't that good at maths, and I am having a lot of fun roleplaying with my friends. Your insinuation that they aren't worthy of the fine art of roleplaying is grotesquely insulting. Maybe that isn't what you intended to say, but it is what you said.

Nope. No smileys at my end.

You trolling rite?

I dont know a single person that can't do a x5...

=/ =/ =/

[rust]

You trolling rite?

I dont know a single person that can't do a x5...

I know several people with Dyscalculia, small wonder since they make up approxi-

mately 5 % of the population, 1 in 20. They usually try to hide this and succeed,

because it is easier than with illiteracy. One of those I know is a scientist, an ex-

pert on Germanic languages ...

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

[Smoking Frog]

They usually try to hide this and succeed,

because it is easier than with illiteracy.

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

Imagine how intimidating it would be to have trouble with simple math and live in a society where most people think only an idiot can't multiply by 5.

If I had a player who had a math issue, I'd think it would be easy enough to just let him roll up the numbers and make choices, and I could do the calculations to fill in the character sheet. Same if he had trouble with 5% of some number: I can do the calculation and write it down for him. If I don't like the guy, I don't care whether he can do nine digit division in his head, I'd rather not play with him. If I do like him and want him to play, it's not much skin off my back to do some of the bookkeeping for him if it keeps him in the game.

[rust]

Imagine how intimidating it would be to have trouble with simple math and live in a society where most people think only an idiot can't multiply by 5.

Yes, indeed. Many years ago I worked as a teacher's assistant at a school for

children with learning problems, most of them mentally handicapped. Our "night-

mare case" was a girl with both dyslexia and dyscalculia - and an IQ of 170+.

She was a psychological wreck, because until then her teachers up to the 7th

grade had treated her as either simply too lazy to learn or plain stupid, and the

latter was the reason why she was sent to us, a psychologist had used an IQ

test which was based upon reading and numbering skills, and came to the result

that her IQ was below 60 - mentally handicapped. Since she understandably

took quite a while to open up, it took us months to realize that she was a lot

more intelligent than that psychologist, and to hand her over to the right school

for her, ironically one for highly talented children. She is the one who is now the

scientist I mentioned above.

Oops, sorry for a long off topic tale ...

[PhilHibbs]

You trolling rite?

I dont know a single person that can't do a x5...

What are you multiplying by 5? How do you refactor the rules to use multiplication instead of division, and why is that any simpler?

*Edit* And no, not trolling, dead serious.

Edited June 16, 2011 by PhilHibbs

[PhilHibbs]

If I don't like the guy, I don't care whether he can do nine digit division in his head, I'd rather not play with him. If I do like him and want him to play, it's not much skin off my back to do some of the bookkeeping for him if it keeps him in the game.

Which I do. Every time he rolls his dice and gets a low number, I figure out the 10%-rounded-up for him, which I can do almost instantaneously. 83%? That's 9%. Having to do the RQ3 crit and special calculations for that gives me the heebies, let alone him. And writing down the crit chances is no use as the chances keep changing with modifiers.

[pansophy]

Sorry to revive an old discussion within this thread, but I think I know why there is a "wrong" critical/special success table in the BRP rule book:

To me it looks it is nearly impossible to have a short & compact table for it, as you cannot group the results into a meaningful table. You end up with a table showing all numbers from 1 to 100 to show the different values for each success rating.

I have attached the critical & special success table, showing the fumbles, too. Please have a look and you will see the small nice table in the book really is a nice compromise.

Critical Hit Table

[PhilHibbs]

To me it looks it is nearly impossible to have a short & compact table for it, as you cannot group the results into a meaningful table. You end up with a table showing all numbers from 1 to 100 to show the different values for each success rating.

No, you only need 28 entries for 1-100. On your table, given that special and crit have a minimum chance of 1, the first 7 entries are all the same. This is the Avalon Hill table:

It isn't ideal having to use a table, but it's better than doing the maths in your head. If you are going to have crits and specials on 1/20 and 1/5, then I think the new BRP table is better, and the rules need to be errata'd to say "round up" to match the table.

Edited June 17, 2011 by PhilHibbs

[Smoking Frog]

Yes, indeed. Many years ago I worked as a teacher's assistant at a school for

children with learning problems, most of them mentally handicapped. Our "night-

mare case" was a girl with both dyslexia and dyscalculia - and an IQ of 170+.

She was a psychological wreck, because until then her teachers up to the 7th

grade had treated her as either simply too lazy to learn or plain stupid, and the

latter was the reason why she was sent to us, a psychologist had used an IQ

test which was based upon reading and numbering skills, and came to the result

that her IQ was below 60 - mentally handicapped. Since she understandably

took quite a while to open up, it took us months to realize that she was a lot

more intelligent than that psychologist, and to hand her over to the right school

for her, ironically one for highly talented children. She is the one who is now the

scientist I mentioned above.

Oops, sorry for a long off topic tale ...

Well, if it is off topic, it's only slightly off topic, and it's more interesting and worthwhile reading than many on topic posts. (Oh, did I say that?)

Just to add a little more off topic commentary: If you consider how many tens of thousands of years human beings survived living in harsh environments without the need to do math or read, and compare it to the relatively short time that there have been societies where reading and doing math was common for everyone, it should not be surprising that those mental functions are not universally efficient in people.

[Smoking Frog]

I think the new BRP table is better, and the rules need to be errata'd to say "round up" to match the table.

I guess that's part of the debate: is the round-up rule, which matches that table, better than the round-to-nearest rule in the text. Obviously it's easier to do a table with the round-up version.

[pansophy]

the round up table is also easier to read ...

[Atgxtg]

Fine. You go play with your elite genius friends. I have friends who aren't that good at maths, and I am having a lot of fun roleplaying with my friends. Your insinuation that they aren't worthy of the fine art of roleplaying is grotesquely insulting. Maybe that isn't what you intended to say, but it is what you said.

/QUOTE]

Insulting! You guys complain about BRP and say how "superior" MRQ is because you don"t have to do as much math. The game is somehow inferior becuase it doesn"t cater to the weaknesses of your group of players. No one is forcing you, your friends, or anyone else to play this, or any other game.

This whole debate started around the absurd notion that doing a little basic math was "too hard". It isn"t. Some have claimed that the math is taking them away from roleplaying and other higher elements of gaming. It doesn"t.Now you are accusing me of being an elitist and being insulting your freinds becuase they are bad at math.

Tough.If they can't do what it takes, tough.

Over the years I7ve gamed with people who were impaired in one or more ways. Some couldn't walk, others were blind, another had brain damage from an accident, and two that I am gaming with currently have had strokes. I myself have had a few obstacles,including partial paralysis to overcome.

But you know something, all those people wanted to game, so they all buckled down and did the work. Not once did they complain about how the game mechanics were "too hard" (the adventures, maybe, but not the game mechanics). Nor did they demand, or even expect things to be made easier for them. They would have considered it "grotesquely insulting" of the GM is he had.

None of my group of "geniuses" has even managed to figure out how to cast battle magic/sprirt magic appropriately either. That doesn't mean that we take the magic out of Glorantha, either.

[Atgxtg]

I know several people with Dyscalculia, small wonder since they make up approxi-

mately 5 % of the population, 1 in 20. They usually try to hide this and succeed,

because it is easier than with illiteracy. One of those I know is a scientist, an ex-

pert on Germanic languages ...

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

Yeah, rust, but I doubt all those people happen to be playing BRP together. There isn't one guy (or gal, if I'm not careful I7ll be accused of gorgeously insulting women.) at the table who can do the math? Or look up a number on a table?

[lawrence.whitaker]

This whole debate started around the absurd notion that doing a little basic math was "too hard". It isn"t.

I think that, more to the point, its doing such things at speed. I can do the math, sure. I can do it in my head too, but I can't do it quickly. Some are blessed with that ability and some aren't. If you're not so blessed, and you're sitting there, looking at your dice roll and mentally doing whatever numerical gymnastics you need to do to reach the answer, whilst others are sitting around you, tapping their fingers or texting their friends, it can be intimidating. It can be frustrating. It can be demoralising - especially if someone who IS good at mental arithmetic comes back with some jibe or rolls his eyes or snorts.

Simply put, some people are slower at this than others. Does it make them dunces? No more than it makes people who can't spell (whether its dyslexia or whatever) poor writers or eloquent speakers. Its the attitude others display that can be injurous. If you used to get that at school, you don't need it at the gaming table. If a game system makes it easier to do a little math quickly, with as few rules (such as round up if its X, but round down if its Y) then it will, clearly, be of help to those who cannot swiftly compute on the fly.

[Atgxtg]

Yes, indeed. Many years ago I worked as a teacher's assistant at a school for

children with learning problems, most of them mentally handicapped. Our "night-

mare case" was a girl with both dyslexia and dyscalculia - and an IQ of 170+.

She was a psychological wreck, because until then her teachers up to the 7th

grade had treated her as either simply too lazy to learn or plain stupid, and the

latter was the reason why she was sent to us, a psychologist had used an IQ

test which was based upon reading and numbering skills, and came to the result

that her IQ was below 60 - mentally handicapped. Since she understandably

took quite a while to open up, it took us months to realize that she was a lot

more intelligent than that psychologist, and to hand her over to the right school

for her, ironically one for highly talented children. She is the one who is now the

scientist I mentioned above.

Oops, sorry for a long off topic tale ...

A nice inspirational story rust. One that I can relate to, since I had to deal with some partial facial paralysis that slurred my speech and had most people thinking that I was mentally retarded when I spoke (as opposed to when I type;)). At one time it was so bad that I used to walk into fast food places carrying a copy of "Transistor Circuit Approximations" under my arm just to get a little more respect when I ordered a burger and fries. So I can relate. I only had a taste of what she must have gone though, but I can re;late.

But...

1) Do you game with her?

2) Do they throw out all the math in Germany to accommodate her? Or did they print the text books with scambled lettering to accommodate her dyslexia? Or did she work hard and rise above her limitations?

What really bugs me here is that people seem to feel that we should dumb things down to accomodate for everybody's limitations. That's silly. Neither Chaosium nor any other RPG publisher should have to write or rewrite an RPG to accomodate some impairment. A GM and group of players might choose to do so, but that doesn not mean that everyone else has to follow suit.

If someone can't figure out 5%, or x5 that's too bad. But it does not validate claims that "the math is too hard". The vast majority of people (with some elementary education) can do such math.

Rust, you run a lot of hard Sci-Fi campaigns. Such setting require you do some math and physics. Such is unavoidable if you want to set up a realistic planet. You don't just throw it all out and ignore it because you don't like or want to do the math. You deal with it because it goes with the territory.

[rust]

1) Do you game with her?

Yes, I did, for a couple of years, until we moved in 2007.

2) Do they throw out all the math in Germany to accommodate her?

Yes, they did. Where she finished school it was possible to choose the subjects

for the final exam, and she did of course not choose mathematics or physics.

Or did they print the text books with scambled lettering to accommodate her dyslexia?

This would not have made reading any easier for her.

Or did she work hard and rise above her limitations?

She did not improve her mathematical skill and hardly improve her reading skill,

but meanwhile her problem is recognized as a medical problem (it is now on the

World Health Organization's list as diagnosis F83.1), so the people around her

accept that she cannot overcome this, no matter how hard she would try.

Rust, you run a lot of hard Sci-Fi campaigns. Such setting require you do some math and physics. Such is unavoidable if you want to set up a realistic planet. You don't just throw it all out and ignore it because you don't like or want to do the math. You deal with it because it goes with the territory.

Right, but at the same time I am well aware that there are people who cannot

follow the mathematics and physics, and that asking them to do this is like as-

king a blind person to paint in colours - it just is not possible for them. The only

remaining choice is whether I want to play with such persons, and if there are

no other problems, I do.

[Jarulf]

For what it's worth, loz pretty much summed up my own experience from playing face to face as a kid. I'm not good at maths, but multiplying by five or rounding is not generally a problem, but doing it quickly in a social situation can be just that extra bit stressful. Enough to make it take longer, and as a teen that wasn't much fun even if no one commented on it.

[Smoking Frog]

What really bugs me here is that people seem to feel that we should dumb things down to accomodate for everybody's limitations. That's silly. Neither Chaosium nor any other RPG publisher should have to write or rewrite an RPG to accomodate some impairment. A GM and group of players might choose to do so, but that doesn not mean that everyone else has to follow suit.

If someone can't figure out 5%, or x5 that's too bad. But it does not validate claims that "the math is too hard". The vast majority of people (with some elementary education) can do such math.

What bothers me even more than that is the number of times I've had an Internet experience something like this:

1. Someone starts a thread about a major change regarding a certain game.

2. In discussing whether that's a big deal or small, someone says he likes one system over the other because it's easier to do the math in your head.

3. About 90 posts later, someone is railing against a publishing company being obligated to redo its game to accommodate people with math or reading disabilities.

Rust brought up people with math disabilities in response to the statement "I don't know anyone who can't . . . "

[RosenMcStern]

I doubt that this debate about people with various impairments is of any use here. People with various physical impairments can be athletes. No problem. There is a notable case of a guy who lost an arm and continued playing soccer as a pro, after some training. I doubt he could have continued playing basketball, though.

There are plenty of games you can play without maths. But not all games should be designed to accommodate those who have trouble with maths. It is great that BRP has variants with a lot of maths, and variants with less. Long live the Resistance Table! As long as it is not mandatory.

[Al.]

What are you multiplying by 5? How do you refactor the rules to use multiplication instead of division, and why is that any simpler?

*Edit* And no, not trolling, dead serious.

LOathe to speak on someone else's behalf but I SUSPECT that what ATXTG (sp?) is saying is that

If chance of special= 1/5 chance of success

Then roll dice and if its a success multiply RESULT by 5

If new value is still a success then the roll is a special success (or Critical in Elric!)

I'm sure that I could write that in terms of p(x) and p(y) being 1/5p(x) but I'm equally sure that I'd make an error in nomenclature

Its a perfectly valid mathematical process argument (IMMOO). And multiplication IS conceptually simpler than division (it is only a series of additions ultimately).

But it doesn't change my view - if this is fun for you then great but if not what's the corrollary?